Magic system

I had an interesting experience last night trying to describe my magic system to a friend who was helping me think of how it could be applied in various ways across a culture. He's a musician, and I realized that while I understand how the magic works on a more abstract level, I still have a lot of work pinning it down on how it works in the details.

Most magic systems focus on the effects, the end result. For instance, a wizard says, "I want to fly." They cast a spell that somehow breaks all the laws of physics AND builds in some kind of control into the spell so the person is easily able to maneuver. I've seen some games/stories where a fly spell still requires an education on how to use it well, but that tends to be abstracted out.

But the devil is in the details - flying is *hard*. Coming up with a spell that breaks the laws of physics when I can't even describe said laws might be possible in other worlds, but not in mine. The only reason we have airplanes is due to hundreds of years of scientific discoveries layered on top of each other, combined with the engineering required to accomplish said feat. 

So let's examine said Fly spell. First off, levitation: am I changing my mass so I float? If so, how do I compensate for wind? I have become a balloon, and so the spell needs some way to help me go where I want to go despite air pressure to the contrary. 

Perhaps I alter myself so that gravity has no effect on me personally, and I float around as though I am in space? But if I can do that, why could I not do the opposite and make gravity stronger in my area? That's a great attack spell - increase someone's personal gravity to the point where very heavy objects hit them with high velocity. And I would need some way to move forward and backwards, taking into account I still have my mass.

Perhaps I generate some kind of force beneath me that has the effect of rocket boots without the fire and heat. Or maybe a force bubble/platform that I stand in/on and I use it to carry me around. 

Obviously, each one of these methods has unique needs. In the first example, I need both the ability to choose my direction *and* a method of generating forward movement. While the first need is shared by the second example, my method of generating forward movement if I am massless will be different if I retain mass. The latter two examples bring with the means of forward motion, but the rocket boot example still needs a form of guidance. 

Which brings us to the next step - how do I guide it? With my mind? I need some way of connecting my means of guidance to my thoughts. But how does that work? Do I mentally choose a direction and it takes me there until I say otherwise? But what about random thoughts that go through my brain - do they throw the spell off? How would the spell distinguish between a random thought about a direction and a thought it should listen to?

Or what if I use my body to control it? Perhaps my hands as they flick in different directions is what guides the spell. But think of the spell as a computer program - unless I specifically program it to recognize those signals, I can't use them. So a fly spell needs to take into account all of these factors, making it a remarkably complex enchantment.

I will note that no one has been able to design a flying spell in my world yet. They've just barely come up with some sort of flying craft, and they are slow, expensive, and vulnerable. It takes multiple mages working pretty constantly to keep the craft running rather than a fire-and-forget type experience. 

So a typical D&D Fly spell abstracts out these questions. "How does it work?" isn't even asked. It doesn't matter how it works, it just does. And somehow the spell is magically able to compensate for all of these concerns. In our world, we have to ask how things work to a major degree. Obviously, we've not needed to understand physics behind flight to design bows and arrows, nor did we need to understand molecular structure to create steel, but understanding those deeper laws have assisted in our military and transportation endeavors. 

My magic system still allows for a small level of abstraction (else it wouldn't be MAGIC), but not even close to the level of most worlds. My mages cannot simply decide what they want to do and ignore all the details required to make that work. Some types of magic (Divination, Illusion) allow for more abstraction than others (Mind, Elementalism, Motion), but still, none of them get the D&D level of abstraction. It's hard to create a complicated effect, and there are always unintended consequences, just like in our world. 

Current mood: thoughtful

The Cultist Wars, Part 5 - Cultists

War had erupted on the continent. At the center of it were the followers of the Three Betrayers, the cultists themselves. Long before Ista Heera had given them arms and supplies to wage war, they had been preparing. Like a cancer, they had grown up, consuming entire villages so that children were born and raised in the faith only knowing of the Three and their eminent rise to power. Devoted solely to the Three, these cultists had then infiltrated the societies of the nations across the continent, only running into trouble with Hoovastadt - because of their almost eternal state of martial law, very few cultists had been able to gain a long-term foothold there.

When the foolish Istaheeran had begun supplying them, they took full advantage. Many cultists were brought in from the other continents, a centralization of their power and a building of their armies. Under the cover of the Mauwan tribal society and the constant Vekviran chaos, they increased their number of troops to the point where they could wage war, for the first time in remembered history.

Each of the major powers in the area was accounted for, for each of them had a weakness that could be exploited by the cultists to achieve their ultimate victory in this part of the world. Both the Phoenix Kingdom and Ista Heera had been infiltrated in almost every level of society, and they would be cast into chaos when the signal came to strike. To crush Hoovastadt, the cultists had been stirring up the barbarians and orcs in the north to anger, coalescing their armies around a single tribe ruled by the cultists themselves. And Corsuvian, who had avoided the complete infiltration of Ista Heera and the Phoenix Kingdom, but not as successfully as Hoovastadt, a combination of both methods. 

The main fighting was in Corsuvian, and predictably, the Phoenix Kingdom sent troops. What the leaders of both countries couldn't have known was how many of those troops and troop commanders were actually cultists. 

The trap was set, and it only happened because of one man. Normally fractious, the three cults had unified under a single leader, one who followed all Three rather than just one of the Three. He had overseen all the preparations, and knew that on a single day, the continent would be theirs. After the continent, the world. It had been foreseen.

And on a single day, the trap was sprung.

Every major power was paralyzed, or ready to be crushed, and complete victory was at hand. 

Except by the end of the day, their leader was assassinated by an unknown blade. Suddenly blaming each other for the murder, the three cults began fighting each other more than the nations they had set out to conquer, each cult wanting dominance over the other two in order to rule after their victory. But victory slipped from their grasp slowly as the nations struggled to rebuild and defend themselves. If one cult could dominate the others before all advantage was lost, they could still win, but it was now a race against time. 
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This is the day our strategy board game begins. Several characters in the comic fought in the Cultist Wars, and the repercussions of fighting an enemy made up of your neighbors and friends are still echoing through the world today, 20-30 years later.  

The game will require each player to choose what side to play, one of the four nations, or one of the three cults, with the game dynamics differing from game to game depending on who is playing what. The four nations can trade and assist each other, all while still striving for dominance over all. The three cults only work together when one of the four nations pulls ahead of the others, otherwise they fight with themselves and the nations. 

There's much more, but as I am unsure if my game ideas are automatically trademarked when I post them, better to keep them quiet for now. :)


Current mood: creative

The Cultist Wars, Part 4 - Corsuvian

War had erupted on the continent. The only reason Corsuvian hadn't fallen within the first week of fighting with the cultists was due to their strong navy and the close presence of their ally, the Phoenix Kingdom. When the Cultists boiled out of Vek Viro to the north and Mauwa to the south, it was all they could do to hold off the hordes until both Hoovastadt and the Phoenix Kingdom sent help. Now, with the combined armies of all three nations on Corsuvian ground, the war had taken a different turn. 

Until one day.

It had began as a normal day - King Hallaan was sitting in chambers with the representatives of both Hoovastadt and the Phoenix Kingdom, discussing how to use their combined military might to push forward into Vek Viro and crush the center of the Cultist incursion. It was a shock to almost all of them to hear the sound of battle suddenly ringing from the city. As everyone ran to the windows, they saw the unthinkable - many of the battleships in the harbor had turned and were firing on the other ships, all the while troops began pouring from the suddenly hostile ships into the docks, attacking the surprised dockworkers and guards stationed there.

Somehow, the cultists had infiltrated their navy and transported troops to the heart of Corsuvian in one nearly fatal blow. As King Hallaan turned to call for his own guard, he saw the Phoenix Kingdom military representative had cut the throat of his Hoovastadian counterpart and was rushing the King, bloodied dagger in hand, calling on the Unnamed, one of the Three Betrayers, for help. After a short struggle that ended with the traitorous cultist falling out the high window to his own death, the King summoned his own forces. 

Stunned by these events, the King began sorting through the reports pouring into his room while the dead body was removed. Previously, the Mauwan forces had been streaming solely through the small land bridge between their countries, but now, the formidable Corsuvian Navy had been compromised. There were also many reports of sabotage throughout the besieged capital city, not to mention that many of the allied troops had begun fighting each other instead of the enemy. Indeed, some of them had been the enemy all along. 

Isolated from their allies, and the state of the existing allied troops in question, the new war had come crashing to the front doorstep. Corsuvian was on the verge of being overrun entirely. They needed a miracle.

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This is the day our strategy board game begins. Stay tuned for the last player perspective in the game!


Current mood: creative

The Cultist Wars, Part 3 - Hoovastadt

War had erupted on the continent. With the armies of the cultists boiling out of Vek Viro to the west and the constant threat of the Istaheeram on the east, Hoovastadt struggled to keep their armies from being overrun. Though the Istaheeram had been strangely quiet during the war, King Keldon suspected foul play and kept his troops at full strength on that border. In order to do that, though, he had to pull armies from the northern border to support the war against the cultists. The barbarians and orcs living in the glacial wastes had not launched a major offensive in some time, and he hoped it stayed that way just long enough to survive this current conflict.

He was proved wrong on one fateful day.

It had started as a normal day. The King met with his generals and mage advisers in the Hall of Battle to discuss new strategies. Cultists had been caught trying to sabotage some of the local mage guilds, and they had been swiftly put to death. No stranger to war, Hoovastadt had been protecting themselves and the independent Merchant City from aggressors for a long time. The laws were strict, the punishments were stricter, but the populace was happy and devoted to their cause. Cultists had a difficult time infiltrating their infrastructure, despite trying for a long time. While a few may have escaped notice, King Keldon had confidence that most of them had been dealt with along the way. 

Suddenly, one of the mages looked up with a startled look on his face. In short bursts, he began relaying the messages sent from his compatriots in the north - a massive army of orcs and barbarians had gathered and begun a march towards the center of the country. Fighting had begun, but the troops stationed there were so outnumbered that they could only slow the horde for a small time before they would be utterly destroyed. 

Caught between the hammer of the barbarians and the anvil of the cultists, and knowing the war had just spread, the beleaguered kingdom began plotting how to survive. If the Istaheeram attacked now, they would fall. Might they need to make an ally of them? It was only a matter of time before the barbarian army rolled inexorably south, destroying everything in its path. But knowing that if they could fend off the new invaders, the rich mineral deposits of the north would then be there for the taking, making them potentially even more powerful than Ista Heera and the Phoenix Kingdom combined. Even in these dire straits, there was potential.


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This is the day the strategy board game we are designing begins. Our intent is to release the game with full comic stories to lay out the backstory of each side. This is a very rough overview, and will be trimmed up as we progress along. ;)

Stay tuned for the perspectives of the other players in the game.  


Current mood: creative

The Cultist Wars, Part 2 - Ista Heera

War had erupted on the continent. Long time enemies of the Phoenix Kingdom, the Istaheeran had been funneling resources, weapons, and money to the Cultists so they would attack and weaken the Phoenix Kingdom and their allies. Using the war with the cultists as a catalyst to gain greater power in the area, the Istaheeran would then start the process of eliminating their adversaries one by one. However, the collection of cabal leaders that made up the ruling class of the Istaheeran had deeply underestimated the intent and ability of the cultists.

They learned this on one single day.

It had started as a normal day - Seenjah Khul, cabal leader of the Wind Assassins, one of the most powerful (and feared) groups in Ista Heera, had just finished his breakfast of fresh fruit. The cultists were doing their job quite well, and he foresaw the destruction of Hoovastadt within 6 months. Once they had been eliminated, the Istaheeran would control the Merchant City with all its wealth, and no one could stop them from blanketing the entire continent with their power and influence. 

A breeze blew the cloth covering the wide window aside, and he could smell the magic. Another mage likely would not have recognized it in time, but this was the spell that aided his own assassins, and he knew it well. He had not even attempted to open his mouth for the guards - they would likely be in on this attempt on his life. As a cabal leader, he ruled until someone killed him or he suddenly vanished with sufficient wealth to live elsewhere in safety. This was how it was done, and a cabal went through a period of chaos until they found a new leader. 

No cabal leader ever kept a second in command, for that would guarantee the direction from which his life would end.

Seenjah had dodged multiple previous attempts, but this was the first from the hand of his own group of assassins. He had never ruled it out completely, but it was still unexpected enough that he almost lost his life before we could react. The knife narrowly missed him as he threw himself to the side. One graze from that blade would end him completely due to the potent venom it carried, the trademark of the Wind Assassins.

Pure luck helped him survive and slay the assassin, who died with the name of Kun, one of the Betrayers, on his lips. Cultists! Within his own hand-picked assassins! And that's when he heard the fighting in the rest of the city. 

The reports came in quickly from his own cabal - almost every single leader in the city had been assassinated on the same day, and nearly every cabal was fighting with itself and the others. The city was in chaos. 

In spite of the grim situation, Seenjah found himself smiling. Yes, the cultists had suddenly become a much greater threat, but he had the chance to become the most powerful man in the entire Istaheeran. Now he just needed to mobilize his cabal, gather the country around him, and destroy these cultists that dared to turn his own people against him. And he was the man to do it.


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This is the day the strategy board game we are designing begins. Our intent is to release the game with full comic stories to lay out the backstory of each side. This is a very rough overview, and will be trimmed up as we progress along. ;)

Stay tuned for the perspectives of the other players in the game.  


Current mood: creative

The Cultist Wars, Part 1 - Phoenix Kingdom

War had erupted on the continent. The Cultists that worshiped the Three Betrayers had gathered armies and so the Phoenix Kingdom had sent troops to help fight them off in their neighboring country of Corsuvian, a long-time ally. Because of the war effort, the kingdom had pulled together to send supplies and troops to the front lines.

Until one day.

It had started as a normal day - Lord Malkorn had gone to the War Room as usual, awaiting the King and his other advisers. As the most powerful noble, next to the King himself, he was deep in the strategy of the war effort, both military and economically. He had known for some time that the King was hiding something, and he knew that if he had noticed it, so had the Right Hand. And if the Right Hand was watching, the King had to know he was under close scrutiny. The whole situation was tense; something was going to break, and soon. 

The room suddenly shook - startled, Lord Malkorn looked out the window overlooking the capital city and saw fires and explosions raging across the city. The bridge to the Tyrestor University of Rune Magic collapsed, as did several of the towers, the debris dropping straight into the river below. 

Over the next few hours, the reports came pouring in - every mage guild had suffered damage, fighting had erupted on the streets, and all communication with the rest of the nation and the front lines of the war had been lost. With the mages dead or busy, there was no one left to relay messages. Chaos had exploded onto the city.

Plus, the King was gone. Cursing the King's name, Lord Malkorn began rallying his personal guard, only to have one of them attempt to assassinate him in the name of Velsann, one of the Betrayers. He luckily avoided the strike, and killed the guard himself. Cultists in his own trusted forces! How could this have happened? He knew that with the King missing, he was the only one who could try to get the city back together before the cultists did even more damage. They had been infiltrated and betrayed by cultists from within. The war was no longer just in Corsuvian.
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This is the day the game we are designing begins. Our intent is to release the game with full comic stories to lay out the backstory of each side. This is a very rough overview, and will be trimmed up as we progress along. ;)

Stay tuned for the perspectives of the other players in the game. 


Current mood: creative

The Creative Project

Way back here and here I mentioned a webcomic project I was working on. While mrlich got busy doing other things and isn't involved anymore, my current arteest and I have been working like crazy on it for a long time. Almost 4 years, actually! While I didn't exactly spend all my spare time working on it through these last four years, I have kept a steady pace of creative energy pointed towards it, and now, we have a substantial world, magic system, plot, and character base. 

Sadly, because of the craziness two-job work schedule, I've not been able to hardly touch it in over a month (aside from a few isolated phone calls here and there with my arteest), but our web guy convinced us to switch to ComicPress (WordPress's webcomic engine), so we have a new website. It's not formally up yet, but we're working on some splash screens to rotate through while we keep hammering on it. You can go to the url, but there's nothing to look at.

The webcomic is entitled The King's Left Hand, and I frankly think it is pretty awesome. While I will admit to some bias, I also will admit that everyone I have given some details to has agreed that it sounds cool. Naturally, until we have, you know, an actual comic to show, those are just words, but it's exciting to see how much closer we are coming. 

I haven't seen a plot anything like what we are doing anywhere else, and I think the path these characters will traverse will strike a chord in a lot of people. I mean, how many main characters in a fantasy story, let alone a webcomic, have {redacted text}, with one of them even being {more redaction}? They are usually {yup, you know}, which makes the level of {I bet you're really curious now} with other characters even more unusual. I know, it's really unique. If I can pull it off without any hamfisted storytelling, this will be something to write home about.

Obviously, this kind of story requires a lot more depth to the world than you would normally find, since the details of {you want a hint?} become important to the deeper storylines moving through the narrative. But throw in the mix of {I'll think about it}, {I might let y'all in on something here}, and {maybe}, and suddenly, aspects of culture that are typically ignored in nearly all fantasy epics need to be explored. 

I'm frankly pretty excited about it all. 

Also? We are totally creating a board game (wargame type) based on the Cultist Wars, which occurred about 20-30 years prior to the start of the comic itself, but is still having a lasting impact on the characters. It's a blast. :)

OK, fine, here's some actual info, in the form of some splash screens:

Wyrm here is a villain who appears in the Prologue. He's brilliant, twisted, manipulative, and a very dangerous enemy.



Wyverns are super dangerous critters who can be trained, but sometimes will turn and eat their riders with no warning (making them only semi-useful). 1500 years ago, during the Age of the Mind Mage, Mind Mages could mentally enslave them, and so they were common mounts for powerful wizards. Now that the DeathMind spell has brought Mind Magic (and by extension, Necromancy) to a screeching halt, wyverns are rarely used, but when they are, they tend to install fear into opponents, plus they are useful scouts. There are no other flying mounts, and airships are incredibly expensive, slow, and vulnerable, so wyverns are the only option for air scouting.

When they are young, they are land bound, but as they get a little older, their "arms" grow wings, and they become flight-capable for a time. As they get older and bigger, they get too heavy to fly, and so the joints on the wings split off and become two more pairs of legs. Older wyverns are massive, six-legged carnivores, and the remnants of their wings can be seen for a time as ragged flaps of flesh between the fore legs. They spray a nasty poison out of their mouths - it attacks the nervous system and causes paralyzation and death to whatever gets hit by it. They can be used to strafe enemy troops from above, though riders have to be cautious to keep the wind from carrying the poison back in their faces as they fly.

Background is stolen from a Magic:The Gathering card, so don't think my arteest did that himself. :)

Rider is a member of the Phoenix Guard, the all-female branch of the military.



More to follow as I decide to throw more tidbits out!

Current mood: creative