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Opinions and help with my magic system

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Relicmaster198:
I am writing a book and need help with my magic system. The best that I can come up with is that magic costs time. What I mean by this is that if you use magic it will take off a certain amount of time off of your lifeline. That is why after you use a large spell it weakens you, because it takes time for your lifeline to adjust to losing time. That is also why my main characters know where the Fountain of Youth is.

Any help with filling in any details would be helpful.

Ziggelly:
Wow! I'm intrigued by this. It would make a fascinating story, if one could pull it off.

A couple of things for clarification sake though: Does the castor physically get older, or does it just shorten their lifespan? Can you gradually get your time back again, if you don't use magic? Most importantly: How does it do this? Do you have an explanation for why using magic makes your life shorter, or how this fountain reverses it?

Relicmaster198:
First off thank you for raising these questions. I hadn't really asked myself any of these yet. To answer your first question the lifespan of the castor just shortens. The castor is then able to gain some of their time back through various processes. One of these processes is drinking from the fountain of youth. Though yes the fountain does make you younger in most stories one of my characters is from Avalon, alternate plain of existence in my stories, and the fountain has this adverse effect. Have yet to think of why the magic shortens the castor's lifespan though.

Gruud:
Given your angle, I think the shortening of a mage's lifespan is a reasonably natural, biological process that many readers will accept without shining too much polish on it.

After all, if you take energy out of a system, there will always be a consequence.

I've heard/read plenty of folks "say" that if we all start out with a "a billion heartbeats", then everything we do along the way is in effect burning those heartbeats, never to be recovered.

So, for example, if you're heavy into cocaine or meth, both of which can substantially increase your heart rate while using, then you are taking beats off the end of your life.

Poorly worded perhaps, but I think you get the gist ...

Snowleopard:
Er, not to be a pain but they had the magic use = time off of life thing in one of the last Ray Harryhausen films.  Tom Baker was the evil sorcerer in it, I believe.
However, they didn't explore the magic system it was only that they used that idea.
It could be too, I don't remember all that well, that it was blood or evil magic that took from your life force.
Maybe in your magic system - doing something good - you could figure out what - would replenish lost time for white magic use.  Whereas blood magic use would be almost impossible without using the life force of someone else or something else to replenish it.

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