McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Opinions and help with my magic system

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Darkshore:
IMHO the limitations and costs of a Magic System are the most interesting parts. I don't like the fountain of youth idea or the "they can gain back time" at all. It would add a lot of interest and tension to if and when the characters would resort to magic. Your best friend is going to die if you don't unleash a spell that will take a chunk of your life never to be replaced, do you do it? An innocent civilian or a poor street urchin in the same position, would you do it? Adds a lot more depth, risk, and will show us readers a lot about the characters.

meg_evonne:
OTOH, a race against the biological time clock in order to FIND the Fountain of Youth before you die of old age is a great premise.

The premise is sort of the Seinfeild, "Is he worthy" delimna that I still grin and laugh about...  :-)

Relicmaster198:
Thank you all for the suggestions. There is one important piece of information that I left out. One of the main characters of my book series is over 800 years old.

OZ:
Could some creature that devours the lives of others in order to add to its own lifespan ( vampires, succubi, incubi ) use magic but steal years from others to keep from running out? I like your idea but only if the water must be drunk directly from the fountain to work ( not bottled and taken home ) and only if there is some difficulty or even sacrifice involved in reaching the fountain. Otherwise the price of magic will become meaningless to the main character as he/she cast spells then takes another hit from the canteen.

I do like the idea however. The idea that power comes at a price is not new but it still makes a great story when handled well.

Haru:
I agree with the notion about the bottled fountain of youth, there should still be a price to pay. You could make the characters physically addicted to the fountain water, so someone who would use it would be more irrational, be prone to use more magic, since he knows he can replenish it as much he wants, etc. Maybe even have them "boil over" with magic, if they drink too much water without releasing it as magic, leading to all kinds of side effects.

The vampire idea was brought up as well, and it is yet another dark way to replenish ones magic/life.

On a similar notion, a carrion eater. If people in your world have a fixed amount of life force, then some will probably die before it is used up, maybe they are murdered or die in an accident. Magic users might be able to suck the remaining life force out of those bodies and add them to their own. Would probably be more morally valid (that is, if they don't actually eat part of the body), but also not as powerful. Especially interesting, if some of the dead persons life will actually be mixed into the magic user and change his personality slightly.

Another idea, though I guess it should be exclusive to one character, would be to not use ones life to fuel a spell, but quite the opposite, you use your own death to fuel spells, not shortening your life but pushing back the time when death will find you. Which would mean, that the character would live longer and longer, the more he used magic. One problem with this would be, that it is probably going to be a everlasting life without everlasting youth thing, though you could remove that, if you say he is not only fuelling his spells with his death, but also decay and stays young that way.

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