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| Evolution of Spells; Fantasy with a spec twist | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 21 2018, 06:54 PM (337 Views) | |
| Tenno | Mar 21 2018, 06:54 PM Post #1 |
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Newborn
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A quick concept I had for a magic system in a fantasy setting, whereby magic comes in the form of virus-like "living" entities capable of mutation, natural selection, hunting each other, symbiosis with humans etc. Feel free to rip into it as you wish. Basically, these "spell creatures" exist in a dimension where heat death is impending. Everything's struggling to survive, leeching on whatever small amount of heat and radiations that's left. One of the "first common ancestor"s discovered a way to "tunnel" (using vague pseudo-quantum bullshit magic) into our universe via its feeding apparatus to leech our energy, and it became the most successful creature in its realm, reproducing prolifically as it siphoned out our juicy energy. Soon, every spell creature could tunnel into our universe, and bind said tunnels to human hosts to keep the tunnel open. In a sense, human brains are the CPU and the spells are the game program. tl;dr, incorporeal extradimensional magic worms leech off our universe for energy, use humans as dimensional travel anchors and strike up a symbiotic relationship tl;dr, Pokemon. Human brains have the processing power to render a video game monster (the spell) into our world to do stuff based on what rules the code contains. Mages (we'll call them "Captors" for now) are just guys who collect these games and run them, and the bigger your CPU the more powerful you are. Spells are self-replicating and able to mutate randomly, plus they've been competing for resources since time immemorial. Now that energy is overflowing into their realm, reproduction has skyrocketed, and so has competition over suitable human hosts. Some spells just siphon energy out of our world and grow, like a producer in a food chain. Others actively hunt fellow spells and assimilate them, giving them a huge boost of energy without the (relative) hassle of sitting around laboriously siphoning energy all day. The producer spells fight back against the consumers, adopting a myriad of defensive powers. tl;dr: Captors are basically enjoying a symbiotic relationship with spells, where they act as dimensional anchors to let spells feed, and in return the Captor can utilize some of their spell's defensive/feeding adaptations as a weapon. Spells are merely the feeding apparatus of the creatures. Predator spells "suck" the creature through the tunnel, killing them entirely. Of course, spells are usually quite expendable (they can reproduce) but with Captors being the only one that can see and... well, capture them, the market is very controlled. Pure symbiotes: These spells draw energy directly from the human body, using it as both an anchor and power source. They usually grant minor buffs like spell vision etc. Related to producer spells. Producer spells: Magic plants Absorb energy from surrounding environment and excrete entropy. These devour and store energy at an obscene rate, due to their massive hungers once transplanted into a new universe. Bloated, they excrete vast amounts of magic as their metabolites and their defence mechanisms. Symbiosis with Captors allows mages to utilize these defences at will. examples: - draining the "complexity" from structures, documents etc. Objects decompose and crumble. -absorbing heat from the surroundings then venting it - slowing, absorbing kinetic energy and electromagnetic waves - telekinetic defence mechanisms (drains a lot of energy and requires more brain power from the Captor) Consumer spells: designed to negate and destroy other spells and absorb their energy. -antimagic field/armor -familiar that gets stronger whenever spells are cast near it -spells that sever the connection between human and spell and then consume the spell Parasite spells: Drains the energy of Captor and spell alike. Seen as a "curse" like effect. That's most of the details I have right now, any suggestions or criticisms? I tried to make a magic system that's believable and also unique. I took heavy inspiration from the Worm web serial. |
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| Scrublord | Mar 21 2018, 07:24 PM Post #2 |
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Father Pellegrini
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Don't you mean Midichlorians? |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado. --Heteromorph | |
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| Strychnos | Mar 23 2018, 03:37 AM Post #3 |
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Fetus
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This is really cool! I'm a sucker for fleshed out magic systems. Only question I have is, why do the spell creatures get their energy from living things? There's plenty of energy in our universe that isn't wrapped up in a living creature. Why don't they just get energy from our stars? |
| My Deviantart | |
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| Tenno | Mar 23 2018, 08:21 AM Post #4 |
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Newborn
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Thanks for the feedback!! Long story short, the Spells need human brains to process all the information needed for them to warp into this world. Think of the spells like a monster in the video game, for them to be rendered in a game they need to be run on a computer (that's the human brain.) without a human as a dimensional anchor the spells can only flit around in our dimension briefly, like a few seconds at a time. |
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7:44 PM Jul 10