New CBB

Somehow, reading Warhammer 4000K made me want to keep working on my old work, Full Auto. And in that, I decided that I didn't like the "fire pre-packaged spells and forget" style of magic that was currently in it. I wanted a magic system that was chaotic, highly uncontrollable, and deadly to the caster as well as the target. I've been brainstorming this for a few hours, so everything's a WIP, but here's what I have:

First of all, "mage" is the term for magic casters in general in Full Auto. More specifically, referring to a specific type of magic is denoted with "X-urgy"; Pyrourgy, Hydrourgy, Psychourgy, Timorugy, etc. The suffix "-mancy" is never used, except by those who divine instead of attack.

Moving on, a mage does not actually have any "real" power themselves. They have a small amount, but not enough to attack. Attacking with magic (except for psychic powers) is done by summoning a spirit (a spirit merely being a coalescence of magic that has gained rudimentary awareness), binding it to yourself (so you can use its power) and then basically "asking" it to attack/do something.

Remember that this is it in theory. Usually, it comes out to "Summon spirit, Bind it to yourself, Pray to god it doesn't kill you/let off an attack way too powerful and kill yourself/tear your own soul to pieces/many other unpleasantries".

There are ways of "pacifying" spirits, however: offering them a gift of some kind--usually an item that has been charged with magical power. Any mage worth their salt will pack a large amount of these charms, spending weeks carefully making hundreds of them, in order to please anything they come across.

The spirit is not a familiar of the mage. The binding generally only lasts for half an hour up to half a day at best. For most confrontations, a mage will scout out any nearby spirits, and then choose the most fitting one and summon it. This can be somewhat of a crapshoot--wanted an Electric spirit but the only ones around are ice, sin, and punishment spirits? Too bad, suck it up and deal with it. During the course of a particularly long battle, a mage may have to constantly summon spirits in order to replace the ones that left them.

In addition, you can't really control what comes out unless you have massive mental focus. For example, you've bound yourself to a fire spirit and want to use a normal fireball attack. What could happen is either you do that, you let out a tiny little attack that fizzles out before it comes out of your hand, or you create a raging inferno that obliterates half the city you're in.

You have almost no control over which one happens.

Most mages spend their time studying magic in their own private places--some, who are poor, steal books related to magic or constantly read in nearby libraries (or just steal them from the libraries). Many write their own books on the subject, constantly debating on various subjects or simply making observations on what they've done. These books are quite often taken with them when fighting--they allow more focus so that catastrophic misfires happen less (and are surprisingly effective weapons...). Other prefer to leave the books at home and uses staves. Still others focus their power into something like a ring with a precious stone.

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This is merely the rough draft of the idea, but I hope I achieved my goal: to have a magic system that was inherently unstable and extremely chaotic. I still am not sure how to handle certain things, though.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

It certaintly is an interesting idea. It's not a load of crap. It beats "ALAKAZAM!!!!!"="KABLOOIE"...I see much humor in uncontrolled powers. "I meant to turn him into a mouse, not a fire-friggin'-blowing-DRAGON!!!"

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___________________ I am the Great Rabbit. Fear me, O Crabs!

I assume you mean Warhammer 40k, unless ive not played it in so long that its up to 4000k

Anyway onto the system. While in theory it works relatively fine, my issues come up when trying to place it in a world and look at it in perspective. I may make a lot of assumptions along the way so feel free point out when I make an error.
1)From your description it seems like magic is not innate specifically to people, but is something that can be learned by most people (when you describe it being taught from books)
2)It is understood to be intrinsically dangerous, even under ideal conditions (i.e it’s a roll of the dice if at the end of your magic spell you’re gonna blow up or not, and this chance can only be lessened, never completely avoided)
3)It is dangerous to bystanders. (Sure you could just electrocute yourself, but you could also cause a lightning bolt to wipe out 5 square miles of civilization)


These three things lead me to believe that if this was the way magic worked then the practice of magic would quickly become forbidden by people not sanctioned by a ruling class. Much in the same way the world as a whole likes to control who has nuclear weapons.

I have no suggestion how to fix this, or even if it needs to be fixed, as I don’t know much about Full-Auto. If it’s the type of system/world where exploding-fiery death is as common as a rainy day, then this makes perfect sense. If that’s not what you’re going for then let’s see what might happen if we take out one of my three assumptions.

1) If not everyone can learn magic then you have a whole class of people who get persecuted for being walking time bombs. The world is also slightly safer because in general this population would be smaller than those that wouldn’t use it

2) If you get rid of it being dangerous, well then you’ve compromised your design goal so we won’t bother removing this one

3) If you make it less dangerous to use for people not involved (not in a direct way anyway, just so that a miss cast spell doesn’t result in widespread death for everyone, or at least make this the rare thing) then you get a whole class of people who are seen as nuts, or brave, or something else depending on cultural views of self-sacrifice and their use of a dangerous art.

As a whole I like the idea behind this system, I just think when something is this dangerous, it has wider reaching cultural effects and would be interested in seeing how the interior outsiders of magic view the art.

Sounds like conlanging.

Mage = conlanger
Magic = linguistics
"Real" power = fluency
Books = books

Magic words = conlang

Spirit = natlang?

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

M.Park: First, yeah, I messed up: it's still Warhammer 40K.

Anyway, you are right about Full Auto's universe being a minor death world. It's not the whole "Wretched Hell on Earth" that the Imperium of Man is, but it's not a walk in the park either, being a post-apocalyptic world--albeit one where society has recovered quite a bit.

I think I may tone down the effects a little.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb