4
$\begingroup$

Souls are made of chakra, which is the life force of all things. People are born with different levels of chakra that remain the same throughout life. Shamanism is a form of magic that uses your chakra to create magical effects. This form of magic is permanent and involves changing your environment, like redirecting the flow of a river. Shamanism is powerful but takes a long time to perform. Arcane magic comes from "supercharging" your chakra to fuel spells. They are more immediate and weaker overall, but more destructive. The more you charge up your chakra, the more powerful the attack.

Arcane magic is dangerous and difficult to master. The person could hurt or even kill themselves if they are not careful and lose control. Stronger attacks take longer to charge up, anywhere from seconds to a full minute. there is a refractory period after use. The more powerful the attack, the longer this refractory period is.This form of magic isn't just dependent on chakra, but also physical fitness. Men or women who are in top shape or well built have an easier time handling and using it. Their charge time for attacks and refractory period after use are shorter.

This form of magic isn't just dependent on chakra, but also physical fitness. Men or women who are in top shape or well built have an easier time handling the strain and using it. Their charge time for attacks and refractory period after use are shorter. Why would being physically fit be necessary for you to control this form of magic when they operate on different principles?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
2
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ The word "chakra" means "wheel". It is not a mass noun, it has a plural: one chakra, two chakras. (That is, it behaves grammatically like the word "coin", not like the word "money".) The sentence "souls are made of chackra" is grammatically incorrect; it should be "souls are made of chakras". The word "arcane" means "hidden", "mysterious" or "hard to understand"; I would say that magic is by definition arcane. As for the final question, mental effort is still effort; statistically speaking, well-fed fit people can concentrate better and think more clearly than starving people with weak hearts. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Oct 22, 2018 at 21:12
  • $\begingroup$ @AlexP D&D has different flavors of magic; arcane vs. divine, for example. This may be along the lines of what the OP is referring to. And, OP, be careful about using existing concepts to define your world. $\endgroup$
    – Frostfyre
    Commented Oct 22, 2018 at 21:22

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
0
$\begingroup$

Because you need to control what you are doing.

Human is just a gate for the chakra to manifest in physical world. Through the user the chakra change from soul to force that make river change it's flow. But there is a buffer time (think of 3D printing). During that time the souls transfer from it's chakra planes to our and after being complete it's released. Being fit you can easily hold that amount of power and it's not faster, you just don't let so much soul to be lost through the process.

Think about a human as a vase, if you are perfect vase you can be filled with water in seconds. But if you have cracks you may need to overcompensate more water in than can escape to fill it. And if your vase have holes filling it beyond hole may not be possible (so you can still perform some spells but not better ones).

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
4
$\begingroup$

Qigong

I used to go to a Shaolin kung fu school, where one of the key components of our lessons was how to control our breathing and qi flow using a technique Qigong. Aside from the physical benefits of learning to control your breathing while doing martial arts, it also helps elevate your spiritual and mental health.

In your world, it can also be used to strengthen the arcane pathways through your body, allowing a better flow of your magical energy. The more physically fit you are, the smoother your supercharged chakra will flow through your body, and thus enabling you to more effectively handle the strain of your magic.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
$\begingroup$

The answer is in the Supercharging

If the ability to super charge your chakra is dependent on your physical stamina, then this all makes sense. It takes actual energy to charge or super charge your chakra this energy comes from the body in the same way that running at a sprint or lifting a heavy object would take energy.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
0
$\begingroup$

The ability of using magic depends on multiple traits

Each human trait may contribute individually to how his magic works or how powerful it is. I will use "mana" to refer to "charkra" for simplicity.

  • Physical fitness affects endurance - a higher mana pool and faster regeneration.
  • Intelligence affects power - improves the manifestation of magic and efficiency.
  • Experience affects all metrics and scales them up over time (or down in case of traumas).
  • Personality affects how magic is applied. An aggressive personality naturally favors aggressive spell schools, empathetic personalities favor supportive and healing spells, stubbornness favors defensive spells, etc.
  • Concentration affects the maximum complexity or size of spells which can be cast.

In this case physical fitness wouldn't be the sole determinant to how proficient a magic user is, but merely a factor.

Why

Casting magic uses mana, but it also wears down the user physically to some degree. Higher fitness can negate that, up to a point where physical exhaustion is nullified. It's like being able to run a few km without feeling exhausted, but instead invigorated.

It's also known that physical fitness affects mental fitness. And mental fitness would affect spell casting.

Also: A better cardiovascular system, improved breathing, more endurance, quicker reactions, better dodging, better reflexes, less to no blackout from standing up too quickly from a couch for a few seconds, etc.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
0
$\begingroup$

Most forms of magic in different literature have a gesture component. This varies from a few simple hand motions such as seen in The Dragon Prince to full body, intense and exhaustive khatis such as seen in Avatar: the Legend of Aang/Korra.

The source you are probably drawing inspiration from requires ninjas to move their hands inhumanly fast doing various complex finger interlocking gestures while sommersaulting, wall running and walking on water to perform a feat of magic. One mistake and the "spell" fails. No small feat!

So the wizards of your world may have all the chackra of the world, but unless they are into gymnastics, all they can do is cantrips.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
0
$\begingroup$

You should design a organic system to manage chakra flow through the user body, just like lymphatic system, cardiovascular system, pulmonary and etc.

By getting more fit you upgrade all your body systems at once. Apart from the muscle growth, there's better neural response to stimuli, the heart pumps blood more efficiently, lungs changes gases more rapidly, even your immune system works better. And that comes from the feedback from exercises, so each training section contributes a little bit to the overall awesomeness of the body. Each system contributes to better muscular response.

By interlinking muscular function to all those systems, they grow "synergistically" as one. Make you chakra system a part of that. Maybe it as an additional fuel for the muscles when they reach critical levels of effort, so the new system will also benefit from a positive feedback from exercise.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .