Questions tagged [magic]
For questions that have to do with magic, as opposed to science/technology. Remember to explain any limits.
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How can I incorporate both the metaphysics of the story and magic into a system without compromising one or the other? [closed]
I'll try my best to make this not so nonsensically long and give you the basics with brevity. I'll be summarizing ALOT.
In the beginning was an entity known as the Eternal Sovereign, a being whose ...
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How would draw weight, range, and power of a bow be affected by a magic bowstring?
So in my world, there are magical artifacts and weaponry.
One of which is the bow. It's bent like a strung bow, but without a string. And when you grab where the string would be and pull back an ...
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Genetic personality [closed]
I want a family of humans born with insticts that come fron their parents.
Father smithsman and mother vampire hunter = child attracted to metalworking and with a natural hate and instincts to murder ...
user84545
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Using fire magic to levitate (hot air balloon style)
A magician has the ability to produce, control, contain and extinguish fire anywhere near his body, as much as necessary and has enchanted himself and any object, for example clothing, on himself to ...
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Could I design a bolt action rifle during a period similar to the medieval age (with light magical assistance)? [duplicate]
Writing a fantasy story where my protag has knowledge of modern day Earth technology. Magic also exists but it can't just create things in and out of existence and uses the body's energy for it to ...
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What do you call a person who studies, but does not perform, magic? [closed]
I want to distinguish between two types of magician. I'm going to provisionally name them magipraxists and magiologists, and my request is for more familiar terminology to replace my invented and ...
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Why would a mage choose to harvest weak residual anima when wisps anima-filled capsules waiting to be taken?
In my world, wisps are more or less vessels for souls on their journey to the afterlife or reincarnation. These wisps coat the soul in a shell of anima so to speak, allowing their movement and energy. ...
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Is magical humanoid by-product allowed in restaurants by the FDA?
What steps should a monster take to make good of their ability to create food, without getting shut down by the Food and Drug Administration in America? For instance, a dryad summoning her own leaves ...
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What happens to the human body when hit by a magic lightning and a frozen arrow at the same time? [closed]
What happens to the human body when hit by a magic lightning and a frozen arrow at the same time? The lightning power is strong enough to shock but not to kill.
The point where the ''combined spell''...
user56555
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Specifics of magical symbols and casting: What makes mastering the concept of physically manipulating magic difficult?
This is a continuation of my Specifics of magical symbols and casting series of questions.
In the process of splitting my post up, I noticed my final question got a bit broad. So to specify how magic ...
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magically provoked, naturally manifesting lower gravity area in a 10 mile radius
the setting premises are explained in this other question Survival of an Industrial Revolution city after being transported to a fantasy world
What I had in mind today is this: on Stitch theres an ...
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What extradimensional topology would explain looping forces? [closed]
In my magical world there are two contrary forces, or rather essences that flow in the two opposite directions of another dimension perpendicular to our own.
One is named aether and flows "up", the ...
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Could (and how would) life develop and survive in a place of 24 hours of darkness?
In my fantasy world, Ghafir's Spear is known by many to be a place without light. Here, there is no light, and darkness dominates the land. Despite its shadow, however, there is life here, including ...
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Will autocannon armed "soldiers" be useful in combat?
I'm creating a magic system where extremely rare humans with psychic talents could be trained to channel their powers into something similar to firing a 20 mm autocannon.
Would such large calibers ...
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Unconventional Rebirth: Is It Checked?
In my last question, Preventing Dead Monsters From Spawning Undead, I realized a rather concerning loophole; if someone were to intentionally allow a large monster, like a mutant 'rex, to eat them, ...
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What would the world look like if everone was a wizard? [closed]
In my world everyone has magic powers. They aren't super powerful (no murder on sight spells...) but every single person has limited magic. What political, social, military and agricultural things ...
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Can I create conflict between demons and humans without using the term 'hunting?' [closed]
I am trying to find ideas for an Urban Fantasy novel, and all the ideas I've got are loosely related to Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunters series. However, I don't want to use a similar concept of ...
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Do I Have to Radically Change Plate to House Gems?
In a world there is a king and that king has knights.
These knights make use of magic amulets to protect them from supernatural threats: witch spells, manticore venom, werewolf curses, et cetera ad ...
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How can I meaningfully define the energy cost of magical levitation?
In the world I'm building, there is a form of "magic"¹ that effectively amounts to metabolism-powered telekinesis. In particular, there is a maximum power limit of approximately 20 W/kg relative to a ...
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How thick would clouds have to be to completely blot out the sun?
Title explains it all.
Assuming an earth-like atmosphere and cloud composition, how thick would the clouds have to be to completely blot out the sun, causing the surface to be pitch black?
How this ...
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How important would magic be if people died very soon after starting to use it?
In a magic/fantasy world I am building, the main type of magic, magic has this limitation: that after using it, if someone uses it at a pretty normal rate, they become a lifeless, mindless body after ...
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Could a character go back in time and then "kill" the timeline they came from? [closed]
So I'm trying to see if this scenario would work for a piece I'm writing. I know timetravel can be quite specific and most people dont like it because its executed poorly.
To specify say the ...
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Could giants fit into a forest?
In my fantasy world, the forests are massive, reaching for miles and miles over the country, full of amazing creatures and just wonderful things. The thing is, I want my world to be relatively young, ...
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Could manipulating the strength of the nuclear force disintegrate materials?
In my world, magic works by warping the fundamental forces of the universe. Some people can heat metal and create lightning with the electromagnetic force. Others can steer and amplify gravity to ...
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How can witches compete with mega-corporations who benefit from economies of scale?
Mana is the life energy present in all humans. It also gives us the ability to use magical spells and rituals. However, only witches are able to access their Mana in order to use it directly. For ...
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How Can a Creature With Knockback Come to Exist?
Background: Alendyias is a world that was formed inside the Fracture of Reality, one that is still forming as the Fracture in Reality grows and absorbs other worlds in its path. Absorbed worlds and ...
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Help with defining the extent of my character's ability
In the book I am writing, one of the main characters has the ability to convert their own energy (chemical or mechanical) into light/photonic energy, and only that form of energy. I know that this ...
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Utility of Cherry Bomb
I had a weird idea for my fantasy setting: cherry bombs!
1-3 Cherry Bombs are Dropped by Cherry Brutes (Sakurage may be a better name for them, I'm open to suggestions) upon their death and/or ...
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Creating heat/exciting molecules by controlling their gravity?
Had a character the ability to control the hypothetical Graviton, would it be possible they could move and excite molecules by altering their gravity enough to create heat? Enough for fire? Or is ...
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How would magic users be incorporated into the military?
My magical world is getting into the medieval age and plate armor is becoming a thing. My magic system is simply drawing runes in the air(sometimes)/ground. A skilled person could draw a simple rune ...
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Warfare in the presence of magic users [closed]
In this world you have normal earth like technology and also magic.
There are multiples levels in magic from least powerful to invincible. The number of magicians at a level is inversely ...
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Would direct use of kinetic energy be able to simulate a solid object?
For context, imagine that a human being has reality warping powers based on knowledge. Basically, if you know how something works and what manipulations have to happen for a certain result to occur, ...
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Can prehistoric people perform magic?
Our distant ancestors were hunter gatherers who relied heavily on their wild instinct in search for food, they also had a basic concept of social status with the alpha male leading the clan.
To ...
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What life (magical and non-magical) would survive and thrive in an air pocket under 1000 meters of water? [closed]
Background and Setup
--This is a fantasy world, where something to the tune of thousands of years have passed since a magical calamity occurred, giving rise to the creation of a magic dust (Vyxium), ...
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How would using trees as sarcophagi affect the forest?
Long story short the people of the forest use trees to 'bury' their dead instead of actually burying them into the ground. They use plant-manipulation magic to accomplish this, making the tree open up ...
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Why Would Someone Intentionally Get Consumed by a Dark Farungen?
I know that this question demands answers, so here we go:
Creatures of living elements, called Farungen, exist in this world, which is a medieval fantasy-type. Most Farungen keep to themselves in ...
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What are some games of chance that existed before 1500? [closed]
I am writing a scene where someone wins a dragon egg in a game of chance. Then I realized, what game of chance? The game must have existed before 1500. Please provide a basic overview of the rules. If ...
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Would the demigods birthed by goddesses be different from the demigods sired by the gods? [closed]
In Greek mythology and many fantasy stories, they are treated as the same. But I can't help but feel they shouldn't...
If we assume that gods can take any physical form, how do you explain it to ...
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Could carbon nanotubes reinforce bones so they're harder to break? [closed]
I'm presently working on a flintlock fantasy about a Half-Orc woman. In my story setting, Orcs are not an ugly race of monsters, as they are in Lord of the Rings, nor are they exactly like the Orcs ...
user53529
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Plausible magic systems? [closed]
I’m currently world building a high fantasy story.
Within this story there are a species(most of the characters are a part of this species) that have abilities. These abilities are determined by how ...
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What would a lethal laser attack by a sorcerer look like?
In a magic system that allowed the manipulation of energy by sorcerers, what would a bystander observe during such an attack? Some details are relevant:
As I understand it, lasers are visible due to ...
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How would a group of floating medieval kingdoms sustain themselves
I started creating a world where benders exist - people who can control the elements earth, air, fire and water. All benders control their element by using their "mana" to control it. They can't ...
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Meta-Energy: Refined Question [closed]
Alright, this is essentially a follow-up to one of my previous questions. I thought about it for a bit, edited the original question, and this is what I came up with:
Our understanding of physics ...
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Magic all got used up, as if it had never been. How would we know? [closed]
The energy that powers magic exists outside of time. That's why it seems to be able to defy time - showing visions of the future, transporting objects instantaneously, creating light or heat or cold ...
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How would the US change if people stopped growing old?
My last question was closed of being "too broad" so I've decided to add some more details to my world and then ask a more specific question. In our world The latest generation of humans mutated a gene ...
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Our Earth is a Magic Sink-Hole. What follows?
This Earth does not have magic that can be directed by people to their own desires. It follows low-level laws of physics with exceptions detailed below.
Rather, some other parallel reality has magic ...
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Could an immortal man remember everything? [closed]
You've been tricked! Due to [backstory] and [events related] you have found yourself immortal, with total control over the natural world around you (think Earth bending and stuff) and it's not all it'...
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Practicality of engine-mediated magic
In another universe in which humans may exist but did not evolve, the laws of physics allow phenomena that we in this universe would call magical, where matter and energy may be moved, transformed and ...
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Can thermo-transferring mage create wind?
I am considering a magical system where a mage can manipulate temperature of objects he/she touches. Either transferring heat from other objects or directly affecting target. The trick is that they ...
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How could armour be designed to improve unarmed martial arts?
How could armour be designed to improve hand-to-hand martial arts? Reinforced, angular greaves with pads underneath to improve sweeps and kicks? Full plate is always good, but I feel like it could ...
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