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 would school uniforms be designed? [closed]
In my fantasy world, there are academies where young people are taught the ways of magic, the first one during the early-late medieval period. Due to some of its origin, this one is also the first to ...
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How to balance a conflict between animal people when one of them has the advantage of flight?
Setup:
Avians are a humanoid species with bird characteristics, they all posses the ability to fly. Just as other species they can learn to use bows, swords and magic. Their main fighting tactic is ...
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A race created by a goddess of war
First things first: english is my second language, so I apologize in advance for every mistake.
In a game of mine (D&D 5e) I've created a world, Eos, with a sentient race for each god.
There are N ...
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Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
I'm building a world for a novel and would like to have a single-sex, sapient species. The world is based on the general physics and scientific nature of our world but where more than one sapient ...
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How can farming be used to gain energy that powers a crystal?
This is for the video game I'm developing called Skullborn.
In this game there are large crystals that have energy that the player can harness. Claiming a crystal is essentially how the player claims ...
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What type of birds can live in my systems of caves?
The story I am trying to write happens underground in system of caverns that originate from either underground rivers or a massive roots system that have begun to rot. Creating mostly long spherical ...
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Muggle military tactics against mind-controlling wizards
Spoiler: Wall of text incoming, TL;DR provided.
Once upon a time there were two worlds, separated by some kind of dimensional veil. One world is populated by WW2 level industrial civilization, the ...
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Suggestions for Hermetic occult/magical schools in historical fantasy setting?
Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I’m currently working on a historical fantasy setting with a magic system based on real world practices and beliefs, and I need some ideas for new ...
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The dragons of the world disappeared. Now what? [closed]
With nearly every major event in the world, the dragons were there. The world was built upon the backs of dragons and in turn, the dragons were revered by most mortal groups. In the southern half of ...
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Why would the devil give someone immortality in exchange for them maintaining a diary? [closed]
So bear with me on this
So I'm working on constructing a world for a DnD game that I am going to be running. I have a general idea of the world that I would like to develop, but am getting stuck on ...
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Why would neurodivergent people be sacred individuals?
In my world, there are magical humans often called wizards (their scientific name is Homo magicus) (so, they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens).
They are traditionally a very religious race. ...
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Why would a desirable technology remain forbidden despite progress of time and civilization?
Around 1100 years in the past, a great empire spanned most of the known human world. At its center was a great city of learning and discovery, where humans first developed methods to channel ...
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How can witches be prevented from cannibalizing each other to increase their power?
Mana is the life energy that courses through a metaphysical circulatory system in the human body that allows it to function and perform its daily tasks to keep an individual alive. At the center is ...
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What modern-day object could a magic wand be disguised as?
In my setting, wands and staves are two of the many means by which magical creatures can harness, to a limited degree, other magical creatures' powers. When a magical creature (known as an immortal) ...
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Is this price of magic severe enough to deter most women from becoming witches in my fantasy world?
I am writing a fantasy series about witches. It's set in a high fantasy world. To get magic powers in this fantasy world, a girl has to voluntarily transform into a magical being.
The magic in this ...
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Could it ever become a custom for human women to breed with ogres?
I'm in the process of constructing a fantasy world that resembles our world and is predominantly inhabited by humans just like us, but which also contains ogres. The ogres in this world are between ...
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How would animal husbandry and domestication change if animals could talk and think [closed]
In the world where Intelligent and speech are much more common and any animal bigger Then rat size rodent Not only has human level intelligence but the ability to speak and understand human language. ...
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How would dwarves build a combined underground kiln, forge and bakery oven
These dwarves are making steel tools and weapons, bricks, plates and other ceramics, as well as (and most importantly for this world) bread all underground crucially from the same structure. Any ...
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How would this magic system affect the development of agriculture in a Stone Age world?
This post is an improved version of a previous post, which lacked sufficient specificity. I apologize again for the ambiguous wording, as well as for any rules I had violated in posting that question.
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How would this magic system affect the technological development of a Stone Age world? [closed]
The magic system is known as shamanism, and is centered around entering trance states to communicate with spirits and make pacts with them. My world is an animist setting, so things like humans, ...
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Would angel/demon wings possibly be looking at the real world, translucent/transparent? [closed]
A follow up question to my previous one (about angel's wing maintenance) : In the world I'm creating I wanted there to be this type of "birth defect" or wing abnormality, that caused some if ...
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How would angels maintain their wings, would they even need to?
I'm writing a story about an angel, demon hybrid, and I wanted to know about the required maintenance of Angel wings, or in this case Dangel wings (what I call demon/angel hybrids). Since his wings ...
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A gold-proof suit for King Midas
As we all know, King Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold - his wish was granted by the god Dionyssus. This proved to be his undoing. He couldn't eat because his food turned to ...
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Development of Firespines [closed]
The land of Dracori contains many magical creatures. One of these is the Firespline Landfish (also called a Terrakanthes).
The Terrakanthes looks like a chubby lizard, with a ridge of magical spikes ...
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Could shocking grasp be used as a defibrillator?
A common trope among role-playing communities is that Shocking Grasp can be used as a defibrillator. Could a spell that allows you to shoot lightning from your palms allow you restart a recently ...
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How to not be controlled by text
In a medieval-fantasy world, the magic exists by imbuing mana into symbols. The symbols can be written, declaimed or even thought, to cast the spell. A formula can store any non-meta spell you can ...
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Why broom made of broomcorn flies higher than those made of straw? [closed]
There are many different materials suitable to make a broom, however only brooms that are made of broomcorn and straws are the most sought after. Note that all broom-squires are muggles and back then ...
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How can I prevent wizards from creating their own private armies of homunculi?
The human body contains mana, the life force that can be used for use as a source for magic. The individual's capacity for mana slowly grows with time as the person ages into adulthood, finally ...
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Why do witches don black "traffic cone" on their heads? [closed]
Witches practice a form of sorcery unlike magic, in fact they work with curses all the time. A curse is more difficult to lift, usually a witch must undergo years of training in dark culinary arts ...
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How would mapmakers deal with moving cities?
Imagine a city on treads; if you've seen or read Mortal Engines, imagine that instead.
beep beep losers here I come
They're constantly moving, and have decent populations. Don't worry about how it ...
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Good ways to transport your characters from a modern world to a fantasy world? [closed]
My character is being transported from our world to another world, and I want to do something original and unique. There are the classic options (magical artifact, secret door, portals, walk in the ...
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Am I culpable for negligence if my spell allowed visitors to meet their own demise? [closed]
Imagine there is a big Island the size of New York city populated with dragons of all shapes and sizes, I put up a spell around the island to prevent the dragon's escape but visitors can pass through ...
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Would glowing creatures be possible? [closed]
I have several creatures I either made up or based off of a mythical creature, but the major glowing creature in my world's forest is a night nymph. There are four types of nymphs in my world; Earth ...
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How Can I Justify the Existence of Dragons in My Realistic Post-Apocalypse Fantasy Setting? [closed]
Recently I have given myself an interesting challenge: To create an interesting fantasy world that does not have conventional "magic."
In this setting I'm writing, our entire civilization ...
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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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Can one half of a planet be desolate, while the other half is lush vegetation?
Is it possible for half a planet to be cold, dark and lifeless while the other is a lush jungle? Can a planet be tidally locked to a sun where the jungle surface is always facing the light, and the ...
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Atmospheric pressure in an almost empty world with a specific habitable zone far above the ground
I'm currently working on the following concept of a world for a high fantasy setting:
The world's core has a radius of around 100 km. Inside is a magical object that creates a large-scale (planet-...
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How can daemonic pacts made across different realities be honored?
Our world orders the immaterial realm, a place in which daemons and otherworldly creatures reside. These separate realms have their own rules governing their realities, such as gravity, physics, and ...
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How Can a Bug Larvae Hijack a Robot?
When inactive, the robot looks like a Steelstone arch. Steelstone resembles marble only it is virtually indestructible. The knowledge to work Steelstone was lost thousands of years ago.
When the robot ...
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Why do all magic schools have streaming?
Streaming is the practice of grouping students based on their magical potential, usually at the end of the entrance exam the candidate has to don a talking pointed hat which then announces their ...
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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 homunculi be prevented from being used as a slave race for human sacrifice as opposed to conquered populations?
The human body contains mana, the life force that can be transferred for use as a source for magic. The individual's capacity for mana slowly grows with time as the person ages into adulthood, finally ...
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How would the police protect against magic users?
In this setting, magic and the supernatural is real and acknowledged by wider society. Magic is a relatively rare ability; while it is still an issue to think about, it is too rare to expect all ...
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Does an Undead Kingdom where the Lower Class live near the surface while the Upper Class lives underground below them make any sense?
I'm working on a story where all the characters are various Undead (we're talking typical D&D Ghosts, Wraiths, Zombies, and Skeletons, albeit with sentience) that all live together in the highly ...
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What event could nullify nuclear weapons use?
In the moment I am writing a story about a post apocalyptic earth where a new, stable society is thriving centuries later. The setting is planned to be an early industrial solar punk world with some ...
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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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What could cause a small enough magical apocalypse?
In a world with spirit magic, what could cause a big enough magical accident to destroy a large city and devastate a wide area around it?
Spirit Magic
In this world, all things have a spirit and ...
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How could a magic casting device work?
In my story, mages are only able to cast spells through a technological device (I imagine it as something similar to a watch). The source of their magic is a region in the brain capable of producing ...
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How to distinguish between immoveable spell and ownership spell?
Suppose I have 2 different type of spells namely immoveable spell and ownership spell, assuming the requirements and magical costs for both are similar I need help to distinguish between the two.
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Are 4 magic systems too much when it comes to a modern type of world with a lot of moving parts? [closed]
I have four power systems. Superpowers Supertechnology, Magic, and the Charles Atlas Powers. All 4 systems are not original. The systems are pretty generic. The only difference is, im just putting my ...
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