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7/18/2025, 12:47:49 PM
>Magic isn't nearly as OP as it should be in any system.
You misunderstand magic as special in the first place.
It isn't. Nor is it particularly impossible to learn. What keeps the common person from doing it is literal conspiracy and bog standard keeping of trade secrets in a manner no different to your local blacksmith. It's really not in the tradesman's interest for the few key secrets of his trade to land in the hands of every Tom, Dick, or Harry. Most of what happens is very simple to ape with the core moving part being kept secret. Like how the real secret of making a good sword is 99% in the tempering step. Beating, folding, and mixing metal are all fairly mundane by comparison.
For wizards, it's gaining the ability to store arcane spells in the first place. "Mana" exists as a term to obfuscate things for the common man. You hear it and think of a quantity of exotic water the wizard can pour out and shape. No, it's more like flexing an arm. Once this additional moving machinery is 'installed' into your person, you are a wizard! The more you use it, the more the muscle improves and the more spells it can store per day in it's network. All you need is access to the runes to read to form this new thing in you a step at a time. That's the part they would rather die than confess. The part they will kill apprentices over stealing. That is the one true moving part that cannot simply be aped for seeing it performed. It's what enables all the rest to work, and all you need to do is read it enough times.
Anything told to you by anyone else is a cover, or their own master obfuscated the process to them so they couldn't share it. The potential of the latter is very great, mind you. You can include a lot of junk text among the runes and arcane language needed to secretly initiate your apprentice without them being aware. It reads like an awkward book.
The particularly canny ones may realize. So be warry in selecting apprentices.
You misunderstand magic as special in the first place.
It isn't. Nor is it particularly impossible to learn. What keeps the common person from doing it is literal conspiracy and bog standard keeping of trade secrets in a manner no different to your local blacksmith. It's really not in the tradesman's interest for the few key secrets of his trade to land in the hands of every Tom, Dick, or Harry. Most of what happens is very simple to ape with the core moving part being kept secret. Like how the real secret of making a good sword is 99% in the tempering step. Beating, folding, and mixing metal are all fairly mundane by comparison.
For wizards, it's gaining the ability to store arcane spells in the first place. "Mana" exists as a term to obfuscate things for the common man. You hear it and think of a quantity of exotic water the wizard can pour out and shape. No, it's more like flexing an arm. Once this additional moving machinery is 'installed' into your person, you are a wizard! The more you use it, the more the muscle improves and the more spells it can store per day in it's network. All you need is access to the runes to read to form this new thing in you a step at a time. That's the part they would rather die than confess. The part they will kill apprentices over stealing. That is the one true moving part that cannot simply be aped for seeing it performed. It's what enables all the rest to work, and all you need to do is read it enough times.
Anything told to you by anyone else is a cover, or their own master obfuscated the process to them so they couldn't share it. The potential of the latter is very great, mind you. You can include a lot of junk text among the runes and arcane language needed to secretly initiate your apprentice without them being aware. It reads like an awkward book.
The particularly canny ones may realize. So be warry in selecting apprentices.
7/10/2025, 10:45:02 AM
>>96053082
You can conceive of a school where you learn to be a wizard but not actually know how that works in practice. The idea that humans have access to this.. other source.. and just need to learn to wield it is actually very new. Historically, this is simply something beyond human capability. No different than how birds don't have thumbs, humans don't have magic. What you did was contract a thing that did have 'magic'. Which would just be something it can do anyway. Because that's how it's built. Like asking a being who can breathe fire to make fire for you. In which your ability to do this is predicated on your ability to negotiate with it or make it owe you. That is classic, real, magic. Though again I warn people not to even try.
Pop culture magic has the idea you can go somewhere to study it and learn it, but that's where it ends. It has some flavor layered over it. You say the fun words and it kind of just happens. Sometimes wands are involved. Sometimes not. There's no actual sense to anything though. No actual internal system or logic. Just flavor.
You can conceive of a school where you learn to be a wizard but not actually know how that works in practice. The idea that humans have access to this.. other source.. and just need to learn to wield it is actually very new. Historically, this is simply something beyond human capability. No different than how birds don't have thumbs, humans don't have magic. What you did was contract a thing that did have 'magic'. Which would just be something it can do anyway. Because that's how it's built. Like asking a being who can breathe fire to make fire for you. In which your ability to do this is predicated on your ability to negotiate with it or make it owe you. That is classic, real, magic. Though again I warn people not to even try.
Pop culture magic has the idea you can go somewhere to study it and learn it, but that's where it ends. It has some flavor layered over it. You say the fun words and it kind of just happens. Sometimes wands are involved. Sometimes not. There's no actual sense to anything though. No actual internal system or logic. Just flavor.
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