Worldbuilding - Magic

Ah, magic. A driving force in many fantasy worlds. You can skip this section if there's nothing in your world that would implement magic.

First, you need to decide which races can use magic. Generally, in fantasy, elves and fairies can use magic as a given, though often humans are given magic as well. The difference between these is that usually in the non-human magical races, everyone has magic of a sort, while in the human race, only certain members have magic. You don't have to do this if you can get it to work right.

Once you've decided which races get magic, decide what types of magic each race can use. For instance, you might have a water nymph race where everyone can use magic, and have their magic be water-elemental. Then you could have desert elves who can only use fire-magic, and humans who can use magic of any element, but only some members are born with it. You obviously don't have to set your world up this same exact way. Some example types of magic might be elemental (earth, air, fire, water, wood, metal, spirit, shadow, etc.), death- or life-related, telekinetic or telepathic, summoning, chanted versus focused, musical, generic, etc. Anything goes.

After (or before; your choice) you've decided this, figure out how magic works. Does it have to be chanted? Does the user simply have to focus their mind and will? Do runes have to be drawn or certain spell components mixed or sprinkled or eaten? Is it simply making potions or is it the reading of spells? Are spells set in stone and have to be chanted that way every time, or can the user make their own spells? Is it controlled by the mind or the heart or simply by the right words being said at the right time of year? Is it solely internal magic, or can power be drawn from external sources? What sources can be used for power (i.e. the moon and sun, a ring of salt or silver, certain paths of water or times of the year or special stones, etc.)? Do people have to be born with it or can anyone learn the incantations to make spells work? Do such things as salt rings and chanted spells work for those who aren't born or trained in magic? Must parts of the spell be limited, or are the limitations to keep it from running amok ingrained in the spell? How does musical magic work? Is there more effect if a spell is sung rather than chanted? What happens if the person who cast the spell dies? What sort of subjects does a mage need to be familiar with in order to cast spells? Are astronomy and mathematics and agriculture and geology important to a mage? How does the alignment of the stars and planets affect spells? Which spells cancel each other out? How does "that time of the month" affect female magic-users? As you can see, there are a lot of questions to ask.

As a trivial sidenote, also decide what your magic-users are called. Are they mages, sorcerors, witches and warlocks, wizards, enchanters and enchantresses, magic-users, scholars, summoners, druids, etc.? Try to be consistent if you can, unless there's the standard term, local slang, and other languages' words for the same thing as well.

Once you've got how the magic works, develop how it is taught. Is it an inborn thing that comes naturally? Do wizards wander the land looking for students to teach? Is there a magic school? What are different schools of magic like? Are there lines or paths of training that identify one sorceror from another by which line they learned in? Are there different methods of approaching and casting spells depending on who your teacher was? This is just as important as developing how the magic works in the first place, because obviously someone somewhere had to train magic-users. A good example of this would be the teaching lines used in Barbara Hambly's The Winterlands, though she doesn't go into heavy detail about it.

Once you've got your magic system defined, decide which of your characters know what kinds of magic, how they were taught, how much they know already, and how they approach casting. I'll go into more detail on this in the Character Building tutorial.

Geography Cities, Towns, and Villages Races
Languages Nomenclature (Naming) Religions
Cultures Music and Storytelling Non-sentient Creatures
History Magic Rules

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