So the other day, while considering a story for my Nano, and realizing that I was falling back on my old standby treatment of magic I decided something. I WANT THIS MAGIC TO BE CONSCIOUS!

What if, in this world i'm dreaming up...Magic was a character? It had rules of how you could use it? It might cheat, or betray you, or it might smile on you and help you be strong?

Or would it be better just to have it be alive somehow? But not fully capable of thought? Like an animal?

Can any of you help me develop this? Ask me questions or anything? I'm still a little confused by the idea. LOL! so. yeah.

One thing I'm wondering is, would it need to be a spirit of some sort? I don't really want to deal with it in a way that magicians become necromancers.

I'm really confused right now as to how I can get around the whole "spirit" sorcery thing. But still have Magic be like...LOL! IDK!

See my dilemma?

hmm its a really interesting concept, my main question right now is, if you cantain magic in a form, for example, a person or an animal type, then how would magic be accessable to multiple people? Unless, it was like its own race, where there were multiple little creatures that would in a sense latch on (battle bro style) to a human and then allow said human to use their magic abilities? I think that would be actually be quite cool. It could be like every magic creature was created/born with a certain human in mind, and until they find that specific human they feel empty/incomplete, but once they do find each other its well...rather magical :P

ha ha just where my mind goes, not saying you have to run with it, but I am curious as to how by containing magic into a certain life form you make make it accessible to more than one person at a time

well, I was thinking about almost as just this "thing" you can't see. But it's everywhere at the same time. Or it's this "thing" in one place, but it can see everything at the same time, or...idk.

minus the "thing" part and it sounds like God.

indeed. Hm, so would it be just a thing that just is, or would it, like you mentioned have rules and talk back to you?

yes i do think that it sounds rather like a god. just my opinion. but thats not necessarily a bad thing, you could have your worlds religion revolve around magic, offer enough sacrifices and you get great power ect...

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That which does not feel pain is dead.

Okay, so, I've been sitting on a response to this post for a couple days now because a) I've been busy and b) sometimes I find it really obnoxious when people respond to things like this with "OH THIS SOUNDS JUST LIKE MY STORY!!"

BUT I'm not really saying that--I'm sure the stories themselves are completely different and I do say this with complete confidence; the story that I have this in is strange even by my standards. And you were asking for ideas on how the magic might work, SO.

In this particular story of mine, the magic is a conscious thing, and it has the potential to be all-powerful and world-shattering, but it only interacts with the physical world under the command of people called Mediums. To become a Medium is similar to making friends with a person; you have to introduce yourself, converse with it, "take it out", tell it secrets, show it things--but since there are so few Mediums, and the magic is so vast, the process is ongoing but not difficult. It's like an eager child--it WANTS to be your friend.

The downside is...it REALLY wants to be your friend. Like, forever. Like, whoops I just ate your eyeballs because I love you so much.

So a Medium not only has to court the magic, but they have to be aware of its mood shifts, aware of when it is feeling possessive/protective, and if they summon it during those times they have to be aware of the fact that it might not let them go. So while a well-trusted Medium is practically unkillable by outside forces, there are very few living Mediums left in this world, because the magic really liked them and was distressed that all these outside people kept trying to kill them.

This is not even touching on the circumstances of one of my mains, who is a Medium that lied to the magic from the get-go and, like anyone who has ever told a big fat lie, spends most of his time trying to keep the magic from figuring it out.

SO. In my story, at least, it's not really a spirit; it's alive in its own right and it's been around for centuries--no one knows where it came from but no one really thinks it's going anywhere. But it's not a god, either; no one worships it (that would be a very quick way to get it to slurp you up), and even the process of courting it isn't ritualized any more than a normal relationship would be. Oh, except the Naming. It doesn't have a single name; every Medium calls it something different.

And that's how I handled it. Any ideas in there that you like, you are welcome to swipe, contort, regurgitate. For what it's worth, I find the magic in this story particularly fun to work with, so if you haven't given up completely on the idea I'd encourage you to go for it.

Var, your Magic sounds FASCINATING! REALLY COOL!

But...WHAT in the world IS it??? lol!

OMG VAR THATS AMAZING!!!!!

just saying... :P

Thanks guys <3

Meg, the magic's just...magic. That's as far as I explain it (and I think depending on the story, that's as far as you NEED to explain it). My characters don't know where it comes from and it's not relevant to the plot at any point, and whenever I try to explain too much of my metaphysical stuff I just wind up getting frustrated and bored with the story. If it's important--like, let's say my main was one of the scientists trying to duplicate the magic's effects--then I would probably want to more strictly define what it is and where it came from. But in the story I'm telling, the relevant thing is that it DOES exist, and that it HAS a personality, and that its personality can make it kill you a little sometimes.

I like having rules for my magic, but I don't like having explanations. It's just not the way I roll. YMMV, of course. :)

Man, that's an interesting take on magic var- quite unique

Hey Meg, you might want to start with defining what 'concious' is to you in regards to your magic...like is it a completely sentient 'energy' that is neutral? good? evil? with a spilt-personality between good and evil? Is it similar to an animal's concious, which has basic thought patterns and can be trained to obey rules?
In short, what part in your story do you want magic to play? How much of a part? How important is the part? And how much to you want to develop and delve into the making/creating of the magic and all its rules/regulations/personalities?

Really it all depends on what you want to do with your story :D