u/El_Dibujista

I'm writting an urban/low fantasy story, where magic is widely known to exist and is used by common people to a certain degree, while there's specialized knowledge and practices, everyone uses it. Think of it as cooking, everyone can make a sandwhich or prepare a soup, if you practice some more you can make a fancy dinner by yourself, and there're also gastronomers and cooks who invent their own dishes from scracth. As an analogy, that's sort of the presence of magic in my world.

It's not like, say Harry Potter, where magic could be easily defined as "everything we hide from the rest of the world" But since in my story, magic is common knowledge and practice, the line gets blurry becasue, what would be magic? Spells are obviously magic, but are medicinal plants magic? And a healing potion? What's natural remedy and what's straight up magic? What about magical creatures? Why should a hypogriff be magical but not a hipo?

From a reader viewpoint a valid rule of thumb could be that if it doesn't exist irl it's magic. But still, in-universe there's meant to be a distinction between what's magic and what's not, I have tried to come up with an actual definition of magic that works to sort things where they should be. So I wanted to know how do you manage it.

I'm writting an urban/low fantasy story, where magic is widely known to exist and is used by common people to a certain degree, while there's specialized knowledge and practices, everyone uses it. Think of it as cooking, everyone can make a sandwhich or prepare a soup, if you practice some more you can make a fancy dinner by yourself, and there're also gastronomers and cooks who invent their own dishes from scracth. As an analogy, that's sort of the presence of magic in my world.

It's not like, say Harry Potter, where magic could be easily defined as "everything we hide from the rest of the world" But since in my story, magic is common knowledge and practice, the line gets blurry becasue, what would be magic? Spells are obviously magic, but are medicinal plants magic? And a healing potion? What's natural remedy and what's straight up magic? What about magical creatures? Why should a hypogriff be magical but not a hipo?

From a reader viewpoint a valid rule of thumb could be that if it doesn't exist irl it's magic. But still, in-universe there's meant to be a distinction between what's magic and what's not, and I can't come up with an actual definition of magic that works to sort things where they should be. So I wanted to know how do you manage it.

I'm writting an urban/low fantasy story, where magic is widely known to exist and is used by common people to a certain degree, while there's specialized knowledge and practices, everyone uses it. Think of it as cooking, everyone can make a sandwhich or prepare a soup, if you practice some more you can make a fancy dinner by yourself, and there're also gastronomers and cooks who invent their own dishes from scracth. As an analogy, that's sort of the presence of magic in my world.

It's not like, say Harry Potter, where magic could be easily defined as "everything we hide from the rest of the world" But since in my story, magic is common knowledge and practice, the line gets blurry becasue, what would be magic? Spells are obviously magic, but are medicinal plants magic? And a healing potion? What's natural remedy and what's straight up magic? What about magical creatures? Why should a hypogriff be magical but not a hipo?

From a reader viewpoint a valid rule of thumb could be that if it doesn't exist irl it's magic. But still, in-universe there's meant to be a distinction between what's magic and what's not, and I can't come up with an actual definition of magic that works to sort things where they should be. So I wanted to know how do you manage it.