Help with Additional Parts
Hello, I’ve been looking at this sub for the past couple of months and it inspired me to try and make a magic system of my own. I’ve mostly built it out but it still feels a little simple and formulaic so any suggestions would be appreciated as well as would any criticisms.
To begin with, most of my magic stems from a theory I put into my world as a sort of start point for its magical development where a philosopher hundreds of years ago observed the environment and world at large, with all of its innately magical elements that seem to move in harmony with each other like a song, as well as how the appearance of the gods and any kind of divinity corresponded with “melodies” in a way pertaining to their holy nature/god and came up with the concept of what would later be called “Perchaunt’s Lyre” based on his name.
He theorized that the world at large existed beneath the various divine realms of each god as a sort of instrumental lyre in a sense that they “played” by tugging on various fundamental parts of its nature to first bring it into existence and then maintain its various parts as well as use their divine powers. He believed what people thought of as magical, being things that seemingly occurred outside of natural cycles or explanations, were in fact apart of the world as a series of strings spread in lines all across the lands and seas that contained/maintained fundamental forces while playing them where possible for better or worse. He envisioned them as humming with the magical energy of three different forces that he named the “Life Thrums”,”Death Thrums” and “Neutral Thrums” with the first instigating creation while the second propagated destruction and the third filled in the gaps to keep them from reacting more than necessary.
He believed the gods and to a lesser extent the various spirits of the world were able to see and play these strings to induce magic by using their will on an innate level as a sort of connection to facilitate their interactions with the world, though he differentiated spirits from gods by theorizing spirits might originate from one of the three thrums as so be bound to magic originating from them while the gods could utilize them all in a manner similar to assimilation by transmuting the strings they played into extensions of their divine nature. To cap off his theory, he believed humans and the other races could also learn to play the strings as if they were already capable of bearing what were known as the “Holy Compositions” of the various gods through their favor, which he theorized they could because they too had the capacity to leverage their wills in some way which would later come to be called a “Plectrum” and seen as a pointed aspiration from a persons mind that to those with a magical sense could pluck the strings, then perhaps their bodies had whatever was required to play the strings all on their own through studying and eventually learning how to though this was a more uncertain part of his theory.
Most people of the time saw him as insane and a lunatic and he ended up dying within a few years in suspicious circumstances, but many more rural and native communities that lived amongst the wilds and within the influence of the spirits as well as those more free thinking within the various gods worship saw merit in his theory through their experiences with magic, holy or otherwise, that lined up with his predictions. And after years of intentional practice and study, a method was discovered through which humans and the other races could harness magic outside the gods thereby vindicating his theory in the practice that would come to be called “Symphonus”
At a base level, it works through a perspective practitioner going to an area known as a “Rhythium”, a place where numerous strings run through and overlap thereby causing a natural rhythm of magic that changes the land in various strange ways, and then must search/find one of the various spirits that reside there by making sounds in a manner that appeal to the nature of whatever spirit they wish to find whether that be through singing, humming, talking to the spirit or just making some kind of noise in general to appeal to the spirit’s nature depending on which thrum the spirit is aligned with. From there they either are out of luck if no spirit appears before them or they successfully attract a spirit/s whereupon they must approach the spirit all the while continuing their performance whatever it may be and attempt to touch them while being pushed back by the thrum the spirit is attuned to and if the aspiring practitioner is dedicated/complimentary enough to the spirit a song rumbles through them and the surrounding environment thereby cementing their relationship.
A person who successfully goes through this ordeal is known as a “Conductor” who based upon which kind of spirit they sought out gain access to one of three different so-called “Songs of the Balance” that are songs a conductor can perform where they draw upon the essence of whatever thrum is aligned with them before then entering into a semi lucid trance-like state where they have a great degree of awareness concerning the world around them but almost in a detached way. Upon entering this state they begin to sing a distinct tune that varies person to person especially between different songs and even among those who use the same song, but follows a certain pitch associated with each song that is expressed either in pure almost ethereal sound with a musical lilt or through words filigree through the conductors mind all the while they begin to dance uncontrollably along with their song. As they sing and dance strings and fragments/parts of the spirit and thrum they aligned with manifest around them that serve as the catalyst for their performance of magic, with the magic performed aligning with their thrums nature but otherwise taking on any number of forms depending on when and where they are performing as well as many other factors as they are completely reliant on the strings running through wherever they are and their connection to said strings to perform magic leading to random effects that align with a central core.
Each song has a different speciality/general theme and goal towards what kind of magic it accomplishes with the “Song of Awakening” aligning with the life thrum and based on where’s it performed it induces various magical effects that seek to create, support and bolster life such as creating wind that flows through an energizes others at high altitudes, plants that wrap around and heal wounds in jungles or bringing forth life from corpses at graveyards along with other similar effects, the “Song of Destruction” aligning with the death thrum and based on where its performed it induces various magical effects that seek to induce and apply death in various ways such as creating fires which burn one’s soul in a desert, swords that fall from the sky on a battlefield or shattering bones along with other similar effects while the final song is the “Song of Enlightenment” aligning with the neutral thrum and based on where’s it’s performed it maintains an equilibrium between things in addition to causing effects that neither hurt nor help anyone directly such as attracting a key to its door in a locked room, causing people to feel the emotions others in a tense situation or opening one’s mind up to the unseen in mysterious environments along with other similar effects. Magic performed this way tends to be very potent but it also Varys wildly in power as different places have differing amounts of strings that hum with one’s aligned thrum thereby limiting their connection and the longer one maintains their so called performance state the more their aligned thrum holds a monopoly on their body while blocking out other thrums which can cause a wild host of negative effects as without the other thrums to keep one in check they run wild.
The art of Symphonus then became with Holy Compositions integral to many societies that built up worship to nature itself. But as times passed many believed it wasn’t enough as though not reliant on the gods, conductors still in a way had to rely upon spirits and their whims along with being potentially limited if they every traveled outside of set areas along with the other downsides so many tried to find method through which the study and practice of magic could advance even further. A hundred or so years after Symphonus became prominent, a group of conductors assigned with spurts of all three thrums managed to find a way to interpret the rhythms and flow of the songs into the various languages of the world which they then used in conjunction with much trial and effort to isolate the various portions responsible for specific effects that they could then put together onto musical and lyrical sheets that contained the essence of a single piece of magic in a format similar to contemporary and non magical songs. This opened the door for a new magical renaissance with it still being considered a part of Symphonus but its distinct version known as “Sheet Casting”.
Sheet Casters, or how they are normally referred to as “Composers” are those who create Spell Sheets that carry with them the specific parts of any given song that have very specific effects even if they are a bit basic which lets them call upon magic that they can control the form of through their choice of spell, though each spell still fits within and utilizes one of the three thrums in this method. Composers can by picking out just the parts they want cause magical effects by influencing the strings around them without having to go through a spirit as they don’t tap into the strings as a whole, only the small parts they wish to though this comes with a host of drawbacks as they are forced to memorize their spell sheets to cast them with any real power and if they wish to utilize magic without a sheet they have to know almost perfectly meaning it’s almost guaranteed one has to specialize and focus on similar spells as they all are very different in the lyrics and rhythms regulated for them as well as that to cast their spells they must start out with a medium in the form of a instrument they play their spells through that they can eventually discard though they must still mimic the motions with their hands and body. And in addition to all those, spells tend to be fairly less potent than magic cast through one of the songs as well as harder to draw upon as even if one can use them in any environment it taking much coaxing as a human or other similar race by themselves don’t have an innate magical presence like magical beings beyond their plectrum.
If you have read this far, thank you and as said before any advice or criticism is welcome.