What is the most interesting magic system you have encountered in all of fiction, Veeky Forums?

Secrets of Zir'An remains my biggest 'what if' game. Indiana Jones meets Final Fantasy, the studio sank do to White Wolf's stupidity.

This was the series I came in here to mention. Through the use of magic brands (made of a rare, imported metal), attributes like Brawn, Grace, Wit, and more could be transferred from one individual to another.

However, it was important that the giver stay alive, or else the connection would end. As I recall, the royal family had mostly servants that had given up Hearing or Sight, but an assassin in the first book crept in and slaughtered all the king's Grace-givers, leaving him with the dexterity of a normal human when he wasn't expecting it.

So, what happens to the people who give the attribute? Do they lose it? Does a strong person becomes weak? A smart person becomes dumb? An agile person becomes clumsy?

Mistborn series has something like that too, but it usually requires the donor to be killed and can also be used to transfer other mystical powers.

Yes yes yes. One of the sub-plots followed some peasants, in which a family had all three daughters "sell" their wit and charm, becoming slow and unlikable. I think the actual focus of the arc, some attractive woman, was slated to sell her beauty to a noblewoman before Plot Shit occurred.

It was a big thing to care for the now-kitten weak, blind, or paralyzed donors.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure the two older sisters just donated their wit and... something to the youngest sister, so she could run the family business.

Astral aves (a webcomic) has a really interesting magic system based on the interplay between two planes (the diurne and the nocturne). read it

I love how the TWEWY universe ticks.

>The World Ends With You
I stopped playing it at the very, very, very beginning. I found the controls hard to use (emulator) and the MC an insufferable faggot. Is it worth going back and actually playing it?

Get it for your phone. Playing on the DS is the best option but it'll do.

Full Metal Alchemist, full stop.

It justifies a lot of its shit with "science", while retaining a lot of mystery. Just wish there was a good system to run it.

Somebudy recreated the magic system in the gurps thread a while back

Malazan book of the fallen. The Warrens always seemed really cool.

Is it available for Android?

ds emulators are, yeah

Oh shit! Really! Tha-

>GURPS

Oh. Nevermind. My players refuse to even consider GURPS.

Ignore all the parts you want to and then don't tell them you're playing gurps. That's what everybody that plays gurps does.

Sneaky. I like it!

I urdge you to consider it. GURPS isn't a system by itself, it's a system for making systems. People forget that.

I remember one where magic was based on passing energy through a medium. Mages would use wands or staffs made of wood because not only do plants have natural energy pathways, but if something goes wrong, a stick is very easy to replace. It also explained why a witch would live in a secluded forest. She would have near unlimited materials.

Yea I thought this is what everyone does with GURPS.

From Trail of Cthulhu part 1/3
>Magic is a hyper-scientifc discipline of visualizing and manipulating trans-dimensional energy fields. Acoustic signals (words of power) and geometric matrices (sigils and gestures) act as control systems, which have transcended mere material technology. The energies bleed between universes through pinpoint wormholes, often dependent on specific patterns of stellar and cosmic radiation. “Summoning a monster” merely involves establishing such a wormhole to translate it from one place to another.
>Only those who have successfully Dreamed can do magic – but this includes those who Cthulhu has touched or Awakened in his own slumbers.
>Magic is simply another name for psionics. Summoning monsters is a matter of sending the correct telepathic message, Shrivelling is pyrokinesis, and the Elder Sign is a powerful post-hypnotic compulsion implanted on Cthulhu billions of years ago and involuntarily transmitted to his followers telepathically. Anything with a brain can train itself in psionic disciplines, though some species (and some specific beings) have far more potential than others.

From Trail of Cthulhu part 2/3
>When the Elder Things dominated the globe, all their technology was fundamentally biological. The crinoids controlled not just the shoggoths, but their stone buildings, their metal tools, their weapons and prisons and experimental power plants and everything with a vastly complex set of network and circuit protocols embedded in the very genes of their servants. The Elder Things maintained the control codes and distributed switching relays for the system in a specially designed plankton fog stored in the oceans. These relays transmitted signals and information using quantum dipole connections between certain molecules. When the shoggoths rebelled, the system crashed hard. Pieces of it rewrote themselves, gained partial sentience, went berserk, and programmed themselves to nest and reproduce. Some of them evolved into mammals, and then into humans. Magic, on Earth anyway, consists of “tapping into” the surviving shoggoth “circuit diagram,” which is in almost all terrene matter, not least in DNA, crystals and igneous rocks, and metal.
>The above scenario is only one of the times that a similar disaster has happened. The first and worst was the crash of the Azathoth entity, which dropped whole universes into a mere three or four dimensions and left barely sentient subroutines mindlessly throwing off leaked power and short-circuits across billions of galaxies. Every so often an alien species learns enough about the local diagram to sloppily patch a kludge of loose wires and strange diodes into the system. Human contactees and drug addicts have documented some of these work-arounds, the rest of which remain forgotten until a new entity tries to power up the board … and something goes horribly wrong.

From Trail of Cthulhu part 3/3
>Magic is actually what most humans (and serpent-folk, and mi-go) practitioners believe it to be: a non-physical energy permeating everything that is perceived. It cannot be manipulated technologically, and it is merely tangent to the weak gods of Earth. It relies on signifiers, secrecy, and rotes, and is more connected to perception than it is to mentation. Hence, beings that can “see” into more dimensions are more naturally gifted magi. The magus’ will is what focuses his perception, and brings about effects.
>Magic is perceptual gravity. The more important the entity, the more it warps reality in its vicinity. Said vicinity includes where the entity is looking – even human physicists are beginning to understand that observation is action is location – where it’s been, and where it’s being asked to look. Hence, magical spells invoke powerful entities to boomerang off their “gravity well” and create the potential (literally, the energy differential) for “unreal” actions.
>Magic requires blood sacrifice from the magus, as a way of providing your “public key” to the cosmos by delivering your DNA to Yog-Sothoth. Sacrificing babies or virgins or whatever is the equivalent of hacking the universe using someone else’s account.
>All magic is a matter of dealing with spirits. These immaterial beings live along the edges of the dimensions, acting as interfaces between otherwise incompatible mentalities. Some spirits dwell fully in one or another universe but at a higher (or lower) energy state, often wielding great local power, but only perceptibly in short bursts.

From Trail of Cthulhu part 3.14159265359/3
>The above is true, only every spirit is an avatar of Nyarlathotep. Hence, only those who have communed (knowingly or unknowingly) with Nyarlathotep can work magic. Or their descendants – a fine option for Investigators with In the Blood as their Drive.
>No, every spirit is a facet of Yog-Sothoth. Hence, to work with more than local spirits, the magus must contact the Opener of the Way to get permission (Clearance? Code words?) to communicate information across dimensional boundaries.
>Magic is toxic-pollution, the after-effects of the energetic collision of the great elemental gods. Where their overwhelming forces meet their impenetrable fields, pieces of space-time come unstuck. Where this dimensional fallout lands, reality weakens and magic becomes possible. Earth caught a fairly intense dose of this fallout during the fall of Cthulhu, and is a deadly motherlode of a reality. Beings like Nyarlathotep exploit weak races like the mi-go to mine it out in quasi-material lattices; other forces seek to devour it more directly.

The runic magic from The Runed Age. Fully customisable and you can do whatever you want with it.

It's on the store too.

I'm a massive fan of the Magic in the Laundry Files series, and the associated RPG.

Yeah, Neku's an insufferable faggot.

To start with. It all makes sense though.

I read like two chapters of a book series once in which the magic system was just called having 'the will' and basically just involved having enough Willpower to force things to change. I like this because it's clearly something that's self limiting, becomes harder when you try greater feats, and is kind of obvious and simple. Obviously though works a lot better for a story then a tabletop game.

Also I really like the force as portrayed in the original star wars trilogy, really good light and dark side stuff that doesn't require necromancy or demons to have dark wizards.

During the Avengers Academy Murderworld event, there was a witch who could only cast a particular spell the same way once. She could freeze something using "freeze", but if she wanted to freeze something again, she needed a different word or phrase: "chill out", "cool down", etc.

If she ended up using the same phrase, either on purpose or by accident, she basically rolled on a Wild Magic table.

How good is that time travel? Does it handwave paradoxes or actually get around them?

Pact Magic

The Lesser Key of Solomon, Tome of Magic, and Secrets of Pact Magic

Basically contacting entities outside of conventional reality for power and guidance, typically with mental and physical side effects. It was great to play D&D with magic what wasn't simply pre-packaged fire and forget. There were risks to opening yourself to these eldritch beings and the rewards were usually more subtle than raining fire and lightning on your foes. My group has a number of fond memories of games involving this magic, such as practitioners forces to act in a certain way by their patrons or physically mutating in very disturbing ways from trying and failing to properly commune with vestiges.

Is that the magic system that Veeky Forums created based on runes?

Wright's and the Khert from Unsounded. Basically writing and rewriting things in the fabric of reality, where it can also fray and break.

This magic is awesome I have a whole metaphysics for a setting that has this sort of magic. I'm thinking of running it in Fate as aspects are intrinsic to the concept.

My brother wrote a short story about shamanic candle magic. The best part was the candles were made from flying magical narwhals and the wicks were made from their horns. Doing certain rituals while burning the candles would produce different effects.

Another reason I like Nasu magic is all the things that break the rules. The whole concept of "mystery," and how understanding things less gives them greater potential power because you don't know their limits. Origins, reality marbles, True Magics, all that stuff. Its an awesome throwback to how magic was portrayed in fantasy in the distant past, as something that was more otherworldly and beyond most people. Rules heavy Magical Science/Math is the norm now, and the fact that Nasu goes Full Mystical within a Magical Science/Math system just makes it better.

See this video for a more eloquent explanation of what I'm talking about: youtube.com/watch?v=VHrTTgmB_3w

I like the magic where you get a certain power that does some random and potentially useless effect like make things lighter and then finding cool and creative ways to use said power

Ohh, that's Nico Minoru from The Runaways, she wields the Staff of One.

I always thought this kind of magic made more sense than chanting words or making hand gestures.

>im not really shooting a fireball at you.
>technically, im opening a portal to dimension of pure flame and pointing it at you.

Hmm... I will let myself wander a bit.

I really enjoyed the rigor of Kingkiller Chronicle magic. Its sympathetic principle draws from historical beliefs about magic, which is very cool.

Similarly, FMA equivalent exchange is excellent. Sometimes very Anime things happen, but it's still one of the best Magic is Science systems out there.

The Fifth Season has humans with the ability to control heat (e.g. draw in heat from the surrounding air to create a zone of cold around the caster, instakill normies by increasing their temperature, etc.) This system is dear to me because it was one I had considered writing myself before discovering the book. All in all I'm very happy with how it's handled, and I'm excited for the sequels.

Surprisingly none of Sanderson's systems make the list for me. I think he's worth mentioning because of his Laws of Magic, which are all very sane: brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/

As you can tell I have trouble arriving at a system I find most interesting. All of these systems interested me in different ways. For the sake of not being lame though, I will elect Ocarina of Time's magic through music as most interesting because its aesthetic is still pleasing to me almost two decades after I first played it, which surely satisfies some definitions for both most and interesting.

Runeanon did, yeah, and then published a game about it.

I love the magic from the Bartimaeus trilogy, where absolutely bloody everything is down to summoning djinn and binding them to your will and/or equipment.

>summoning djinn and binding them to your will and/or equipment
Wait a second!

>What is the most interesting magic system you have encountered in all of fiction, Veeky Forums?

...

Pymary in Unsounded is extremely cool.

Magecraft in Nasu stuff.

Mage: The Ascension magic.

Mage: The Ascension is possibly one of the coolest magic settings and systems imaginable.

Mage: The Awakening is a little more refined on rules but the setting and lore are a bit different. Not necessarily worse though. Just a lot more subtle urban fantasy.

My personal favorites are Pact magic like the aforementioned Binders in D&D, Diabolists from Pact, Faustian Bargains, and the Bartimaeus Sequence. Even Surgebinders from Way of Kings. Power bargained for is always more interesting and everything has a cost.

On the subject of cost, FMA is pretty awesome too. Being a chemist by vocation I find it especially alluring even if the actual sciences behind it are a little loose.