Magic requires the extremely precise pronunciation of unintelligible gibberish...

>Dancers have more raw power, but Singers have much more energy and finesse.
Flip these.

Nah son. Dancing shapes energy in broad strokes, and can allow the user to control a great deal of it at once because they are building a large pattern with their whole body, but a dance is nowhere near as concise as verbal lyrics. Meanwhile singers have a great degree of control over magic, but it is difficult to conjure much power with only words.

That is why most magic is cast in tandem by a singer and dancer. The dancer building the pattern with their movements, gathering energy and directing it into the words of the singer who takes it and weaves into precise formation, encoding magical commands with far greater intricacy than dance can convey before releasing the spell.

There is no reason for a caster, if he is a true master, to only learn one style. Right?

While this is true, the anti-establishment roots of rapping often leads those who mix their rap with the stylings of other magic schools to be ostracized by their peers on both sides, however their power cannot be ignored.

It is possible to amplify the power of the spell by increasing the amount of people contributing to the spell, however, one dancer and one singer is the most efficient combination as beyond that you get diminishing power level increases per person.

Some mad individuals choose to master both paths, using them at once to gain untold power and ability. The few who do not give up from the difficulty are usually destroyed by it, but not all. There are a select few throughout history who have mastered both dance and song, employing both at once and reaping the absolute power it grants. Such as Mikhail, Son of Jack, who has been recorded as possible the most magical man who has ever lived, his exploits ranging from raising and controlling the living dead, to traversing the moon and even the apparent warping of gravity itself.

> Scholars carve their runic symbols into blades, staves, rings, and much more, forming intricate lyrical patterns that when activated, cause the object in question to emit a symphonic vibration which flawlessly casts one or more spells whose runes have been inscribed in the object.

> Many magic users specialize in enchanting items, weapons, and armors. While they are lacking in power and versatility, these enchanters are under no risk when they cast their spells, and often ply their trade to make immense profits.

Boundless, limitless, decentralized magic, no schools or styles, no shared mana or energy sources, no fast and hard distinctions between practitioners and sources, symbolism and intent, people just find things that work for many myriad mystical reasons and incorporate it into a rich and varied body of folkloric and scholarly study and practice across the world.

In one land, highly respected ritual masters of a long, storied tradition incant words of power in their magnificent domes of marble, whose power is derived from and ancient nature and divine origin of the mysterious language they speak, but in another land, howling beast-skin shamans around green flames blur the lines of life to access the heartbeat and lifeforce of all animal in the spirit realm to heal wounds and direct heart attacks, and in another land, a lone wizard directs his apprentice to pour the highly rare concoction into the silver bowl under the waxing moon at the precise moment inside the chalk circle of protection, so that they might wrench the shade of a long dead scholar from the Pit, whose secrets he brought to the grave.

tl;dr everyone's magic is real and none of it is related, it just is

> Elementals are fucking terrifying because they are the incarnation of their respective elements, have mighty and incredibly versatile power over that element, are extremely difficult to damage, can regenerate in the presence of their element, and unlike most entities, require no singing, dancing, gesturing, or enchantments to perform their spells, as they are natural abilities, not magic.

>Scholars have been studying elementals for centuries and it has been established that they require no dance or song to perform magic, making them exceptionally difficult foes.
>Though seen as somewhat of a crackpot theory, there is evidence to suggest that they are in fact performing song and dance in their casting and it is the mere fact that the dance of fire and songs of stone are so alien that they could not be recognized as such.
>One such scholar has hired your party to aid in his studies of elemental dance, resorting to the hiring of adventurers because in the magical community he has been ostracized for his absurd theories.
>His research shows promise however, and the power to emulate the magic of elementals, perhaps even the ability to summon and control them, a heretofore unthinkable proposition, is alluring.

Obviously, anybody who believes this is brutally murdered because other mages find their view point so repugnant.

This is my jam, and this, is my biscuit.

Weaving is best magic.

>wizards duel by trying to out shred each other
Yeah boi

I never have any idea how to fluff magic in my setting(s). I like the preparation style magic for dungeon crawling play, but I also like the more spontaneous systems like Ars Magica and enjoy the fluff of mana or inner energy for magic.

>inb4 'put em together hur dur!'
Doesn't work like that. It's mutually exclusive.

>"Magic" doesn't exist but psyionics do.
>However "individual psyonics" are pretty weak
>You can only make it work by making the people around you believe that you can do real magic
>This explains why wizards don't use armor or unassuming clothing even though doing so would be more convenient or safe

>mutually exclusive
Challenge accepted
Have mages need to chanel mana and warm it up before being able to cast spells so that they need to prepare for spell casting, but once they do spells can be cast readily at will.

Magic is universal, but inaccessible to all (exceptions)

Beings born with or of magic can access magic.
Some beings may learn ways to access magic while not having magic of their own, usually by using incantations, special materials or devices or in certain places,

Both may use the same 'control' systems, given the same level of access, though those with innate connections will have an easier effort. Some control systems:
Dancing certain patterns and steps, possibly including certain dress, lack of dress, woad, jewelry, etc.
Singing/chanting, either set pieces, ritual verses, chants, etc.
Physical access by location, body or body part manipulation, item manipulation, sacrifice, etc.
Wielding of a magical control device such as a ring, wand, etc.

There are other controls means, but the efficiency, results, usefulness, costs, time and more all vary by myriad factors. A simple charm might quell an unruly stomach, but an actual cure be beyond current capacities, Permanent devices (wands, swords) are crafted for reliability and less for improvisation, but a skilled practitioner might stand that on head.

Control of magic is extremely individualistic, sole casting being fastest, most efficient, versatile and such. Each person added can ease the strain, provide accents or other magics, etc, but they must be trained at working together and bring other problems to the 'spell', greater time or materials being common. Most such 'ritual' magics incorporate extensive chants to keep all in sync.

More skilled and powerful wielders can get away with all manner of 'cheats'.

For as many flaws as it had, I did actually quite like the magic system in Eragon.

>The gods who created the world accidentally left their debugging tools active
>Magic in the form of incantations and gestures are mnemonic devices to activate metaphysical cheat codes that are so complex the mortal mind cannot comprehend them in their raw form

>The world was "programmed" by the gods on a simple enough system that by putting certain items in your inventory and walking in a specific pattern you can reprogram it
Magic is actually just the kind of shit you use to speedrun pokemon red

>checked
Also:
>this
And:
>/thread

Who are the three greatest archmages of all time?

Dy'lan
Dy'lan
and Dy'lan

>Where's my Pokeballs...hmm
>I'll just dupe hundreds of Master balls and leave them lying around!

Trainers: no sense of right or wrong.

Poor user. You've fallen right into my trap. I never actually believed that it was impossible to make a magic system like this could work. In fact, i wanted it to be made.

But I didn't know how to do it. So I said it was impossible so someone would get baited and help me this way. I am sorry user, I deceived you, and now I have my answer.

How then would these two different magic users create different types of magic?
Like take a field of magic, say Necromancy.
How do they do it?

Klaatu
Barada
necktie?

Thats actually the premise of a setting I was working with. Its in a world where the arcane apocalypse has happened and reduced all non magic users to stone and the remaining survivors struggle to feed off of monsters and each other to keep enough mana energy to not turn into statues.

True magic created by voice has been long forgotten by most mages as it caused the creation of monsters in the first age. Its far too volatile and can raze entire cities by the mispronunciation of a single letter.

Most mages nowadays have to cast via brands and have had their tongues marked from birth to prevent this from being a possiblity. Brands are more stable than imbuing or wordsmithing but have a habit of mutating the user to the point that they lose all sense of self.

The particular style of Dancing and Singing magic determines the effects, so they'd probably probably perform Thriller or something.

Singer's would be able to raise small numbers of undead, possibly only one, but they would be far more complete and intelligent, capable of understanding complex commands. Say they wanted to destroy a town, they could raise a few undead that would infiltrate during the night, murdering people in their sleep, vomiting their rancid bile into wells and food stores, setting fires and such.

A dancer would simply call necromantic energy into an area with a simple guiding command behind it. Far greater numbers of far less coherent undead, all things dead in the area would try to kill anything living, but anything beyond "move towards living thing and attack" would be unlikely. You'd have severed hands scraping at locked doors, zombies barely held together shambling after barking dogs, etc.

When done together, you could have a large number of weakish things like zombies that can actually follow simple commands, or you could raise a small number of quite powerful undead, things like vampires and wights.

Gimme another magic school, this is fun.

How about Divination?

so dose siri.
its all the same tech.
wake up magic = lost tech.

Divination is one of the most interesting schools of magic, and perhaps the least understood.

The process is similar for both methods, and is often described in similar ways. Singers describe the process as singing a love song to what they want to see, in the hopes of coaxing it into a duet. This makes it one of the most finicky schools of magic, as you must find the right song for each subject. A singer might serenade the future, but if his prose is too simple he will get nothing back. However should you complicate your lyrics too much, the song sung back to you may be so arcane as to be indecipherable.

Dancers work much the same, hoping to gain their subject as a willing dance partner. But while singers might get a quite accurate reading about something, the scope is much smaller than a dance. Any town will sing to you about it's day, a sword might boast of it's recent accomplishments and next week will take a moment to whistle you a tune, but it is difficult to coax a song out of anything larger.

Dancing is far different, there are those that have twirled with countries, centuries, mountains and long dead kings. But at the end of the dance you will be left with only feelings, vague but powerful. A century might whip you roughly in it's arms, warning you of violence, the mountain may pull you tenderly against it's heart, promising greatness to be found within it. But it is anyone's guess what that violence may be, a great quake? A terrible war? and what could lie within the mountain? Are there riches of gems and gold? Perhaps there is civilization deep within to meet and ally with, or there could be something never before seen.

Combining singing and dancing is haphazard at best, for you do not want to confuse the subject, and asking it to sing and dance at once is quite demanding. You may make it jealous of your partner, or shy at too great a procession, as such most have given up on trying to combine the two methods.

>magic is a language that was made by the creators of the universe so that when they enter it they can go into debug mode and do cool hax
>humans and other sentient beings either accidentally discovered it or were taught by some of these god beings
>intent, spirit and willpower are just arbitrary variables in spellcasting, like waving your hand a certain way or saying certain stuff. Absolutely anything can be a magic trigger, but they are usually uncommon and obscure because they were designed that way so that beings in the universe wouldn't accidentally cast spells all the time.
>stumpy human bodies and limited brains make our use of magic far from flawless, but because our adaptations are more generalized and centered on utilization than other species, we have a comparatively better chance of doing it right than they do
>but we still have no idea what the fuck we're doing because we didn't make any of it

>divination magic is romancing the universe so that the two of you can know each other more intimately
FFFF- I love this interpretation

Hit me with another magic school, I'm diggin this. I'm good at whipping elaborate explanations for things out of my ass on the spot.

My memory may be poor and I may have read them when I was 9, but I seem to recall really liking Tamora Pierce's Circle Quartets and their mages.

Transmutation?

>not using the true names of objects in your incantations
>not having telepathy as an extension of your inborn magic ability
>not using your own body's energy to fuel spells
>not using a gestalt of your Con and Int as your casting stat

>A dancer would simply call necromantic energy into an area with a simple guiding command behind it. Far greater numbers of far less coherent undead, all things dead in the area would try to kill anything living, but anything beyond "move towards living thing and attack" would be unlikely. You'd have severed hands scraping at locked doors, zombies barely held together shambling after barking dogs, etc.

Ah transmuters, an eccentric bunch.

Suppose you wish to turn stone to mud, it's a fairly common song so we'll use it as an example. Transmutation songs always start by describing the subject. You must sing about it with complete honesty, that way the magic you are gathering knows where it must go, and the object itself trusts you. Sing of the stone as it is, of it's hardness, of it's coldness, it's shape and size and texture. The next part of the song tells of the journey it is about to take, you must sing of how it's hard face softens and the magic you've gathered will begin it's work. ( A side note, there are several variations of this song, some simply sing of the stone softening, while some songs are sad, telling of how the stone weeps itself to mud, other's joyous accounts of the stone melting in pleasure. Many singers have their preference but all seem to work well so long as you have the skill.) As you sing of the stone's journey the magic you've gathered and commanded will make it true (For only true songs draw magic, and drawn magic makes only true songs) The last part of the song determines is of the stone's final resting place, where it ends up at the end of the journey. Usually when the song ends and the magic has stopped it's work the mud will come back to it's senses and become as stone again, but if your song is powerful enough, you may convince the magic that the stone is and always will be soft mud, the stone itself may prefer the truth of your song to it's own memory.

All transmutation songs function by this principle. First you sing the truth of the past, what the stone was. Then you sing truth of the present, what is happening to the stone right now, then finally you sing of the future, what the stone has become and will remain. It is the same if you wish to walk on air or make a sword sharper.

> Not having it all at once

Now the dancer's, their transmutation spells are far different, in fact the different between dance and song is most pronounced when you talk of transmutation.

A transmutation dance is one of great energy and the effects are significant if crude. There are indeed fewer of what you would consider "spells" when it comes to transmutation dancing, as each dance becomes something new for the world must be danced around, danced with, danced for, but it cannot be danced at. A dancer could indeed make stone into mud, but the control would never be so precise as what a song would accomplish.

Such a dance would involve moving like water, flowing too and fro in the area, calling more and more magic to yourself as you dance, pulling it along with you with fluid movements until the magic itself becomes fluid. It is then that you allow the magic to spread, instead of pulling it along to trace your movements and become one with your dance of water, you begin pulling it through the stones, and as the magic that believes itself fluid passes through the stone it will make the stone fluid along with it. In this way a dancer might twirl and flow through a castle's walls or out of a cave and all that her magic touches will melt to mud, and harden back to stone when it is gone.

As you can now understand, transmutation dances are much different from songs. But combined it is truly amazing what can be accomplished, a city might be raised in a day as dancers leap from stone to tree to brick and board, dragging magic that demands movement and cooperation, As a chorus of singers intone the lyrics of a grand march that each piece will follow, a steady refrain of bricks that stack upon themselves and boards that lean against each and nails that sink into them, of singles that leap atop boards and so on and so forth.

Truly great things can be accomplished by combining transmutation song and dance.

Wait... This IS the magic system in Eragon. I knew someone other than me got at least some enjoyment out of that book.

I liked the setting, but the majority of the characters were boring. The magic system and Roran Stronghammer were the best parts imo. Roran is now my go-to inspiration for barbarian characters.

Bump.