 Fantasy settings are known for a lot of different things. Prophecies, swords, dark lords, dragons, but above all of them is magic. Everything from Middle-Earth to the Forgotten Realms to Roshar to Westeros has some sort of magic that the denizens can utilize. Sometimes it's strong, sometimes it's weak, sometimes anyone can use it, sometimes it's rare. Magic, more than anything, sets fantasy apart from other genres and gives it a life of its own. The problem with that is that writers often just take it for granted that magic will be in their setting and so don't put much thought or effort into designing it the way it works or its place in the world. RPGs and video games are particularly bad about this. So I just saw that while editing and I realized I should probably clarify that it's not a huge deal when RPGs and video games do that because their first priority is to make sure the magic works with balanced gameplay and it's not so much a lore thing. Ideally it would be great for lore and gameplay, but if you had to choose one, definitely go with gameplay. Magic doesn't occupy a logical place in many settings. There are just some wizards that wander around doing stuff. It's not uncommon for them to form some sort of political and or military organization that can affect the world, but it is uncommon for them to have a well-thought-out place in society and it's almost as rare for their magic to be well thought out. If you threw magic into the real world, things wouldn't have developed the same. There's no way Europe in the Middle Ages would have been exactly the same plus an occasional wizard and there's no way fantasy worlds would fit this mold either. If you've seen any of my works on Blood Rose Rebellion then you know how vital a proper magic system can be to a setting or to a story. In that series the way the magic works was so incoherent that it created plot holes and made characters look stupid and it was especially frustrating because it would only require some minor tweaking to fix. So let's talk about world-building magic. Part 1. Hard vs. Soft Let's get one thing straight before we start. All magic systems exist on a spectrum from hard to soft. Hard magic is a magic that has a well-defined set of rules that the characters know and understand. This does not necessarily mean it's scientifically based though. Soft magic is magic that has less defined rules and limitations, at least from the perspective of the characters. For example, in Lord of the Rings Gandalf's magical abilities are whatever the plot demands of him. The other characters don't know much about what he can do or how his powers work other than that he can't destroy the ring of power. So this is a very soft system. Most modern fantasy series utilize a hard system, one of the best being Wheel of Time. It's explained what the source of magic is, who can use it, how they can use it, what sorts of limitations it has, what you can use it for, and the dangers involved. The characters don't know everything at the beginning. They discover new aspects to the magic over time. And even by the end of the series they don't know everything, but this is still a very hard system. Like I said though, this is a spectrum. You don't have to choose one side or the other. You can have a system that's fairly hard but with a couple of elements that are never totally explained. Or you can have a soft system that you explain a little bit. There's a lot of room to move around here. Some people have gotten it in their heads that hard magic is inherently superior to soft magic, especially since that's what's popular nowadays. This isn't true at all. Both types have their own strengths and weaknesses that you should consider before you build the magic system. Hard magic helps to make the setting feel more real and three-dimensional. When you explain things in detail it becomes part of the world just as much as the people in it. I assume that if you're watching this then you want to do something similar, and I'd encourage you to just keep an open mind and remember that this isn't the only route to take. Soft magic helps to create a sense of wonder, mystery, or fear around the fantastical elements of the story. When you don't know exactly where the wish granting fireflies come from, they give you a sense of awe. I personally prefer hard magic systems because I'm someone who enjoys being able to pick things apart and understand how they work, but don't take that as an endorsement of hard magic. Whatever you go for is going to depend on what you want to do with the magic and for that matter, why you're building a world in the first place. If you're just world-building for fun, then just go with whatever you think is coolest. If you're writing a story to go with it, then it's a more difficult question. In a traditional story about a young man fighting the Dark Lord and never knowing much about magic, it would probably be better to keep things soft so that the magic feels more wondrous or scary. If you're writing about someone who learns to use magic to save the world, it would be better to go in-depth with it so that the audience understands the limitations and what the characters can and can't do. Otherwise, there will be less tension during things like fight scenes. The point is that you should know what you're doing before you start the final draft. Part 2. What Can It Do? One of the most stereotypical spells that can be cast in fantasy is a fire spell. Need to light a dark room? Make a ball of fire in your hand. Need to warm yourself up? Burn some wood with ease. A horde of enemies coming at you? Just launch a fireball at them for 8d6 damage. Fire, along with other elemental combat spells, are a staple of fantasy at this point. They're simple and easy to understand and they're useful for fighting orcs or whatever. Great. But the more interesting stuff is usually more subtle. Influencing minds, creating small illusions, speaking with the dead, and making surfaces slippery are just a few examples of this. Maybe this is just my opinion, but I enjoy reading about low-key types of magic more than big displays of fire and lightning. They're just so simplistic and overused, at least outside of battles. And this might sound weird, but if you want your magic powers to be more interesting, you should give them limitations. For example, Allomancy in the Mistborn books gives certain people the ability to push and pull on metal, which acts as a sort of telekinesis. But you can only use it on metal and you can only push it away from you or pull it towards you. If you push or pull on something heavy, then you'll move instead. This is weaker than telekinesis, but that forces the characters to use it in more creative ways. To attack, they can throw some coins in the air and push on them to shoot like bullets. To move around, they can throw metal objects on the ground and then jump and push off of it, or they can pull on metal parts of buildings to climb really fast. Allomancy powers are much more interesting, not in spite of them being weaker, but because they're weaker. Another example is how wizards need wands to do most magic in Harry Potter. If they lose their wands or they get broken or if their wands are restrained, then their options become much more limited, adding more tensions to things like action scenes. If the characters are forced to rely more on their wits than on their powers, then they become better characters too. More than that, consider what uses magic has outside of combat. I know that's a big part of most fantasy stories, but people have lives outside of fighting. If magic can heal people, then that has pretty obvious applications in everyday life. Can you cast a spell to perform your household chores for you? What about change your appearance? View the past. Predict the future. I can't give you every possible example for this. Just think of how magic can affect things like the economy, social status, governments, and life in general. Then figure out how that could be incorporated into the rest of the setting. This makes the magic feel more real and three-dimensional as opposed to just some crazy powers that people use to fight. Part three, power source. Where does the energy for spells come from? From inside the spellcaster's body? From some objects that they possess? From nature? From their surroundings? From someone's life force? From some outside source? From seemingly nowhere? There are a million options, and even if the rest of your magic system is standard, you can make it unique by just giving it a different power source. In Mistborn, alimancers swallow metals and burn them up in their stomach, which means that they go back to normal when they run out. Another limitation that makes things more interesting. In The Wheel of Time, the energy source that magic users draw on is infinite. The amount that they can take in at one time is limited, though. If they draw in too much, then they risk severing themselves from the source and being unable to use magic anymore, known as burning out, or they can even kill themselves. So they're limited not only in how long they can use magic, but what kinds they can use. Harry Potter, as much as I like the magic system there, has an issue with this. It's never explained where the power comes from. How do they levitate people without any sort of energy? I don't know, and it's a small thing that bothers me. The series has a soft system, so it's not a huge deal that things like this aren't explained, but if you do a harder system, then don't do that. The default is to just make the energy come from within the character's own body, which can work fine, it just comes across as dull most of the time. The only time I've seen it done well was in Aragon, since mages can give each other energy or store it up in objects for later use. If someone relies on a diamond with energy in it to fight, and then they lose that, they're in trouble. So there's still some depth here which allows it to work, but just making the magic tire people out creates a dissonance since the audience knows that the hero will always have that last burst of energy when the plot demands it. Basically, just consider where the magic comes from and use that as a way to limit the magic user's power. The limitations make for better magic, better characters, and better story. Part 4. How do you learn it? This one is exactly what it says on the tin. What sorts of organizations or institutions exist to teach magic to others and or research it? Are there magic schools filled with adolescents coming to educate themselves? Or just individual wizards taking on apprentices? Or maybe magic is so rare that almost no one knows how it works and everyone is self-taught? Or maybe everyone is just born with their powers and they're all totally different? Before deciding how this works, ask yourself. Is magic hidden and practiced by a secret society? Known but rare? Or known and commonplace? Every single one of these styles of learning is going to be different. A Hogwarts-style school will likely be run by some sort of government and have things like testing and standardized curriculums. This means that everyone will know more or less the same things and have a grasp of the basics, even if they have different areas of knowledge and different skill levels. When people all go through the same education system in the real world, they can all do things like read and basic math, but higher education becomes more specialized. A high school diploma is usually just a general education, but a bachelor's degree will be in something more specific, like business or biology or mathematics. By the time you get to doctorate level, people have degrees in things like the history of the Byzantine Empire or the Venom of Coral Snakes, things that are extremely deep but extraordinarily narrow. Imagine if Hermione went to a post-Hogwarts University where she'd studied magic used to manipulate time and Ron studied... I don't know, how to summon dragons from thin air. They would be able to perform much different types of magic, which means if they ever fought for whatever reason, then they would have very different fighting styles. Of course, a school can only be set up if magic is relatively common and understood. If it's hated by mainstream society, then it would either not exist or be hidden in some way. Then we get to the concept of individual wizards teaching students. If everyone is teaching without government standards or any sort of oversight, then they're all going to have their own styles of doing things. A single wizard probably won't know everything about magic unless you make a relatively shallow system, and so his or her systems will have some blind spots. Even if they don't, they'll probably practice magic in a way that is different from others. Think of how there are different schools of martial arts in the real world that are all different but serve more or less the same purpose. Of course, if you have a system that's built around everyone having unique abilities, then everyone is going to figure out how things work on their own. At that point, how much they can learn depends on their personality and how willing they are to experiment. Being born with the power to slow down time is great, but if you don't know its limits, then it would be hard to use effectively. And remember that how you handle this comes back to the hard versus soft system debate. Educating someone on soft systems will likely be more about how much they don't know and how to be careful when using magic. Speaking of which... Part 5. Costs and Flaws What does magic cost in your setting? This is a question that surprisingly few people consider when starting off. They get caught up in this mindset of, ooh, awesome lightning spear that can talk to frogs and forget that without limits things become boring. So there has to be a cost to magic. It's very common to have the cost of magic just be fatigue. You cast a spell and get tired. I've already covered the issues with this though. Consider some other types of cost that might have to be paid. What if the lightning spear has to be charged up with sunlight after each use? Then the cost would be the time that the characters have to spend charging it. If every time they wanted to shoot lightning they had to sacrifice a dog, then the cost is very high and they'd hesitate to use it. If every time you wanted to cast a spell you had to cut off a finger, then you could only cast it ten times. Just about everything in life requires some sort of sacrifice to acquire. And while that doesn't always hold true in the land of fiction, things that don't have to be earned will usually feel hollow. Without cost, nothing has value. Insert full Metal Alchemist reference here. I don't think you should go out of your way to make magic as inconvenient as possible because at the end of the day, it's there to be cool and you don't want to detract from that. In the end, go with what your gut tells you. Then consider what sorts of issues casting magic causes for people. Like if the cost of magic is shaving off parts of your own soul, maybe your lifespan gets shorter. Maybe if you cast too many spells in a short period of time, then it can cause the land around you to grow poisonous so nothing will grow there anymore. Maybe you can't cast spells on aluminum. Maybe when technology is present, magic becomes weaker. Maybe you can only cast spells on Tuesdays. These are more like flaws, side effects of the magic or things it can't do. There are a ton of ways to do this that make the magic more unique, more interesting, and more limited. Making magic that's just flinging around fireballs is boring. And there are a thousand other places to get that. Settings that have magic that's just a little bit different stand out more. And if you don't want your work to stand out, then why are you even making it? Conclusion. The first question to ask before making a magic system is this. What purpose does the magic serve? You have to know that first, otherwise you're just flailing in the dark. If the purpose is just to be cool, then great, go with whatever you want, whatever makes you happy. But I'm willing to bet that you want to do something different if you're watching this. There's so much more I could have gone into detail with here, like what role magic plays in society or how its users research it. More than most other aspects of world building, this one can go in strange directions and still be justifiable since magic isn't real. So you've got lots of creative room. Now let loose and have fun. In the description I've linked a lecture from Brandon Sanderson where he spends an hour going over many of the same points as me in more detail. He approaches it from more of a storytelling perspective than a world building one, but most of the same points stand and it's useful to get advice from such a skilled author. Thanks to everyone for watching. Including my patrons, Christopher Hawkins, Joseph Pendergraft, and Melanie Austin, plus all the other fine folks whose names are currently scrolling by your eyeballs. If you want to support my channel, then consider donating to my page. If you can't do that, then liking, sharing, and commenting on the video helps it gain visibility. Bye.