I LOVE THIS MAGIC SYSTEM SO MUCH - Tumblr Posts

hello friends, and welcome to the first official installment of what I will now be referring to as the Candlewick Diaries, where I’ll be rambling about my WIP comic and its setting! I'm also thinking about opening my askbox for this so y'all can ask me questions if you want :)

for today’s entry: the magic system.

so I mentioned in the intro post that the world is connected by “magical ties to the Spirits known as Threads.” well, here is where I elaborate on that; it starts way back at the beginning of the world.

once upon a time, back and back and back, there was no Oruna (that's the name of the planet, by the way). there were only the Spirits, and they had grown weary of the silence. they itched to fill this blank canvas before them with something, but had nothing to create with. nothing, that is, except themselves. even the Spirits cannot create from nothing.

so each Spirit began to spin some of their very essence into magical threads, and then together they wove those threads into worlds, and thus Oruna was created. it was not the first planet they wove, nor the last, but it was one of their favorites. because of that extra appreciation for these planets, the Spirits revisited them and breathed them to life, causing the latent energy in the Threads to become an active force in them. in this way, not only did living creatures emerge, but so did sapience, and in tandem, the ability to harness the magic of the Threads.

all living things upon Oruna and the other Awakened Worlds are connected to one or more Threads that grant them specific physical features and/or behaviors. and sapient peoples have the potential to manifest the energy of their Threads in the world: this is what magic is.

Threads of different Spirits manifest in different ways. Threads of Enai (Spirit of Earth and Life) might grant the innate ability to speak with animals, magically heal others, or shape earth on a whim, while those of Nuro (Spirit of the Night and Deception) might grant the power to shapeshift or make oneself invisible. there is great variety in the abilities one can have, even from Threads of the same Spirit.

(note that not all people have the capacity to harness their Threads in this way. to be born with this capability is a completely random occurrence, and it is just as common to be unable to cast magic at all!)

now, time for some nuance: let's talk wild magic, tangles, and Weavers.

when someone is born connected to a single Thread, given that they are able to perform magic, they typically have no issues doing so. the same is true for two or sometimes even three Threads; the magic has a clear path out of the body and into the world. however, when more Threads are present in a person, they start out in a knot. in this state, one's Threads are considered to be tangled, and this tangle causes difficulty casting. the magic does NOT have a clear path out of the body, and while there is the occasional chance that things could go correctly, the results are usually unpredictable and volatile.

trying to cast using a tangled Thread could result in many undesirable outcomes: it could cause the power of any other Thread to manifest instead, cause the intended ability to manifest too weakly or too strongly, or cause the casting to fail altogether. to cast with your Threads tangled is to practice wild magic, and is generally regarded as dangerous, reckless, or foolhardy, depending on the Threads in your tangle.

with great amounts of mental exertion, usually in the form of intense meditation, it is possible to untangle one's Threads and therefore gain the ability to cast normally. sadly though, not everyone can accomplish this, and so there are many tangled people who either try to make the most of their wild magic, or simply stop trying to cast altogether.

finally, there are Weavers: those who are not only strong enough to untangle their Threads, but also to consciously weave them together, creating new abilities for themselves and taking part in the act of creation, as the Spirits once did when they wove the world into being. Weavers are often held in high regard for this reason.

and... I think that's finally all for now! I went on for much longer than I intended, heh, but I hope you enjoyed if you made it this far! thank you for reading, and I'll see you next time!