This was a fun challenge for me. While there were several interesting and imaginative votes, one was the clear winner. I will say that there were some honorable mentions, that I think could have made for some interesting magic systems all their own. I won’t list them all, and all the entries were super appreciated, and creative, but some that might spin your minds, are: Christmas Cards, Tupperware, and a Cutting Board.
But the winner was an Egg Beater/ Whisk. They got more votes, and honestly with one little idea, it just sort of wrote itself. Thanks to everyone to supplied an entry, and please enjoy the magic system below!
In the year 837, famed philosopher, Herman Drudge changed the world as we know it by developing a system of controlling magic. Up until then, magic had been random chance. Happenstance. Luck.
Drudge was famed for saying the key to magic was in the golden soul of mankind. The blending between thought, and desire. Imagination and ambition. Creativity and willpower.
Magic is the ability to think up a thing, and then to will it into existence. That’s it. It’s as easy as breaking an egg. Well, breaking an egg made of mythril, maybe. The reason why so few people are able to will things into existence, is that the energy and thought put forth through the exercise of will that it would take to do it, is beyond the ability of an untrained mind. The untrained mind is rarely able to blend their thoughts together rapidly enough in order to sort of trick reality into making something real. At best, the untrained mind makes that sort of thing happen accidentally. Which is really just hazardous.
Drudge had an answer for the untrained mind. A series of questions. He expanded his student’s willpower by asking them, or so the story goes, 7 questions that changed the fabric of an idea. He taught them to ask them to themselves, in any order, over and over again. He color coded them, and attached them to a dial. He’d spin them and have them identify the question, attach it to an idea, and slowly over time the dial moved faster and faster.
Later one of his students improved upon the idea by adding gears and a crank. It became a whirling rainbow of thought. Through the ages the students pushed the method, now most people don’t have the willpower to force their thoughts into reality. In the early stages of Drudge’s method, people could emit small flames no larger than a candle. It was a useful triviality for starting campfires, and confusing your enemies. But as people have become more efficient, learned, and can expand and expound upon their thoughts more rapidly. It has become a lot more dangerous of a measurement. Fires being emitted at a size comparable to a cart of wagon.
Energy is the easiest thing to form. This was why fire is the first thing learned by a mage. The more solid the matter, the harder it is to think into existence. The more thought, and expounding that must be done at a greater and more rapid pace. At this junction, though while theoretically possible, no one has been able to think lead into existence.
Let’s recap. If you can imagine it, it can happen. Except maybe lead. The more solid the thing, the harder it is to make happen. You train your mind by asking questions that expound and expand upon the idea that started them. There are whirling hypnotic devices that help egghead wizards to think more clearly in that fashion.
There you have it, eggbeater magic.
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Keith “Saegan” Cronyn