Bonus Material: Aurora's World Magic

[k_a_webb]

This may include spoilers, so please do not read if you are allergic to spoilers in any way.

Magic in Aurora's world is complicated. The type of magic you'll be able to use will depend on several factors: the year you were born; the month you were born; the day you were born; and what time you were born. All mages have some form of elemental magic and each person will be able to use it differently. How this all works still isn't known by the mages properly, so they've been working on a book so that they can understand it all. Sometimes they despair of ever truly understanding the magics. Currently they know what powers you will get due to the month you were born, but not day, time, or year. They are slowly getting there with year magics. Day and time are more difficult.

Here is what they know so far, using Earth months.

March
Known magics: fire, telekinesis

April
Known magics: earth, healing

May
Known magics: air, precognition

June
Known magics: water, empathy

July
Known magics: fire, light

August
Known magics: earth, plant

September
Known magics: air, telepathy

October
Known magics: water, memory

November
Known magics: fire, flight

December
Known magics: earth, dark

January
Known magics: air, remembering

February
Known magics: water, invisibility

All magics are at their strongest in the month that they are connected to, which means that someone will be able to stay invisible for longest during February. They are at their weakest in the opposite month, which means they will have the most difficulty becoming invisible in August.

Comments

Want to get involved?

[kajones-writing.livejournal.com]

At the moment I need some month names for this world and they work months from full moon to full moon. They have seasons like Earth, with the first month being the first month of spring and the last month being the last month of winter.

Also magics are needed for years, days and times. Years and times are based on the Chinese zodiac, starting in March with 11pm to 1am and the year 500. I'm thinking big magics for the years and little magics for the times. Days are based on the Western zodiac, so in Aurora's world today would be whatever it would be in the Western zodiac (January = Aquarius; February = Pisces; March = Aries; etc.).

Any ideas will be gratefully received and you will be thanked at the end of the post, unless you'd like to be anonymous.

Re: Want to get involved?

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to help.

>>At the moment I need some month names for this world and they work months from full moon to full moon.<<

Do you want names with clear English meanings (like Slippery Moon) or nonsense names (like Tivorn) for the months? Also if you're working with moon cycles but mapping these to Gregorian months, do you want 12 or 13 names? (That is, does Aurora's moon have the same period as ours, or is it longer? There are 12 calendar months per year, but about 13 moons.)

>>Also magics are needed for years, days and times.<<

I would look at astrology for year inspiration. Both Chinese year-astrology and the powers associated with planets in Western astrology deal in major influences.

For days and hours: are you wanting something that will cycle, or will there be room for odd little things that only work once a year?

If I toss my gaming guides and my Pagan books, I can probably come up with all kinds of magical effects.

Re: Want to get involved?

[kajones-writing.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

Moons, as in most of my series that use moons, work by seasons, so I say that there are three moons each season most years and then what would be their blue moon every three years which is an extra month. This will have a different magic that I'll need to think about. To be honest either would work. It's easy enough to give nonsense names a meaning specific to that world.

Days and hours are cycling, but because they cycle through months and years that have different magics they can effect the day and hour magics so there is space for little one offs. So you will only get said form of magic if you are born at this hour, on this day in this month of this years. It's all so much fun doing this, although I seriously don't know if I can make enough different magics for it to work.

However some will only work for one person if they write it, others have to sing, and that sort of thing, so that should make it slightly easier.

Have fun if you do want to help with this. Some magics, if I think they'll fit, may also be included in other stories if that's okay with you.

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>The type of magic you'll be able to use will depend on several factors<<

So it's kind of like astrologically derived magic, although the 'gears' driving it may be something other than planetary bodies. I have seen only a very few magical systems with an astrological flavor, and none of them looked much like this. Huzzah for uniquity!

Also, the interlocking gears of this system put me in mind of the Mayan calendars. You might poke into those for inspiration.

>>All magics are at their strongest in the month that they are connected to, which means that someone will be able to stay invisible for longest during February.<<

This is an awesome layout of strengths and weaknesses. I suspect the variation will be useful for plot purposes, though it's also going to be a pain in the butt to track. *ponder* Maybe put a date on each story, and try to devise a program that will chart character magic by date so you'll know how it should behave when.

Re: Wow!

[kajones-writing.livejournal.com]

The great thing about basing it on a mix of Chinese and Western means I know when opposites will be, but of course I'll have to work out as many of the effects as I can. However I don't think I'll be able to work it all out so I'll have to keep an eye on things.

Updates from Kajones_writing

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User ysabetwordsmith referenced to your post from Updates from Kajones_writing (http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/1910857.html) saying: [...] (about coping with amnesia). A new piece of bonus material is up, "Aurora's World Magic [...]