#fantasy writing
Some magic systems become more realistic if there is a consequence brought onto it’s user. Sometimes this can be as simple as balance— if you heal a life, another life must be given. Here are some ideas to get your mind churning on what consequences your magic could cause to its user.
1) Pain. If the magic is brute and aggressive (fire, lightning, mind control in a negative manner) the user feels all of that same pain they exerted onto someone else.
2) Emotional disconnection. The more the user plays with their power, the less emotion they can feel. Eventually, this could lead to complete disconnection from everyone they love and a decay into pure evilness.
3) Headaches. If the user has a mind-related power, giving them headaches could be a simple yet effective consequence. The headaches could make their power unstable, chaotic and truly dangerous.
4) Years off their life. Every time they use their ability, it slowly takes days, months and years away from their life. If they’re immortal, they risk mortality.
5) Slip into madness. The power either gets to their head or it has an evil origin thus causing them to become mad and insane overtime.
6) Freedom. The power is actually an entity of its own and while the user thinks they have control over this awesome ability— it’s really controlling them. Over time, it forces them into doing things or hurting people and one day they just become a soulless puppet. (Makes me think of a parasite )
7) Increased aging. The speed at which you age is increased, but the user doesn’t realize it until they start seeing grey hairs or wrinkles.
8) Blood loss. The magic draws upon the users blood and they have to wait for it to restore before using their abilities— if they don’t, or use a large surge of their ability, it can drain them of blood.
9) Memory loss. The wear and tear on the users mind causes them to slowly forget their lives until they have nothing left to remember. Alternatively, maybe the power needs to use these memories as source of energy.
10) Decay. The users body slowly begins to wither. Nails rotting, skin peeling, eyes drooping, knees weak… mama’s spaghetti.
11) Extreme exhaustion or tiredness. The power keeps them up at night and takes a ton of energy to use. This renders the user constantly exhausted which can lead to death either from exhaustion, or from making fatal mistakes because they’re so tired.
12) Sacrifices. The power requires some sort of sacrifice to the gods or else they take their power back. An animal, a conjuring of different herbs and items, blood… a life.
13) Addiction. Similar to foods or drugs, magic can become addictive and deadly at high dosages.
14) Bad luck. The magic brings upon bad luck. The more magic you use, the worse luck you’ll receive.
Some interesting power + consequence combinations (from the top of my head and from literature/movies):
- The healer who is constantly bleeding internally.
- The rebelled servant who has finally gained his freedom but becomes slave to the magic itself.
- A magical ring that brings someone back from the dead. Every time this person comes back from the dead, they lose their compassion and humanity bit by bit. (The Vampire Diaries)
- A witch brings someone back from the dead and as a consequence, the person begins to see dead people and can interact with them. (The Vampire Diaries)
- The power induces OCD— after using their power they feel a compulsion to do something. Sometimes it’s as small as drinking a beer and other times it’s as intense as breaking their own bones. (Darker than Black)
- Magic gained from a celestial source (the moon, a star, etc) causes earth to become painful to the magic users. In extreme cases, they are pulledtowards that celestial body and need to weigh themselves down/tether themselves to something or else they will drift upwards. (The Anubis Gates)
Pt. 2 — Coming Soon! Because it’s really fun to just sit here and brainstorm and research magical consequences! I feel like the possibilities are endless!
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The worst part about writing fantasy is being keenly aware that you’re writing fantasy, which means that you always have to straddle a thin three-way line between anachronism, cliche, and clunk.
Take money, for example. You can’t just have people in a fictional fantasy world walk around using Euros. You consider something generic, like ‘silver coins,’ but before you know it your world starts sounding like a shitty ren faire.
So you think about the world you’ve built and its needs and its history to come up with some unique and relevant terms. But if your terms are toounique and relevant you wind up writing “yarr, you’ll be ransomed for a hundred Trade League Silver Gyrblonks” and realize your worldbuilding is now getting in the way of basic readability.
“They’re using golden valley coins!”
…didst thou mean dollars?
“Nevermind. They’re using some basic silver coin and then enough gold to be worth ten silver coins is called a ten-piece”
…Si, si, el Peso!
Trying over, they’re minted by the king so they’re called crown coins, or, these days, abbreviated, they’re just Crowns
Naturligvis, vi skifter Daler ud med Kroner!
—
The Lesson Of The Day is that all the names are already claimed by IRL, and all the almost-good-names that you could invent to get around that were used by some SFF author in the seventies e.g. I bet you can’t do Suns and Moons for your gold/silver coins, I bet some author did that already.
My fantasy nation uses solid gold coins marked by the dental impressions of the reigning king, as a sign of their purity and authenticity.
They’re called Bitcoins.
oh you can go the fuck to jail that’s what you can do, where you’ll be shackled to a chain gang hitting the blockchain with a pickaxe
