User blog:Eelic2/Dark Souls: Magic in the World of War Torn

So here we are trying to create a gritty world for our game, but we have been struggling to find a real thematic niche for our magical system. Magic is totally a thing, but this isn't high fantasy; we need to be really careful to highlight the physical and cultural differences between throwing balls of fire and shooting arrows. It struck me the other day that Dark Souls (and Dark Souls 2) have a pretty good paradigm for the cultural interaction of a world with magic. Here's their system, and my interpretation of the thought leading up to it:

First off, the thinking goes that there are four ways that a person can interact with magic (that is, what a person can focus on with it): For War Torn, this doesn't necessarily provide us with a blueprint, but it at least gives us a checklist for details that need to get squared away before we solidify magic as a unified, but varied mechanic in the game. The first of those details: What is magic?
 * 1) It's a thing you can DO.  For Dark Souls, the representative here is Pyromancy, and it's mostly characterized by an absence of the other categories.  Pyromancy isn't the subject of study, it isn't the subject of worship, and though it can be tied to some dark stuff, it's mostly about setting people and things on fire.  Sorcerers and clerics look at them like barbarians, but they don't really care.  They can set things on fire, and the simple fact of that is the extent to which the underlying magic intersects with their identity.
 * 2) It's a phenomenon you can UNDERSTAND.  For Dark Souls, this is Sorcery.  They are, of course, able to do things with magic, but they believe that it can be better utilized when better understood, and that desire to understand it is a part of their identity.  It is worth noting that while they are very concerned with how magic works, they aren't as concerned with why it works (ie, they feel no sense of reverence or thanks to the power that allows them to use it), or even what it does (which in turn means that the goal of being able to better utilize magic tends to be a rationalization just as often as it is a true goal).
 * 3) It's a force you can REVERE.  For Dark Souls, this is Miracles, and it's actually something that is fairly ubiquitous in the fantasy genre.  This is the cultural interaction that begets the priests, the clerics, the fanatics, etc.  Often in those worlds, there is truth to their interpretation too, but it doesn't have to be that way.  The reverence approach simply requires a personification of magic's source as a god, and this could just as easily be poetic license as observation.  It is important, though, that the magical power one wields is viewed as a boon, and the idea that the wielder is "chosen" in some respect plays some role in their identity.
 * 4) It's a power that can CONSUME you.  For Dark Souls (2) this is Hexing.  For their world, it was a fusion of the scientific eye of Sorcery with the reverence and ritual of Miracles with horrifying results.  Their practitioners included a man who spent his time sitting in a chair staring at a cave wall and a Jekyll/Hyde serial-killing assassin.  This is the type of magic that messes you up.  It is characterized by great devotion, and the capacity to erode much or all of the rest of a person's identity.  The reasons for this might vary.  It might reduce your desires and ability to interact to much more base instincts.  It might break you and drive you to madness.  It might open your mind and soul to truths that render everything else irrelevant.  Accordingly, this type of magic has a secondary characteristic in that, regardless of society's view on the rest of magic, it absolutely despises this type.

Magic, in War Torn, is a thing characters do with mana. Okay. What is mana? I'll propose an easy answer to that. Mana is a type of energy that the human mind and body can form a collective conduit for. But at its base, mana is energy.

Second question: Where does it come from? Another "easy" answer: It comes from the earth. It's always been there. Someone just figured out how to use it. From here, we can assign use cases for magic. The one thing to be careful of, I think, though, is to make sure that the cultural place of magic or a magical organization does not get conflated with what the magic is doing. Fire magic is setting things on fire. Cold magic is sucking heat away from things. Bestial magic is causing the body to mutate. Blood magic is causing the body to heal (or break). Plague magic is nourishing microbes inside other bodies. Etc. Etc. These are the literal things that magic is doing. Now that that baseline has been set, though, and now that the ways in which magic can interact with the world's culture have been established, the daunting task of creating both magic and magical culture that work in a gritty world will be much easier.