Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke
By definition, fantasy books have magic in them. My series, The Maqlû, is no different, so in the next few posts, I’m going to discuss the ‘magic’ systems I use in my books.
The Mesopotamians were the first to use magic as a defense against things like demons, ghosts, and evil sorcerers. In fact, the title of my series, The Maqlû, comes from an ancient Mesopotamian text by that name. It was a magic ritual used as a defense against evil sorcerers and consisted of creating an effigy of the sorcerer and putting it on trial. The person would then burn the effigy, thus breaking the sorcerer’s power over them.
Magic was a part of mainstream society until the Greeks gave it a negative connotation about the time they were at war with the Persians (remember the previous paragraph discussing how magic came from the Mesopotamian region). But if you think the Greeks thought of magic as something unwelcome, the Christian theologians, especially during the Medieval Ages, thought it was downright sinful. As superstition melded with the development of alchemy during this time, magic started evolving into how we think of it nowadays.
There are many different types of magic systems used in fantasy books, but the most common are elemental, alchemy, divine, and blood magic. Although most fantasies use only one kind of magic, I use several, including my primary magical system – Elemental Magic.
Elemental magic’s origins evolved from ancient societies’ attempts at explaining how the world around them worked. They tended to think of the world as divided into four elements, the most common of which were Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Some added a fifth, such as Spirit, or Aether. (Interestingly, Aether is often defined as that which makes up the universe beyond Earth and is now thought of as Dark Matter and Dark Energy). In essence, the five elements were the precursors to our modern-day sciences.
I chose elemental magic as my primary magic system because I started writing my books, thinking that Wiccans would be the group of characters with magical abilities. And since Wiccans, who are deeply rooted in nature, often call upon the elements to help them with their spells, I thought elemental magic would be most appropriate.
Once I decided on the magical system, I went about defining its capabilities, limitations, and origins. My first choice was determining that everybody who wielded elemental magic in my books had to be genetically different. For instance, Jane Roland and Alex Scire, two of the main protagonists, do not have the right genes and thus have no magical abilities. The second choice was to state that all who can wield magic must have gone through an educational program. For instance, the Druids learn their magic skills in a school in Stirling, Scotland, called Stormhold.
I also gave my magic system limitations, including the fact that abilities vary based on genetics and skills and that using magic is tiring, limiting what users can accomplish. Also, since it’s an elemental magic system, they can’t conjure up items – they have to use the world around them and manipulate air, fire, water, and earth to achieve their goals. I’ve also added artifacts that can amplify the magic wielder’s powers, but more on that in the next post.
At first glance, in the picture below, one might think aliens or magic might have created these perfectly concentric circles high in the Andes, far from civilization. But in actuality, they are an Incan agricultural terrace at Moray in the Sacred Valley of Peru.
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