I would appreciate some help creating two equally strong magic forms

I would love some objective opinions on my magic system. It’s supposed to be a hard magic system and I want both magic forms (see below) to be equally strong.
If one of them is weaker, I want it to be safer to equal out the advantage the other form might have. Currently, one is way riskier but stronger and the other is safer but weaker. To sum the idea very briefly:

There are 12 different categories of magic abilities (e.g. water, fire, etc.) and two different forms in which they can occur: sacral and cursed.

Since this story is based on a theocratic society, most people use their abilities in their sacral form and are unable to use cursed magic. Cursed magic is not known to the normal public and is not well understood. Here are the differences:

 

For the good side, what about having a requirement that the magic can only be used to help others? If someone does magic to help themself, it falls into the risk category and may lead to cursed magic. It seems like all of the negatives are under cursed magic and there is really no reason for anyone choosing it except that they can't/don't believe. There should be some kind of lure for the dark side, a trap to fall into, so that the heroes on the good side are truly good.

 

I should say...I like your premise, though!

 

Without knowing what type of themes your story is dealing with I can't really give you advice on what you should do. I can only say what I would do to tweak this magic system.

First I'm not a fan of the dichotomy being between faithfulness and evil. I'd probably switch it to a law vs chaos, or church vs self kind of system. Where the cursed magic grows in power as the caster becomes more self-empowered and rebellious of the church. Basically trying not to paint one type of magic as inherently evil (or good) so that it is more important how it is used.

I would make it so sacral magic can only be used when it would benefit the church (and its god) to do so. Now this could have pretty broad uses depending on the god's plans, but it would make it so no one using this system is really free to do whatever they please. Their power comes from their god and everyone is aware of such.

I'm personally not a fan of magic systems that cause harm to the caster as part of the cost for casting. They could be powerful and wild so the chance of self-harm is high, but I wouldn't make it a guaranteed aspect of the cursed magic.

I would have as a risk for casting too much sacral magic is that the caster loses their sense of self and becomes just a vessel for their god's will. Cursed magic is pretty much what you wrote but more like they become so selfish they can no longer see others as people, only as obstacles or possessions.

Lastly I would have the existence of cursed magic be known, but also despised and illegal, punishable by death, in most places.

Again this is only what I would do with this magic system, whether any of this would be useful to you is entirely dependent on what kind of story you are trying to tell and what its themes are.

 

Since it was clear to me I didn't consider the fact that some parts of the magic system don't really make sense without context. At the heart of the story, it's the conflict between accepting who you are meant to be and who you want to be. This world's society largely determines who you are and who you are to become from the moment you are born. What inspired this idea was actually astrology. This world functions similarly. People that are born during certain times have higher or lower affinities to certain elements. The sacral rune binds a person to the corresponding god and enables them to access that ability. Someone who controls the wood element is naturally talented when comes to healing, alchemy, and botany. Exact talent depends on the constellations the day you were born. However, someone who controls another element is naturally just not talented in this field and couldn't become a doctor, even if they wanted to. Cursed magic works differently.
Since this society is completely on the gods and the church, the other form of magic is called cursed (in story it is referred to as magic of the forsaken). It is basically the society that called it that. The magic itself isn't cursed at all.

That was my intention as well Though bad things can be done as long as they are done in the god's name. They basically just have to align with the church values. People can also receive evangeliums (haven't found a good name for it yet, so I use that as a proxy). If you receive a god's will, you are unable to refuse, no matter what they ask of you.

Hm, I think that is a good idea. It would make the plot less predictable. Thank you. I think I'll implement that.

That's a really good idea. I will build that into the magic system. I really like that idea

You've made some great points and I will definitely use some of these. It was a really helpful reply
Thank you!

 

Thanks for the reply. I think you are right about adding one or two negative to sacral magic. I will definitely work on that

I hinted at it in my other response but I didn't write it in my post.
Sacral magic binds the user to a god (corresponding to their element) and forces the user to become exactly that. They cannot decide for themselves who they want to be and what role they want to take in society.

Cursed magic users still have affinities to elements but are able to learn all elements. Learning an element you don't have a strong affinity to is way more difficult but possible. Strong abilities, however, are usually limited to your native element.

 

I don't know how to help you but I can think of a Trope page which may help you out.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerousForbiddenTechnique

 

For me personally, what is missing to give you any advice on your system is understanding what the characters are supposed to do with being able to manipulate fire, water, and all of the other elements. What is the point of the magic? To fight to win power? Is it used to symbolically create and maintain the chain of power (those who manipulate fire are considered stronger or more just) and thus all cursed magic are outlaws)?

 

Well, it occurs to me that sacral mages presumably would be a lot more numerous, since:

• In a theocratic society, being religious would be the norm. Especially if serving the church literally gives you magical powers.

• Consequently, people being sufficiently antitheist to endure difficult training in a magical discipline that is tiring to use, always harmful to the practitioner and comes with the risk of insanity would be extremely rare. Especially if the results are lackluster despite theoretically increased potency.
• People who actually self-identify as evil would be even rarer. I don't believe that everyone thinks themselves good people, but most who act amorally don't do so in service of some dark ideals but rather because it's easier and more profitable/gratifying. Succumbing to a vice is the failure to be virtuous, not actively choosing between the two.

So, I think you've made it a bit too hard on the curse mages. They're outnumbered by the sacrals, need to work hard to achieve anything, put themselves at grave risk doing so, and I'm assuming the Church rulers aren't exactly big fans of them. The one selling point is more power, but this honestly seems to have too many downsides to be worth it. This isn't a type of dark magic you start off just dabbling in, thinking it's harmless: You need to be seriously dedicated from day one to even consider something like this.

If anything we normally give the bad guys more advantages than the good guys since, again, being good isn't supposed to be easy. This actually reminds me of the Jedi and Sith from Star Wars, except the Dark Side is described as "quicker and more tempting," though not really stronger. That's how corruption actually works: You compromise your principles or responsibilities for personal gain, or even just faster results.

It's fine if curse magic has serious negative consequences, but they shouldn't be immediately apparent (or at least "seem worth it at the time") and definitely not make it harder to achieve power than just joining the church and going through a ritual. It would also make more sense if distrust in the gods was an eventual side-effect rather than an entry condition. That way it turns people away from the religion, rather than exclusively recruiting from those who have already done so.

Personally, I would have sacral magic require more discipline and dedication, while cursed magic appears easier and less restrictive but with serious strings attached down the line. "First one's always free" and all that - you need to get the new acolytes hooked on that evil stuff. Perhaps gaining power in cursed magic requires you perform increasingly heinous acts? Like, you start with milder blasphemy like burning the holy scripture, then it gets worse until you're sacrificing children or something. Eventually it might literally twist you into something inhuman or get you possessed by a demon or something.

In terms of power you can actually make them fairly equal: It's probably enough that curse magic appears to allow the practitioners more freedom to do whatever they want without any allegiance to the church. Which one a person end up pursuing would mainly be a matter of values. If you still want to differentiate them in terms of performance you can always make them excel at different things. Say, sacral magic works better for protection while curse magic is better at causing harm. Or sacral magic has better results working with exact rules; rituals, prayers etc, while curse magic is better for improvising. Stuff like that.

 

Looking at your chart, it strokes me that the sacral magic doesn't seem to be anywhere near as strong as the cursed magic. I guess that's the issue for which you want help.

I don't know what your story idea is, but my approach (based on my spiritual beliefs) rejects the notion of the cursed form being stronger, and I don't even like the possibility of the two forms being equal. Allow me to explain:

Yin and yang. Opposite forms of the same fundamental element. Yin and yang exist in a balance. If the balance is upset, nature dictates that the balance will seek to restore itself. Neither can prevail.

Light and dark. Darkness is the absence of light. If you stand in a dimly illuminated room and you open the door to an unlit closet, darkness does not rush out of the closet and overwhelm the light in the room. The light in the room always enters the closet and overwhelms the darkness. This defines my world view, and I can't relate to stories in which good (light) does not ultimately prevail over evil (darkness).

 

The society is based on their abilities. As groundwork for this idea, I chose astrology. Some people believe their lives are determined on the day they are born. This society works similarly. Depending on when and where you are born, you have certain elemental affinities. The church binds you to the god of that element to help you access your abilities. In rare cases, people actually receive full-fledged goals from their god.
Someone born with the wood element has an affinity to healing magic, alchemy, botany, and so on. In this society, from the day they are born, this shapes their entire upbringing and education. They have to become what the gods’ chose for them. A fire element native could not become a healer, simply because their skills will never be on par with a wood element native. So your powers determine your fate in society.
Curse mages are usually, for whatever reason (depends on the person), people who strongly oppose this system of fate or who simply despise the gods/church. Not all of them are actively working against the system. Some simply live in reclusion.

 

Yes, I definitely agree with a lot of your points.

Some of the other users have already given me some great ideas on how to equal out the playing field. I’ll make it so that self-injury is a high risk for cursed magic users but not a law.
Furthermore, like two users suggested I think it’s a great idea to conquer the issue of curse mages going insane by having an equal occurrence in sacral mages where they lose their own personality and simply become holy vessels.

The thing about this story is that most main characters, including the protagonist (at some point), are actually belonging to the curse side. However, it is true that almost everyone in this world’s society uses sacral magic.

There is one thing that I haven’t mentioned about cursed magic. People are born with elemental affinities. Sacral mages are bound to the one god associated with their affinity and can only use their natural affinity due to that connection. Curse mages, however, can learn several elemental types. They are strongest in their native element but are fully capable of acquiring other abilities (I guess it’s similar to having a native tongue and then learning a new language). Most cannot control more than two elements.
That being said, curse magic forces you to accept all parts of yourself. If you deny your evil feelings, you cannot access the power. If you relish in your evil feelings, they will consume you. I like your idea of possibly increasing the stakes in curse magic. I think the slow decay into madness by increasing the severity of some acts (maybe even unconsciously to the user) really suits what this power is supposed to be.

 

Further thoughts:

If curse magic can be performed without the sacral rune, and is stronger or more versatile yet more dangerous, then my immediate suspicion would be that the rune is less of a catalyst and more of a control device or limiter.

So, let's say curse magic isn't necessarily damaging or dangerous to use, but using too much of it is. Like, there's a point where you essentially start to overclock yourself and risk losing control of the magic, which results in something very bad happening.

If so, the sacral runes make a lot of sense: After all, the church wouldn't want their paladins or whatever to accidentally burn down a whole village, go completely berserk, summon some eldritch horror or simply disintegrate themselves in huge magical explosions. (Or all at once.) That would be a bad look for the church; they want their magic to be perceived as safe. Thus they require all their mages to use the rune which limits the amount of magic that can be accessed, or alters the way it is channeled. That would be why sacral magic needs more discipline and focus: It's deliberately designed to make it harder or more taxing to wield large amounts of magic in order to discourage sacral mages from overusing it.

Meanwhile, the curse mages can draw upon magic power more easily but this also makes it tempting to use too much of it, which occasionally causes horrible things to happen. (That's also a great reason for the church to ban any magic other than their own: Curse magic doesn't even have to be evil, just very dangerous.)

Some sacral mages may even have figured this out and know that if they remove their rune or turn it off (assuming this is possible) they would become more powerful but risk losing control. Obviously this would be a very sacrilegious thing to do but might end up being necessary if the circumstances got bad enough.

 

I like that limitation. That will definitely give you some good plotlines for the story.

 

Why wouldn't the Sacral Magic have risks? I would suggest having the overuse of it causes you to lose your individuality, making you stop referring to yourself in first-person, and slowly introduces you to a "hive-mind" of some sort.

 

How about they can't directly assault one another, but must work through people easy to manipulate?

Sacrifice + Annihilation = Oblivion, where none of either ever existed in the first place.

 

Disclaimer: I did not read all the other posts.

My problem with your cursed magic is that its conditions depend on the "absence of a something" In this case a rune or something. This doesn't make them opposites or equal.

Now, this could still work, depending on your narrative. If you try to use magic without the rune it becomes cursed. Okay fair enough. That could be very compelling depending on what theme you're writing to.

But if you need them to be actually equal and opposite of each other, then a mere absence of the rune isn't going to cut it. Consider that instead of the mere absence of the rune that its requirement is an equal ritual to baptism but a perverted version of it.