Need a list of magic system names from any source!

[Kittenwolf]

Hey all. So, I'm writing trivia for an upcoming trivia night (Anyone planning to go to the Continuum convention in Melbourne in June, stop reading please).
One of the items is going to be a sheet on each table with a list of named magic systems on them, and the players need to write the series that each magic system comes from.

However, I've only got like, ten, and need way more.
So, if anyone can think of the name of a magic system, and what series it's from, please, post them here!!
Please note, these need to be unique to one setting, so "Series X has Magic, called Magic" is of no use to me, unless they have a very unique name for their magic users.

As an example:
The Force (Star wars)
Allomancy (Mistborn)

[BWR]

Google is your friend. Try it some time.
this (http://io9.com/5866306/the-rules-of-magic-according-to-the-greatest-fantasy-sagas-of-all-time)probably isn't exhaustive but it's a start.

[Kittenwolf]

Google is your friend. Try it some time.
this (http://io9.com/5866306/the-rules-of-magic-according-to-the-greatest-fantasy-sagas-of-all-time)probably isn't exhaustive but it's a start.

I've done quite a bit of googling, most of it isn't much use to me because it's comparisons of 'magic' systems that just call things 'magic' rather than things with unique names.

Likewise, the link you sent me is useless since I'm not looking up every series listed there one by one hoping they give unique names to things. Try to check that what you're linking is actually useful before you're a smart arse to someone looking for help.

[Kitten Champion]

Kidou from Bleach
Nen from Hunter X Hunter
Channelling/One Power from Jordan's Wheel of Time
Charter Magic from the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix
Thu'um from Skyrim

[Kittenwolf]

Kidou from Bleach
Nen from Hunter X Hunter
Channelling/One Power from Jordan's Wheel of Time
Charter Magic from the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix
Thu'um from Skyrim

*Facepalm*
I had Wheel of Time, and hadn't heard of the others so I can excuse myself for not having them, but how could I forget Skyrim!

Thankyou, exactly what I need. Keep them coming :smallbiggrin:

[JHShadon]

Would Biotics from Mass Effect count?

[Brother Oni]

In Skyrim, I thought Thu'um was the dragon speech 'magic', while the more traditional spell casting stuff was called something else? I could be wrong as it's been a while since I played it.

Other suggestions:

The Will and the Word from David Eddings' The Belgariad and The Malloreon.
Allomancy, feruchemy and hemalurgy from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series.
Pattern magic/Horror magic from the Earthdawn RPG.
Thaumaturgy from Vampire: The Masquerade.
Bending from Avatar: The Last Air Bender
The probability magic from our own Saph's Alex Versus series. I'm not sure whether he has a name for it (maybe drop him a PM?).

I haven't played Mage: The Ascension, so I'm not sure whether there's unique names for their magic systems. Technocractic magic is one I know of, but I'm not sure whether that counts as unique enough.

[Eldan]

Well, D&D also has psionics, soulbinding, truenaming and incarnum.

Sygaldry and Sympathy from the Kingkiller Chronicles.

[Kittenwolf]

Would Biotics from Mass Effect count?

Close enough to count I think :)


In Skyrim, I thought Thu'um was the dragon speech 'magic', while the more traditional spell casting stuff was called something else? I could be wrong as it's been a while since I played it.

Other suggestions:

The Will and the Word from David Eddings' The Belgariad and The Malloreon.
Allomancy, feruchemy and hemalurgy from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series.
Pattern magic/Horror magic from the Earthdawn RPG.
Thaumaturgy from Vampire: The Masquerade.
Bending from Avatar: The Last Air Bender
The probability magic from our own Saph's Alex Versus series. I'm not sure whether he has a name for it (maybe drop him a PM?).

I haven't played Mage: The Ascension, so I'm not sure whether there's unique names for their magic systems. Technocractic magic is one I know of, but I'm not sure whether that counts as unique enough.

Thu-um can still count as *a* magic system though.
Will & the Word I can use, I'm trying to only have one from each setting though so I won't use feruchemy & hemalurgy. Likewise Be4nding works
Pattern Magic doesn't sound all that unique, and Thaumaturgy is downright common.

The rest work though.


Well, D&D also has psionics, soulbinding, truenaming and incarnum.

Sygaldry and Sympathy from the Kingkiller Chronicles.

The D&D stuff is all pretty generic, with the possible exception of Incarnum. Sygaldry sounds.. rather unique to me.

[Eldan]

Sygaldry is, basically, magic using Sigils.

[Armaius]

Off the top of my head: Charter and Free Magic from the Abhorsen series and the Wishsong from Shannara.

[Kitten Champion]

A few I remember...

Symbology, from Star Ocean.
Psynergy, from Golden Sun.
Biochromatic Breath, from Sanderson's Warbreaker.
True Speech/True Names might have been taken by other writers, but Le Guin's Earthsea popularized it.

[Eldan]

Prince of Nothing - The gnosis, the anagogis and the psukhe.

That might really run into real world philosophy a bit too much.

[Kd7sov]

AonDor (Elantris)
Awakening (Warbreaker, which was mentioned above, but as I see it Breath is the MP equivalent while Awakening is the actual use of magic)
Magery (The Deed of Paksenarrion/Paladin's Legacy)
Silimatics (Alcatraz series)

[Mx.Silver]

You know, I was about to ask why people were people were posting in a 2-month old thread before I remembered this forum uses American date formats, meaning that the OP was made on the 1st of March, instead of the 3rd of January.



On topic, there's The Wit and The Skill from Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy.

[Dragonus45]

Allomancy from the Mistborn Trilogy is a good one.

[Cespenar]

Rune Magic from The Death Gate Cycle, in which someone collapses a wave of possibilities into a single outcome, or something like that.

[Man on Fire]

Pattern Magic and Lorgus Magic from Chronolicles of Amber?
Alchemy from FMA?
In Kedrigern magic system is loose, but at one point titular character makes distinction between Spells, Counterspells and Curses.

[Brewdude]

From Ars Magica: Hermetic magic, and the 15 types.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Magica#Magic_system

Stims and Drugs from Fallout.

[Mx.Silver]

Stims and Drugs from Fallout.

Pretty sure drugs and stimulants don't count as magic. Because, you know, they aren't magic.

[Kitten Champion]

That reminds me...

Vigors from Bioshock Infinite
Plasmids from Bioshock.
Para-magic from Final Fantasy VIII
Dying Will Flames from Kateikyoshi Hitman Reborn
Haki and Rokushiki from One Piece
Chromaturgy from The Black Prism series by Brent Weeks.

[Cikomyr]

- the various Geas from Code Geas, which are all eye-based.
- The Technomages from Babylon 5, who are the living incarnation of Clarke's Third Law. It's not magic per se, but the dichotomy is irrelevant.

[Eldan]

A lot of these have the problem that they are words from real world mythology or esoterica. Or science, even, in the case of plasmids. Geas, Hermetic Magic, Alchemy, gnosis, psukhe (psyche), I can't imagine there's only one use of those.

[Cheesegear]

The Wit, and Skilling, from Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man books. I'm sure there's a name for the magic that gets used in The Liveship Traders, but, I can't for the life of me remember what it's called. Probably Skilling, too.

[factotum]

There's Spellsinging, from Alan Dean Foster's book series of the same name?

[Feytalist]

"Warrens" from Malazan Book of the Fallen.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

The D&D stuff is all pretty generic, with the possible exception of Incarnum. Sygaldry sounds.. rather unique to me.
I've never heard "truenaming" anywhere else, but might be wrong.

Also, I think people can stop suggesting Allomancy now. It was in the OP. :smallwink:

How about furycrafting from the Codex Alera series?

[Eldan]

I've never heard "truenaming" anywhere else, but might be wrong.

Maybe not "truenaming", but True Names are everywhere. Earthsea might even have called its magic that.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Maybe not "truenaming", but True Names are everywhere. Earthsea might even have called its magic that.
Hmm, that's true.

[Brother Oni]

I'm not sure whether Warp magic in Warhammer Fantasy has a specific name. Each of 8 human schools has a name (I presume that the other races do as well), but they're all a bit ambiguously named.

Likewise 40K only has Chaos Sorcery as the formal magic system, everything else is psykers (which admittedly is a unique spelling).

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Doesn't X-COM use the word "psyker" as well?

[Eldan]

The new one, at least, uses "psionic" for the class name.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I thought I'd heard that the old one used "psyker", but maybe that's just a fan nickname. (Really, I just need to finish the game.)

[Cespenar]

No psykers in X-COM. Enemy Unknown used Psionics (shortened to Psi), and Terror from the Deep used Molecular Control, if I'm not mistaken.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Must be a fan nickname, which makes sense in hindsight. Carry on!

[Kittenwolf]

I vanish for a few days, come back and find piles more replies, this is awesome, thanks people :)

Here is what I have so far, I've tried not to go with multiple series by the same author but dammit, does anyone other than Brandon Sanderson actually name their magic systems different things? :P
Also trying to keep it as unique as possible so that people don't confuse spelling and such.

1. Furycraft (Codex Alera)
2. Channelling (Wheel of Time)
3. The Wit (Farseer trilogy)
4. Sourcery (Discworld)
5. The Force (Star Wars)
6. The Gift (Tortall)
7. Allomancy (Mistborn)
8. Genjutsu (Naruto)
9. Biotics (Mass Effect)
10. Thu’um (Skyrim)
11. Bending (Avatar)
12. The Will and the Word (Belgarian/Mallorean)
13. Sygaldry (Kingkiller series)
14. Wishsong (Shannara)
15. Rokushiki (One Piece)
16. AonDor (Elantris)
17. The Warp (Warhammer 40k)

I'd love to hit 20

[Pendulous]

I'm a big fan of the egg system in the Grandia series. You equip the egg to a character, and they are able to use the spells you've unlocked on that egg.

[Feytalist]

There's always the Materia system from Final Fantasy VII.

[Brother Oni]

There's the Guardian Force system from Final Fantasy 8, Esper/magicite system from FF6 and materia from FF7.

There's the defiler and preserver magic from the D&D Dark Sun setting as well.

Edit: Ninja'ed.

[Feytalist]

I thought to include Guardian Force (it's got a nice unique name), but GF are really only summons. The actual magic doesn't (?) have a name, as far as I can remember.

[Brother Oni]

I thought to include Guardian Force (it's got a nice unique name), but GF are really only summons. The actual magic doesn't (?) have a name, as far as I can remember.

However the GFs allow them to perform superhuman feats and gain access to magic.

Bear in mind that in FF8, only Sorceresses can cast magic without a junctioned GF and since Thu'um is included, I see no reason why GFs can't be (the main Skyrim magic system is unnamed too, I believe).

Edit: Checking the wiki, the GF system is called Para-magic, which was developed with the aid of a Sorceress to let normal humans use magic. I suspect calling it Guardian Force may be more memorable than Para-magic.

[Feytalist]

However the GFs allow them to perform superhuman feats and gain access to magic.

Bear in mind that in FF8, only Sorceresses can cast magic without a junctioned GF and since Thu'um is included, I see no reason why GFs can't be (the main Skyrim magic system is unnamed too, I believe).

Fair enough.


That would also mean that Malazan's Warren system is eligible as well (which I've mentioned before), since that also allows magicians to access their magic.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

You could always use one of the magics from Erfworld, like Croakmancy.

[Shyftir]

There is the Order/Chaos system from the Magic of Recluse. But I'm not sure there is another name for it.

[Morph Bark]

Psynergy, from the Golden Sun series of video games.

[lunar2]

the general term for the techniques in naruto is jutsu. genjutsu refers to a specific type of jutsu, namely illusion magic. most of the techniques used are actually ninjutsu, though. ninjutsu is basically combat magic. then there is taijutsu, which is martial arts, but includes some pseudomagical effects, like punching so hard you create a shockwave. then there's senjutsu, which is essentially a self buff. you absorb "nature energy" to augment your own chakra, making you stronger, faster, and more durable.

there is ki from dragonball.

tao magic and caster shells from outlaw star

endowments from the runelords series. as far as i know, this system is actually unique. you use a special rune to brand one person, who transfers one of their attributes, such as brawn, wit, or sight, to another person. the dedicate, the person who gives up the endowment, loses access to it for as long as the person who gains the endowment (a runelord if they are noble, or a force soldier if they are not) lives. the runelord also loses the endowment if the dedicate dies.

[endoperez]

Aren't you looking up for any of these yourself? Just find out a list of different magic systems and browse it for names.

Master of Five Magics by Lynn Hardy has 5 magic systems.

Thaumaturgy - basically voodoo doll stuff, you need a piece of the thing you want to affect, and a small change at the small piece can create a big change in the big piece.
Alchemy - potion-making, obviously. Very potent effects, but never permanent.
Magic - ritual magic used to create permanent magical items. Magicians cast no spell besides item creation.
Sorcery - Mind-controlling magic initiated by looking at the target's eyes, and which uses up the user's life energy.
Wizardry - summoning demons through fires and controlling them.

The sequel introduces a sixth: Metamagic.

Ars Magica roleplaying system has the Hermetic Magic.

Huh, hasn't anyone mentioned any of the D&D alternatives? Truenaming, Binder magic (or was it called Pact magic?) Shadowcasting, there's surely many more.

Some others:

"Idol Theory" in To Aru Majutsu No Index: a manmade object in the shape of a mystical object shares a fraction of that object's power.

Dragaera has several: Sorcery, another older form that was also called Sorcery, Witchcraft, and Psychics.

Making in Orson Scott Card's The Tales of Alvin Maker.

Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson has two: Earthpower, and Wild magic.

Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Cycle has two, again: Lesser Path, and Greater Path.

Spellsinging in The Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster.

Garth Nix's Old Kingdom: "Charter Magic", "Necromancy", "Free Magic"

The Force in Star Wars.

Sanderson has BioChroma, Soulcasting , Forging, Bloodsealing in Warbreaker, Stormlight Archives and the last two in Elantris... and there might be more in each. The guys likes his magic systems.

Klatha in Witches of Karres.

Ethshar novels by Lawrence Watt-Evans have several, again: Wizardry, sorcery, Theurgy, Demonology, witchcraft, warlockry.

That's more than your 20, right? :P


Heck, China Mieville might have come up with another 20 on his own!
Watercraeft is used by the vodyanoi, the Moment of the Hidden and the Lost is one magical path known to Teshi, another Teshi characer is revealed to be a hecatombist, bio-thaumaturgy is used in the creation of Remades, moss-magic, susurration is magic used to control one's voice which in turn is used to control others, Somaturgy aka Golemetry is the when you make unliving things live and serve under you, there's so many different things off-handedly mentioned in the books...

[Pie Guy]

Ripple/Hamon and Stands from JoJo's Bizarre Adventures.

[looklikefrost]

Kabbala, one thing that I remember..

[Eldan]

Kabbala, one thing that I remember..

The problem with that, same as with anything called Hermetic magic or Alchemy, Thaumaturgy, Necromancy, Evocation, etc. is that they are real world practices. I mean, if I read "Hermetic Magic", I'd write down "By Hermes Trismegistos".

[endoperez]

The problem with that, same as with anything called Hermetic magic or Alchemy, Thaumaturgy, Necromancy, Evocation, etc. is that they are real world practices. I mean, if I read "Hermetic Magic", I'd write down "By Hermes Trismegistos".

So you've never heard of people having a gift, or using their wit? :P Use of force is sometimes approved of, and biotic materials have been used since the dawn of civilization.

That said, there is a problem for the intended usage - taken out of context, it's hard to name the exact source for "Sorcery", since there are so many possibilities.

However, a short description of the system's specifics would fix that.

[Shinken]

Rokushiki is not really a magic system, it's a martial art with 6 moves (really, it's all in the name right there :smalltongue:).
You should replace it with haki.

[Empedocles]

The demon binding system from the Bartimaeus Books? Not sure if it has a unique name though...

[Kd7sov]

Sanderson has BioChroma, Soulcasting , Forging, Bloodsealing in Warbreaker, Stormlight Archives and the last two in Elantris... and there might be more in each. The guys likes his magic systems.

Um. (Sorry, Neo Leviathan, but I think I have to respond here.)

Okay, first: BioChroma strikes me, in context, as somewhat equivalent to "electronic". (Also it's been brought up by two previous posters.) The system, I would argue, is Awakening; it uses BioChromatic Breath (usually shortened to just Breath) for fuel.

Second: Soulcasting is a name for one application of one of the ten Surges; it's a bit like listing Greater Divination as D&D's magic system. Stormlight has, in fact, three known magic systems: the Old Magic (largely unexplained to date), Voidbinding (virtually unknown as yet), and Surgebinding. A Surgebinder can access two of the ten Surges, and likely combine their effects in addition to using them separately; the Surges are Adhesion, Gravitation, Division, Abrasion, Progression, Illumination, Transformation, Transportation, Cohesion, and Tension.

Third: Technically, neither Forging nor Bloodsealing (which are implied to be simply different applications of the same thing) appears in Elantris proper, though they are featured in its semi-sequel, The Emperor's Soul. Elantris features AonDor (previously mentioned) and Dakhor, and makes implications about magical applications of the martial art ChayShan.

This is probably way more of a response than you wanted, but I take exception to inaccurate and underinformed information.

[The Glyphstone]

In Forgotten Realms, arcane magic comes from The Weave...not exactly a 'magic system', but you've already got the Warp and the Force which are pretty close analogues - sources of 'magic' energy in their own right. And it would get a genuine D&D entry onto the list.

[Brother Oni]

That's more than your 20, right? :P


Unfortunately, Neo_Leviathan's looking for one signature system per setting. 'Sorcery' isn't really viable as there's too many settings which use it.

[Morbis Meh]

Well the suikoden series bases all of its magic on the 27 True Runes, every other rune is just a minor cast off one of the original 27 runes... Though people have discussed rune magic already. I think Dave Duncan had a series 'Handful of Men' where magic power was based on gaining knowledge of Magical words. One enhances natural talent, two gives minor abilities, 3 and four increasing magical power and only a small few can handle 5 without spontaneously combusting...

[endoperez]

Um. (Sorry, Neo Leviathan, but I think I have to respond here.)
SNIP
This is probably way more of a response than you wanted, but I take exception to inaccurate and underinformed information.

Thanks for the correction, sorry for getting it so wrong.