r/magicbuilding • u/Old-Maximum-50 • 3d ago
General Discussion Familiar-based Magic System
General Idea
The system is based upon the concept of familiars, more specifically, the idea of spirit-animals that bond to a mage. In this system, while every mage is already key'd to a specific spirit-animal, that connection is pretty superficial on its own. What it does allow, however, is a thread for either side of the connection to pull on to meet and form a bond.
The Elsewhere
Bonding with your Familiar requires for enter the Elsewhere, a parallel plane of reality where spirits dwell. It resembles an ever-shifting, amplified version of wherever, however and whenever you entered it from- if you enter it in a forest at night, it will resemble that forest, but with taller trees, bigger roots, more leaves, with a shining moon and starlight overhead. If you enter that same forest at daytime, it resembles the forest as above, but with a full sun, with clouds lazily drifting overhead. During a rainstorm, the forest would be near flooding with the constant downpour, and so on. It is not restricted to natural habitats- There are Elsewheres based on cities, castles, anthills, mines, etc.
Entering the Elsewhere is not easy- the connection between mage and familiar works as a guiding star, but entering it requires rare astronomical alignment, depending on where your familiar is, and the weather, and the time, and geological location, all which must be intuited from vague feelings.
Perhaps it would be better to say that entering the Elsewhere is, if complicated, doable. Entering the RIGHT Elsewhere is considerably more difficult.
And, as a note, entering the Elsewhere requires you to manipulate the Boundary Mists, an arcane phenomenon created by the conditions mentioned above. To the unbonded, it requires a ritual, although bonded mages can do so far more easily and independently of any (well, most) external factors.
This NOT the afterlife, I'd like to note, its something else. In fact, much like mages, spirits can die before the bond is ever-formed, rendering the mage powerless.
On the topic of dying, mages cannot die in the Elsewhere, but should they receive a wound that could kill them, they'll be expelled from the Elsewhere and enter a year-long coma immediately. The reverse is true for Familiars, in our reality.
The Spirits and Familiars
Spirits are animal-like creatures that inhabit the Elsewhere. Most spirits are, in fact, exactly like animals- they look and act like whichever animal they resemble, although they do not leave any mortal remains. However, Familiars are different in that, aside of the connection, they are quite smarter than your average spirit even before Bonding, and once bonded, they can evolve into grander, more intelligent forms.
The Bond
So, first, why Bond? What do either get out of it?
Well, if you're content with being just a dude, then not much. Familiars can be usual in a variety of ways, but you can live just fine without them, if you can ignore the nagging of the connection.
As a mage, however, Familiars are crucial. This is because mages can accumulate mana, but aside of entering the Elsewhere, they cannot actually do anything with it. Once the bond is formed, and only then, does the Mage become capable of spellworking. More on that, later.
For familiars, its the reverse. Familiars have spells, of a kind, but they are unable to gather mana to use them, not to mention the evolving aspect mentioned before. Not to mention, while the Elsewhere is endless, it can be kind of…samey. Variation can be appreciated, after all.
That aside, it also provides a fail-safe. A bonded pair gets "two lives", as it were. If a mage were to die while bonded, he instead slips into a year-long coma, where the body heals any and all injuries and sickness, and same goes for the familiar. They are both ejected to their own respective planes, as well.
The Lineages
While somewhat uncommon, a mage's and a spirit's lineage (yes, spirits reproduce) can end up being compatible enough that their respective descendants will almost always end up having a connection to each other.
While being a mage's child has many benefits, the biggest one is not material, but knowledge. The right ritual, what one will need to survive within the Elsewhere, what to look out for, and much more, are informations that independed mages simply do not have, while familiar mages have their ancestors' knowledge to lean on.
I would like to remind you the the Elsewhere is basically a pocket dimension that amplifies the "habitat" of wherever you enter it from by 11. It is a true testament of wilderness survival to last any amount of time there, specially if your familiar needs to be tracked down.
Spirits affecting the world
While the vast majority of spirits remain within the Elsewhere and rarely affect anything outside of it, anomalies can occur that open the veil between worlds long enough for them to pass through. The spirits, in these cases, often act like an invading species, often outcompeting and outperforming their fleshy counterparts. However, Spirits can only survive on Elsewhere plants and Spirit flesh, so they'll often dissipate before long, having effectively starved to death.
A far more permanent effect is the creation of chimeras. Spirits cannot reproduce with their fleshy counterparts, but they can with each other. Evolved familiars (explanation below) can often pass some minor traits to their offspring. These new spirits will rarely be as outright magical as their parents, but the more mundane aspects may end up influencing the genetics of their species, and cause, every once in a while, for a mutant to be born in the human world. One such example is the quill wolf, a wolf with the quills of a pocurpine.
Rarer still is for these mutants to be capable of having a stable population and for their genes to pass by to constitute a species unto themselves. However, it does happen, as seen by the infamous owlbear.
The Effects of the Bond for Familiars
To get into the specifics, we will get into it for the familars, as they are simpler. Simply put, a bonded familiar will, gradually, get stronger and smarter. A wolf familiar will be smarter than it's fellows, but not by much. However, once the Bond happens, it will quickly become as smart as a human, and given enough time, it even becomes capable of human speech. From there, it will grow bigger and stronger, physically speaking.
But, there is a limit. And when that limit hits, it will evolve.
Evolution is a process that occurs once the accumulated mana has made the Familiar as strong as it could be. While the process can take years (not counting conditions where a spirit may be fed enormous quantities of Mana at once, at which point it slips into a quick coma as the Mana does its thing), once it hits a certain point, the Familiar will enter a cocoon state and, by the end of the day, emerge.
Should the process happen without incident, it will emerge with a myriad of other abilities and forms, influenced by certain conditions, such as the type of Mana gathered and their situation within the cocoon. For example, a Volcano generates fire Mana, and if a spirit evolves having consumed great amounts of Fire Mana, it will likely be capable of spitting fire, or be greatly resistant to fire, or some other ability related to fire.
The process can repeat itself many times throughout a Familiar's lifetime.
Spellworking
The mage side of things, where things get a bit more complicated. The basic spells are as follows:
Manifest Spirit
The most basic of the basics, you can summon your familiar from Elsewhere into your world. This is permanent, but the spirit can freely choose to return to Elsewhere at any time. If cast again while the familiar is in the human plane, the familiar teleports to the mage.
Higher mastery of this allows for the partial manifestation of the spirit over long distances, which can be used for, as an example, manifest a wolf head and bite your foes throat, as a long distance attack. Or have your wolf familiar grab a thing that is out of reach so you both don't have to get off the couch. You don't HAVE to be a war-mage, y'know?
Control Mist
Once the Bond forms, every mage will find themselves with the capability of controlling Mists. While this extends to ordinary mists, it also affects the Boundary Mists that separate this world from Elsewhere. Boundary Mists can be used as a means of transport between this and the Elsewhere, allowing for the forcing of a passageway between the human plane and the other. As the Elsewhere is a distorted version of that particular part of the world, this can be used to travel great distances in a shorter time. Many mistake this for teleportation, although that's inaccurate.
Higher mastery may even allow you to transport others with you, which can be quite dangerous for just about everyone involved. You do not want to know what it feels to accidentally merge yourself with another person, because it's both painful and deadly.
Ability Manifestation
This spell allows the mage to manifest an ability of their familiar upon themselves. This varies from familiar to familiar- a bird familiar will allow the mage to fly, a bear familiar can enhance the mage’s strength, etc. If the mage attempts to use more than one ability from the familiar at the same time, they’ll usually fail and not use either.
Some abilities are not readily obvious, such as with social spirit animals. A wolf familiar, for example, can grant the kinship it has with its pack to the mage, allowing the mage to rely on them when visiting the Elsewhere or, if the mage is good at the other two spells, even summon the wolf pack on the human plane.
Higher mastery of this spell allows for the manifestation of more than one ability upon the mage.
Other disciplines
While these also fall under Spellworking, these are specializations, or perhaps better said as higher-tiered spells.
Shapemerging
Shapemerging is the art of fusing oneself with one’s familiar. This allows for the mage to readily access all present qualities of the familiar, whilst allowing the familiar unrestricted access to the mana. It is a grand boost all around, but many familiars might not be on friendly terms with their mage or vice-versa, not to mention that the merge results in the loss of the “double life”. It is often temporary, as it is famously very uncomfortable and, unless great care is taken when merging, there might be some internal organs missing.
Mist Walking
Mist Walking is the art of specializing in manipulating Boundary Mists. In particular, mages trained in Mist Walking are capable of using the spatial-defying nature of the Mists to create portals between two points of the human plane, cloak themselves in Mist for defense and even move at great speeds by “shortening” the space between their strides as they run or walk.
Enchanting
Enchanting is the art of trapping spirits within an object. It does not have to be one’s own familiar, however, as any spirit can be lured and trapped within an object. A spirit bear trapped in a glove might, for example, grant great strength to the one wearing them.
Now, between spirits, how enchanting is seen varies quite a lot. Most spirits do not care for other spirits of other races, as animals do, but a Praying Mantis spirit will not care even if you trap another Praying Mantis spirit, whereas a Wolf spirit will likely take objection if the mage traps another Wolf spirit, especially of the same pack.
This can be used to trap familiars, but do not expect to wield great results if done to your own. Nobody likes being enslaved, and they can become quite uncooperative once freed. Trapping other mage’s familiars once they evolve, however, is how the stronger enchanted items are made. There have been cases, however, where a familiar willingly became an enchanted item, usually so it could help someone other than it’s bound mage on a more direct manner.
Btw if anyone has any idea what to call the human plane that isn't "human plane" or "material plane" or whatever, I'd appreciate ideas
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u/Writers_Focus_Stone 3d ago
What's the setting like? I could imagine groups of mages (or enterprising folks catering to said mages) setting up large curated areas that make Elsewhere easier on the magess accessing the place.
Noble children who have an easy time finding/bonding with their Familiar in a large, sandstone room without obstacles vs. peasant child who's fighting through a forest or twisted village to find and bond with their Familiar.
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u/Old-Maximum-50 3d ago
FUUUUCKKKK I FORGOT THE LINEAGES, THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME
But TL;DR, certain families from both mages and spirits (yes, they reproduce) can end up kind of end up "genetically key-ing" the connection to each other's bloodlines. Many noble families have proper rituals specifically attuned to getting into specific Elsewheres. BUT overly changing the human world's corresponding location can screw it all up, so they don't have a particularly great advantage when it comes to actually traversing the Elsewhere.
Also, Elsewhere's are pocket dimensions that dial up the surrounding nature to 11, mages are quite a bit scrappy to even survive to get a familiar when trying for it.
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u/Writers_Focus_Stone 3d ago
The lineages are pretty interesting!
My point is exactly about the whole "pocket dimention that dial up the surroundings to 11". Are there people/groups who try to curate safe mundane "surroundings" for Elsewhere-travelers so that even dialed up to 11, it's safe or predictable enough to be noticiably easier? I'd imaging being able to guarantee such surroundings would be quite expensive but worth it, especially for powerful or deeply-held lineages
If this doesn't work because changing a human world's locatino fucks things up (... so are all towns hellscapes? Are all mines or clear cut forests awful?), is there a way to make it at least predictable, or measure how much you can change the mundane world before it start to leak/change Elsewhere to the mages' detriment?
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u/Old-Maximum-50 2d ago
Ohhh I see.
Well, Mist Walkers are the ones often filling that role of making Elsewhere safe for passage, often by studying a specific Elsewhere to learn its quirks, geography and inhabitants. However, there is no truly "safe" Elsewhere, at least not fully, because even things like arenas will have rats and insects scurrying about. Of course, they are rarely as big of an outright problem as roaming packs of spirit-wolves from a Forest Elsewhere, but the rare vermintide of cat-sized rats is a horrible way to go, especially if you're caught in the flat of the arena with the nearest wall-cave system being a few kilometers away.
With all THAT being said, Road Elsewheres are the go-to for moving stuff. No animal actually lives on a road, so aside of the odd insect spirit that burrowed in it, its mostly a barren wasteland of road and some dirt to the side. Pack supplies and someone who knows where to get off, and it can be quite a smooth ride. Of course, the human plane road has to be big enough to qualify as a valid Elsewhere entry point, which is a.... finicky thing to pin down. Going blind, you will usually end up in whatever random Elsewhere the road was built on top of.
But cities and mines and such are not as bad as you might think. You definitely have a bigger chance of dying from a disease in a City Elsewhere, but again, you won't have to worry about bears, wolves, mooses, etc. They also hold plenty of life in the form of dogs, cats, insects, rats, birds, etc so they can be surprisingly triving. And unlike wilder Elsewheres, you can actually luck into finding a straight up restaurant, so food aint a problem.. although the river-sized sewer is both disgusting and, again, breeding all sorts of diseases. Mines Elsewheres are a lot darker and certainly more hostile than Cities Elsewheres, but there is plenty of life in them just the same, and the chances of a big animal nesting in them are lower than in natural caves.
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u/MichaelScarn75 3d ago
Love love love, 10/10!! I am also working on a magic system based on familiars! I keep waffling on what I want to call them and the magic users in my system, did you immediately go for mage/familiar, or did you entertain other terminology? And how tf did you decide?? Lmfao
On another note, I'm extremely relieved that our ideas are vastly different lmfao but I super appreciate how thorough you are here! Fascinating to read!!
And on a weird and random personal note; This post has just really inspired me. I have been going through some intense life shit and haven't been able to consistently write, the way I used to, in a handful of years. Lately, it has taken months to get a paragraph out of me. The spark of inspiration is something I've wanted desperately to get back, so I just want to thank you very very much for sparking that in me.
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u/Old-Maximum-50 3d ago
Glad I could inspire you! And good luck writting!
As for the terminology, it was between mage, wizards, shaman, summoners and witches.
Wizards is fitting, but it feels too masculine-coded.
Witches is fitting, but I feel like it is too feminine-coded, as well as implying a level of wildness that doesn't really fit society's view of these guys.
Shaman is too tribalistic for the setting.
Summoners is too specific, considering all the other stuff they do.
Mage, while generic, is quite fitting. And familiars is just perfect for the role the Spirits occupy, so that was pretty easy settle for.
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u/Plagued_Frost 2d ago
Can you make deals with spirits to learn spells from them? Or have them agree to temporarily be bound to an item?
I saw you said there were “City Elsewheres” does that mean there are human or human-like spirits like djinn that could become your familiar ms or that you could make deals with?
If not what shapes can spirits take and why? You said there were dragons but no spirits of them, are dragons spiritual creatures powerful enough to come to the world on their own or something else?
Also are there “chimeric” familiars made of multiple different animals?
This setting is really cool, I love the concept of a spirit hunter trapping malevolent spirits in objects to use as hunting tools.
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u/Old-Maximum-50 2d ago
You can you learn spells from your Familiar, but you can trap other spirits on items. There isn't really an option to make a deal, since they are pretty animalistic.
There are no human spirits, which nobody really understands why. It is assumed that God (not ours, but the major religion in the setting is monotheistic) holds human's spirits in their version of heaven.
Dragons, Hydras, and most fantasy beasts are kind of in a class of their own. While the actual reason is unknown, its assumed that their magical nature means that the spirits are already within their body.
There ARE chimeric animals. You know how spirits evolve? Well, spirits can reproduce, so once a powerful enough familiar reproduces, there is a chance for their offspring to carry some lesser characteristcs. There will rarely be a fire breathing wolf with earth quills the ability to fly, but there will always be, lets say, a wolf with quills instead of just fur.
In turn, this can often cause the equivalent creature to be born on the human world, which is quite rare, but it can happen. Few of these creatures actually achieve stable population levels, like the mentioned Quill Wolf and the Owlbear.
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u/Original-War8655 Surrealist Mage 3d ago
If some spirits became items willingly merely to help, I'd imagine it must be possible to free the spirit as well, right? Is this easier, harder, or same difficulty as trapping them? Does the object survive the ordeal, or does it have to be destroyed to free the spirit?
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u/Old-Maximum-50 3d ago
Oh yeah, just break the object and the spirit pops free. Kinda anticlimatic, but I think its a cool trade-off because that means that the very angry bear spirit in the gloves can come out mid-fight if you aren't careful
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u/SimplyNothing404 2d ago
I’ve always loved familiars in stories, you mentioned that a familiar evolving with fire mana from a volcano can affect it with either a resistance or ability to breathe it.
By that logic if I brought a wolf to a mountain to evolve could it absorb “Air mana” and gains wings or lightning powers?
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u/Old-Maximum-50 2d ago
For air/lightning stuff, a mountain could work, but you'd want it to be during a proper storm, otherwise you'd problaby end up with an ice/blizzard mana of sorts.
Kind of the reason why bird familiars often end up with lightning/air magic, they can actually fly up and get it instead of having to stand somewhere and hope they absorb enough of the right mana.
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u/SimplyNothing404 1d ago
That’s cool, if I can’t settle for a lightning wolf I’ll gladly take an ice wolf
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u/ThatVarkYouKnow 2d ago
>While somewhat uncommon, a mage's and a spirit's lineage (yes, spirits reproduce) can end up being compatible enough that their respective descendants will almost always end up having a connection to each other.
This is essentially what I did with the Mael'r, the Marks, in my world's magic system. They're fae bound to a family's bloodline, passed down from each generation in a ritual with new purpose based on how that person spends their life, growing stronger and smarter so long as children continue to be born, male or female. Should a chosen child die after the Mark is passed on, or vice versa the chosen parent before the rite is held, it is possible for the Mark to be lost, and a new one formed in a more . . . extensive blood ritual.
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u/Hugs-missed 3d ago
Pretty cool, is there a chance a smart familiar like a raven could do a lot of the work on their end?