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I'm writing a fantasy style kind of book, and I was wondering if anybody had any ideas on how, hypothetically speaking, enchantments would work in real life? Like I understand certain things like a sword that sets things on fire, or like when sting from lotr lights up when enemies are nearby, but I'm kind of stuck on how other "enchantments" would work or what they would be. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Hmm, believable magic, good choice. First you need a power source, what runs your enchantments. An easy analogy is human made AA batteries which get drained as you're running the enchantment. Think about how the source is made, how it recharges or is replaced, and how big or small it is. Then you need to fix a power draw for each enchantment, Sting is an always on bloodseeker, which you can analogue to a Bluetooth module seeking out matching signals, and glowing if signal (orc) detected. These kind of enchantments would require constant refuelling, like a lamp post needs oil. Something like a burning sword would require a trigger energy (the initial ignition), followed by fuel to keep the flames burning (oil, or other enchantments). You'll want to figure out whether enchantments are multiple use (rechargeable, like a lamp), or single time use (like a grenade). Thereafter, you'll want to probably start with boring but useful enchantments, such a sensors and alarms, and figure how society adapts to those. Then figure out what combat purposes you want them to serve, and repeat the above steps.

Stryker is correct, as that's a well thought out system of enchantments.

You don't need to necessarily recharge it, it can just draw from the Mana that exists naturally in the world or from the user's own Mana, or whatever bullshit word is chosen to act as magic energy.

Arguably everything gets recharged in the longer run, due to the net positive energy brought along by the sun everyday (assuming an aboveground setting). That said, things don't need to be recharged per se, but in that case he'd need to think of a replacement. A good example is oil, it's not getting recharged anytime soon, but you need to have replacements (more oil stocks or alternate fuel sources) on hand if you want to keep running as you are.

World mana most likely would be inherited from (and recharged by) the Sun, and personal mana would be from food, or whatever spiritual/fictional source you bring in. The key point here is that make sure everything has a price, no free WRATH OF THE HEAVENS casts, unless you're intentionally trying to write a Mary Sue / Marty Stu

WRATH OF THE HEAVENS is what happens in my setting when you're trying to enchant something and fuck it up.

Magic swords don't run on batteries, they lie in the forgotten tombs of kings for several millennia.

Lol, I'd rather whip out something like 'PETTY REVENGE OF THE CELESTIAL BUREAUCRACY!' if someone were to mess up an enchantment, more flavor there. Batteries were just a reference, because surely all those millennia of not decaying/submitting to entropy must be for a reason, right? In Endmaster's case, it's probably because millions of totally-not-symbolic dwarves were sacrificed to run the enchantment.

I don't know if it would be of help to the OP, but actually I split things up into divine and arcane enchantments.

All the divine stuff (weapons but also things allowing for healing/eternal youth, and instant communication) were declared OP and hidden away with powerful guardians when all the gods decided humans were dicks and noped out of the mortal plane.

Arcane enchanting is essentially poking pinpricks in the fabric of the universe to let in the raw magic on the other side and using runework and reagents to cram it in an object, trap it there and direct it in what to do. (Minus the directions and you just have your traditional magical asshole blasting everything around him until his mana runs out.)

The main difference was that the gods knew what they were doing and wizards have had to rely on trial and error and guesswork, and don't really understand the nature of what they're manipulating aside from 'doing X gets the result I want, doing Y makes my blood turn into snakes'

I really see no need to bother going into how world Mana is recharged, because it's supposed to be a mystical thing that humans don't understand, a connection between this world and that of the supernatural. Going about it in a scientific manner kind of takes everything away from it.

I'd disagree, having clarity about it's nature allows for surprises, such as where a person wearing a certain gem disrupts local mana fields or the like, that twist becomes a meaningful thoughtout part of the world. The author need not mention what exactly powers their phlebotinum, but they should have it mapped out ahead of time (not the way Superman kept getting skittles colored kryptonites as the plot demanded)

Yeah, it's not really necessary to spell it out in any kind of infodump, but these are all details an author should be aware of about their own setting and able to reference as needed.

I feel the Force from Star Wars makes my point here. As a mystical thing, it worked far better than microbes in the blood helping whatever the fuck. You can have rules for what can be done without understanding where it draws its power. It's not like knowing whether its recharged by the sun or whatever else will effect what can be done with it.

I'd argue the whole midi-chlorian mess was more related to the fact that they were ret-conning something in a weird way (with significant lore implications) than mentioning a source method per se. The lack of information about them till that point in time made a lot of the extended universe contradict the new information, so that actually serves the point that if they had the midi-chlorian thing pointed out in the start, it'd been pretty non-consequential.

Let me dredge up a different franchise - Harry Potter. His scar being a horcrux probably wasn't something JK Rowling had planned when she wrote the first book, but the way it segued naturally into later lore (the cost of horcruxes also being established, in this case splitting a person's soul) made it feel intentional and organic, and saw no fan backlash. Comparatively, the upgrade of the Invisibility Cloak from cool doodad to world breaking artifact with significant plot implications was more jarring, and did cause feedback.

Knowing the rules beforehand brings salience and stability into future plot developments, and can serve really interesting narrative beats (such as the emperor has no clothes, I am not left handed, I made a deal with the devil). Without plot stability, pulling out any of those beats will feel more Deathly Hallows than Horcruxes, ergo my recommendation of knowing what your phlebotinum is, even if the reader need not know that for a long while, if ever.

I don't think it was ret-conned. It's not like there was some other source in the original. It just seemed that no one bothered mentioning it to Luke, because it wasn't really relevant. Even if the midi-chlorians had been pointed out in the start, I greatly think it would've taken away from everything. The Force was this mystical thing that wasn't really understood but could be manipulated, and that worked far better. When you try to explain away every facet of something, you take away the entire mystical appeal of the Jedi. If they had used midi-chlorians at the start, the entire thing would've been far worse, as now the Jedi aren't this mysterious, semi-religious order that draws on images of monks and seems interesting and instead becomes "Super-soldiers who use magic bugs in their blood to fight", at which point you've ruined the whole appeal.

The Scar wasn't a horocrux, it was Harry Potter himself that was the Horocrux. Even if it was, there was nothing about the scar that was mystical or mysterious, it was just a scar that had meaning added to it. Taking the Harry Potter universe as an example, the mechanics of the magic was never really explained, because that would've taken away from the magic as a whole. Sure, plot relevant things can be explained, but that doesn't mean you need to explain every detail and take away any mystery from that world.

Again, there's a huge difference between rules and origins. There should definitely be rules put to magic, because otherwise it's a constant mess without any real order, but that in no way means you should take away from a world's mysticism by trying to explain the origins of something. Sure, you can if that's the kind of world you want to have, but that in no way means you need to explain away the origins or inner-most workings of sometihng. The rule "Mana exists in the world and can be drawn upon" is essential, but "Mana is recharged by the sun" just ruins any mysticism and instead just makes the world less interesting and quite frankly silly.

Yep, looks like I was coarse in my wording there. It wasn't ret-conned as it was forcibly welded onto the canon, but something as significant as that should have had larger manifestations/repercussions in the canon had it existed from the start. Now, as for midi-chlorians having existed from the start of Episode 4, technically they don't affect the nature of the Force too much, so their narrative impact wouldn't really have been that much (except for looking out for people with high mc counts and taking them seriously when introduced). The Force (tm) was meant to have been this weird fusion of eastern and western mythological lore, as a all present, well, force. Changes to the state of the force (its absence) have been the basis of significant stories, including the Yuuzhan Vong and KotoR2 storylines. Midi-chlorians were meant to have been something of a force deliquescent, so their doesn't inherently change the nature of the force per se, as its impacts are a function of the wielder (Anakin being a prime example), hence they are fairly harmless in those stories, but not in ones when people are looking for force-sensitive candidates. Their existence doesn't affect the lore equally, and where it does, the story suffers due to the method of their insertion.

Now, if the discussion point is that it's better to not reveal your source of power, because the unknown has its own charm, well, yeah, that's a valid point. The unknown is the best plot device in multiple settings because it lets you fill in the gaps with your own imagination. Case in point, why is so little of Heaven described outside the pearly white gates and gate-check procedure? Because to define Heaven's contents would irk someone or the other (Say they were to announce there's a Chocolate Ice Cream Fountain which gives perpetual chocolate. The existence of the fountain would irk Strawberry and/or Vanilla lovers who'd feel under-represented, and ergo we end up with rivalries and chaos over the presence of imaginary chocolate fountains, amongst else). Mystery is a potent storytelling element, but in longer works, there comes a time when the cards have to be played, you can't keep pulling random elements out or it feels like an ass-pull by the author. You want the moment when the greater scope of everything is revealed to be meaningful. Thing is, you only have so much rope to write while the nature of your powers are unknown, and when you need to start building on top of your established canon, you really want to have a solid foundation, even if it was out of sight till then.

Harry Potter's magic fails this test, hard. There are so many alternate uses / limitations / vagaries of her magic that while you can enjoy the writing, you'd go bonkers trying to recreate a meaningful verse and expanding on it, or even making a useful mental model of the magical world (most video games in the setting failed horribly, with EA's HP7 making expelliarmus a sniper ability for no discernable reason). Also, yeah, I messed up on the scar being a marker of the event that lead to the Horcrux, not technically the horcrux itself. HP is a great example of a world which sets up a great idea for lore, but stumbles over itself when it comes time to elaborate, and while the character arcs and plots can compensate, I'd say the story isn't as strong as it could have been had JKR been more methodical in planning her magic.

Rules are essential, and while revealing origins removes mystery, it builds a foundation of expectation which shifts the reader's mystery from the past (what causes/caused this) to the future (since it works this way, what can it do next), and that's a meaningful shift. I find that significant, and a worthy part of story writing.

Small example if you know the source material: At the end of Attack on Titan S1 I was hesitant about any future content being as good, as the entire premise of humans vs titans only makes sense if and when the titans are these relentless, ruthless beings of unknown provenance, attacking humans for unknown reasons. I felt that if their origins were ever explained it would move them from unstoppable foe to monster of the week, a severe blow to their interest value. However, once their origin was partly explained, it made me think of the implications and how the world might move going forward. Yes, the content thereafter was not the same experience after some of the cards were revealed, but that early suspense led to a meaningful progression in the story and in what I can expect from it, and that is good.

Adding the Midi-chlorians without a doubt changes the nature of the force. You can't have both a mysticisim that exists with the Force and also scientific explanation and level of scale there. The two just don't mix. It's no longer this interesting "This guy has this extra-spiritual understanding and being with this level of nature", like Yoda, who we saw as a little Buddha with perfect understanding, but instead just "His blood level is 0.5 Midichlorians per centimeter!" All the mysticism, meditation and all of it becomes second-hand to "Science says we measure your blood!", and even if it doesn't greatly change the narrative it without a doubt cripples the appeal of the Jedi and the Force. I think it's quite obvious that the Force works best as something we don't understand rather than trying to explain it, be it trhough bugs or any other way.

It's not about pulling things out of your ass, its about not feeling the need to destroy the mystery of the world through over-explaining. You again can make it obvious that these elements have limits to what they can do without killing the mystery. There's absolutely no reason you need to explain this mystical elements even in a longer work, and if you're being forced to explain the origins of magic because without it you can't properly structure its limits, its a failing of the writer, not the setting. The basis is, magic is fairly inherently silly. Saying I can lift a car with the wave of my hand thanks to the energy of the sun or bugs in my blood is ridiculous, while adding an element of mysticism that all of us are familiar with it keeps it from becoming so. The revelation that there's some science to it and we can explain away the mystery isn't meaningful, it takes away from the story as a whole.

Sure, Harry Potter's magic suffers from a lack of rules and known abilities, but that doesn't matter to the origins. If Rowling had structured what can and couldn't be done through magic it would've been a lot more helpful, that has nothing to do with its origins.

Again, there's a huge difference between having rules to magic, and having origins. We can understand the capabilities of a magic form without having to understand its origins. You can say magic can only accomplish X and never Y, but that doesn't mean you have to kill all elements of mystery. If you honestly need to explain away all mystery for your story to have had meaning, that's a failing of the writer, not the story.

Don't know the source material, although Attack on Titan is pretty different in that the Titans aren't based in mysticism, they're based in terror and confusion. Titans aren't something ingrained in a supernatural understanding of the world that we can leave unexplained and in fact benefits from doing so, but something that's existence is confusing and terrifying, and thus we clamber for more of an explanation to help us understand the threat. Honestly, even then I wouldn't see the need to explain it. You could sure, and supposedly they did and it worked, but its just as easy to turn to the Lovecraftian route and continue this basis of terror in the unknown, which HP and following writers did very well without having to explain away everything.

Well, there's an interesting point with the Midi-Chlorian excess in Anakin vs the wisdom of Yoda. In the end, Yoda's wisdom did seem to prevail, making the entire story a discount effort can overcome innate talent parable. Adding visible base parameters quantifies a challenge, and yet need not guarantee victory through strength to the more endowed. Out of curiosity, if it were possible to somehow gain midi-chlorians via meditation, would you change your stance? If it were possible to gain them via injection, same query.

Alright, regarding mystery I'll trot out the trope granddaddy of horror-mystery, the Chthulu mythos. The fear about the Chthulu pantheon is not that they are unknown but that they are unknowable by design. That's fine, and as long as writers stick to that script, all is well. However, by the same measure, it becomes tricky to add authentic new creations to the mythos, because it's hard to keep the reader engaged when you lack context, and that can become boring. Is Chthulu worth more awe than the other pantheon members? If say we add a new member to the mythos, Bobathia the flying Serpent of World Ending (random example) with the power to drench continents with eternal venom and to cause all living creatures in the earth to rise up to the surface, does that make him a meaningful addition to the mythos? I'd wager that's a difficult question to answer, because the cost of mystery is in not being able to provide context. That's where mystery can be a limitation. You'll find more interesting stories in the Chthulu mythos about stopping the machinations of the servants of the Eldritch abominations, rather than encountering them directly, which leads me to suspect that the mysterious nature of their identities is great to build around, but not necessarily great to build with.

The issue with lacking an origin source is that you lack a frame of context in your mental model of the world, and that's what's the core issue with Rowling, unlike say something like Dune which explains the methods to its madness and has enduring value for that.

Origins predate rules, and again, they need not be explicit but they should never be contradicted. I do not say all mystery need be explained away, but the more that is, the better the reader's mental model, and thereby engagement.

In the first season/couple of arcs of AoT, the titans are pretty much seen as divine retribution as punishment for unknown sins by humankind in the past, so there is an element of the supernatural to them. Their existence violates dozens of laws of practical science (notably, the larger something gets, the slower it gets, ergo Kaiju punches which take seconds in movies would take atleast dozens of seconds in an Earth atmosphere), yet they are treated with consistency. Expanding the reader's knowledge of them hasn't lessened their own threat but explained the rest of the world beyond where Titans are is pretty scary as well, that opens up the horizons of the story and gives a great playspace, which is something a creator can enjoy.

Yes, a bad writer can mess up mystery, but once again, having a fixed origin does not devalue the stories that emerge out of it.

Yoda never really prevailed, nor did Anakin really lose. The story wasn't "Anakin's midi-chlorians weren't enough!" it was "Anakin has been redeemed, but don't let fear and anger cloud your judgment!". While Yoda's wisdom certainly made him an interesting character, it was never shown to trump midi-chlorians, and indeed it's presumed he also had a high count. The idea that you could gain midi-chlorians from meditation or wisdom or injections still doesn't save it, as you've killed the mystic warrior monk idea that is the Jedi, instead making it "Biological super-soldier who meditates". When you're killing the mystical element, even if you leave behind the meditation and that of the Jedi, it's useless.

I think it's absurd to argue that not knowing the power degrees of the Chthulu mysthos in any way takes away from it. The power levels aren't what matters, because no matter what they're insanely more powerful than us. If you've got to a point where you're compared Bobathia to Cthulhu, you've ruined the entire genre. 

The issue with Rowling is, as you've said, a lack of rules, not a lack of an origin source. ou can absolutely have restrictions and know how powerful magic is without knowing its origin. To say that origins predate rules is absurd, as its quite obvious you can say "This magic is capable of this and not of that" without having to explain. If you can't do that, that's a failing of a writer. There's not always more engagement when you take away the mystery, if anything there can be far less, as there's not as much wondering and questioning and it's instead a far more boring "This is how it works" that can kill the appeal of the story.

While I've not read the Manga, I have season the first season, and I sure didn't see the divine retribution thing at all. Sure, there were ideas that that could've been it, but it in no way hinted that that was the way, instead it was just one possibility, and no one knew what was going on. I can't speak for any later explanations in the Manga, so I wouldn't bother.

Sure, you can have fixed origins, but you don't need to and a lot of the time it makes the story less interesting and kills any wonder. Mysticism and mystery are incredibly important things to a world and to say its better to take it away is absurd.

Well, Yoda trained Luke to eventually redeem Vader, so I'd say he won the long game there. Again, let's look at this backwards, people who wield the force attract more midi-chlorians, does that devalue the mystical nature of the force if it leaves marks on the wielder like a river leaves marks on a plain? (For the record, I agree with you that midi-chlorians were a major misstep for the mythos, but I don't say their impairs the mythos just through existence, though through bad execution)

Ah, my gripe with adding more Eldritch abominations isn't exactly in relative power levels, but that when you throw too many things at the reader to supposedly fear, that itself gives him a form of immunity/numbness from the intended experience. "Say what, another cosmic power incomprehensible to man? I've already seen five this week, the new guy better have a cool name or art" - is what ensues.

I do not argue that it is wise to remove mysticism and mystery, but that they need to give way to a proper mental model in time, and at that time they need to have a strong foundation of rules with proper origins to keep the house in order. I suspect we're once again going round in circles at this point, though.

And Luke had all the midi-chlorians from Anakin as they were passed on there, so no, there's no eral comparison method. And it's not that midi-chlorians are attracted by Force use, theyr'e the cause, which does remove all mystical nature. It's not marks left by Force use, it's the cause.

So don't continuously through more Eldritch abominations, then. That's fine, have a few. You don't need to compare them. But when it becomes Cthulhu is stronger than Hogsdwa but weaker then Golagiam, you've killed the Lovecraftian element and just made a bunch of shitty super-powered things. "I guess while they're both incomprehensible in how powerful they are, but this one's twice as incomprehensible in power as that one," kills the entire genre.

And again, you don't need origins for a foundation of rules. There's no reason why you couldn't write a story where people use mystical magic of unknown orgins, yet we know what it can and can't do.

There doesn't even need to be anything powering it, per se. There could be such a thing as "empty mana". Just the notion that the mana of the universe is inert until changed. By using a series of sounds and hand gestures akin to a programmer, a wizard can change the nature of the mana surrounding themselves or an object. Therefore, a bubble of affected mana forms around Sting that will change the physical matter if the mana is affected. There is no mana in the sword or power source or whatever "fuelling" the enchantment, the mana around it is just set to perpetually fulfilling a certain task because the mana has been given properties by a wizard.

I pretty much said that, but whatever, that's cool.

Your post still had the implication that magic was powering something rather than being the power itself. Even if it's still because magic naturally flows through the world, that's still different. It's the difference between an object doing something because it conducts magic, and magic doing something because it associates a command with a certain object.

hey so someone told me this was the thread where all the spergs hang out

Well, the clever part of your argument is that debating it would be proving your point. Then again, seeing the atypically criminal lack of competent grammar on display in your post, I wouldn't be surprised if your account was hacked.

Funny thing is the OP just posted this and never logged in again.

It's probably Azure again.

(And yes, if it is him, I'll just ban him and keep the thread)

Cheers to that. But are we sure that post was from the real Mizal? Seems atypical of her style, she's often confrontational with a purpose, but rarely outright offensive for offensiveness' sake. Also, it's too early in the day in Texas for wine to be a reasonable explanation.

Do you have any idea of the amount of scrolling I had to do on a three and a half inch screen just to read this post?

E: is the OP Azure? The name is wrong and he didn't write his three paragraphs. This is a worrisome development, it suggests he might be capable of learning.

To be honest, not as long as a number of the hot topic threads that crop up now and then. Also, Geralt is the protagonist's name from the Witcher series of books and games, I'm surprised it took this long for someone to take it.

It probably would have taken a while, I'm not all that surprises. The Witcher's only been a mainstream popular game fairly recently, (I daresay, the third one's been the only good one too, though 2 is starting to grow on me since I'm getting increasingly sick of that pirouette animation.) and he's primarily known to western audiences (the audience that makes up the majority of the userbase) as a game character. The books, while they do have a cult following, only really have/had a cult following before the Witcher 3 blew his popularity through the roof. Would I be surprised maybe 5 years from now? Yeah, probably, but as it stands Geralt is far from a household name even now, and I wouldn't be surprised if we continued not seeing Geralts for a while had the alt not been made.