[Brainstorming] Need help to distinguish these features of my power systems

[CheertheSecond]

My story uses multiple power systems.

I have the mana system which uses mana which is defined as a product to power magic. Magic is defined as a way for the gods to influence the world without incurring too much physical causality (think of it like this. When you need to move an object, a force must be exerted upon the object. This requires energy but energy can't be created out of no where. That violates the laws of physics. Magic is sth that violates physics by creating force out of nowhere to do the work then extracting that force back out of the system). Thus, this becomes the basis for magic or the mana system where mana is used to activate magic and when the spell finishes its work, its power decays back into mana over time. Back to being inert mana. The thing about mana is it exists parallel with everything in the universe but does no interact with dimensions, energy or matter in anyway. An astral eye needs to be opened on a person to detect mana. Inert mana in the world needs to be gathered and processed (which costs mental power and exhausts the brain) into useable mana before it can be used to fuel a spell. Thus, how much a person can hold useable mana, how fast they can process inert mana and how well they can preserve the useable mana from decaying are 3 additional parameters for magic users beside their ability to cast spell, spell level restriction, casting speed, etc.

The next system is the tribal power system since it exists as one of the earliest system even older than the mana system. Its currency is stamina. As in it consumes a living being's stamina to cause phenomenon similar to magic despite it is not magic. Why it is not magic? The magic effect such as spell boost, magic reduction or magic immunity do not work on the phenomena caused by the tribal system (or the endura system) and vice versa. They belong to completely separate systems. Moreover, endura system causes physical effect which touches onto physical causality meanwhile magic system cause magical effect. Magical flame for example can burn without physical fuel and can't be killed by cutting off air or fuel. This is just a small example.

The cultivation system which uses chi. This is similar to most chinese cultivation novel. Now here's the crux of the problem. Chi is usually described as vitality and losing vitality means death. However, I don't know how to illustrate death by depletion of vitality. People ages and turns to dust? That doesn't sound like vitality but more like aging. I also wants this chi to not affect stats such as strength and agility. Vitality should just stay vitality and losing them all means the death of the biological body. Moreover, I also have another system which uses the soul.

In general, I want a way to distinguish the soul, the spirit, the essence of a human, the chi and vitality, as well as things like youthfulness and stamina. So 7 things total.

Anyone has any good suggestion. If you want to comment I can do whatever I want, then don't. I need suggestion and suggestion isn't I can do whatever I want. I want to make a cohesive and solid power system with cause and effect in multiple aspects of the world building and characters. I need good ideas, good input.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Could look into the Egyptian mystic system, with the Ka, Ba and ... third one I keep forgetting.
Or even European or Taoist alchemy for terms and ways to define effects.

 

[Cipiteca396]

I personally use a system of Body (Vitality and Stamina), Heart (Mana and Emotion), Mind (Psychic and Rational), and Spirit (Will, Fate/Faith, and Luck); all of which are extensions/components of the Soul.

Based on what you've said, I strongly suggest making Stamina and Vitality the same thing as Qi.
Someone who dies of Qi depletion would slowly grow more and more tired, until they simply stopped moving and died.
Physically, it would be the same as energy depletion, with the starving body devouring itself and visibly withering.

In general, I want a way to distinguish the soul, the spirit, the essence of a human, the chi and vitality, as well as things like youthfulness and stamina. So 7 things total.

A soul is whatever remains consistent before and after death.
A spirit is what is lost on death, becoming a ghost.
Essence is just DNA, innit? Or perhaps it's another name for emotion.

I strongly dislike systems that use Lifespan (Youthfulness) as a set resource, something that can be spent, conserved or recovered. Frankly, I don't know why you'd distinguish it at that point from qi or "essence", or what it would do that those resources couldn't. Maybe it's just a straight boost to other abilities? Like pouring gasoline in your mana... for some reason.

I do think you should separate magic from the gods. If mana comes from an internal source like your essence or spirit, then you could have normal miracles come from the gods.

Could look into the Egyptian mystic system, with the Ka, Ba and ... third one I keep forgetting.
Or even European or Taoist alchemy for terms and ways to define effects.

• Khet or the "physical body"
• Sah or the "spiritual body"
• Ren or the "name, identity"
• Ba or the "personality"
• Ka or the "double" or "vital essence"
• Ib or the "heart"
• Shuyet or the "shadow"
• Sekhem or the "power, form"

Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Sekhem was the one I was trying to remember. Didn't recall them having separate concepts for Ren or Shuyet (the books I looked into back in college - some 40 years ago - didn't go that far into it) and had forgotten about Sah.

 

[CheertheSecond]

I strongly dislike systems that use Lifespan (Youthfulness) as a set resource, something that can be spent, conserved or recovered. Frankly, I don't know why you'd distinguish it at that point from qi or "essence", or what it would do that those resources couldn't. Maybe it's just a straight boost to other abilities? Like pouring gasoline in your mana... for some reason.

In my world building, youthfulness isn't lifespan. It is the opposite side of the same coin with aging. Lifespan is determined by [Vitality] & [Youthfulness-Aging].

I didn't put chi as vitality because chi can exist in inanimate objects (a rock, water in river, the air) but vitality does not exist in things that do not live. Stamina is similar to vitality as it only exists in living things. Thus, machines and cyborgs can't use the Tribal power system (Endura) because they do not have stamina but they can cultivate (using Qi System). Qi is something I want to have certain overlapping aspects with vitality and may be stamina but is not the same and is not the deciding factor for Stamina and Vitality. What I hate most in many fictional systems is one parameter can dictate the stats across the board. I prefer that it has some influences but not the dominating property.

About the magic thing, I do have miracles in my fiction. 2 in fact. Miracle is defined as something described as impossible but occurred. So we have miracles that mortals are capable of and there are divine miracle which requires a Deity (being of worthy of worship) and is fueled by faith of believers. Magic as i said is a tool of the god to not incur too much physical causality. However, gods aren't only capable of magic. They have other ways to influence the world but those tools are too intrusive and have far greater chances of causing cascading effects which the gods do not want to happen.

The other thing about soul, essence and chi is because my world setting is a bit different from others. First of all, souls that is described by our world's traditional beliefs did not exist in my story. No human or animal or anything had souls. People live and die and being rebirth. As in, all the information about them decayed into very low and incomprehensible stuffs after death. These small pieces are passed along to the next things similar to how the atoms of our bodies were once forged in the stars and other cosmic events. However, none of us are a star. In fact, our body may even be composed of matter of multiple stars mixing together. Each body has a tiny part of each of those previous existed. Same as a ship breaking down in the sea and these scattered parts are later salvaged for other things. The good parts of the sail became a poor man's blanket. A staircase's decors became another decors in a house. Broken planks on the deck became chipwood boards.

Only in a later major event in the novel that humanity's belief became strong enough to create a soul. Thus, they extracted themselves from the cycle of rebirth and invented reincarnation. This is beginning of the soul power system. Essence is similar to soul in one aspect which is it also didn't exist before but was later created by humans. However, the civilizations that gave birth to the soul and the civilizations that made the essence had millions of year of separate development and never came into contact. What I try to do is making essence its own thing with different characteristics from the soul and through these different characteristics a new power system is derived, capitalising on its advantages.

First of all, my motto for inventing anything in my fic: it must have a presence and a tangible effect on the overall setting in both macro and micro scale. I won't just shove in something new for the sake of it being new. It must have already left behind something to shape the landscape of the history to exist.

 

[Cipiteca396]

First of all, my motto for inventing anything in my fic: it must have a presence and a tangible effect on the overall setting in both macro and micro scale. I won't just shove in something new for the sake of it being new. It must have already left behind something to shape the landscape of the history to exist.

This creates a huge problem in asking others for help. These heavily setting-dependent energies require immense amounts of context to create. If essence and soul are constructs of certain civilizations, then how they work can only be determined by someone who understands those civilizations. And we do not.

It could be interesting to see how those energies are the same or different based on the cultures that made them though.

 

[worldismyne]

When I think of a depletion of vitality, I think of someone sickly/fatigued.

Vitality/stamina can be seen as interchangeable to some people. I think the problem you're running into is that overlap and making the two distinct from one another.

Since you want the stamina based powers to be physical and magic to be divine, maybe your chi system can be more mental in nature?

Someone with mental fatigue can exhibit external symptoms (flat/absent emotions, confusion/freeze responses to sudden intrusions/questions/task, being unable to take care of themselves (bathing, cooking, etc), being unable to do anything other than lie awake and feel tired, sometimes unable to speak. And it can make the body feel heavy too, with every move taking more effort than usual, even if others can't see a change. And of course, you can adjust the severity to accommodate how much vitality is being used (someone that did something small, might misspeak/stutter instead of going completely silent)

Otherwise you'll need to have what the attributes of a healthy soul are, before figuring out what a soul with decreased vitality does to a person.

However, if you want to keep the tribal system and chi system similar, you could have how the character's perceive the two systems be the driving force for what sets them apart. (Maybe one is older, more respected, or more dangerous to use). Your readers are going to care most about how the characters interact with the magic system at the end of the day.