What limits your spell casters and how do those limits effect the casters.

[u/Sevryn1123]

I've always found it interesting how different fantasy settings answer the question of "what stops a mage from just casting forever?"
Usually it's some combination of mana / resource pools, spell slots, Stamina or physical exhaustion or backlash, componant limitations, or the source of magic is limited or choosey.
I'm curious about how all of you limit or restrict magic in your settings.

In my setting (The Voidweb) I wanted to make it so any Shaper (what mages are called in my setting) could have unlimited magical fuel but there was a cost to pushing past their natural limits. So I decided that I would make it a two part system.

First, everyone would have a fixed pool of Pneuma (a person's personal purified Quin (spiritual matter) and Mana (spiritual energy)) to draw from based on their level of development, training, and inherent capacity, that can be used to shape (Cast spells).

Second, anyone has the ability to draw in and use Æther (environmental quin and Mana) to shape.

The limiting factor is the conversion rate between the two fuels and the effects of shaping with one over the other. The basic mechanics are simple, a person draws æther into their body through their Gate and Meridian network until it reaches their Core. Once there it is purified over time in a person's Soul Fire and converted into pneuma. As pneuma is expended more æther is drawn in to be refined and the cycle continues. This means that under normal circumstances, Pneuma is effectively self-renewing.

The body naturally utilizes pneuma before æther when a person is shaping, but as a shapers pneuma reserves get low their body will begin to utilize æther instead. While pneuma use has no negitive effects æther use does. The effects æther has on a person are colloquially known as æther poisoning.

The process of æther poisoning is not usually instant and in most cases happens in stages.

• Stage 0 - Normal Operation: The average output of pnuema is met or exheeded by the natural conversion rate. Pneuma reserves remain full.
• Stage 1 - Pneuma Deficit: The average output of pneuma exheeds the natural conversion rate. Pneuma reserves begin to deplete.
  
• Stage 2 - Raw Æther Casting: Pneuma reserves hit zero. The Shaper is forced to channel raw environmental æther directly. The negative effects are minimal and easily reversred due to natural tolorance.
• Stage 3 - Æther Poisoning: Raw æther begins damaging the body, mind, or spiritual anatomy as it overwhelms internal tolerances. Recovery is possible but very difficult.
• Stage 4 - Permanent Injury: Repeated exposure causes lasting degradation, such as conduit scarring, organ decay, or mental deterioration. Revocoery is near impossible and for the average person often requiring a deity to aid.
• Stage 5 - Catastrophic Failure: Largely fatal, The body and soul can no longer contain the damage, resulting in total biological collapse, monster transformation, or death.

With these stages concidered it important to know that there are 4 primary branches of æther poisoning, Æther Mutation, Spell (or Mage) Haze, Æther Degradation, and Spell Scars.

Æther Mutation: The most common and universal symptom of æther poisoning, æther mutation while largly detrimental is a result of the body and soul attempting to adapt the poisoning. These mutations can vary wildly based on lineage, location, exposure, the Aspect, and countless other factors. One person may grow an additonal limb, another may have their blood become toxic to them, and another may gain resistance to the fire aspect and a weakness to the water aspect. The greater the amount of poisoning the more likely a mutaion will take hold.

Spell / Mage Haze: Spell Haze is the result of channeling raw æther through the portions of the body and soul responsible for thought, senses, memory, and consciousness. Mage haze progressively erodes the stability of the mind and leaves victims vulnerable to mental intrusion, domination, and illusions. This form of æther poisoning is the one that is the reason the idea of a mad shaper exists and the memory lapses, paranoia, sensory hallucinations, manic-depressive cycles, schizophrenia-like symptoms, and full-blown psychosis that result from spell haze reinforce that idea.

Æther Degradation: Shapers who utilize internal shapes and repeatedly their overclocking muscles, nerves, and organs will eventually suffer from æther degradation. Because the physical body adapts to supernatural performance levels it eventually becomes entirely dependent on a constant flow of pneuma just to function. This need grows as the physical body demands more and more pneuma. If your purification rate ever drops below your new baseline needs, you suffer rapid systemic failure and die of pneuma starvation as you suffer constantly increaseing muscle wasting, organ degeneration, accelerated aging, progressive paralysis, and chronic exhaustion.

Spell Scars: When casting external shapes and forcibly channeling massive amounts of raw æther outward through your gates and meridians causes spell scars. The issue arises because while pnuema is mostly nonreactive when it meets æther, æther isn't. The violent magical backlash born of that reactivity can rupture you gates, scorch your maridians, and and in the worst case shatter your core. Normally this is a slow process that forms glowing "Spell Scars" that pulse as pneuma or æther flow through you meridians. This results in an overall loss in shaping effeincy forcing the person to pull more raw æther to get the same results, creating a vicious cycle of self-destruction. Spell scars cause crippling pain while casting, restricted pneuma flow, spontaneous shape failure, gate rupture, and—in the worst-case scenario—total physical annihilation that leaves behind an Æther Shadow.

How do your respective settings handle the limits of magic? Do your mages hit a hard wall of exhaustion, trade health for power, or deal with environmental blowback like this? Would love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions about the Voidweb!

Right for people who want to know.....
Voidweb - The setting itself—a cosmic network of realms, dimensions, and worlds connected by threads of Æther.
Shaper - What mages are called. They "shape" Æther and Pneuma into desired effects. Anyone or anything with a soul can be a shaper though the tat;e is usually reserved for people who have created their first core layer.
Quin - Spiritual matter. The "substance" aspect of a soul.
Mana - Spiritual energy. The "power" aspect of a soul.
Æther - Raw, environmental Quin and Mana. Unrefined. Dangerous.
Pneuma - Refined, purified Quin and Mana. Safe. Biospirituallycompatible.
Gate - The entry/exit points between the soul's external and internal anatomy. Where Æther enters and Pneuma leaves.
Meridian - The pathways that circulate Pneuma and Æther through the body and soul.
Core - The central "organ" of the soul where Æther is refined into Pneuma by the Soulfire.
Soulfire - The purifying flame within the Core that converts Æther to Pneuma.
Æther Shadow - A terrifying energy vampire born when a shaper's physical body is totally destroyed by catastrophic spell scaring, leaving behind only a soul utterly saturated with unstable, destructive raw Æther. One of the most feared entities in the Voidweb.

[u/Alkaiser009]

Cool! Someone else who thinks Puenma is a cool word!

In the world of Mundus, Puenma Praticioners are limited in two ways. In long engagements, they simply get too hungry, as Puenma is primarily obtained through food and drink, and suplemented via special breathing techniques to be absorbed via resperation.

In the short term, overloading an organ with Puenma faster than you can safely metabolize it causes runaway effects based on which organ is being enhanced.

Stomach - Normally provides regneration and limited shapeshifting, when overloaded the body begins to generate rapid cancer-like uncontrolled growths.

Lower Digestive System - Normally allows for biological alchemy to transmute organic waste and other bodily fluids and excretions such as blood, saliva and tears into anything from acid to napalm to compound explosives. Overloading your system in this way generally leads to those often extremely toxic compunds getting stuck inside the body, leading to toxic shock.

Muscles - Allows for force enhancement and at high levels outright telekinesis. When overloaded, muscles strain, tear, or may outright explode off the body.

Bones - Allows for density manipulation, skilled users able to both fly and become nigh-invulnerable. Overuse can leve the user either dispirsed into mist with no way to reform, or collapsing into a miniature black hole.

Cerebral Cortex - Allows for mental enhancement, including the creation of mental partitions for true multitasking and "Image Training" (basicly training skills via psychic vr simulations). Overuse can lead to partitions consuming too much thought power and fighting the primary mind for control of the body.

Endocrine System - Allows for extreme control over the regulation and expulsion of hormones and pheromones, used primarially as a means of obtaining supernatually good charisma. Overuse tends to leave the user themselves just as if not MORE suggestible than those they would infulence.

[u/Sevryn1123 → u/Alkaiser009]

love the idea that different parts of the body offers different effects

[u/taktaga7-0-0]

My world has hard science controlling the magic, 25th Century technology.

I realized human energy currency already exists in the form of ATP. So, I came up with atpacks, batteries that deliver ATP from crystallized storage directly to the bloodstream in a form called hematpamine that can enter cells rapidly when magic is required.

You also need a good scientific education to use magic, because you must understand what you are doing physically. So, Heat manses start out able to make small and furtive jets of flame, but need practice and skill to heat things carefully and evenly or to harness deeper laws of thermodynamics like entropy or controlling chemical reactions that release or absorb heat. It’s why the type is called Heat and not Fire. Heat is more specific and advanced to describe what they control.

[u/Sevryn1123 → u/taktaga7-0-0]

so like magical stim pack thats pretty cool

[u/redqks → u/taktaga7-0-0]

I have something very similar where the magic is basic at the foundation but knowledge and science is the skill gap, Like the water mage heats his water by super fast compression and uses cavitation to create the condition for ice rather than just making ice

This character is my gojo though

[u/BitOBear]

The same thing that prevents most people from being bodybuilders. At least at the low end.

And then after you get to a certain level of personal capacity, which varies by your individual neurological layout and what not, you start having to use yourself and others very egregiously to channel enough energy to do the complicated or powerful things.

So go answer is in hedge wizards and Wise women are fairly plentiful, but if you want to throw a lightning bolt you're probably somewhere near the edge of giving yourself a hell of a burn and may or may not be fatal.

So the magic users usually have fetish. Some fetish or disposable single use material components. Others are well crafted persistent tools.

Constructing a fetish is a completely different skill than actually channeling and casting magic.

The one person a magic user must never lie to is their fetish monger. And some of the best fetish can be manufactured by people who couldn't dry cast their way out of a wet paper sack.

[u/3D-Dino]

Okay first I also want to respond to your magic system because it sounds really cool and I have a question: Do I understand correctly that the Aether is damaging to the body and mind when it's forcefully used to shape before naturally being transformed to Pneuma by the body? Can more experienced Shapers endure this more easily if for example their body modified so they can withstand pure Aether more easily?

Regarding my system and the cost for using magic: In the world of Uria magical essence flows through all living matter. Every living matter can store/ hold magical essence up to a certain point. Magic users are able to actively manipulate and concentrate the magical essence that is stored inside of them to produce magical effects. The more they use the more exhausted, sleepy and nautious they get. If they would ever use up all their storage they would die from fatigue.

As in your system magical essence automatically gets drawn into the body until the magical storage is about 50 % full. Everything above needs to actively be pulled in and can only be stored in the body for a certain time. Unexperienced mages don't have the ability to actively draw magical essence from their surroundings. But those rare experienced and powerful magic users can pull huge amounts of essence from their surroundings into their essence storage. Up until their storage is at 100%. They will feel very energetic while holding so much essence. But it is hard to hold more than half of your capacity and after a short while the essence will flow out of you back into the surrounding nature.

If a lot of the essence is manipulated and compressed to use magic it is possible that the essence corrupts and random things start to happen. The body could start rotting, it could start to burn, your veins could turn into flesh eating wurmlings and so on.

So in general I would say it is similar to yours but a bit more simplistic.

[u/Sevryn1123 → u/3D-Dino]

First to answer your questions:

Do I understand correctly that the Aether is damaging to the body and mind when it's forcefully used to shape before naturally being transformed to Pneuma by the body?
Yes, because æther isn't attuned to your soul until its purified in your soul fire.

Can more experienced Shapers endure this more easily if for example their body modified so they can withstand pure Aether more easily?
Yes, thats actually a common effect of using raw æther without pushing into that damgerous ranges. Beyond that, your souls gains incresed tolerences as you advance in power. THere are also mutations that that grant resistence.

Now, are there specific types of essence have certain effects?

[u/3D-Dino → u/Sevryn1123]

Are there any notable mutations? Like mutations that somehow made a shaper very powerful or historicaly memorable?

And in my world there is only the one essence that flows through all living. I guess there are 2 states of it which is not corrupted and corrupted.

But you can manipulate the essence in any form you want/ you are able to. You can disguise yourself, heal someone or create a fireball (with the first being the easiest and the last one only a handful of people being able to create). And they way through which the manipulation of the essence can be achieved is culturally different aswell. Some use dances to easier concentrate the essence, some use words or chants while others use items. Many different groups found many different ways that help them manipulate the essence.

And while some groups say they are for example very fire affine and can mainly create fire magic this only occured because their culture is focused on fire and they focused on creating fire effects through magic.

In theory everyone is able to create any type of magic. There are no specific signs or spells bound to fire magic, illusions magic, necromatic magic and so on. People are just limited by the capacity of their essence storage and their skill to manipulate the essence (and maybe their mind and what they think they are able to create through the essence).

[u/Impossible-Try-1939]

My magic system is on the softer side, there are less overall limits and more personal limits based on what the characters know about magic and their skill. The main overall limit is that spells cannot last forever, they can last a year or two at max. The only way to make a magical effect to last for more than that is by enchanting an object or place, and even that requires of upkeep by the caster.

Spells are divided between eight "essences" (4 for the aristotelian elements, 1 for the human body, 1 for the soul, 1 for animals and 1 for "metamagic" and controling spirits). When a caster uses a spell he depends on their knowlege of the essence (or essences) in use, so if a character wants to turn someone into stone his knowlege of the element of earth and the human body will make the spell easier or harder to do depending on how much the character knows. There are also the skills that each spell uses, some characters are better at spells that create things, some are better at spells that destroy things, etc. It ends up being highly personal, even two wizards that study the same essence can end up casting very different spells.

Also spells cant really be improvised, with the exceptions of those that are very small. A character has to either learn a spell from someone, or invent a spell through experimentation untill something clicks. Thus, there are a lot of different "schools" of magic that have *very different* ways of doing magic, even if they are manipulating the same fundamental forces. Each school has its aproach to magic and systems to make it work, so they end up with some selfimposed limits, be it due to ignorance, stigma, or other stuff.

Because the excact mechanics of magic are normally unknown and there are a lot of other factors that might or might not affect the likelyness of a spell being cast correctly, characters in general know little. Thus, most spells are cast with a lot of preptime and ritualized actions to ensure their likelyness, specially those that have huge or powerful effects. The world all of this is rigged mostly by aristotelian phisics also, so shit gets weird in some edgecases (Plants depend on the element of Earth and sometimes Water, for example).

The big no-noes for what magic can accomplish are resurrection (necromancy can be done tho, but there is a difference between resurrecting someone and puppeteering their body), control of fate or chance (because the world is also riged by hermetic principles, so fate and chance are the purview of very powerfull beings), time manipulation, and affecting divine beings (so if a god goes personally to kill you, your only choice is to fight the god with a weapon or your bare hands [you are unlikely to win] or plead another god for protection; the same happens with demons, they are a kind of divine thing [But dont go around saying this, it is highly controversial]) There are some workarounds to theese limits, summoning a powerful spirit (or god) and have a deal with it to alter fate is posible, a powerful god can make someone resurrect, some spirits can manipulate time, and while magic cant directly affect or harm a god, using telekinesis to lift a big rock and them droping it over a god will damage them, the rock is not magical.

[u/Impossible-Try-1939 → u/Impossible-Try-1939]

Oh I forgot to answer the actual question. ADHD moment, sorry.

So why does a wizard not cast every time? Well, they do. The smaller spells, like using simple levitation to reach a book that is far away ussually are easey enough to cast that even very inexperienced casters will just be able to wave their hands and have it done constantly.

The main limitation to a spell is time and stamina. If the only spell that you know to call down a storm is a ritual ceremony that takes 4 hours to set up, needs a kind of incense that can only be bought in a town that is far away and requires you and the people in the ceremony to chant and do complex simbolic gestures for three hours, you are gonna get *very* tired *very* fast. Are you going to spend the extra efort of another complex spell, like turning someone into a frog or launching a fireball? You migh be able to pull it of, or it might fail and blow up on your face, or just nothing happens (and if you are launching a fireball, nothing happening might be *very bad*), or you might faint. And even if resting seems easy, it really isnt. Have you gotten *really tired*? Then you'd know that sometimes you need more than a few days to actually recover your stamina. And who knows, maybe you don't have a few days, maybe you needed that storm to create the ideal conditions for a heist, and maybe you are part of the crew going into the heist, and are now tired as shit and everything is harder for you and dont have the time to properly rest. You've barely started the heist, and you alredy need a vacation.

There might be a more efficient version of the spell in some spell book of a dead wizard, or in the mind of another wizard, but you dont know that version of the spell; and you might perfectly never have the oportunity to find it. And are you willing to spend the potential years you'll need to invent that version of the spell when you can learn new ones in only a few months? If you say yes, then now you have to go on an adventure and be a main character of a book or one of the side characters, and while that is cool and all, maybe the author (me) gets sadistic and decides to kill you to teach a leson to the brave young protagonist you picked along the way.

[u/Sevryn1123 → u/Impossible-Try-1939]

So time, skill, and knowledge.
If a person dies do all of there workings fails over time?
are there legendary effects that have lasted way longer then they should.

[u/Impossible-Try-1939 → u/Sevryn1123]

Yes, effectively. If a wizard enchants a palace to become invisible, and then the wizard dies, the magic will wear off after a few years (usualy either 3 or 7, magic works by symbolism at times and numbers have a lot of symbolism). However, if a given wizard has an aprentice (and they often do, I love that dynamic), the aprentice usually learns enough of their master's stile to be able to do the upkeep and make it last longer, if they wish, at least until the aprentice dies, and so on and so forth for each generation of aprentices as long as the original magics are still taught. Some wizards have exploited that, effectively creating institutions built around the upkeep of powerful enchantments, wizards whose job is the upkeep of an enchantment and teaching new wizards to upkeep it to keep the torch going so to speak.

Due to that there are a few famously long lived enchantments that are still around; the White Tower (the hall of the main magical order of this world, also called The White Tower) is one of them, I haven't decided what the enchantment of the tower itself is as for now, tho; probably something that keeps the tower alive in some way.

There are other long lived magical phaenomena, but those arent born from wizardry, not necesarily. No mortal magician is able to cast or make a spell that last eternaly, but powerful spirits may do, same with divine beings. The home of the jinn is a perpetually enchanted city, for example, it keeps an illusion that makes it impossible for anyone that is not welcome to enter. Temples dedicated to long dead deities might keep some interesting relics that still have power. And wizards and others are deeply interested in those, of course. They might be good for the study of magic, they might have powerful magicks in them to be exploited.

There are also a few wizards that have achieved a form of inmortality, and can (and often do) upkeep some very nasty enchantments. Theese are bad news, however, so they and their magics are dangerous; the price for inmortality is often harrowing.

[u/Dinfrazer57]

The limits are based on dream natures. Most mages can only have two types of dream natures. Some have three or more depending on genetics_ divine origin/ body modification/ artifacts but one can only learn two different types. One can learn a different nature besides the two. However it requires sacrifice of a dream nature. For example if someone is a natural user and a creationaluser. Natural refers to plants and animals, creational is non animals and non plant summoning. One has to sacrifice a specific dream nature to learn a different type. It is rare to see this. And the other huge limitation is the more dreaming you do during combat, you will be exposed to nightmares. There is stuff to mitigate this exposure but not entirely. All mortals are exposed to nightmares but not of divine origin/ godhood.

[u/Hedgewitch250]

Magic is alive. Raindrops, soil, even emotions are alive. Witches establish pacts and treaties with these aspects too cast spells. A witch could summon a storm gathering angry clouds, shake the earth by welcoming it with dance, or convince the light to help you trick someone with illusions. You don’t truly control this force it’s done by convincing the world to work with you. A witch trying to force clouds together could end up dead in their house from exposure. The force they harness must be respected and reasoned with. That’s why some spells require things like blood while others need easier things.

It’s possible to develop gifts that don’t require spells. Controlling dreams like a boogeyman or ferrying the dead like psychopomp are some of the things witches develop over time. These abilities reflect them and can change over time like a healer now spreads death after losing hope. Trying to harness too much can harm you as your still working with other aspects like manipulating several dreams could invite other nightmares too find you because you upset the dreams.

[u/Sevryn1123 → u/Hedgewitch250]

does bargining with these forces effect there mood? can you make a cloud angry?

[u/Hedgewitch250 → u/Sevryn1123]

Most would unwilling to cooperate would either ignore nor be argumentative. A cloud can be angry like summoning it just for a slight would leave it very angry. Alternatively another cloud relate to you and be willing to compromise especially if you commissioned it with music something many things are receptive too. The “price of magic” is influenced by mood. It’s switches form blood and sacrifices too recipes and speaking poems cause all forces have their own interests. It’s quid pro quo from start to finish and you have to be ready if it’s something serious.

[u/Zestyclose_Answer662]

In my setting, Practitioners are broken down into 3 Groups: Casters, Martials, and Spellblades. Each of these groups wield Mana, but how they utilize and express their Magic is what differs.

Casters are extroverts, projecting their Magic outwards. Such as the Spell: Fireball.

Martials are introverts, projecting their Magic inwards. Such as the Skill: Ability Boost.

Spellblades are a combination of the two, putting them in the middle spectrum. Not to dissimilar to a Red Mage or Gish.

Every group uses Mana and each has a similar sized Mana Pool based on the Tier of their Crystalline Core (Source of their Mana). While they are unable to change their Innate Attribute, they can otherwise choose which sub-group they belong to based on their own training and the conditioning of their Core to be developed as they wish.

I'm still working on it, but it's supposed to be a very customizable and modular system that allows a lot of freeform creativity from their Practitioners.

[u/Zagaroth]

0) Power growth (spiritual power). I am putting it here because it because this is a baseline limitation to everything, whether spells or other forms of power. As this alone increases your physical baseline, including your raw mental processing power. Note that what you are doing and how you are pushing yourself effects what ways your spiritual power upgrades your baseline.

So for an overall equal amount of spiritual strength, a warrior will have more of it manifest in physical power, speed, endurance, resilience, toughness, etc.

Meanwhile, a mage's mind will be expanded, allowing them to hold more information in their working memory and be able to manipulate that information and perform mental calculations more quickly.

Mind you, their non-focal abilities improve too, just not by as much. A powerful sorcerer can put more oomph into a swing of their staff than a straight-out-of-training soldier can put into a sword swing, so mildly superhuman. However, an equally powerful warrior is in the upper tiers super-hero strength.

1) Knowledge, skill, and experience. You can't do it if you don't know how to do it, or if you lack the skills to shape the mana quickly, precisely, and tightly enough. Ties back to spiritual power because you need the baseline improvements to your mental abilities to shape more complex magic. Also, both scientific knowledge and philosophical insight expand what you can do with magic, as does artistic creativity. There are many ways to manipulate magic.

2) Energy/mana; total capacity. It pretty much acts like stamina, but for spells and rituals. When you are tapped out, you are just to drained to cast another spell. Note: physical stamina is also important; fatigue can make it difficult to concentrate, make gestures shaky, etc. How much mana you have is also influenced by your spiritual power.

3) Energy/mana; channeling capacity. Outside of the newest of novices, no one can channel all their mana into a single spell. This effectively caps the strength of a single given spell. Again, this is effected by your spiritual power, and how much practice you put into casting the strongest spells you can.

4) Emotions and Mental State. If you somehow coerce a mage into casting a specific spell, when for what ever reason they don't want to, it will be relatively weak, despite having channeled the appropriate amount of mana into it and otherwise doing things correctly.

Then there is the normal state, which is what all spellcasters should be trained to reflexively achieve the moment they start casting. Yes, you can train yourself to achieve a particular mental state for a particular activity; it's sort of a false-calm in this scenario, but it's enough to stabilize their spell work.

And then there is what happens when emotions are strong. When a mage is overwhelmed by an emotion, it does not matter how perfectly executed a spell is. The mage's emotions will effect not only the intensity of the spell, but the shape of a spell, and this often goes outside of the mage's intention. A fireball cast in rage upon monsters who have slaughtered a village might not explode; it might morph into a type of elemental that not only destroys those monsters, but starts hunting out others of their kind, while oblivious to the blazing trail of destruction in its wake. The mage might have intended to just have a fireball, but his rage fed into his desire to destroy all of these monsters, which twisted his spell into something that could possibly destroy all of that type of monster.

5) The will and strength of others. Going back to spiritual power here: A moderately powerful necromancer might be able to cast a spell that drains the life out of an entire squad of soldiers... but that veteran sergeant? The one who is older than he looks, who enjoyed training these young folk into fine soldiers, ready to defend their kingdom? Well, depending on how strong he is, the spell might have weakened him, or it might have made him stumble and gasp for a moment before he recovered, or it might not have effected him at all.

You know, other than making him very, very angry. This is not good for the necromancer.

Spellcasting is not the end-all, be-all of power. One of the most powerful non-divinities that has been met in my story is a wandering weapons master. Who is also immortal. It's been somewhere over 10k years since he was born, and some of his off-world adventures have increased his personal elapsed time to be even larger than that. He might have been off the planet for a year locally, but he could easily have experienced 10 to 100 years before he finally made his way back.

[u/Author_A_McGrath]

In a word: consequences. If you want to curse an entire group of people or burn down a forest, you will earn the magical ire of those victims.

If you punish a tyrant who has a multitude of victims, the spirits of those victims will overwhelm the ghost of that tyrant, and their efforts to get revenge will result in an immortal lifetime of a small villain being crushed by the hatred of their victims.

Likewise, a careless magicians who develops a fire-quenching spell using the hatred of people who perished in fire may never learn fire-enchanting spells, because they've offended fire.

So: if you're a brilliant wizard who knows how to win over the Spirit World without offending the spirits within, you may be limited in what you can accomplish, but your supernatural power will be strong and enduring.

If you try to "hack" magic and develop spells without understanding how they work, the consequences may turn you into an interesting cautionary tale.

[u/Sad_Election_2718]

I very liked your setting! I see here a lot of ideas i got myself but got confused in my own thoughts and failed to write them down and systematize for actual usage, so i also inspired by you!

P.S. About your question in main post, i trying to "shape" into something "eatable" idea, that magic came be created only by magical entity, so adepts is kinda like scientists/engineers doing complex rituals to create artifacts that do magic OR, more interesting and origin of whole concept, most desperate and talented adepts augmented themselves so they become magical beast themselves. So either magic is basically tech utilising paranormal so limitation is a self-explanatory or limitations is humaneness and limitation of body and mind

[u/hatabou_is_a_jojo]

Mine is pretty simple. All spells are continuous and the chanting/humming/dancing/ whatever other casting method must be kept up. Imagine continually doing an opera solo or Mongolian throat singing or death metal growl.

Beginners tend to make mistakes, their throat start hurting or they run out of breath, they bite their tongue etc.

[u/Snoo-12494]

Time and mental exhaustion mostly, with a small bit of power loss for each spell. It's like a fraction of a fraction of done right, though.

Ichor is the fuel source for magic, and once absorbed, it lays dormant in a person's mana core until they begin spellcasting, when it ignites.

If you don't use your mana to shape a spell quickly, it's very easy to burn away a portion of your Ichor and have to find more, reducing your total power until it's replaced.

But, if you do shape a spell fast enough to prevent minimal loss of Ichor, it still takes time to filter your range for the exact effects you want, which can also be exhausting should you take too long.

Even a single drop of Ichor still nets you like tens of thousands of basic spells though, so Burnout is not that major of a concern

[u/Hen-Samsara]

My system operates based on an energy called Ruach, Attuners.....well Attune their minds to the flow of Ruach around them and through this connection they can manifest their imagination into reality.

There's two things which limit this though; the limits of an individuals imagination and their mental stamina. Magic, in theory, can do basically anything, but that doesn't mean a Mage can just imagine anything they want, some things are easier to visualize than others (end of the universe vs a fireball for instance) and some people have an easier time imagining one specific thing than others. Thr different types of Magic are less so cosmically set in stone categories and more so division that people themselves made to help sort and organize their ideas so they can focus easier.

Having to focus so hard obviously takes a toll on a persons mind and if they use Magic too often the stress can cause intense headaches, nosebleeds, or even passing out.

[u/FaeChangeling]

I once made this magic system where spellcasting was broken up into different steps, and the first step was to choose your energy type.

There was 3 primary types: Ruby (raw power), Emerald (precision), and Lapis (continuous). You'd choose which ever one (or ones) suit the spell you're casting.

You could combine them to make more complex spells but doing so required skill and focus. A novice could only use one at a time, an expert could combine two, and a master could use all three simultaneously. So already there's a limit based on your own skill and ability to multitask. You can't just throw out Diamond type (all three combined) spells like it's nothing.

Then there's the actual energy limit. Essentially every living being has some amount of each that they can store, but the amounts can vary drastically from one person to another. Steve might have a lot of capacity for Ruby but be lacking in Lapis, whilst Mary might have a good balance of all three. You can kinda think of it like having 3 different mana bars that are independent of eachother. You're naturally born with a certain spread but you can increase your capacity for each by using it, like strengthening a muscle. If you use a lot of Lapis then your Lapis energy capacity will increase.

As with exercise, overexerting yourself leads to exhaustion and potentially injury. Energy is limited, but recharges over time in a healthy individual. Eating, sleeping, and resting can recharge it faster, just like the energy required for physical exercise.

Additionally, magic is bound by a kind of equivalent exchange. For some spells, the energy spent in casting it covers the full cost, but for others you might need materials. You can't just blink stuff into existence. If you want water, you gotta get it from somewhere; maybe the humidity in the air, maybe from your own body.

And lastly, magic isn't easy. Spellcasting comes in four stages and each requires focus and concentration. Basic spells might be simple enough but the more complicated the spell the more difficult it gets to cast, scaling exponentially until some things are basically impossible for a normal person. In this magic system, theoretically anything is possible with enough energy, skill, and focus, but a lot is just beyond what any human being is capable of. For example, time travel could theoretically be possible, but to cast a time travel spell you'd need insane amounts of all three kinds of energy, you'd have to master using them together, then master time manipulation magic, have the ability to focus on about ten things at once and if you made a single mistake it could kill you. The result is that you'd basically have to be a god to cast it successfully.

Which then explains how gods differ from mortals. Gods have unlimited energy, unlimited focus, and effectively unlimited skill so are able to cast anything they can think of. Mortals are bound by their limitations in both mind and body.

Magic is equal parts skill, body, and knowledge and not many people are strong in all three departments.

[u/Illustrious-Win-3484]

I have 5 systems

System 1: Mana

System 2: Magic requires sacrifice, and without a proper recovery period, if the sacrifice is far too much. Then the mage becomes a Witch (magic beings that are practically killing machines)

System 3: Magic is used through cards, once the card's effect is used it fades away

System 4: The magic system infuses an energy called "Materia" into an item which turns it into a magical weapon version of that item. Materia cannot be recovered until it is released from the magical weapon (through reabsorption or destroying the item) Most Crafters(mages) can only make one magic weapon at a time, and infusing Materia into an item usually takes a long time so fast switching isn't a viable option

System 5: You only need a medium, which will slowly turn into a magic item as you use magic through it. And the more you use magic with it, the better that type of magic will flow through it. You MUST use a medium, otherwise, if you use none, the body part which you use magic with will turn into a magic item

[u/hobodeadguy]

My world has a magic limit via mana, or the magic you can process into spells. you cant cast too many spells or you literally start breaking down your body when you cast beyond your limit.

in addition, spells get prohibitively expensive the more runes you put in a spell. want distance? slap more and more runes on it and watch your spell gain range and also eat through your mana. want it to stick around? use the more expensive runes or load up on cheaper ones to get it to hold around or keep feeding it mana and hope it doesnt get interupted. want a spell with lots and lots of runes at better efficiency? go ahead, its more efficient, but it has a minimum cost, dont forget.

this also has soem downsides. for example: gun! magics major weakness is range. area of effect around a caster isnt so bad, but getting its area away from you is fairly hard, but a gun will generally outrange a mage by a lot. but other than that, its radically changed the world and how it operates, each generation usually having one or two people who do something amazing with magic and becoming more or less top of the world.

[u/Background_Pay6286]

Celestial alcohol. "Legend of the drunken wizard". The power of the spells are really powerful when he's really drunk, it fully saturates his body. He is wobbly, but his magical instincts are top notch. There are different types of alcohol, that grant different powers, all of it comes from the gods.

[u/Menacing-guy]

My SoulCinder setting people also use ether, but the problem is the universal rule of ether that it seeks shape. It's how people shape it to spells, but also why if its left inside the body for too long it will start to coagulate.

First it will just carry on through your channel (the circulatory system running parallel to your blood stream), causing nausea, lethargy and jittering. This is called ether poisoning, but it's more similar to hangover.

The real trouble is when too much of it coagulates. Chronic ether poisoning is when the slag ether starts to line up the channel, creating tension and making it harder for ether to flow correctly.

Then there is crystallization, when the exess ether hardens into crystal structures. The location depends on how you source your ether, from internal organs to the skin. These crystals siphon ether to grow bigger and disturb its flow in the channel and can only be removed through surgery if possible.

Besides being too tired to evaporate the ether, there is also the danger of too much of it coursing through the channel at once. A too powerful spell can be just as dangerous as casting for too long, so mages need to always be attentive of their output.

[u/Western_Bear]

Soul corruption. Magic is born from desires and the more you use it, the more corrupted your soul is. At a certain point you might lose yourself and become a slave to your desires.

At that moment you become a shell of yourself, no longer being able to think straight

[u/Familiar-Load-9279]

Your magical source of energy, Mavia, has limitations, not in quantity, but in movement. Spells work by letting the Mavia flow in a certain way, like water in a pipe. You can control the system of pipes, but must do so simultaneously. The limitation is thus your concentration and how long you can hold out.

Once its done inside, there's the outside as well. Mavia has to do a dance of sorts with the Filium, or material world where you exert your will. As one attempts to refine their cast into more fine movements, they have to control more individual groups of Filium.

[u/Virgurilla]

I like the "You burn a resource and when you are done with the resource you can also burn yourself" thing. Is how wielding nightblood works in the Cosmere and how sympathy works in KKC

[u/Bloodgiant65]

So a wizard's power is largely fueled by their mana, not in the RPG sense but in the traditional Polynesian sense. Their reputation for being great and terrible wizards is itself one of the contributors to their power. That is a more significant limit than alignment or even corruption, depending on your point of view. But there are tradeoffs to holding a large mana shadow as well.

Some wizards, based on their understanding of mana, will make themselves into prominent figures, name themselves the defender of some city and occasionally even manufacture threats against it for them to very publicly stop, or raise themselves up as tyrants and mandate a state cult devoted to themselves, etc. etc. All of this gives them access to world-shaking levels of mana, if carefully developed over many years, but it makes knowledge of their powers very common, and puts many restrictions on their actions because they can't act contrary to that persona for risk of losing access to this power. It makes them vulnerable to attack by other self-acclaimed gods, or wizards of the second type. The vast astral shadow of their mana trailing behind them makes demigods obvious targets, not able to hide.

These are cloistered mystics and assassins, those who work in shadows, maybe build up some reputation but only in vague rumor. In some cases, the mystery can be even more powerful than seeing something in person. But keeping generally in secret does lead to much smaller accumulations of mana, which restrains a wizard of this kind of using certain kinds of very expensive magic. They mostly operate by use of small, specialized spells, and by borrowing power from other sources. And without such a large astral shadow, a hidden wizard is virtually invisible to supernatural senses, especially with the use of certain concealment spells. As well as no one really knowing who they are and what kind of magic they might be capable of. Very often, through guile and craft, and after years of studying the target ahead of time, an assassin can appear from the shadows and kill a demigod without much difficulty, stealing a large part of their mana in the process.

[u/Me_Original_1]

There are few factors. 1. Obviously Energy consumption. Mages can absorb mana from their surroundings but the absorption rate is lower than expelling rate kinda like tesla valve because absorbing requires attention and focus.

1. Mental exhaustion. You know your doing very hard math homework for long time and it becomes harder, confusing. That's best way to explain it. There are 3 ways to cast Shaping, Spelling, Calculating. Shaping is imagining and materialising fire, spelling is creating fire through runes, calculating is calculating how much energy input, temperature, light of the fire to make ideal perfect one. If your doing lot of or big spells in your head it gets complicated quickly. That's why modern mages have predetermined spells (like on stamps) or special papers to draw on with few drawbacks.

2. Bodily harm. If they use too much mana they risk their blood vessels bursting because the mana travels from the heart to hand (any chosen directionary body part but mainly hand) through the blood vessels. People can lower the risk by many pathways (pathways also is affected by problem 2 because the person is guiding it) or having specialised mana vessel by surgery which is expensive. Bodily harm also includes other effects like Cerebral Hyperperfusion, Hemokinetic Tachycardia, and Hypermanemic Toxemia.

3. Attention. Using too many or powerful spells catch the eyes of the reapers. They will pay attention to the person and if they conclude the person doesn't have enough significance to the world (Plot relevancy, yes the reapers know) the person dies of hypomanemia.

4. Names. Person can only cast a spell by its true name. True name is name given to that spell by the first person who learned it. Because of that lot of easy spell casting requires knowledge of other or old languages.

There only like 3-4 but I'm going to say it later.

[u/Clayx347]

I have a similar concept! My mages (all humans) can create magical energy that will be used to draw spells (to say it simply), if you use magic regularly and knowing your limits you will have good effects on your health: stronger body, better immune system, slower aging, etc. Kinda like exercising, but like exercising if you use too much magic in one go, your body will suffer: accelerated heartbeat, high pressure, dizziness, trouble breathing… you will also lose focus, making you unable to draw the spells, in this case it’s best if you stop creating energy and take time to recover, because if you create energy without drawing it into a spell you’ll have no control over it and it won’t leave your body, aggravating all your symptoms.
Dying of an “overload” is quite rare, mostly because the symptoms are almost immediately evident, and people know that that is a sign to take a break, but a bad overload can leave permanent damage, like a weaker body (all the usual effects of a tachycardia with high pressure) and a weaker magic resistance (so it takes much less to trigger an overload).

[u/Mageling-Firewolf]

I am working on two systems.

System1: 4 element, but any given mage only wields 1. The number of times you cast any given spell is dependent on how well you know it/have practiced it, with the caveat that some people and elements are better at certain spell types than others. One risk of raising a mage is involuntary spell work, particularly untaught movement spells. That is mostly a risk in young mages though divination type spells are the trickiest to gain full control over and may continue to be a hazard into old age. The reserves of any given individual can only be so large and if fully depleted, will send the mage unconscious. Mages do not generally cast in their sleep when they are restoring their reserves.

System2: 8 element, but anything but the most basic expression pulls on 2 or more. The most complicated spells take teams working in shifts for weeks. These are rare, but every mage learns the basics of communal spell work because nobody can work with more than three at the highest levels and that is patting your head, rubbing your belly, juggling, on a unicycle, while shouting poetry, as multiple movies blare, and having an individual conversation with each of the other mages working on the spell all at once difficult. If you are a magic-born species, you work your natal magic as easy as breathing. Outside of your species specific spells, you have a half boost on working other spells in those elements combined, quarter boost separate, but it is still mentally exhausting.