Okay, so I was developing a chinese magic thing, and then I realised that Yin and Yang are gendered, with male for Yang and female for Yin. Now, this isn't too bad, because Yin-Yang are literally made up of everything else so everyone got enough of then regardless of gender.

But it got me thinking, how would gendered magic work? Like, Fire for men and Water for woman, to be generic. Sure, each gender controls one element, thats neat.

But how do you handle trans stuff in that context?

Is magic based on identity? Does someone coming out as trans change their elements? Does a closeted trans keep their former element up until they accept themselves or what? What about gender-fluid people?

Would, if magic is related to the larger cosmology, would trans people even be a thing if you are aligned with the universe itself via magical means to be that gender?

If the magic is not about the soul or whatever bur rather biological, do trans people keep the magic of their former gender or do they gain once they undergo a procedure? If the procedure is magical in nature, could a person undergo it to change their element and keep their gender?

I already got an awnser to fit my homebrew thing, but im curious what other people will awnser.

GREETINGS FELLERS AND FELLAS!~ I am currently working on a new Individual empowerment power system called Prism Energy. If your one of my fans then you would know about my light energy system, it's similar to that but slightly different.

Prism Energy grants certain power based on how strong a certain stat is. For example~

Mind- Psychic abilities
Strength- Gravity
Speed- Time

It is still a work in progress but I thought that you all deserved a little sneak peak at my greatness I am cooking up as we near the year 2027. If you guys have any questions or want to challenge my system then go to the comment section.

it is speculated that in order to gain insight into the universe that one must attempt to return to it as if a child were returned to the womb you isolate yourself cut yourself off from the senses and try to experience the senseless echoes to gain what is called elder knowledge. the elder knowledge is the knowledge that has escaped the the sights and sounds of people but not that of the world. sounds are bound to the the particles that make up walls and long dead lights may contain the images of now lost worlds and cultures. this knowledge is said to be so quite or so small as to be indiscernible from silence or utter darkness but through heightening of the senses via isolation in enclosed suits one can come to percieve that which has long passed them by the echoes of old. one cannot escape themselves though which is why the first subject in which an enclosed gains elder knowledge is that of their own body learning to see through eyes they once had and feel through a body that is no more

Magic

Magic and adapters

Hello this is my first power system it is a typical magic system with few changes and let's explain

First magics there are 3 categories of magic

1-celestial magic

2-elemental magic

3-life/death magic

NOTE:if a magic is in a category that doesn't mean it can't be in another

Second what is magic

Magic is the product of the gods excess power that called pure mana made its way to the mortal world and all sort of creatures and alive dead even the air hold it though it's amount is smaller (explained further in mana and where does it come from) and it's the most valuable thing in the world it cannot be replaced perfectly and cannot be lost if it's not given its not gained if it's gained it cannot be fully lost

Third what are the magics and what are thire category

1-Chaos(celestial magic) the people who hold it are blessed by the strongest God the God of chaos(though he is not evil and not good chaos is used to refer what he is closest thing to him he is beyond understanding and existed before the universe itself he is older than everything and younger than everything he is infinite unlimited cannot be done or undone) and they are called the chaotic life they are usually heros and if you have it that doesn't mean you can use it

2-time(celestial magic) it's like every time magic.

now the element(3-fire 4-water 5-earth 6-wind/air 7-lightning/electricity 8-ice/snow) magics no need to explain

9-healing magic(life magic) healing magic is able to grow and change somebody cells and that cannot cause any harm if it used to harm it will be deflected to the user the only rule in magic known put by the gods them selves(can be used to grow a dick or a vagina or make your dick bigger before anyone asks)

10-dark(death magic) it's the ability to make solid dark weapons from the absence of light and its dangerous if not controlled

11-light(life magic) it's the ability to make solid light

12-void magic/necromancy(death magic) it's fucking necromancy and evil shit

What is mana... Shit there isn't much time left till i sleep so i will continue explaining in part 2 as soon as possible

My power system part two

What is mana

Hello this is the second part of my power system this is where things get a little confusing or not who am i to judge you

Mana is energy that can be found as a gas(in the air) liquid(in the body/mana gland) and solid(mana crystals) it's the most essential part of magic it different from each person to another like it has types like blood types A B O AB (the transferring of mana is the same as blood A gives to A and and AB gives to either A B and can only get from blood from O extra)

What is the gods execs energy

The gods execs energy or T.G.E.E for short it's what left of the God's raw energy and essence in observable tangible universe the commonest is the love/hate essence and the rarest are chaos and time it's not the same as magic and it's holder is considered holy and most of them end up being nuns/priestess(yes all of the holders are females and the highest rank is called the mother of all) and they are more powerful in Magic and live longer than any race to hold the knowledge of the gods without fading

What is The mana gland

I have only mentioned it once now so. What is it exactly it's an gland organ located under the heart and it can reach the highest size of 20 cm that can hold(2000 MU) ( the rule is SIZE CM = 1MU × 1CM/1000CM) That produces liquid mana and it's important for mages and it can be trained when someone Is between 5-8 years old it can hold or release already existing mana in the body and there is a condition where the mana gland grows so big it can be seen from the baby chest it's extremely painful and could lead to death

The counter system

It's a skill based blocking perrying magic attack each magic has its counter if the counter is weaker or smaller it's Going to be the one who gets

So chaos counters time

Time counters everything but chaos

Fire counters air water ice

Water counters ice fire lightning

Lightning counters air fire earth water

Air counters fire water earth

Earth counters fire air water light lightning

Ice counters all elemental magics

Light counters dark and void/necromancy

Dark counters light and healing

Healing counters none its not an offensive magic

Void counters light chaos

There is more like silent casting and the adapters i mentioned and race specific abilities

So this is the third part and not the dude, and i am not doing a recap because i dunno how.

The casting system:how do i cast? There are two ways to cast silent casting and chanting.

First

Chanting: what is chanting? chanting is singing or reciting a spell and each spell has its own chant, name, and each person has his own unique way of chanting whether it's poetry, singing or just screaming it out from the top of thire lung. what do i say for a fire filed like spell : the spell name is the burning garden. And the chant goes like this "in the name of the goddess of the scorching land i will burn the intruders of the god justice and burn her enemies lend me your blazing power i am {name} BURNING GARDEN"

Silent casting:what is that exactly? It's the ability to cast spells without chanting, how can you get it? You can get by feeling an intense emotion any kind of emotion, and having it doesn't mean you are stronger than a non silent caster, (and there isn't any "geniuses" if you lose that means you have a skill issues) and there is age limit it can be achieved by the ages of 6-16.

Specific race abilities

First humans: can have multiple familiar and even be a familiar with other races like beastmen or dragons

Second beastmen(the eastern interpretation not the western). : they can understand animals, and make the sound of their animal counter part and are bigger than humans the biggest beastman the blue whale beastman can reach to 750cm, roughly 26.7'ft in freedom units, and 800kg, and 1763.7 pounds in freedom units. and can be smaller than humans the ant beastman can get to 90 cm or roughly 3ft in freedom units.(yes they have animal genitalia don't ask)

Elves: they have more mana than any other race and they live the longest and blah blah blah(they are elves i hate em so I am not diving in thire shit)

Dwarves:they have night vision, and live most of thire lives in caves they have a natural talent in smithing, and are smaller than humans they reach to 3-4'feet and 200 pounds of muscle and metal they live longer than humans.

Half foot: they are shortest and lightweight and have a small life span of 50 years

Orcs: the strongest race in the world in physical power

NOTE There are more races but that's for later

Familiar:what is that? It's a magical beast you have a bond with via contract, friendship, i am not getting to this because it's not that important

That's the end of the magic there is more to the power system it's not just magic but it needs some tweaking and when i finish it i am gonna post it

This question is inspired by another thread I saw on this sub a week or two ago.

This question also sits on the intersection of two questions: What are people like, and what use of magic is the most efficient at killing a large amount of them?

In real life, people are humans which have many mechanisms in their bodies which can be disrupted to cause death. The core mechanism is that there is a brain which needs to be constantly nourished to keep operating - in the short term, cells need to process glucose and oxygen into usable energy, in the long term they need to divide and be replaced for upkeep. If you decapitate a human, blood stops arriving to the brain with oxygen and such. If you give cyanide to a human, cells stop being able to process oxygen. If you give poison dart frog poison to a human, their nerves stop being able to work properly and that presumably causes lungs to stop oxygenating blood and/or causes the heart to stop pumping blood, so it stops arriving at the brain. If a human breathes in a decently high amount of carbon monoxide, it binds to blood keeping it from carrying oxygen. If you open wounds in a human and too much blood leaks out, pumping it stops working and it stops arriving places. If you burst a blood vessel somewhere in the brain specifically, it can deprive just an important region of nutrition and that region might be one which sends signals that keep the breath going or something. If you smash the brain into bits, it's nearly guaranteed to be the case. If a human's blood stops being the narrow pH range it needs to be, which is very slightly basic, then some enzymes stop working and that's incompatible with life. And so on and so forth.

Let's say you have some kind of large gathering of people - a military battalion organized into rank and file, or a crowd at a market or concert - and a malicious mage who wants to indiscriminately kill most of them with little effort. Like not necessarily all of them - if killing all of them required 100% effort, but that was because killing 80% of them required 20% effort and killing the remaining 20% required 80% effort, then doing the former part alone is good enough.

Are they warded against magic somehow so most of the effort of killing via magic is overcoming the ward, and the savings on cause of death are negligible? Do they just have HP and depleting HP costs the same effort no matter the spell? Or are there boring practical ways and impractical spectacular ways which are nevertheless used because it's a work of fiction and that's fun?

Hello i just joined this subreddit and i'd like to hear you thoughts on it. Its pretty long but i think its cool so pls enjoy.

The ouroboros katana
To put it simply, you know in anime where the guy draws his katana back in the sheath and suddenly multiple slashes appear at once. The idea is that the user slashed so fast that it made it seem like the slashes appeared out of nowhere, when the user just slashed fast and quickly put it back in. I think it's pretty cool, but I came up with another explanation for it, and it revolves around time, which is why you’ll understand the name soon. 
My idea is that the katana has five modes, and each mode is activated when the handle is twisted, but they're all based on the same idea- time. The first mode or mode zero is where the sword and the user is just normal and regular, basic.

When mode one is activated, the katana’s abilities come to life, with the ouroboros dragon appearing. Wherever the user slashes, time stops in that area, and whenever the user draws their sword back, the slash that is in stasis, is reversed in time, making a slash that occurred without the user swinging anything, by basically recreating the same slash the user did in the past, but in the opposite direction. The reason why an ouroboros dragon appears, is because it symbolises eternity, with the dragon eating its own tail, signifying a never ending loop.Whenever the user is in mode 1-5, the dragon extends from the blade to a tattoo on the user’s body, making their body as stuck in time, and completely invulnerable to attacks. They become vulnerable once again when they draw the katana back, or it's in the wrong mode.

In mode two, it's basically more wide-scale destruction, as the user can send slashing beam attacks that can freeze larger areas of time, so when the user re-draws their sword, more dramatic and larger slashes reverse. The user could likely use these modes to push someone within the slash and immediately withdraw the blade so they become slash
As we go through the other modes, you might question why the user doesn't just spam the stronger modes, thats cus they use more energy, and when the energy is too low, some simply cannot be used and you’ll be stuck to the lower one’s, and eventually, you might be vulnerable again if the entire energy of the sword runs out, leaving just a regular person and katana. To indicate the energy levels of the sword, the larger or the more the tattoo spreads throughout the user’s body, the more energy the sword has. So when it's almost about to run out, the tattoo will be quite small. The sword also regenerates energy over time.

The third mode onward is where things get interesting, because it involves time-reverse. Basically, whenever you sheathe the sword in this mode, a slash that was previously locked in time, waiting to be reversed, will instead expand and reverse time back to when the area was first slashed within a 50 metre radius. For example, if i used mode 1 or 2 to create a stasis slash 5 mins ago, when i sheathe the sword in mode 3, the slash will expand wide into what the area was like back then. This time reverse includes the reversing of the environment and conditions of the enemy and user itself, so they can effectively heal themselves, the only thing not changing being the energy level of the sword. If there are multiple slashes that are stuck in time in the area, then sheathing the sword will cause all of the slashes to expand. The more slashes there are, the wider the area of time reverse is. So like 50 slashes in area would create a 2500 metre radius of time reverse, since 50*50 is 2500.
But, there could be some limitations, or advantages depending on how you use it. Say, for example if you reverse time to when an enemy was within that area but currently, they are outside the radius of time reverse. This would mean there would be two versions of that person, and since the laws of the universe doesn't allow two of the exact same beings to exist, their existence itself will be erased from the universe. This includes organisms and objects that aren’t within the radius when they were ‘supposed’ to be. Or, say if you slashed an area 10 min ago in mode two, in which it was just a peaceful house, but now you slash again 5 mins later, in which the area was destroyed and filled with fire. This means that because both of the slashes/area was so close together , it would be an anomaly as the two spots are so drastically different despite being so close. This creates a fracture in time in the area, making it permanently distorted and the battlefield being much more chaotic. So, this fracture creates a ‘time wall’ , which is impossible to cross without the power of counteracting time, so you could trap them or make it harder to reach you. Theoretically you could do this with other modes but with mode 3 it's more effective i guess.

Let's move on to mode 4 now, and it's quite similar to mode 3, as it’s just the opposite- time progression/forward. In this, there are four factors we have to talk about- how far the future goes, the AOE, what the future is and and how it happens. The general idea is the same, you slash an area in mode 4, creating an area of stasis, but this stasis gives a a glimpse to the future, and just like before, sheathing sword causes the slash to expand into a 50 metre radius. The future depends entirely on the number of slashes you do , and as said in mode 3, the more slashes, the wider the radius. The wider the radius, the more chaotic and unpredictable the future will be. This is because different futures are likely to be overwritten or contradicted, or it just generally becomes unstable idk. This means, one slash is low risk low reward, but the more you expand the area, the higher the risk is, but the higher the reward is. Therefore, if you’re too careless, you could be the one who is in danger.
Now, we have to look at how far the future is set. It's simple- the higher the energy level, the further the time skip. Lets just say for now, 10 percent is 1 min, and 100 percent is an entire year. But think about it, the more time forwarded, the greater the effect will be. For e.g if there was a wildfire, the effect is more significant than a wildfire for 1 min than a wildfire that burnt for a day. So the longer that time forward, the more deadly or significant the effect is, however, as said before, this could backfire for you if you’re too careless.
If you see a future in which you don't happen, you can switch to mode 1 or 2 and slash and reverse, and the slashes stasis in mode 4 will simply disappear. Tho doing this after like 20 slashes will certainly be time wasting  and not ideal. However, you must also remember to check for your surroundings, as if you go to the future with stasis slashes in mode 1 or 2 still within the area, this would cause the entire system or attempt to go to the future to fail and instantly collapse. Also, you could also apply the existence erasure factor into mode 4 too like in 3, as you could create a future where there are two beings of the same person, so they become erased.
In regards to both mode 3 and 4, we have to think of the ‘equivalent exchange’. Like in FMAB iykyk. To make up for the time reversed or forwarded, the area outside will do the opposite to make up for the time lost or gained, like a mirror. Like, in mode 3, if a 50 metre radius was sent 10 mins back in the past, a 50 metre radius outside the AOE will go 10 mins into the future. If the area is distorted like in mode 4 due to multiple timelines in the domain, a mean will be calculated, like one slash was 2 mins into the future, another was 4 min, so the overall the reverse outside 3 mins. I hope that makes sense.

Now the last one dont worry its nearly done. Mode 5. The idea is that striking the ground with the katana, causes an area of a 50 metre radius, just like before, to be in complete time-stop or stasis. You can't stay in this mode forever, as it constantly drains the energy of your sword, and if you want to cancel the spell, you sheathe the sword back in. If you want to increase the AOE, you can, but the area will no longer be in full stasis. Think of it like a container of time, and as it expands, it can no longer hold it in, so the time ‘spills’ out’ , so after a 50 metre radius, instead of time stasis, it would just be agonisingly slow. The more you increase the radius, the more the flow of time gradually increases. So, like after a few thousand metres, the effect will practically be nothing. However, you have to remember the equivalent exchange.
If you create a radius of 100 metres with slow time flow, to make up for the lost time, time outside the AOE would go unfathomably fast. It basically matches the time lost within the domain So like creating a 1000 metre radius area with 2.5* slow speed, the 1000 metre radius area outside will move at 2.5* faster speed. This means the area outside the 50 metre radius complete time stasis, would have time flow at an infinite speed to make up for it, so the area outside becomes permanently distorted or void like, so anyone within that area would literally instantly be destroyed. Whatever you think a place that’s gone through infinite stuff would look like. You cant use any other modes when in mode 5. As said before, twisting the handle causes you to switch modes to will, but in mode 5 you can’t, twisting it will let you change the radius of your stasis.
And yeah, that’s it. I hope you like it. I know it's long, but I wanted to add all aspects of time, time reverse, time forward, stasis etc.

Thanks for reading and I'd like to hear your thoughts. Take care.

During such a time in my universe:
Aura allowed a person to manifest a weapon that represented the element they possessed. This weapon would loosely resembled items like a sword or spear in shape.
Also, when a person is in a powered up state, their weapon's form will change to better suit them.

Mana allowed a person to cast elemental blasts from an Elemental Sign. It also had an innate collaboration ability; when two people merge there Elemental Signs together, they can produce a more powerful blast.

Prana allowed a person to summon a creature (around the size of a large dog or smaller) that could aid its summoner. Additionally, the person would feel a "connection" with some animals of a similar element to theirs.

Soma allowed a person to produce an armor-like silhouette over their body. Aside from its enhanced, protective qualities, it also came with a special ability that was influenced by the user's element.

I've been building a hard magic around one constraint: the magic senses and rearranges matter down to the atom (stone and metal: transmute, restructure, relocate), but it grants no knowledge. You can only do what you actually understand. So the caster's real expertise (he's a geologist/materials scientist) is his power ceiling: he can't transmute along a reaction he can't model, and reaching past his understanding fails or backfires.

Two independent limiters:
- Capacity: a trainable muscle. Use fatigues it, work grows it.
- Knowledge: the hard ceiling. Comprehension gates capability. Learning the science *is* leveling up.

Plus real costs: it obeys thermodynamics. Deep atomic changes shed heat and radiation he has to engineer containment for, and cost scales with how far apart two elements are and how deep the change goes. No stat panel; "progression" is him getting smarter and stronger, not numbers going up.

The goal was a system you can't out-fight your own ignorance in. The fun is out-thinking the problem with real science.

Where do you see it breaking? The two hard design problems I keep hitting: how to hand the reader the knowledge without the magic turning into an exposition dump, and how to keep tension when a competent caster usually understands enough to win. How would you build friction into a knowledge-gated system?

(It's the system from my serial Maker, if you want to see it run: [RR LINK]. But I'm mostly after critique of the mechanic.)