As I finished A Memory of Light (the last Wheel of Time novel) the character Androl reminded me of an idea for a magic system that I had a couple years back. I have no idea if it is in the least bit original, but I thought I'd revisit it, and I noticed there's been a lot of good feed back for magic systems here. I am going with a system where humans are very limited, but have a type of magic that allows them to do almost anything with proper application of imagination and creativity. Which then coexists with a more 'reliable' form of magic that requires this magic to gain.

Portal Magic

1. The only known function of 'magic' innately usable by humans is to open portals.
2. Dimensional portals are strictly regulated as not only can traveling to another plane be dangerous, you might let something terrible in, despite the fact that most planes are simply void.
3. Certain planar 'codes' are commonplace, a mage throwing a 'fireball' will often open a small portal to a known plane of nothing but fire, the pressure build up launching a burst of flame, but he could just as well open a portal under his campfire and drop it on someone.
4. The size of a portal and the distance of its destination is dependent on the mage in question, usually the further away from the destination the smaller the portal.

Pact Magic

1. A type of being exists in other planes that is willing to bargain for access to their own powers, this is how humans may gain other forms of 'power'.
2. These beings take on many forms, but are most commonly considered Fae or Demons.
3. Often these pacts are strange, and lead to bad things happening to the people who made them and the people they care about.
4. As these beings are fickle, the powers often don't work out as the pact bearer expects, especially when they need it most.

 

Believe it or not, I actually had that first magic system penned in for an original series I'm planning to a tee in one of the earlier versions. It's a cool concept, but kind of limited. The second magic system sounds like just about any other generic DF-esque bargaining system.

From what you have here, there's just not enough magic to blow anyone away, so you'd have to pair your systems with a solid plot/world if you wanted your story to go anywhere.

 

One of the problems with the ability to use portals is that unless you have some very careful restrictions put on their application, it can be overpowering: Open a portal around someone's neck, let the head pass through but nothing else, then close it. Portal opens in someone's heart. As Androl did, open portals that catch incoming attacks and put them directly behind the attacker.

This can be avoided by making the portals more like a warping and blending of two places, no sharp edges. If portals take time to open that will also help eliminate the potential for them being overpowered.

 

So Pact Magic allows a sorcerer to use other Magic systems? Like the ability to predict the future or something?

 

The idea for the story behind the system is that in general most people prefer to make pacts and take the easy route rather than become proficient in use of portals because it is both taxing and requires a lot of training. People good with portals make quite a bit of money by finding pacts for other people. These sellers are commonplace enough that in general the government turns a blind eye despite the dimensional travel restrictions. (Bribes may be involved)

I figure it's a safe bet to make a pact with a being that has proven useful before, but humans are often greedy and want to be unique, so they search out for powers that haven't been seen before. Balancing this, like Ched said, could take a lot of work. I see most people as having at least one of the safe pacts, possibly these would even be findable through the government. Some beings would not want to make a pact with someone who has a pact already as well.

The main character would be one of the exceptions who uses portal magic exclusively, using it cleverly to defeat opponents who have crazy and overpowering abilities.

As for planes and dimensions, I was kind of using the terms interchangably, but a plane would basically signify a place that was legally 'okay' to open a portal to, somewhere that is basic or lacks intelligent life. While a dimension could be somewhere in which other intelligent life could be or what have you. The equivalent of scientists in this world go through A LOT of trial and error to find safe planes.

 

Idea is interesting - but it may be hard to do in interesting way. Both types of magic, portal and pact would need to me very carefully limited, to prevent certain effects being overpowering. For example, simplest logical use of portal magic is to open 10cm wide portal ending ten or twenty kilometers down. Efect? Stream of magma flying with force able to shatter castle wall, buring everything it touches. One second of that would be enough to decimate an army.

As a whole, portals could be seen as mastery of physical realm, while pact magic would have exclusive access to mental and emotional areas... Unless you want to allow more interesting usage of portals - for example, portal leading to astral realm, to person dreams or Socrates ideal world?

 

I was thinking a good way of limiting things like Corsair mentioned would simply be that opening a portal to somewhere further away is simply harder. In fact it's often easier to open a portal to another dimension or plane than to somewhere else in the same realm as those dimensions/planes are in a way right beside you and are an infinitesimal distance away.

 

Distance limitation it beginning, but I think, not nearly enough. Main point of protagonist using portals was him to use them in intelligent way - and for that, portals needs to be versatile, allowing plenty of permutations. And, with plenty of permutations, it's hard to create solid restriction rules.

Hm, one possible permutation is different types of portals. There are full portals, yes - but it may be easier for a mage to create portal that transfer only light. Simply put magic in such portal would be far to fragile for matter transfer. Result would be a type of fragile window, collapsing on touch. Other type of portal could be portal for heat energy or sound - and those would be interesting, since both could be invisible.

Fragility is interestng issue - especially it pact magic in any form was highly disrupting for portals. Then duels could be interesting from strategy point of view. For example, pact user it attacking. His pact magic allows him to create invisible force-field armor, equivalent of heavy chainmail. Protagonist needs to escape - and uses portal to move into unaccessible possition. Then he turns back to try to show pact user THROUGH portal. Pact user cannot follow - his magic armor would automatically dirupt the portal... unless he turns it off for a moment. Perhaps a trap on the other side would do a trick? But how to tempt pact user to do it?

Other permutation is time limitation on portal destination or portal types. I.e. - if several portals to plane of fire were to be opened in short time, each subsequent portal is harder to open. Then, it would require quite a bit creativity to battle the strong opponent.

All in all, it al really depend on what type of story it would be - level of magic, and it's importance. Low level encounters when portal magic is used to transfer heat from cooking fire to person shoes differs from cataclysmic battles, full of lava, explossions an hordes of demons howling in the background.