I just finished the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. The setting is different, but the story focuses on a thieving crew that gets very ambitious just like a Blades game. It's a great read.
Quick Silver (another name for mercury) is often used but given magical properties. Another one I've heard of is Living Steel. Similar concept to darksteel just created differently. By the way, Orichalcum is, if I remember right, Greek for Bronze. Electrum is also a pretty common one. This series also provides an interesting take on giving normal metals magical abilities.
Congrats! Now take a breather and prepare for the inevitable post-series depression :)
> Also what do I even read now?
That depends! What parts of the series did you find yourself enjoying the most?
Check out this post first. Once you've done that:
Brandon Sanderson is a good starting point, and not only because he was part of writing the last three WoT books. He has a handful of novels/series that are all part of one overarching shared universe (like the Marvel movies) called the Cosmere. Most people recommend starting with Mistborn. Personally, his Stormlight Archive series is my favorite of his so far (though we're only 3/10 books in thus far). If you're looking to scratch that WoT itch, his books are probably the closest you can get.
If you like complex characters, you can try Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy. If you want something a little darker in tone than WoT, you can go with A Song of Ice and Fire.
Other favorites of mine include The Kingkiller Chronicles, His Dark Materials, Shades of Magic (for a series that's a bit more YA in nature), Temeraire, Lord of the Rings (to state the obvious), The Lies of Locke Lamora, and the Amber Chronicles.
Feel free to question me about any of them--and I'm sure the lovely folks here will have some other great suggestions for you as well!
EDIT: A word of caution--if you plan on running through the whole series in one go, then you may hold off on A Song of Ice and Fire and Kingkiller ;)
After reviewing my story list, I don't have any perfect fits or stories where this appears consistently, but here's what I could find:
It's frustrating me that I can't find any better examples, hopefully someone else has some.
Edit: YA, but the Artemis Fowl series often has characters trying to throw off the mind-affecting abilities of fairies. And the original Harry Potter series of course has the Imperius Curse.
> There are limits to my system. There are differemt types of magic and all magic users are only able to use one of these types. There are different strengths of magic users across those types, but I am not yet sure how they become stronger. My gut feeling is not to overcomplicate this, and to keep it so that, like almost anything in life, the more you do something the better you become at it. And equally, some are simply more talented at things than others. So it should be with magic (at least IMO).
This is a common way to handle magical growth. You may want to consider things like how quickly people improve, if learning specific branches of magic limits your ability to grow in others, if people have varying maximum capacities, etc.
> Where it becomes more complicated is setting boundaries on what they can and cannot do. For example, if someone can cast a fire spell to start a fire, can they burn an entire city down too? My gut feeling is no. At the very least, if someone did this, they should 1) be an extremely advanced and powerful magic user 2) almost certainly die in the process. To me that means magic has a cost, it consumes energy, and the user must recover sufficiently, proportional to the level of magic they have used.
All of that makes sense. You may also want to consider how common it is to reach that level of mastery - how many people in the world would you want at the level of power where they can demolish a city?
Also, how does spell casting work? What's the methodology? (e.g. hand gestures, verbal incantations, mentally channeling energy, etc.)
If there are multiple different methods, you can map them to advantages and disadvantages or different cultures (e.g. group A uses incantations, group B has silent but weaker spells, etc.)
> Then there's the issue of learning new spells. I'm not sure how you all feel about this, but for a moment, let's use video games as an example. Let's take Skyrim, for example, in which you learn new spells by reading scrolls. Personally I am not sure a system like this could work in a fantasy novel because it is vague. On the other hand, I do like the way 'shouts' are learned in Skyrim, which involves your character reading ancient runes, learning how to say a magical word, them speaking it to carry out the spell.
This maps back to "how are spells cast?"
If every spell requires saying a specific incantation, for example, then learning from a scroll makes sense - someone wrote down the words on the scroll, and you read it to memorize the words. Can't remember the words? Better hold onto the scroll, then. Might even just read straight off of it.
If spells use pre-constructed incantations, however, you may want to think about why they need pre-constructed incantations. Is there an external entity that monitors the world and produces spell effects when specific words are spoken in sequence? Is there something dormant in the human body that is activated by key words? How are new spells discovered? Are there specific common terms that can be combined in order to construct new spells?
Example: I know "eth" means fire, "zon" means ball, "ver" means throw", "seris" means storm, and "tha" means lightning. I have an existing fireball spell, "eth-ver-zon", and "tha-seris" is lightning storm. Can I experiment to attempt to make "eth-ver-zon" for lightning ball and "eth-seris" for fire storm, or do only pre-constructed combinations work?
> Each game has a slightly different system. In FF7, magic had to be 'equiped' through using materia, which I don't think could work for a novel, as you would constantly have to provide boring explanations of how your characters changed their 'equipmemt'.
There are plenty of item or equipment-based magic systems out there. Typically, rather than having characters repeatedly changing their gear on the spot like in FF7, you'd have characters with limited sets of equipment that might get new pieces throughout the story at points that are plot significant. Some degree of equipment-based progression is extremely common in the LitRPG subgenre (which you may want to check out if you're looking to work on something with Final Fantasy inspiration).
<strong>Mistborn</strong> is an example of a more typical epic fantasy novel where consumable items are used for specific magic powers.
One of my main characters in <strong>Sufficiently Advanced Magic</strong> is almost entirely dependent on magical items for his abilities, so that's another example.
> FF9 has a slightly better system in that characters buy, equip and use new weapons which teach them new abilities. I like this better, but again, you would have the same old dull explanations or equipping, learning and using abilities.
Whether or not this is dull is really up to the writer and the audience. Again, I'll point you at the LitRPG genre, which flourishes on good execution of progression systems. If you're not familiar with the genre at all, I'd recommend <strong>Sword of the Bright Lady</strong> if you want something that feels mostly like a standard fantasy novel with minor RPG elements, or <strong>Ascend Online</strong> if you want something even more mechanics driven.
> FF12 has you simply buying new magical spells and bang, done.
From a story standpoint, buying the spell has to translate into something the character actually receives. Is it information? A magic crystal that they absorb to gain a new ability? A new tattoo that gives them access to a new power?
> None of these options really work for any medium other than video games (or do they?).
This comes down to execution; any of these could work in a novel, you'd just have to figure out how to apply them.
> So how do I get around the issue of my characters progressing, becoming stronger amd developing their abilities without having some clunky, boring explanation of a 'system' that shows how characters have grown?
Write a system that isn't clunky or boring. Tie it into the setting and the plot as organically as possible. You can build real stakes into the story based on progression, the costs of magic, and the limitations of magic.
There will always be a subjective component to how much system development is too much, and whether or not a specific style works for any given reader. Take a look at the reviews on something like Mistborn sometime on Amazon or Goodreads. Some people love the level of detail, some people hate it. That's a microcosm of the kind of discussion you'll see about any fantasy novel.
Should be here, does that work?
The non-hardcovers only have MISTBORN on the front:
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Deal link: Amazon
I think you’ll really dig Brandon Sanderson’s “Mistborn”
https://www.amazon.com/Mistborn-Final-Empire-Brandon-Sanderson-ebook/dp/B002GYI9C4
I don't have anything that contains all those elements, but I do have some heavy magic systems suggestions.
<em>Mistborn: The Final Empire</em> has a solid magic system and some of the best foreshadowing I've ever seen (things in the first book foreshadow events all the way to the end of the trilogy). Definitely epic in scope and world building, too. People tend to be more mixed about the ending, but I enjoyed it a bunch.
Sanderson's books in general are excellent if you enjoy magic systems - he's pretty much the top of the field for this, in my opinion.
<em>Mother of Learning</em> is about a novice mage who gets stuck in a month-long time loop. The magic system is something of a mix between D&Dish schools of magic and anime-style training exercises. We learn more about the magic system as the protagonist does. Lots of fun twists on the genre in there, too.
<em>Worm</em> is a web serial about a young girl who wants to be come a super hero - but, unfortunately, her powers and her first encounter make her look like a villain instead. This has the closest thing to horror elements of any of the options, definitely has a solid ending, and amazing twists and turns.
<em>Unsouled</em> is the first novel in Will Wight's Crucible series, which blends heavy magic system development with martial arts. (It's similar to Wuxia/Xianxia books or films, if you're familiar with those.) If you want something heavy on the action side, I'd recommend going with this.
<em>Forging Divinity</em> is one of my own books, and it's definitely heavy on the magic side.
Sorcerers in my Forging Divinity (and my other War of Broken Mirrors novels) tend to have roughly one to three Dominions they can work with, and each Dominion has an associated cost. A flame sorcerer can call on the Dominion of Flame to conjure fire, but at the cost of body heat. A water sorcerer can conjure water, but it dehydrates them.
Some magic types are more esoteric, and sorcerers also specialize in either calling (conjuring energy or matter from the Dominion) or shaping (manipulating existing matter/energy).
For example, Taelien in the first book is a metalshaper; he can modify the properties of existing metallic objects, but he can't conjure any significant amount of new metal, and he can only alter metal he's touching (either directly or through another metal object that he's holding). He uses this to make himself a prodigious swordsman; he can reshape his own weapon, shift the structure of his weapon mid-swing, create flaws in enemy weapons, etc.
If this type of thing interests you, you might want to take a look at my own books - but fair warning that it takes several chapters to warm up.
?? A fantasy request and nobody's suggested Brandon Sanderson yet? (How unusual!) Sanderson's quite popular (with very good reason, I think). I recommend starting with the Mistborn trilogy (which is great - and finished!) and then moving on to the Stormlight Archive series (which is amazing - and not finished).
Do you read light novels or manga? If you're looking for anime-esque characters, that's a good place to start - Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu would probably be a good example of what you're looking for.
In terms of western fiction, I recommend the Mistborn Trilogy. It has a female lead and a very well-defined magic system.
My own book, Forging Divinity, might suit your interests to some extent as well. It does have (extremely) defined magic, a female protagonist, and very heavily anime inspired characters and fight scenes. It also opens with one of the main characters being in prison, so there's that. =D
Fair warning that I go into a lot of magic system details - I'm a RPG systems designer and that reflects in my writing.