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My magic system is that if I cover myself in oil and step outside in the rain, I can fly.

Honestly I was really confident in my idea until I realized the sheer volume of contestants. Statistics were definitely not on my side. I'm happy I made it as far as I did. I had a lot of fun putting it together and I'm really grateful for the opportunity. Congrats to those who made it farther than me and especially congrats to Ethan

The memory magic system immediately makes me think of one thing: trauma. How powerful are traumatic memories? Could some evil organization brainwash soldiers and inflict horrific torture on them to turn them into absurdly powerful human weapons? And what would be the long-term effects? Would the mental scars of the trauma linger even after the memory has been used up? Inevitably rendering these people into insane, animalistic monsters that don't even recognize their own reflections? I can see a LOT of interesting conflict arising from that.

I honestly LOVED the quote: "Do YOU know yourself well enough to become Immortal?" Like- the system could've been better constructed, but that quote hit HARD

Soil of the Ancients has HUGE potential for alchemy. I'd love to see this worked out.

No way! Sarah's credomancy was awesome! Think about how many will turn Machiavellian, while others will focus on defense through idealism. The conflict writes itself.

Bruh Kelly’s conduit idea is goated. So many possibilities for conflict and buddy cop sort of relationship. Just an old dude who’s wise but he’s gotta get his power from moron who never shows up on time 😂

For Alan's Mnemancy/Memory Magic, it would be really cool to see an element of the magic wherein the user must invoke a memory that directly correlates to what they're trying to accomplish; if they want to kill an opponent, they'll have to remember and relive the memory of them killing someone in the past, or of them watching a loved one die. It would be a great way to give character backstory without large info-dumps.

The fact that the card magic system got so far is crazy to me

My favorite magic system (still in development) comes from a UKpostsr named MonsterGarden. Magic comes from technology borne of war. A special organ is implanted into people who become mages and it slowly begins to disfigure their bodies, becoming tall, gaunt, and inhuman. Healing magic uses a disc shaped focus to radiate slow, regenerative waves to those around them, but it can have the nasty side effect of giving the healing mage tumors all over their body as it constantly regenerates their skin. Destructive magic uses a pinpoint focus such as a gun barrel or a finger cap known as a thimble. Curses run rampant against those who fight magic users, where the "witch hunters" become far more disfigured than any mage.

Been waiting for this!! The true magic system is the magic of the human imagination to devise such magic systems… Brilliant.

Alan's idea of MNEMANCY was awesome! The idea of memory fueled magic where the memory is erased after its used means that the characters will be actually sacrificing parts of themselves and their personalities to achieve their goals - I feel like that was a very interesting direction that he didn't get to touch on enough. The idea of hypothetical situations where someone blank slates their memories by doing some powerful spell is very interesting. Also the world would be full of adrenaline junkys trying to have powerful enough experiences to make good memories that can fuel future spells - like in this world there would be so many amusement parks and roller-coaster and exotic foods and experiences so that mages can stock up on good emotive memories to fuel their craft without risking forgetting their parents or other important memories... loads of compelling narrative options here that I feel the pitch didn't get a chance to fully articulate or he'd of won :)

I personally really liked the second one about wielders and conduits. There's a lot of potential for character conflicts

Ive been studying this video for about 6hrs now main points: @2:20 include interesting consequences @6:44 build magic with interesting narrative possibilities @20:29 think about the visual nature of your magic The last point to me is the hardest to achieve in all fiction, anime for example is saturated with martial arts visual presentation of magic It's ultra rare for a different visual presentation like for example Naruto that uses hand signs gestures to activate the magic

Honestly... I'd nearly forgotten about the competition. I was grateful to make it in the video at all, nevermind top 8. This was fun. The winner deserved it, though. Looking forward to reading his book when it's done.

This was so fun to follow. I was ooing, ahhing, cheering, and booing when you made a decision I disagreed with. At the end I couldn’t decide who I liked more between the memory magic, the heartbeats, and the 12 gods lineage magic. Glad I didn’t have to make that impossible choice! Such a brilliant project. Congrats to Ethan I can’t wait to read his book someday!

Thanks for hosting this contest! Very happy I got to be a part of it. The girl possessed by the god of yesterdays and tomorrows being a DETECTIVE is such a cool idea... Like a little Sherlock, unstuck in time... Yes, yes...

3:44 Witch Hat Atelier 3:53 Nurarihyon no Mago, Chainsaw Man (demons get more powerful the more awesome and fear-inspiring they are) 4:49 Valvrave (piloting a mecha costs memories) 5:29 Card Captor Sakura 7:45 Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, Riordan books Series, Stand Still Stay Silent 8:10 Soul Eater (soul wavelength resonance) 9:40 Persona game series, Black Rock Shooter,

I'm so happy Veritachemy made it to the 3rd round + got a shout out! Congrats to the winner & to everyone who made the video. I hope I get to see many of these systems built out in the future! 😁

Magic systems scare the bejeebus out of me, though I have 2 different worlds that have systems I need to work on and figure out. You all have not only inspired me, but also have given me the confidence to play with and develop the systems I have vague concepts of. Thank you all so very much. I wish you all the best in your endeavors.

Jan with his Lacrymaturgy was definitely my top choice! I wanna read the book immediately that's such a cool concept and such a powerful scene I almost teared up already!

mnemancy is definitely my favorite concept its reminded me of a recent read 'the embroidered book' that has a similar system of sacrificing love, memories and affection among other things (*body parts)

It's so devastating that your typical card magic/pokemon and just a straight-up mythology went further than memory magic. The colored tears magic and heart beat magic where in deed awesome.

Aw man, I really hope my 2nd and 3rd pitches didn't completely fall apart, haha. I was a last-second entrant and didn't realize there were further instructions in the submission process so I just hoped for the best, but much kudos to you for making it through to the very last-second entries like mine! Very glad also to have gotten featured (Book of Scribes) and to have at least passed the first two rounds(?)! 🙌 Congrats to the winner and all the others as well~ Lastly, thank you for doing this contest; it pushed my procrastinator self (😅) to spend time to finally flesh out the mechanics of how the Book of Scribes works, which had just been sitting in my head as a largely unexplored idea.

Owen's Card-based system was my favorite. Card-based magic systems might be a classic for a reason. It's an easy way to add a large variety of spells to the system overall, while still limiting what the characters can do, whether by the cards having a cooldown or simply the number of cards a single character can have.

I was pretty dismissive of Grayson and the Devil's Pastime at first (I was like, you didn't just invent the concept of making a deal with the devil) but the more I think about it, that magic system would have some really far reaching implications that make for a rich story, full of tension and intrigue. A world in which every singer, athlete, business owner, or even high school quarterback, might have actually made a deal with the devil to get there. And then every true crime story has the possibility that someone was just paying their contract as a motive... The sheer amount of paranoia, intrigue, and maybe even religious counter-fervor in a setting like that... could be really good. Arthmor's system, which I just refer to as trauma-mancy is also REALLY GOOD. I imagine a person who's terrified of dogs, being able to summon them to ravage their enemies. It makes a hypocrite out of anyone using the magic for combat purposes; that's really cool. A claustrophobe who can create pocket dimensions or opaque barriers... it sounds like a bad time for the characters BUT IN THE BEST WAY.

The lacrymatrurgy was my personal favorite, not only because it's a cool and unique idea but also because it completely shapes the world created by the author by establishing an impactful visual. The only caveat to it, imo, is the extent of the power Jan is describing in his example (but that's just an example, so, it's not a big deal). The idea itself is interesting, but it kinda creates issues with the credibility of the story, considering that someone who's capable of stopping time for long enough to befriend that creature would have access to much better options (things as simple as just collecting blue tears over the long period of time available to her alone). Still, very interesting system combined with a very interesting looking world. He's got a solid foundation for an interesting book, I think.

Thanks to everyone who put the work into this contest. I am also inspired by the incredible amount of creativity!

did anyone else think the cost of the memory magic would be giving up that memory in order to cast the spell? small spells wouldn't be a huge deal because you could just forget little things like what you had for breakfast. but larger/more powerful spells that require core memories could cause you to forget the birth of your child, your first kiss, your dad dying, ect ect. eventually you'd just be a husk with no core memories or identity, really interesting trade off!

I didn't expect to even be featured in the video, given that it's not the most original idea ever, but somehow I got THIRD!?!? This was a fun contest, thank you Jed for hosting!

This is sincerely one of the best sources of worldbuilding, power systems discussion, and generally fantasy elements not just on UKposts, but that I have found on the English internet (a freq commentor on TvTropes is another top tier world-building sage). I hope to find more like you ib my journeys, this, as always, is exceptional!

Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity, Jed! Even if some of us were not featured, I know I can speak on their behalf in our appreciation for this whole idea! It definitely helped me understand my ideas more!

Magic systems with good narrative possibilities are definitely the best. This video was really helpful. Though I was confident in my system, it has helped point out a few glaring holes. I kind of wish this competition becomes a recurring thing every year or bi yearly, I'd love to enter if there is a next time (or possibly other world building competition types?).

The way that you can listen to their pitch and then convey to us WHY it is good is so helpful for us that want to learn how to build a good magic system. Great video!

This was awesome! I would love to see this again. I wouldn't mind if it was an annual contest, even!

card based magic is Yu-gi-oh without Egyptian background and childish battling/tcg variances lol. I like Mnemancy! Soil of the Ancients sounds very cool too! Could have a lot of herbology/botany based stuff

Lacrymaturgy..... Is just, genius.

I really liked the visuals that Erics Veritachemy @8:49 idea summoned in my head. It directly paints a picture of a gritty dark world with glowing magic elements and corrupted characters. Nice one! Also feels like a really nice structure for video games and powerups in that one.

This was a lot of fun to participate in! Thanks for hosting :)

Coming from more of a gameable mentality, it’s interesting seeing how your evaluation differs from mine. Even for the really lore-heavy options, I can see how some offer story beats which would pace better in chaptered prose than in a game setting, and vice versa.

I would very much like to see a video of all the Round 1 pitches and your reactions to them!

It was so cool to see all these interesting ideas, and it even helped me to come up with a magic system of my own.

I've been looking forward to this so much. :) They're all so interesting... I certainly don't envy the person with the difficult task of narrowing down all these great ideas to one, lol.

What an amazing display of creativity. It was very inspiring and helped me realize that my magic system could use some work

This was really fun to watch. So cool to see so much wonderful creativity.

This competition was hella fun to participate in! I threw my hat in the ring to see what would land and to just get in the practice of trying out new things and couldn't have been happier with the results. All of these ideas were amazing, and I tip my hat to Owen who beat me out (I was credomancy) and got 3rd place! It is a really fun idea and I hope everyone who participated continues on with their work!

This video is so helpful, just watching it and listening to people pitch their ideas helped me break down and consolidate my own magic system. I wound up seeing alot of the flaws I had and cutting out the excess, making it more cohesive. Now I have 4 magic system aspects that work together more fluidly.

Hate that I missed this, and I hope you do another! This was such a fun way to test my system against others and refine it.

It was a joy to participate in this contest. I really got a lot of benefit from the timed pitch prompts. They helped me decide what were the important parts of my magic system and what could be let go of.

yay I made it to round 3. :D Thx Jed for the contest. Keep the good stuff coming.

I wish people do more of these video. It's interesting to hear people's magic systems and mabye inspire others to do the same

my fave is the one based on memory, sacrifcing your memory for magic seems so cool and imagine the backstory of this and a villain who tests it's limits

this is fantastic! loving your videos.

Congratulations, guys! The systems are great. I hope to read your stoties one day.

i wish we could hear more of kelly's magic system it sounded so great

Love all of Jed's work!

This was such a fun thing to watch & see all the different ideas for magic systems! I wish mine had been more prepared to have entered, but ho-hum, there's always next time XD

I like the heartbeat and rhythms one! I had a similar magic system idea with vibrations and heart stats

What a fun video!! Congrats to Ethan, I can’t wait to learn more!

My top three definitely were the pantheon with the 12 gods, the heartbeat and rhythms one, and the tears/color one.

I was about to disagree with the decision of first place. but then I realized Jed is so much better at seeing the possibilities the systems open up. even with a 90sec pitch most people won't realize the full depths of the systems that the writer has in his mind. thanks for making me realize this

Thanks for doing all this Jed! I was curious if you'd be willing to put out the unedited 6 hour version of this video?

I wish I heard about this!! I could have entered mine, although my book is not even close to being done, I have a pretty good idea of how the magic works. Let me know what you think! Three sentence description: use the energy from another world to cast magic. You can only conjure, infuse, or transmute elements. No healing, barrier, or flight magic. Watered down version: there are two world coexisting with each other. Mages of either world can draw energy from the other to cast magic. This energy can be anything from the other world, plants animal, even people. So long as you send the time absorbing them, you can store them within your spirit to cast magic. The actual effects of magic aren't too impressive compared to other fantasy books. You can create, infuse, or transmute elements. That's it. This means that you cannot create velocity out of nowhere. You can't just create and throw a fireball. Sure you can conjure an explosion, but it won't go anywhere. You'd probably just blow yourself up. To "cast" a fireball you'd have to infuse an explosion into an arrow head and shoot someone. That's conjuration and infusion. Transmutation is where you change something onto something else. Say you where about to get slashed in the neck, transmute your skin into metal. More details: There are two separate worlds, each began as mirrors of the other. The beings of one world inhabit the other at the same time. The physical body remains in one world whilst the spirit remains in the other world. The spirits of one world are naturally invisible and incorporeal to the native beings of the other. Most creatures are also unaware that they even have a spirit. Despite that the only way to absorb energy from another world is through the spirit. The original body must become aware of their spirit and thus be able to guide material from one world into their spirit. Once they absorbed the material, they can use it to cast magic. It's like they are a passageway to conjure the material they consumed into a physical thing. If they absorbed a stick from the other world, they can create a certain amount of wood in their own world. Once the magic is used, it will leak back into its original world, restoring the balance. This means that all magical effects are temporary and all types of magic that can be used varies from where you absorb it from. So if a spirit absorbed a tree, a pile of wood and leaves would return to that spot after a while. Only, they wont come back in the same position as they once were. Now the act of absorbing material from another world is slow. Whist you are absorbing, your spirit will become visible to the natives of the other world. But they can't do anything to your spirit. Nothing except moving the physical body can stop them from absorbing material. The only people who can use their spirits to effect the other world are the [very original and cool name, I'll just use X as a place holder]. The X are the ones who can fully project their minds into their spirits and detach them from their physical bodies location. Doing so, however makes the spirit vulnerable to attacks. That, however, doesn't mean that it's easy to kill an X. Because they are conscious in the other world, they can absorb and release magic as if they where breathing. The tunnel between them and their power source is now none existent. Another benefit of the X is that they can see the status of anyone's spirit with their physical eyes. Whist active, they can see the location of spirits, x-ray vision, and if the spirits are storing any magic. They can also see what kind of magic is being stored. In order to become a mage, you must be able to sense and influence the other world. Anyone is capable in doing this, it's only a matter of belief in themselves and the supernatural (Kinda like the pixie thing in berserk). You must also be at one with yourself. You must truly know who you are, and accept all aspects of yourself. That way your spirit is open to accepting energy from another world. To become an X is to infuse your mind with your spirit which is quite dangerous to do. Your consciousness can easily get lost along the way. If i does get lost, you die. One you infuse your mind, tearing away from your original position is excruciatingly painful. Weak minded individuals could faint from the pain and be lost forever. The odds of becoming a mage is 1/1000. The odds of a mage becoming an X is 1/10000. Feeling of casting: When casting, you feel an intense hunger. Your spirit is emptied and wants to be filled. You naturally seek the consumption of the other world. My main character starts as an X, but not as a mage. How did that happen? You'll have to read my book and find out... once I'm finished in 2-5 years!

I have quite a few magic systems, but one literally draws its power from bonds and emotions. The MC can see and tap into the emotions of others to use benevolent bonds to uplift and malevolent bonds to hinder. His enemies learn to use the power, too, and it becomes a battle of who can twist their own emotions best.

Heartbeat magic... My favorite one, definetly. And his pitch was perfect!

What a cool video!! Didn’t know you were doing this. I hope you make a second edition.

Thanks for this contest! It was a lot of fun to create my submission and helped me solidify many of my ideas for my story. Really enjoyed seeing everyone elses ideas. Any chance I could get some feedback on my magic system even though it wasn't featured? I felt like I did at least as well as many of those featured and I'd love to know what parts of my submission didn't appeal to you or could have been improved?

I’ve been putting off working on my magic system, but after this video came out I finally got it done

There are so many good ones here. Some of these seem like very exploitable with potential plot holes, but overall very good ideas

When I saw system in the title I thought you were going to talk about "systems" like from wuxia, xianxia, xuanhuan, and other chinese novels.

Heavenly fragments seems so cool! The book that it will be featured in is called secrets of the silver clouds

I think this was a great idea and I hope you do it again sometime, maybe with the best fantasy setting

My magic system is an aura surrounding the users body that is based upon their personality and current mental state. For example angry, fire prideful, lightning with users powers changing as they grow, change, and experience tragedy or love. This applies to more than just basic emotions, with feelings such as fear, disgust, lust, love, and even hunger bringing a wide variety of different abilities to the table

I would´ve loved to see more of the one were 2 people must work together to operate the magic

8:30 in and I want to use the plant one. He said using the specific plant creates the magic and heart beats is awesome. Reminds me of nuruto kind of.

so many of these were really cool ideas

This encyclopedic knowledge would be a great tool for the community of writers.

Well, I'm glad I got into round 2 at least lol. Better luck next time. Thanks for doing this!

Alongside writing books, I think your experience writing a game might be of use for Owen and his card-based system. He could adapt his system using 'RPGmaker', 'MonMae' or 'Yal's Monster Collector Engine'. Obviously making a game is difficult, but I think making a JRPG might be a possible goal because there's a lot of people online who have tried their hand at it already, and there's a growing scene of games inspired by Pokémon style mechanics.

One I’ve been mulling over is based on the draw system from ff8. Everything contains magic, creatures or the land or even constructs. Your average person can draw upon these natural abilities and either use it right away (cast) or store it for later use at a more appropriate time. There’s a few people who essentially can skip this “draw” the magic and use it right away. They would be based on the sorcereresses.

These people are BRILLIANT some of these had me foaming at the mouth and going "OOOH"

The soil of ancients and the blood of the 12 gods were my favourite. I would definitely read those books! That memory one was also awesome.

The memory magic is my favorite as a concept. I can think of a few themes one could borrow of how one copes with painful memories like Eternal Sunshine for the spotless mind or one that speaks to the pangs of dementia. But as far as the story and Magic concept, the 12 gods and origins compelled me the most. This was a fun watch!

My Favorite Magic systems always involve interpretation of the person using external factors. Like in Fate where depending on how you are persieved it will reflect that when you are summoned as a servant.

One missed opportunity for this video is telling us in your opinion why the ones that didn't make it wasn't so appealing Why something doesnt work is far more practical to learn from

Equal levels of inspiration and "well, guess my ideas weren't that unique". Anyway, I loved the video!

Wow this was really inspirational :3 My favorites were the one with the Colourful Tears and the Lay, the latter one reminded me a lot of the Persona series, which I also love :D I developed an emotional Magic System myself not so long ago, in which positive memories are used to fuel the magic, making one forget them and negative memories can also be used to summon demon like entities, making the negativity feed these memories and make them stronger in the users heart. Sadly I felt too sorry for my characters to actually implement it, but I still have the magic system written down, in case I will ever use it or maybe to inspire others ;P

I like that Jakop starts the recording with a “hear me out” that was just funny to me at least a little bit

Damn, they were really cool! I really thought the memory one would be in the top 3. My favorite was the one with crying colors. That idea was amazing!

Honestly a lot of tremendously creative ideas here, I have to say the one I found most intriguing was Kelly's Magia Universalis. While it shares some similarity with other systems (like the weapon/meister dynamic in the anime "Soul Eater" for example) it was the one that spoke to me the most.

Sarah's was the best, in my opinion. The self actualization was so freaking cool, and I would read stories with that concept a hundred times over!

Whaaaaaat? Credomancy sounded amazing! Also, I NEED to read the book about the 12 gods starting different bloodlines. That one and Ethan's were my favorites.

That tears story was AMAZING, WILL buy the book, please publish it!!

I'm overloaded with good ideas. I just Love people

Watching this for ideas on how to make magic systems, and magic powers. Unfortunately, or hilariously, working on figuring out a magic system for fanfic reasons, because the source material is so far into the "soft irrational" quadrant it fell off the page and rolled away. This was super helpful to expand on things already in the source material, and sparking some new ideas that would work in the setting!

Those were very interesting magic systems great ideas guys

there are so many interesting ideas here. very inspiring

I didnt get to submit my idea due to my anxiety but it was so fun seeing everyones great ideas

i wish i had heard of this, it would be a great way to get guick feedback on a magic system from an experienced writer, even if i didnt get very far