The
Cost of Magic in Your System
By Joan McNulty-Pulver
In my article,
How to Start Building a Mystical Magic System,
we learned that all magic must have rules. What many
people don't stop to realize is that magic also has
a cost (just like the technology of today).
Computers, cars, and any other energy dependent
products we buy cost money to run. It also costs in
energy used, the depletion of oil, coal, wood, or
whatever fuel is consumed to power our tools or
toys.
Costs are not
always defined by financial terms, but includes
consequences consisting of anything from simple
physical weakness or exhaustion if overused on a
personal level, to something more drastic the
depletion of ley lines (power sources beneath the
earth), nodes (where two or more ley-lines meet) or
Heart Stones (built-up sources of energy and power
that control and protect the Vale by the Tayledras
Clan in the Mage Winds trilogy of Valdemar by
Mercedes Lackey) to the complete destruction of a
country, planet or entire universe. Many times dark
magic requires the use of blood sacrifice – either
the wielders or someone else’s.
In the early years
of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series, matrix
workers using psi powers became tired and had to eat
fruit or some other sweet in order to restore energy
lost while working in the “Matrix Circles.” They
also had to refrain from sexual activities and sleep
for many hours after working..
Assign
Appropriate Cost
While designing a
magical system, be careful to assign an appropriate
cost to the type and strength of magic performed. A
simple love spell cast into a stone or potion should
not equal the cost of a mage throwing lightening
bolts at the enemy or someone mentally controlling
the weather.
Let’s look at
available levels of magic to employ in your story.
One of the least
costly levels of magic is mind speech or mind magic
(the ability to speak mind-to-mind with another
humanoid being with out infringing on their right to
privacy). If this is normal to the world it would
take a little more energy than having a conversation
orally. Things like magical charms or amulets,
simple potions, gems with magical properties or even
cursed or enchanted weapons come into play. These
take a little energy just like physical labor does
to non-magical beings so it may not be worth even
mentioning.
In some magic
systems healing is part of the magic. I have read
books where the healer, while curing the ills of
another comes down with a mild form of the illness.
In other stories Healers actually enter the sick
person’s body through the mind and follow neural
paths in the body to repair broken bones or other
sicknesses. The cost to exercise this magic is
usually extreme tiredness to the point of
exhaustion.
Cost of Using
Magic in Literature
In Windwalker
by Donna Sundblad, the Augur (a seer) is
always born with a bumblefoot and has problems
walking except when they “walk on the wind.” Queen
Riona, the antagonist, must hold the mage stone in
her hands when she leaves her body to travel as a
serpent or other animal form. If someone were to
shatter that rock or hold it from her while she is
not in human form, she could die. To give up the
power of the stone will take away the spell of youth
and change her to the old mortal woman she really
is.
The harder the
magic is to perform the higher the cost to the
magician, except in blood magic where the cost is
someone else’s blood. I just finished reading
For King and Country by Robert Aspirin and
Linda Evans, in which Lady Covinia Le is one of the
antagonists. She is the person who gave Arthur his
blade Excalibur. No one but the reader knows until
the end that she is evil. She forged Excalibur and
tempered it in the blood of Arthur’s cousin. Even if
he didn’t know it, that blade cost him a loved one.
Just remember, that
no matter what happens magically, there has to be
some type of cost to the wielder or to another
person or animal.
