An Uncompromising Past

One of the great challenges of putting together our world has been figuring out how magic works. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that there are almost as many types of magic as there are cultures. (There actually may be more types of magic, now that I think about it.) That particular issue hasn't felt as daunting as it could be because the separation of magic, belief, philosophy and religion has felt like it organically follows from the created world. In our world there is not some overriding type of magic, but many different abilities that different cultures have learned to tap into. The real challenge has come from figuring out how the magic functions.

For better or for worse, Pratt and I both have an inescapable scientific background, though neither of us chose to fully embraced it. That background has shaped the way we view magic working. There are still mystical parts involved, but the function must be one that makes some sense. By "some sense" of course I mean that we cheat horribly and the change of mass to pure energy and vice versa does not have the drastic physical manifestations that one would realistically expect - that's where the magic comes in. Some types of magic users if they could exist in this world would be instantly vaporized, while others would merely be so radioactive that even if by some miracle they managed to survive, anyone near them would not live long enough to have to worry about cancer. Hence, magic.

What is fun are the more mundane uses of elemental magic - earth, wind, fire, water - or maybe, but not really, solid (inorganic), gas, plasma (sort of), liquid. Earth involves the manipulation of inorganic solids and seems to lend itself readily to those wanting to do melee combat. Wind requires high pressure and low pressure points and has some ready applications for scouts, spies and snipers as well as being the most explosive. Fire ends up being about what you would expect (though our justification for it is such pseudo-scientific drivel that I have trouble looking myself in the mirror afterwards). Water ultimately is extremely useful and entirely unexciting at the moment.

There is a part of me that wants to grip a calculator just so I can discard it because I know nothing short of actual computer modeling will come close to satisfying my desire to see how materials will respond under certain conditions. Excuse me for a moment, I want to make an extremely rough estimate of how many kilojoules our shapeshifter absorbs by instantly dropping 100+ kilograms of mass. No doubt this can be converted into Megatons of fun!