[OOC] Magic A is Magic, eh?

[robkelk]

Or, how do the various magic systems in the Metacontinuity interact?


Some characters have magic powers or spells that are defined in terms of their own works of fiction, rather than being defined in real-world terms.

How do they interact with each other, and with the systems with capabilities and limitations defined in real-world units?


Here are a few suggestions to start the discussion; feel free to tear these apart and use them to build a more robust system.

First: Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make Lyrical Nanoha's magic systems not only self-consistent, but also consistent across the Belkan and Midchildan systems. And it appears that TYPE-MOON used the same system for Fate/stay night.

Which means that Yuuno cannot force Saber to teleport, since his rank in the spell is B+ and she can ignore all magic that's less than rank A. He can, however, catch her in a Struggle Bind.

Since two works in the Metacontinuity appear to use the same system already, shall we use it as well for our baseline?


Second: The Sailor Senshi are shown to be among the most powerful spellcasters in their world, and most of them have four attacks. I propose, if we're going with the Midchildan/Belkan/Fate system, setting their first-season attacks at rank A, their "Ail and En" arc attacks at rank A+, their later-second-season attacks at rank AA, their "Infinity"/S attacks at rank AAA, and their SuperS attacks at rank S. As a counterpoint to starting with powerful magic, they do start with the "stand, pose, and call the attack" limitation on these attacks.


Third: There's a second, more powerful type of magic that Caster calls "True Magic", that always defeats normal magic. No matter which story a mage is from, spells cast from the heart are intrinsically more powerful than spells cast from the mind (as far as I can remember), so that's a decent starting point for a definition of True Magic. Magical formulae are (usually) easier than raw Will and Word, so there isn't a lot of True Magic out there.

Particular cases: The Clow Cards weren't True Magic, but the Sakura Cards are. True Sight is not, but Glam Sight is. Moon Spiral Heart Attack isn't, but a Ginzuishou effect is. Starlight Breaker usually isn't, unless Nanoha is pouring her heart into the spell (as she did at the end of StrikerS).


And that's as far as I've gotten, so far. If this is the approach that we want to take, then seelie, Crowleyan (both Rental Magica and Academy City versions), Cephiran, Yggdrasilian, and Remnantian magic needs to be integrated with what's given above. (And when Arc 2 comes around, Forcelian, Orarian, and Claire Bible magic will also need to be incorporated.)


Thoughts? Additions? Bouquets? Brickbats?