Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4621372-20121210203025/@comment-4621372-20121210210752

If we go with the magic thing, I had a few ideas...

There are thee classes of magic- The elemental, the arcane, the sorcerous- each doing different things. The elemental deals with the creation and usage of elemental creatures, of which, again, there are three categories; Domina, Sapientia, Archea. Dominas manifest themselves as massive outpourings of their element, such as bursts of flame, gusts of wind, etc. Sapientia, manifest themselves as creatures literally made of the element (or elements) in question, such as a dragon made of fire, or a lions made of water. Archea manifest themselves in similar manners as Sapientia, but, unlike Sapientia, are capable of changing their form. Dominas are the easiest to create, Archea the hardest, but Archea are often much more powerful and intelligent. The are 5 major elements and over 200 subclasses; the 5 major ones are Earth (including metals and stone), Water (including all liquids), Fire (including all forms of energy that do not manifest themselves as waves, like sound and Heat, nor light, which is included in Aether), Air (including all gaseous substances), and Aether (including light, darkness, and elementals which represent ideas.)

The Arcane deals with more passive magics, and is seperated into 4 categories: Healing, Necromancy, Inspiration (or manipulation, depending on the usage), and Summoning. Healing is self-explanatory; it deals with the healing of humans, including the revival from death of humans, so long as the revival does not have any magical bonds on the revived (so they retain free will, and it is not necessary to use magic constantly to keep them together. Necromancy is  the revival of the dead with the placement of magical bonds on them, such as enslaving them, or the revival of victims who are lacking some major organ that they cannot live without. Inspiration deals with the twisting of minds, such as making battle weary soldiers rise up and fight harder against a foe... or making them fall to the ground, mentally exhausted. The more specific the emotions required are, and the more people involved, the harder it becomes to cast the spell. Summoning, finally, deals with the summoning of all magical or nonmagical creatures and constructs; this differs from elemental magic in that elementals are created, whereas the summoned creatures once or currently exist; you cannot summon the creatures from the future, or creatures which you do not know of.

Finally, the Sorcerous magics deals with the twisting of the physical world. It's somewhat a hodgepodge category, like Protista in biology. Included here are the casting of certain magical bolts (those, specifically, that are not Dominas, which can be thought of as magical bolts, though unlike like bolts, they are reusable.), as well as the casting of protective spells.

All of these magics can be countered by stronger magic, as well as stronger technology.

Lastly, the casting of these spells can be done with either runes or by the names of said runes, or by pure thought magic, which doesn't require runes or the corresponding words; Archea can only be made by the last, along with some of the most difficult spells and so on.