How to Write Magic Types: Life and Death (Creative Writing)
Today let’s take a look at one of the most interesting and hard to pin down magic types.
Now don’t mind the death in the title because that’s only there to go a bit more broad than the basics.
The basics are actually the magic we all use in RPGs, white magic.
When I say white magic I mean all the healing spells in RPGs.
But that’s not the full extent of such magic and today I’m going to prove it.
What Does It Do
I’m going to split this up into two section, life and death.
All the spells and abilities that focus on the beginning of life and the ending.
A full power life mage can harness both sides but it’s rare and overpowered. Note there will be some overlap.
Life
Besides all the healing and resurrection spells, this magic can:
- Give life to inanimate objects
- Make one immortal instant kill the undead(Or give them rest if you prefer)
- Control all biological life
The last one is important because this is where that overlap comes in.
Depending on how you define it, this can translate into control over plants and the earth.
But, the one thing that doesn’t change is the control over living things like humans and animals.
When I mean control I don’t mean mind control I mean controlling their body and inner organs.
It’s biological manipulation.
This covers body horror and disease control since those falls under controlling life.
Imagine, having the power to manipulate how someone’s body works or even your own. Doing that can grant you powerful mutations.
That’s already powerful and a departure from what life magic is usually, but, we haven’t even gotten to the dark side yet.
Death
The offensive side of this magic is so terrifying that many spells here are under dark magic too.
As you would expect with a full mastery of life magic, you can not only give life but take it.
Instant death magic falls under this category along with magic that deals with the soul.
Necromancy deals with using Death Magic to raise the dead but Death Magic in its entirety can:
- Absorb souls
- Destroy them
- Clone them
- General manipulation
Another part of Death Magic is draining life and causing decay which is the opposite of healing.
Anything that Life Magic can do, death can do the opposite of it.
Their True Power
All of this, believe or not, is just the intermediate stuff.
The true power of life magic lies with what it actually controls, the basic building blocks of life and the energy within.
With this power you’ll have power like Alteration Magic.
You have total control over living things and things not living you can just give life to.
Despite that, it really depends on the world your story takes place in.
If mana connects to life then Life Magic at full power can use it in its purest form which is Pure Magic.
But one of the best things a full power Life magic can do is create life itself.
You can find the most godlike abilities here.
Anyone with a good grasp of this magic can pretend to be a God by raising the dead and creating life from nothing but mana.
That’s all I wanted to say about it’s power, let’s talk about the world-building.
Life Magic In World-building
I think we can all agree that Life Magic would have a massive effect on any society.
Just the basic ability to heal wounds and diseases would make most medicine worthless.
Healing mages would be extremely valuable to society and any warrior would know at least basic healing magic.
Realistically, everyone would learn healing magic.
As for the death side, it would be its own school of magic, usually Dark Magic.
Because of this Death Magic would almost always be forbidden.
Its magic involves controlling souls and causing death and decay.
If not forbidden then at least feared and regulated.
When it comes to the higher levels of Life Magic, I don’t see it often explored.
Maybe it’s because the higher levels are just so broken.
Maybe it’s because few know that life magic can do these crazy things.
Most people would be satisfied with healing but if one ever found out this magic’s true power, it would be a major event.
The biggest impacts would be on the human condition.
This could easily be the focus of an entire story.
They include:
- Bringing back the dead or creating immortals would cause the meaning of life to come into question.
This would cause many to disregard their well-being. Lack of emotion could also happen.
- Creating life would make reproduction unnecessary and the drive to build a family would slowly decline.
With this magic you can create a stronger, smarter and better human all while skipping childhood.
Because of this, life magic is nerfed to only heal.
Maybe it can bring back the dead in video games but with no story consequences.
That’s all I wanted to say on this type of magic. If I made any mistakes or forgot something be sure to comment.
With that, I’m done.
