Dictionary of Magical Jargon · 10:22pm Jul 17th, 2020
Howdy, everyone.
Through the process of writing Trip the Light Scholastic—plus a few other stories, but that's the main one—I've been digging pretty deep into the intricacies of magic and how it works in the world of MLP. Specifically, I've had a lot of fun making up various words and concepts to help explain it all, and that has resulted in a constantly growing collection of theories and jargon that I've been compiling into a document for personal use. Most of them won't actually be addressed in any story directly, but I find them useful to keep in mind to maintain internal consistency.
But as I was working on it today, a thought popped into my head: "Hey, maybe other people could get some use out of this too." And since I couldn't think of a good reason not to, I decided to clean it up and share it here. My hope is that some of you reading this will either use these concepts in your own stories, expand upon them, or use them as inspiration if you ever need to explore/create a magic system in the future.
Or at the very least, I hope some people find it interesting!
This dictionary will update and evolve over time as I come up with new ideas or adjust old ones, so feel free to keep checking back here if this is your sort of thing.
Anyhow, that's enough rambling. Let's dive in!
Anti-magic Paradox: One of the large unsolved problems of magical theory. Refers to a property of certain materials to be inert (see below) in response to magic from one source while having little to no effect on magic from another source. Implies a fundamental difference in the composition of magic depending on its source, which directly contradicts the Theory of Magical Homogeny (see below).
Examples:
ObsidianChitinite has no observable effect on magic produced by changelings.
Proposed solutions:
- Magic produced by different sources is fundamentally different (contradicts the Theory of Magical Homogeny).
- An organ exists within the arcane corpus (see below) that transforms magical energy as it travels along the leylines (see below) in such a way that it reacts differently to inert materials. This theoretical organ is tentatively called the “transformer” (see below).
Arcane Corpus: Refers to the entire magical anatomy of a creature. Includes incorporeal anatomy such as leylines and the core (see below) as well as physical magical conduits (see below).
Conduit: Part of a creature’s arcane corpus that channels magical energy directly from the leylines (see below) into the physical world.
Examples:
- Unicorn horns
- Pegasus wings
- Earth pony hooves
- Crystal pony hooves
- Changeling horns/wings
- Hippogriff wings
- Griffon wings
- Dragonfire glands
- Yak hooves
- Draconequui
Core: Theoretical part of a creature’s arcane corpus from which a creature draws all of their magical energy. Sometimes called a “magical reservoir.” Not yet proven to exist.
CMD (Cutie Mark Dissonance) Disorder: A magical illness causing a pony’s cutie mark to not accurately reflect their special talent. Characterized by an unwillingness to accept one’s cutie mark and a general ignorance of the cutie mark’s intent in favour of other pursuits. No known cure.
Emotional Resonance: The property of a magical source to either be directly affected by the emotions of a creature or to directly affect the emotions of a creature. May also refer to the effect a creature’s emotions tend to have on their magical prowess.
Empath: A creature whose magic is affected by their emotions to an inordinate degree.
Feedback Loop: A phenomenon by which magical energy which has passed from a creature’s body into the physical world re-enters a creature’s body through an open conduit. This bypasses the inhibitor (see below), allowing leylines (see below) to become overburdened with magical energy and potentially sustain damage. The inhibitor prevents energy from a feedback loop from returning to a creature’s core.
Inert: Property of a material with a TCI or TRI (see below) of -1.00 or +1.00 respectively. Indicates such a low thaumic conductivity as to completely negate any magic within a certain range. Higher concentrations of such a material increase its effective range exponentially.
Examples:
ObsidianChitinite- Lead
Inhibitor: Theoretical part of a creature’s arcane corpus that limits the amount of magical energy that a creature can call upon at one time, preventing physical injury due to an overabundance of magical energy. Not yet proven to exist.
Leylines: Conduits that carry magical energy throughout a creature’s body. Cannot be physically damaged, but will react and adjust to physical injury.
Magical Segregation Theory: Refers to the belief that magic from different sources is fundamentally different and cannot be traced back to a singular source. Proponents of this theory differentiate magic based on its source—unicorn, pegasus, earth pony, alicorn, crystal pony, changeling, hippogriff, etc.—and claim that no creature can directly manipulate magic outside of their purview. Runs directly counter to the Theory of Magical Homogeny (see below).
Evidence:
The Anti-magic Paradox indicates that there must be a difference in the magic produced by different sources, otherwise inert materials would negate magic from all sources universally.
- It cannot be proven that magical energy goes unmodified between a creature’s core and the point at which that energy interacts with the physical world. If it is transformed in some way, this would explain the Anti-magic Paradox while failing to confirm Magical Segregation Theory.
The Battle of the Bell shows that magic from different sources cannot be effectively utilized by creatures of a different magical persuasion. The Bewitching Bell segregated magic based on its type, specifically isolating the chaos magic of Discord the draconequus, which could not be wielded by any other creature.
- This point fails to explain how the centaur Lord Tirek, Deposed Queen of the Changelings Chrysalis, and the pegasus Cozy Glow wielded the magic of the ram sorcerer Grogar. It also fails to acknowledge that so-called chaos magic was confirmed to be used by another source: specifically the earth pony Pinkamena Diane Pie.
Magic Negation Field: Refers to the area of effect around an inert material in which magical energy cannot be effectively conducted.
Magisection: The process by which a creature is completely separated from the source of their magical energy. This phenomenon is typically self-inflicted, although cases of involuntary magisection do exist. Magisection should not be confused with the state of being within the magic negation field of an inert object.
Manipulable Variable; or, Spell Trait: A term in spell theory referring to the possible parameters any given spell can manipulate. Common spell traits include spatial position, orientation, velocity, colour, and temperature.
Modular: Property of a spell indicating the ability for the spellcaster to decide how many manipulable variables there are. Often paired with the terms “monothaumic” or “polythaumic” (see below).
Note: This term is semantically redundant, as the spellcaster cannot truly decide how many traits a spell has. They can choose not to manipulate certain variables, as is common with many spells, but those variables still exist. For this reason, the terms “modular monothaumic” and “modular polythaumic” are identical in meaning to the term “polythaumic” (see below). The term is still occasionally used for clarity.
Monothaumic: Property of a spell indicating the presence of exactly one manipulable variable. Most spells are either polythaumic (see below) or modular monothaumic, with very few spells being purely monothaumic. Paradoxically, monothaumic spells are often the most complex spells to cast.
Examples:
- Teleportation is monothaumic. Its only spell trait is spatial position.
- Age spells, by and large, are monothaumic. Their only spell traits are age, or time. It has been argued that age spells are polythaumic due to the vast number of changes resultant in a target’s physical structure, but these are not consciously brought about by the spellcaster. The only attempted change is to the target’s age directly.
Neutral: Property of a material with a TCI or TRI (see below) of precisely 0.00. Such materials have no observable effect on the conductivity of magic.
Examples:
- Pure quartz
- Most organic matter
Polythaumic: Property of a spell indicating the existence of multiple manipulable variables. The vast majority of spells fall into this category. Spells are occasionally subdivided into more specific categories for clarity’s sake: bithaumic, trithaumic, tetrathaumic, etc.
Examples:
- Levitation is a bithaumic spell. Its two spell traits are spatial position and orientation. Some scholars believe it to be trithaumic, with the third spell trait being velocity, but this is erroneous. Velocity is a byproduct of changing the trait of spatial positioning. Levitation cannot directly alter a target’s velocity to a precise value.
- Illusion spells are polythaumic. They can have a vast range of spell traits, including colour, smell, texture, luminosity, opacity, and taste.
Power Surge: A phenomenon by which a magical source emits more magical energy than should be possible at one time. Common in infancy, as the inhibitor is typically not fully formed until the age of two. Can also be brought about by defects in a creature’s inhibitor.
TCI (Thaumic Conductivity Index): Measurement of a material's ability to effectively conduct magic. Measured on a range of -1.00 to +1.00, where higher values conduct magic more effectively. A negative value indicates magic resistance.
Examples (values dependent on purity of material):
- Cosmic spectrum: +0.98~
- Mystic topaz: +0.96~
- Diamond: +0.51~
- Silver: +0.14~
- Quartz: ±0.00~
- Iron: -0.33~
- Jade: -0.39~
- Titanium: -0.78~
- Onyx: -0.98~
Theory of Magical Homogeny: Refers to the belief that all magic, regardless of its source, is fundamentally identical. Proponents of this theory state that there is an organ within the arcane corpus—generally referred to as the “transformer” (see below)—that allows all magic to be used in vastly different ways by different creatures. Runs directly counter to Magical Segregation Theory.
Evidence:
The magic of friendship is often used as proof by induction for this theory. Since all creatures are theoretically able to produce and share the magic of friendship, the source of that magic must therefore be fundamentally identical across all creatures.
- It is worth noting that there is no evidence stating that the magic of friendship comes from a creature’s core in the same way more traditional magic does. In fact, The Lord Tirek Incident indicates that it does not come from the core, as Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends were able to utilize the magic of friendship despite having undergone magisection. It is therefore possible that an entirely different source exists for the magic of friendship.
The Lord Tirek Incident implies that magic from all creatures is able to be transformed into the same state, as Lord Tirek drew power from many different sources yet used it as a homogenous form of magic.
- It is possible that Lord Tirek has the unique ability to transform magic from any source into a form he can utilize. Lord Tirek has never spoken on this issue.
Transformer: Theoretical part of a creature’s arcane corpus that modifies magical energy as it travels along the leylines, allowing the energy to be used in significantly different ways by different creatures. Fundamentally integral to the current interpretation of the Theory of Magical Homogeny. Not yet proven to exist.
TRI (Thaumic Resistivity Index): Measurement of a material’s ability to resist magic. Defined as a material’s TCI multiplied by -1. Used as an alternative to TCI depending on the calculations being performed.
Volatile: Property of a material with a TCI or TRI of +1.00 or -1.00 respectively. Indicates such a high thaumic conductivity as to become unstable in the presence of magic. It is common for such a material to draw in magic on its own and subsequently break down into more stable components.
Examples:
- Glimmerstone
- Mirror ice
I feel like I need a PhD to understand half this stuff.
I ended up developing my own magic system but yours is a lot more in depth.
5311848
I am a pretty big science buff, so that probably has something to do with it, haha. I've always been intrigued by the idea of trying to explain magic in more scientific terms than we usually see, since I imagine that's what we would try to do if magic existed in the real world.
And trust me, mine's only so in depth because of the unhealthy amount of time I've put into thinking about this stuff. Sometimes simpler is better in the end anyway!
Wait, if feedback loops explicitly bypass inhibitors, how are inhibitors meant to, well, inhibit them?
Obsidian as the substance of Chrysalis's throne... Yeah, slight problem there, and it's called the Dragonlands. I imagine there's a lot of volcanic glass in the region, and ponies don't notice any issues. Heck, neither do dragons. Unless this is like ebony in the Elder Scrolls series, where it's some fantastic material that happens to share a name with a real-world substance.
The description of surges is awfully confident for a definition founded on something not yet proven to exist.
My quibbles aside, very nice to see a working theory of magic. Moreover, it's neat to see one that doesn't have everything figured out, with competing theories and incorporeal uncertainties riddling the state of the art. I don't think I've ever seen an "in progress" presentation of thaumology before. It really makes it feel like research from an actual place. Very nice work!
Hardcore worldbuilding.
5312678
That's poor wording on my part. By "bypass," I mean that the magic from a feedback loop doesn't travel through the inhibitor (until it reaches the core) and thus isn't regulated by it. The inhibitor is theorized to be adjacent to the core (as far as something can be "adjacent" in theoretical, ethereal space), if not directly connected to it, and so acts as a sort of filter to prevent too much magic from leaving the core at one time.
I'll modify the related definitions to be clearer about how this works!
Yeah, admittedly that just didn't even cross my mind. Thanks for bringing it up! I'll go in and change that to some other material—likely something more fantastical so there's less of a chance of running into a similar problem.
The inhibitor hasn't been proven to exist, true, but it's theoretical in much the same way that gravity is theoretical. There's so much evidence supporting it, and it explains the behavior of magical energy very well, but it hasn't been directly observed and so can't be stated to be a real thing. There are other phenomena that could explain the limitations detected in magical experimentation, but the inhibitor is the most widely accepted explanation, and so many other concepts and theories are based on the assumption that it must exist.
Thanks for all of the feedback! It's really fun coming up with this stuff, and I personally think having an incomplete interpretation of the magic system is the most realistic way to do it. If magic existed in our world, there would almost certainly be a whole branch of science devoted to studying and understanding it. And like any science, we would be learning new things all the time.
It's made a bit harder by the fact that I'm developing this system solo, meaning that I'm creating theories that oppose my own theories and trying to debunk and debate myself, which is weird, but it's a fun exercise for sure.
5313757
Indeed. I take my fictional sciences very seriously.
Neat 😋