Erage Origins

12/21/2020

I don’t know what to call this story, or if I can even have a fun story with this idea. This is an idea that originated back when I still played with my shovels. When I had this idea, I was probably still in Elementary School.

However, this wasn’t a story, this was simply an imaginary landscape where I could play around. It was some sandbox world where there were really no quests or goals. The majority of what I did there was prove myself to be superior.

I would imagine people from my school in the world, and I would just imagine how much better I was then all of them.

Ah, but how could I prove I was better than them? Magical combat.

When the landscape was first formed, there was no limit to magic. Since everyone had unlimited magic, the only way I could prove myself to be better was to use through the use of deception.

No, I would not win by having more magic, since everyone had the same infinite amount. But I would also not win by using my magic more effectively, since the difference between effectiveness is completely nullified by being able to blast all of your magic in an unstoppable force because you have unlimited magic.

Deception was the only way to win. And my favorite magic to use was plant magic. Now, this worked well as an imaginary landscape in Elementary School and most of Middle School, but the last year of Middle School and everything afterwards, I realized that unlimited magic made the game too hard and less fulfilling.

A major idea I had in the imaginary landscape back in Elementary School was that I would teach all of my Elementary School friends how to use magic because they just didn’t know how to use it.

This was the main reason I was able to prove that I was better than them when we fought in magical duels. I simply had a few years more experience in magic. Those few years made a lot of difference at such a young age.

But, there something else to keep in mind. I consider this my first viable story idea. It was simply a sandbox world where I could do anything, but then in the last year of Middle School, I completely flipped the script.

The three factors that determine whether victory and survival in magical combat am were amount of magic, effectiveness of your use of magic, and deception. Previously, amount of magic was infinite, which removed any reason to be effective in your use of magic.

So instead, I changed it to limited magic. Incredibly limited magic. I changed it so that the amount of magic you had was based on how long you had been practicing magic. Since literally everyone, except for my Elementary School friends, had been practicing magic since they were children.

There were a few other pieces I added in at that time. Age could be translated as the amount of magic you had, unless you just never knew that magic existed, which is virtually impossible.

But there are different types of magic. At this point, I’m not going to describe the evolution of how I developed a magic system. I’m just going to describe how it is at the current time.

There is an infinite variety of magic. And magic is usually categorized into it’s most basic form. Whether it fire, water, air or earth, or maybe it is physical but not elemental like plant and animal, but more advanced and expert magic fall into categories a little more abstract like shadow, light, life, death, soul, emotion, mind.

I haven’t quite figured out what type of practice or focus or meditation or channeling causes the growth of a certain pool of magic.

Each category is its own pool of magic.

For example, you have fire magic, you cannot use your pool of fire magic to fuel your water magic.

So what is it that someone must do to cause a certain pool of magic to increase and grow as they age.

However, it doesn’t really matter too much, since magic doesn’t exist in real life. So I wouldn’t be able to explain how somebody reaches for a certain type of magic to increase their capacity.

Your pool of fire magic and your pool of water magic wouldn’t necessarily be of the same amount. There is the capacity of your fire magic pool, which increases as you use the magic or channel/focus/practice/meditation on magic.

There is also the current amount in your pool of magic. As time passes, your pool of magic will refill. It probably refills faster when you’re resting.

However, there is a single twist in the magic system that turns the entire game upside-down.

Specific vs vague or encompassing.

There is a difference between fire magic and a bolt of fire you shot from your hands.

There is a difference between a fire bolt and a fire bolt that fires at 90 degree angle directly to your left with a ball of flame that is precisely 4.7 inches in diameter exactly 1,587 degrees Fahrenheit.

The more specific of a magic you use, the quicker that the type of magic increases in its pool capacity.

What does this mean?

Horizontal: Pools of magic are exclusive. A pool of magic for fire magic cannot be used for a pool of magic for water magic.

Vertical: Pools of Magic are one-way. The more vague or encompassing of a magic can be used to fuel more specific magics but not the other way around.

Explain vertical more clearly: Pool of Fire magic can be used to fuel any magic that fits in the category of fire magic. Including fire bolt. But Firebolt is more specific than Fire magic, so it cannot be used to fuel other Fire magics like a spinning wheel of fire.

Pool of magic for fire bolt can be used to fuel the more specific fire bolt 90 degrees to the left precisely 4.7 inches in diameter exactly 1,587 degrees Fahrenheit. But that specific variation of firebolt cannot be used to fuel a general fire bolt or any other variation of fire bolt.

So, while Fire magic has its own pool of magic. Every use of magic that someone produces has its own pool of magic. This is partially because the very act of using magic increases the capacity of its pool of magic.

If it is your first time producing a firebolt, then the increase in pool magic capacity would be the creation of a pool of magic that is only useful in the production of fire bolts.

One might think that this is a terrible mechanic. Most times, the magic you use is not going to be useful in any situation other than the one you are using it in. After all, I might shoot a bolt of fire to my left, but it’s not always going to need to be exactly 90 degrees.

Luckily, you can control which magic you are pool of magic within the category of Fire magic you are increasing through the way you think of the magic and how much of your magic you want leave to chance or RNG than under your direct control.

If you use Fire magic, the base category, to produce Fire magic and simply direct it to your left, that will still count as base Fire magic and increase the capacity of the base Fire magic pool.

But it is also going to be more random than you might like. You can control the blast of fire somewhat by measuring how much you fuel the spell with your base Fire magic. Give it a lot of fuel and the fire will be hotter, bigger, brighter. Less fuel, cooler, smaller, dimmer. But the exact degree of temperature will be out of your hands, unless you can somehow precisely measure the amount of fuel required to get a certain temperature, size and illumination.

Using a base or general category of Fire magic will result in more random magic. The direction is going to be simply general or vague. You might even miss your target. Though, it might also be due to how the target is moving. The temperature of your fire may vary between hundreds of degrees. The size of your fire might fluctuate between diameters that are multiple feet in difference.

But the most important part of vague vs specific magic pools is pool capacity growth. Vague magic pool capacity grows slowly. While, the more specific a magic pool, the quicker the magic pool capacity grows.

So the Fire magic pool might grow at the abstract increase of one unit per day.

While a fire bolt magic pool might grow at the abstract increase of three units per day.

While a fire bolt, 90 degrees to the left, 4.7 inches in diameter and 1,587 degrees Fahrenheit magic pool might grow at the abstract increase of thirteen units per day.

Of course, this all evolved from a sandbox imaginary landscape in Elementary School. This means that while it might have some interesting world building, there is very little by the way of story or plot. The only characters I have is really just myself placed into the world while proving that I am just simply better than everyone else through combat and deception.

There is a few problems that come from that one character that I have actually produced. The character is not only just some idealized version of myself, while also being incredibly callous and egotistical, he also, though being a child, is incredibly knowledgeable about the entire world and magic. He shares this with the children his age that he teaches magic. These Elementary School children are always confused as to how someone that is only as old as them can possibly be so experienced in magic.

My main character is limited in his magic by his age, but he also generates magic pools of magic and increase their capacities very effectively. He has learned that he can replicate other magics by combining magics. For example, Air magic can be replicated through a mixture of heat and cold.

But the solutions for faults in character are instantly solved by making him an Egocentric in ECCC.

This still leaves the problem of lack of plot. But I suppose this could just be some sort of slice of life episodic adventure that is simply my main character fighting and defeating enemy after enemy, as he did in the imaginary sandbox.

There are a few vague goals in this character. He wants to train the children that he brings with him to use magic. He also wants to get some magical artifacts that he made to store his magic when he dies each time. So those artifacts contain many lifetimes worth of magic. He placed his magic pools and their capacities within the artifacts.

But, I don’t think he should get his artifacts, or if he does get them, he doesn’t use them. The whole idea of having some supercharged artifacts kind of removes the tension.

Obviously, my character never loses any battle, at least not too badly. But he does have limited pools of magic. This gives some sort of tension by making you think of scarcity.

In Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, there was something similar. There were different powers that had separate pools of resources. In combat, the Mistborn would run out of resource pools for their powers.

But you never really knew how much of a any given power they had left because, while it seemed like it could be measured, it wasn’t measured.

I have an idea called play the game by specifically making some sort of Dungeons and Dragons-like Tabletop Game for the rules of magic in this world.

That way, I can visualize scarcity with precise measurements even though no one would see the numbers while reading.

Though, unlike Dungeons and Dragons, this game would be much more vague in everything. Numbers would be used for pools of magic, but everything would be an approximation. Health and damage would not be the same, RNG would be used, depending on how vague of a magic was used.

The main pull of the magic is power vs adaptability. Specific is powerful, with more magic. Vague is adaptable but with less magic.

I don’t know if anyone else could possible know this, but this magic system is the inspiration for the magic system I used in Lord Macabre.

In fact, when I adapted the sandbox to ECCC, I decided that this magical world, with my egotistical main character are all taking place in some future version of the world of Lord Macabre.

Similar to how the old idea from the world taht would become Occulturation adapted to become the future version of the home world of the Banshee. Of course, the Banshee is also a character concept that came from a non-ECCC world, though I developed literally nothing about the Banshee except for her being soulless until I adapted her into ECCC.

But what should be the name of the world or story that has this adapted version of that imaginary landscape sandbox playground? Haha. I just remembered where Egocentric came from. The whole idea of Ego and Egocentric came from a My Little Pony character I made, that was really just a version of me placed into the MLP world. But like all of my self-inserts into stories, the character was really egotistical, so that it actually was part of his name. He was split into two people, one of them had a name that included the world sandbox.

So what should this ECCC story be called? What should the world be called? The other names were just stuff I made up because I needed someway to differentiate that worlds from eachother.

They aren’t even good names.

So there is no pressure to try and make this name any better.

Let’s go with Erage, it’s a combination of the word “Era” and “Age.”

Oh dear, I need a name for the main character. I can’t use Jtagdan—Because that’s not very creative. Also, that name is already taken—by me. It’s my name.

What name should he have? Untoltelage. Yes, that sounds like a good name. It’s a mixture between “untold,” “age,” and “tutelage.” Because he is of an untold age, no one can really know how old his mind is. Then there is also Tutelage because he is giving an apprenticeship to other children.