- they/them
I have so many ideas and such big dreams, they're often overwhelming. Look forward to seeing multiple projects here because if I were made to stick to one project forever, I'd probably explode.
My current fixation: Main Character Syndrome
Far more interesting than what a magic system can do is what it can't- I feel like this is fairly common writing advice. If magic can do everything, why isn't it being used to solve every situation? This is especially pertinent for my magic system, and any that involves some kind of Transmutation (or Conjuration but my system doesn't include that so it won't be touched on here).
In case you don't know, Transmutation is the act of taking one thing and turning it into something else entirely. It's Transfiguration in Harry Potter, turning mice in cups and matchsticks into needles. And it my case? It's... highly limited.
See, everything in my world has magic, and as thus it's own frequency (magic = music, dw about it). Frequencies are highly important with magic, if you can't harmonize with the magic, you can't use the magic. Elemental magic is easiest because all elements have fairly consistent frequencies- four main ones combining in various was to make minor ones, often requiring harmonizing with more than one frequency at a time. It's very difficult.
Magic like Transmutation is the hardest of all. Shapeshifting is one thing, it's harmonizing with your own soul then changing how that harmony flows. Transmutation involves overriding the unique frequency of an object with your own will, telling the universe "no, X is actually Y" and forcing it to listen.
Small, less complex objects are far easier to transmute, especially if you're turning one basic object into another (turning an igneous rock into a volcanic rock, for instance. They're just different types of fairy basic rock). Changing one element into a different one (a rock into water) is nearly impossible, getting much more difficult if the two elements are opposites, such as water and fire.
Things are made even more difficult due to, what I'm calling for now, the Law of Ownership. A person owns their magic, their body, and their soul. Anything they imbue with their magic has that ownership transfer over, and their magic will fight the magic of anyone else trying to use that object.
Runes can be used to circumvent some of this problem, allowing the creation of magic objects that anyone can use by including a function that cleanses the object of foreign magic between uses. However, not everything with magic imbued in it has runes on it.
Even if you try to transmute something and fail, that thing still has your magic in it, then making it harder for anyone who comes after the transmute it- even if that person is much better at Transmutation than you. This also makes it next to impossible to transmute something after it has already been changed- no matter how the change is done.
This is actually how money is kept consistent. All money is transmuted from the same initial object into its current form in this world, meaning it can be validated just by trying to transmute it, whether yourself or using verification runes that do it for you. While people could still theoretically duplicate this... well, people can still fake money in real life, can't they? And it's not like they have the highly specialized training needed to be allowed to mint new bills.
Anyway, the Law of Ownership is also why healing magic is a highly specialized skill. You can't force your magic or a potion into someone to get them to heal, their own magic will reject the change. Instead, their magic has to be coaxed into healing them, a much more arduous process that may even be impossible depending on how stubborn they are.
Most healing potions tend to instead be magic enhancement potions, giving someone more magic to heal themself with in order to speed up the process. These potions work best on those who already have fairly small magic reserves. Adding a bucket of water to a lake will change little about the lake but adding it to a puddle with vastly increase the puddle.
Adding great amounts of magic to a person can still be dangerous though. Everyone has a limit, even if they haven't reached it yet. Generally, the highest level of healing potion can only be safely used on people in comas or on the edge of death, basically in a state where all of their magic is being used to keep them alive and leaving very little in their soul- the bare minimum to keep the soul functioning.
That's all I'll say for now, I just got distracted thinking about this while working on my next practice comic.
In the aftermath of the... like... three months it took me to get Define 'Acting' out (which was extended a lot because I had to study for finals and just... didn't work on it for a month and a half), I've learned quite a bit about making comics. This is already starting to sound like a post you make on a school discussion board but that's kind of the point? Acknowledging what I learned so I remember to work on my faults and what not? Eh- anyway-
What have we learned from this experience?
Other than the fact that comics are really hard, organization is definitely turning out to be important to me. Splitting the foreground and background elements (and the characters) makes it a lot easier to keep the shading neat and she what I have and haven't done. My previous attempts at comics, that have never seen the light of day, had no such organization and fell to The Demons (adhd hell).
Second, dedicating a little time to do it each day is, in fact, a lot better than sitting my ass down for six hours straight. It sounds obvious but, like with most things, I didn't realize how useful doing so is until I ended up in such a long process and suddenly was the sore-est man alive come the next morning. At the very least, getting up and taking a break every thirty minutes to an hour really helps with the pain.
Third, doing things is segments seems to be best. Do all the sketching, then all the inking, then all the coloring (one character at a time), then all the shading and vfx, and what not. Again, didn't do that in my old comics and it really killed my motivation to be completely finished with one page but like two others in the sketching stage. In hindsight, this also might be why all my animatics failed.
Fourth, I need to make more practice comics. Ones shorter than ten pages might be best, if only because I have a lot of characters to get used to drawing. Nicholas, the last one I designed (who inspired Define 'Acting') literally only marks the halfway point of the cast. I have a few comic ideas in mind that I've scribble down on digital sticky notes, so that'll be fun when I get around to them... tomorrow, maybe? Or not, depends on how the School Situation goes. Hooray to the Spring Semester... yay....
Fellas I really wish I could just be making this comic full time but that requires things like A Following and People Willing To Pay For This and while I am trying to get those things, it's a slow process that involves so much stuff outside my comfort zone. Talking to people in general is outside my comfort zones, it's why I make these devlog things instead! Maybe I should turn these into a glorified podcast or smth... mmmm... but I'm literally taking two science classes next semester, I don't think I'd have time to edit anything. I wonder if I could convince a friend to help...
Where was I? Things I learned? Yeah, I learned Evan's a bitch and I love him but I would strangle him with my bare hands if I could. Dunno how much of that is going to make sense because I'm posting thing before I get around to posting the rest of the comic here but yeah. Enjoy that!
It's a term I've been throwing around in a lot of my posts- or I think I have anyway. I forget what I've mentioned in my captions vs with my friends sometimes but I'm pretty sure I've used it at least a couple of times. That might bring up a few questions, what is a MAD Mage?
Well it isn't a Mage who's lost their mind, I can assure you. MAD is actually an acronym, M.A.D, in reference to the real life M.A.D Agreement. For those who aren't aware, it's a military policy stating that the use of full scale nuclear arms against any other country with access to nuclear arms would result in both of the countries using the nukes destroying the other. Mutually Assured Destruction. Simple.
Except here's the thing. In the world of my comic, MCS or Main Character Syndrome, Nukes don't really... exist. The alternate earth present in MCS is pretty much identical to our world except with the inclusion of magic, quite powerful magic at that. In this alternate history, the pace of Combat Mages vastly outstripped the development of traditional explosives, resulting in an incident like Nagasaki and Hiroshima but with magically charged golems piloted by Combat Mages rather than nukes.
Just like in the real world, the end result of those two cities having a one-on-one conversation with a miniature sun resulted in Japan folding in WWII and, with the start of the Cold War, the concept of MAD became a very real thing. Countries quickly fell to training as strong of Mages as they could in order to make the power of the strongest Combat Mages at the time.
Thus came the M.A.D Mage program, a college level program that was officially a simply a degree course for Magical Studies that would grant students a PHD for completing all eight years of course work. Unofficially, these programs selected only the best mages from a given country and secretly trained them to become MAD Mages.
See, training human weapons is looked down upon in most societies so people don't really say these National-Level Mages are, in fact, human weapons but that's basically what they are anyway. In some places, such as the United States where MCS takes place, it's an honor. MAD Mages get quite the paycheck while having comparatively little responsibilities.
With the world of MCS currently being in peace times, MAD Mages have very little to do. They mostly posture around in the news, meetings, and international events to quietly show off the strength of a country. Just like how there's little to no reason to actually use a Nuke, there's little to no reason to have a MAD Mage besides as a show of strength and prosperity.
Is that kind of stupid? Yeah but I also find the concept of Nukes more stupid than they are cool so I think it's fairly realistic. Now the psychological implications of having a group of adults fight to become one of the few MAD Mages a country will officially employ is... not great. They're basically fighting to be an object.
Albeit an object that will have a very lucrative Magical Studies degree even if they don't meet MAD Mage standards, all but guaranteeing them a high level job either has a magical professor, freelance mage, rune developer, healer, or a variety of other jobs that use magic (depending, on the specific courses you took in the program as not every one of the twenty five available courses are necessary. Hell, it's only required to complete a minimum of four out of the seven 'core' classes, though those courses must have all eight years worth completed).
But to be a MAD Mage is to seek utter perfection in all things. It's not healthy, not sane, but it is normal in their society. Perhaps we only find it strange because we don't belong to the world of MCS where guns have fallen out of style due to the relative ease of learning equally dangerous Defense Magic, even those with low magical potential capable of a decent amount of arson if they feel the need.
MCS is a dangerous world. Any world with easily available magic should be in my opinion. A little creativity can turn basic spells into weapons of mass destruction and it always seems so much simpler than real world technology. Tsk. Tsk. Welp, back to drawing Nicholas, everyone's favorite Goth Gamer Boyfriend.
Okay, so, listen. I'm at least 90% sure we're all familiar with the concept of a magic school, yeah? Harry Potter was only a worldwide phenomenon, popularizing the concept beyond what anyone could have expected. I'm not going to explain to you what a magic school is.
The magic college at the center of Memoir on the Lost, on the other hand, is the USA's primere college, one of three boasting the M.A.D Mage program. Which, if you haven't read past devlogs, is a program used to decide which mage is going to be the country's next 'living nuke' to uphold the M.A.D contract that was signed after the end of the Great War. No, there was no second war in this world. Magic use developed far faster than the concept of a nuke.
Ever wonder what classes one would have to take to finish this illustrious program? Not really? Well I did. I've decided it's an 8-year program that's essentially a PHD program, since those take about the same amount of time. If you don't get picked to be a M.A.D Mage, you just get a PHD in Magic, which is useful don't worry.
Now within this eight-year program there are seven core classes, of which you have to finish at least 3 years of each before picking five of those courses to stick to until you finish the program. There are also optional courses you can take for extra credits at year three and year five.
If you're genuinely trying to being a M.A.D Mage, these courses are less 'optional' and more 'required' as the top three students with the highest GPAs and Credits (weighted roughly evenly) are chosen to meet up with the top three students of the other two colleges with this program to decide who gets to be the official M.A.D Mage in a final examination. This final examination is largely kept a secret by the government due to political nonsense.
Did I take inspiration from Harry Potter to design this curriculum? Yes? Am I ashamed of myself? No. I am also taking some inspiration from Winx Club because I love it. Moving on to the actual curriculum.
The seven core classes are as follows. They will be listed with eight names for the eight years of classes. One of the classes (Practical Magic) will be listed twice as it is split into two core parts.
Intro to Potioneering -> Basic Salves -> Intermediate Salves -> Basic Potions -> Intermediate Potions -> Basic Antidotes -> Intermediate Antidotes -> Archaic Potions
Numbers of the Universe -> Editing Forms -> Sacred Geometry -> Theoretical Equations -> Foundational Patterns -> Elementary Statistics -> Theoretical Time -> Basics of Entropy
Practical Magic Pt. 1 -> Compositional Transformation -> Sculpting Life -> Animating Life -> Animate to Inanimate -> Fae Transformations -> Impossible Made Possible -> Shifter Theories
Practical Magic Pt. 2 -> Survival Charms -> Aesthetic Charms -> Laws of Movement -> Security 101 -> Dueling -> Dual Casting -> Spatial Modification
(Practical Magic works by taking place twice a week, the first day follows Part 1's path, the second follows Part 2's. You have to take both if you take Practical Magic, thems the rules.)
Ancient History -> Modern History -> Fae Wars and Rivalries -> Famous Mages -> Intro to Theology -> Magical Literature -> Governments of the World -> Rebellions and Wars
Basics of Defense -> Physical Defense -> Mental Defense -> Magical Offense -> Curses and Cures -> Magic Meets Law -> Experimental Curses -> Natural Magic
Herbs and their Uses -> Basic Herbology -> Harvesting -> Extraction and Preservation -> Fauna in Myths -> Dangerous Flora and their Uses -> Sentient Flora
Magical House Pets -> Fae and Familiars -> Magical Etiquette ->Dangerous Creatures -> Magical Ingredients and You -> Ghosts and Ghouls -> The Soul -> Sentient Fauna
Meanwhile the options for additional classes starting in third year are:
- Runes - History of the Dark
- Alchemy - Foreign Culture
- Medicinal Magic -Astronomy
- Future and Fortune - Elemental Affinities
And then the additional classes starting in fifth year:
- Alchemy - Theoretical Telepathy
- Folklore - Laws for Sentience
- Enchanting - Golem Creation
- Magical Maladies - Foci Craft
Now, how much of this will I reasonably use? Well, the game Memoir of the Lost was a life sim before it was a romance/otome game, with the main plot revolving around the mystery of the school rather than the love interests. Of course, this mystery couldn't be completed in game, even with cheating and editing save files, so people tended to think of it as a life sim/romance game instead of a mystery game.
How long could you play a broken game before it stopped working? In this case, the game would become too glitchy to play just after the third in-game year started, about when the players could pick their extra-curriculars (allowing them to grow closer with whatever other character was taking those classes as well).
Due to its status as a life sim, the players did actually have to attend these classes and have their player character study in order to remain in the school. Being expelled for any reason is an automatic game over due to... well... not being able to solve the mystery if you aren't at the school. The game was also known to often soft-lock if you got too poor of grades and were dropped from the M.A.D Mage program.
Jem, our nitwit protagonist, is of (at best) average intelligence and is incredibly poor at making smart decisions. No one should have expected him to solve a mystery, let alone somehow manage to remain in a prestigious program most people train all their lives for even a chance of joining.
This will not go well for him. It will go great for me though. I love rambling about my worldbuilding. What use is a magic college at the primary location of my story if not to ramble about worldbuilding? Talk about a missed opportunity.
Does this mean I will be designing teachers for all of these classes? Some of them, maybe. I definitely have the Practical Magics Professor down pat, Aurelion my beloved. The rest of them are up in the air depending on how much I care and how many of these people make sense to exist here according to the lore.
Mmmmmmm lore.
Anyway, I'm totally normal about this and definitely don't need to go to sleep. Nahhhh. It's fine <3
I was once again thinking about the cosmotology of Main Character Syndrome and came to the realization that the college at the center of Memoir of the Lost is actually like... really messed up. It's not even the only college like that.
This isn't about them being monetarily exploitative though. It's more about... how history has developed when magic is at the forefront of it. Magic is powerful and dangerous with a lot of negative consequences should something go wrong (or, if that's your intention, if something goes right) and the world of Memoir of the Lost is far more earth-based than your standard affair.
For a quick explanation of the cosmology (theology? Idk what the word is)
At the beginning, the end, and forever, is the void. Except the void isn't. By nature the void does not exist because it is there mere representation of nonexistence, the true form of Nothing. But, as the problem goes, you can't just have Nothing. The concept of Nothing only exist in contract to Something.
And so there was Something. 52 Weavers to be exact, eldritch creatures far older and more ancient than the Gods of any given universe, born before the birth of time. They too, technically, were born at the beginning, the end, and forever. It's a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Which came first?
The 52 Weavers, the Something to give context to the Nothing?
or
The Void, the Nothing that needed a Something to even define it as Nothing at all?
Since both existed before Time, one of the Weavers' earliest creations, technically neither existed before the other. Without time, there is no start and end, no age.
From these Weavers, more somethings were created, strings woven into threads and crotched into the blanket that is the multiverse. Or, well, omniverse? A concept of the universe that is a step above the multiverse and each of the threads are, by themselves, a multiverse. The strings that make up those threads are the universes that form the multiverse.
Two of these strings in one of these threads are the strings that represent Jem's universe and the universe of Memoir of the Lost. The only real difference between these two places is that the universe of Memoir of the Lost has Functional Magic while Jem's universe does not. The difference between functional and non-functional magic is, fundamentally, whether or not a universe is thought to have magic at all.
Does this make any sense?
Anyway.
Despite the presence of magic, the universe of Memoir of the Lost grew almost identically to Jem's universe up until the American Revolution, when magic and war first intermingled. Before that, magic was mostly used for practical, at-home purposes. With the realization that magic could be used for war, an arms race quickly started that resulted in WWI.
Unlike in Jem's universe (which is much like our own), there would be no WWII. Nukes, as a concept, would never be created as it became clear that magic could be far more deadly and far more insidious. MAD was quickly developed and, with it, magic schools were created.
At their highest levels, the collegiate levels, magic schools are essentially training grounds for living weapons. They certainly have other degrees, much like how the military has a degree program, but their focus is honing people's magic to be used in the next generation of living weapons to participate in the MAD contract.
However, each country only has one representative, their strongest mage from their best magic school, the rest either being soldiers or following their degree paths. This has caused quick the competition amongst those with ambition, who's sole goal is to study magic and become the strongest there ever was. You know, the typical Shonen-protagonist dream.
The difference is, of course, is that these people are fundamentally fighting to be a weapon, an object to be displayed and gawked over in order to keep their country 'safe'. It's an incredibly dehumanizing position to have, one that's looks at in equal parts awe and fear. Many of the top mages are more than a little cooky in part because of this treatment. If people treat you like a thing for long enough, it starts to have consequences.
Evan and Curtano are to two competing students to be the next MAD Mage. Both were top of their previous schools, far stronger than the majority of the populace could ever hope to be, the true 1% in terms of magical ability. Evan, however, is just a bit stronger than Curtano.
Evan is also an expert in making it look easy. It's like figure skating or gymnastics. None of it is actually easy but the goal is to make it look effortless.
Curtano, who's struggled and clawed his way into this position from the very bottom, falls for Evan's mask of effortless perfection (which, to be fair, Evan also tends to believe his own bullshit) and he despises Evan for it. They're rivals, enemies, and neither have anything good to say about the other.
Having gotten so close, seemingly about to fail before the finish line, Curtano does something bad. Nothing illegal, of course, just... not very recommended.
Curtano performs a summoning ritual to look for a familiar. Why is that bad? Because you can't control what answers the ritual. If it ends up being stronger than you? It can chain you instead of the other way around. Curtano's ritual summons something very strong indeed, one of the 52 Weavers.
In response to his call for power, twisted by the Void and the natural misunderstandings between an eldritch creature and a speck of dust, the Weaver decides to take pity on this little mortal. The world is twisted, the real made unreal...
And the game begins.
Welcome to 'Memoir of the Lost', an indie Mystery/Romance game known best for it's mystery ending being buggy to the point of being impossible to complete. Why?
Because every contract has an out and the Weaver who answered would truly hate to lose.