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@Daeus yessssssssssssss, this is my favorite Law.

Now let me see. How to articulate this.

Okay. So, the only magic system I’ve created to date (and the only one I probably ever will create, just because one is more than enough for my poor struggling brain :P) is the soft magic that permeates Evalleone, the world eleven of my fantasy books take place in.

It’s very allegorical so the structure that holds it up is built on *checks notes* four ‘orders’ of magic. Each order embodies and is responsible to represent two out of eleven ‘virtues’:

Order 1:

Honor and Diligence.

 

Order 2:

Courage and Discipline.

 

Order 3:

Perseverance and Self-reliance.

 

Order 4:

Fidelity and Hospitality.

If you were counting, that’s actually only eight virtues. The last three are actually not virtues, but paradoxical absolutes: love, hope, and truth.

SO. Without going into a ton of depth and detail about the different orders and the powers they have for the purpose of carrying out their responsibilities to embody and teach these things to the world, in the very beginning each order was only embodied in one person. There were four people, one for each order. Not only could they access a wide range of mental and spiritual abilities, they also each had one ‘elemental’ power, symbolic of the values of their order, that allowed them to manipulate the physical world. Pretty classic earth, fire, water, and light. Okay, so light isn’t classic, but it worked. XD

For instance, the man who embodied Order 4 was pyrokinetic, giving him the ability to manipulate fire. Fire is generally thought of as symbolic of destruction, but it could also symbolize warmth and hospitality.

ENOUGH OF THAT.

I originally thought I would just have these four magic people (and two who came later; different story) for my whole world and that would be it. But then I thought, well, if these people are all-powerful and embodying all these beautiful things about God and His ways, who are they fighting? What mortal in their right mind goes up against these guys?

So I created a mirror-system. Again, four orders. Only these guys embodied things like pain, destruction, anger, and bereavement, and their physical powers were things like hail, stone, ash, and drought. They got their power from the big bad guy, Lucifer himself.

I was so intrigued by the many possibilities of pitting these four against the other four (imagine fighting water with drought, earth with hail, fire with ash, and light with stone) that I decided this magic stuff was just too cool to confine to four (or even eight) different people.

But the way the theology worked, how was I going to get this to more people? These guys were supposed to be like angels and demons. More than human. I didn’t want a bunch of more-than-humans running rampant through my series messing up my lovely ‘everyman’ aesthetic.

Okay, two options then: create an entirely new system or find a way to make it work with the existing one that nevertheless didn’t break the theological rules. I was too lazy to make a new one.

Okay then, what if it were possible for humans to unlock a single attribute of one order?

But how could that happen? I didn’t want angels visiting chosen people in their sleep and bestowing gifts; that was just way too cliché. After poking around with the different pieces of the magic system, I noticed those three paradoxical absolutes: love, hope and truth.

I hadn’t done anything with them. No one embodied them. They were too potently of God for even an angel to embody them fully. So what was I going to do with them? Welllllll… what if, in the beginning, there were three places (almost ‘portals’) on earth that could somehow put men in touch with each of those three absolutes? Like, three wells, perhaps. Okay, pretty common fantasy trope, but you know. It could work.

For instance, if you descended into the well of truth, you saw things as they truly were. It could leave you raving mad, but it was there, and you could descend at your own risk if you were desperate enough.

Now what if, after the fall when the world broke and became corrupted, the wells were lost and their essence scattered about in strange, out-of the-way places, where sometimes men stumbled across them? It would only take a few strange stories— people sleeping in one place and waking up mad, babies born in some desert who grew up physically blind but could tell you the future, survivors of battles in old forests who recover only to discover that they can hear thoughts, and people would come flocking. Whole pilgrimages; whole peoples and religions could grow up around these places. What if people who came seeking for the eternal could actually come away with one mental, spiritual, or physical attribute of an order? There would be an element of divine choosing, yes, because not everyone could do it, but it was still much better than visiting angels.

Okay! So far, so good!

But what about the bad guys? They don’t have any divine absolutes. They don’t believe in paradoxes that transcend reality. Where are their wells? How do I make antagonists fit to go up against this rising throng of half-magicians?

I did something a little different with the 3rd Law here. Instead of going through my text looking for inspiration, I went through the text that inspired my text— the Bible. I discovered that while the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those who heart is perfect towards Him, the Devil prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Just as God is at work creating warriors for Himself, Satan is at work creating destroyers.

And God allows him to be. Is it possible then that even though Satan has no divine control or power, God would permit him to make a place where he could obtain servants? So even though my Satan figure has no legitimate well or portal, he could certainly contrive to create one. And just as sin is much easier to fall into than righteousness, his portal could be much more accessible. It could also disguise itself. Want your fortune told? Oh, visit the lady at the end of the street with eyes like stone. She can tell you. It’s just a toss of the die; some colored bones. Oh, and you might come away with the seed of a destructive power eating away at your mind, because the veil between her house and the world of spirits is far, far too thin, but never mind that.

So I discovered my Lucifer figure has many portals, and mostly in places where many, many walk. Through that, I realized it was even possible for him to force a seed of his power into the body of someone who was already a transformed half-magician for the other side. Righteousness is a struggle, see, but even the most righteous find it easy to sin. And eventually that sin can choke out their righteousness entirely.

I’m almost done, I promise.

Out of that thought, delighted with the way the symbolism asserted itself so perfectly in the lines of the system I made, I created my favorite villain and one of the top contenders for my favorite character. He isn’t written yet, but he’s alive and kicking in my head. Antagonist for the very last book in my series of eleven, he was born with powers of righteousness but sought out powers of darkness, while denying both. He believes in both (he doesn’t really have a choice, does he? ;P ) but he’s bitter against the light and angry against the darkness, so he determines to use his powers— both sets— to make the world forget that either exists.

And I love him.

And… I lost track of how many times the 3rd Law played out there. 😛 Rant over. That was extremely fun and beneficial to actually write down.

Since you got to the end of the post, you’re special. *gives raspberry ice cream* Careful, it’s cold.