My First Draft

I just wrote down the first draft of what I know about my world which I’ve thought of in bits and pieces over the past week.

If I could get any feedback on bits that would be great.

World:

The inspiration for this world comes from Eluge, the Shoreless Sea (a mtg card). Salacia, which is the placeholder for the world’s name, is a mere two continents in proximity to each other. No other land has been explored because of the existence of this species. The Eluge (which will be another placeholder until I think of a species name) lurk around the edge of the continents, guarding from travel outside. The thought of land far beyond is mocked as no being would be able to survive deep into the sea devil’s territories.

Because of the Eluge, a new season exists in the world. The Flooding Season, where the Eluge leave their mostly dormant state becoming active, resulting in flooding throughout almost every area of the continents. Because of this, towns are built high, cities are designed so water naturally filters out of them, and the overall workings of civilization are adapted to the great floods.

Creatures as massive as the Eluge cannot feed through normal means. Instead they feed on thoughts and emotions. They possess great magic and use this to evoke feelings in those stranded at sea too close. Intelligent species are delicacies to the Eluge due to their higher consciousness leading to a greater feast. As such Eluges will cause nearby human vessels to hallucinate, forcing them into fear, confusion, madness, and desperation for possibly days on end, keeping them lost at sea before consuming them.

Though the Eluge have great magical abilities—being one of the only beings to produce their own mana—they lack intelligence, creativity, or knowledge of the world to use them. They instinctually use their powers to feast on the most emotion as they can, and do not need to use it for any other application due to their impressive size. So although an Eluge could use their magic almost omnipotently compared to mankind, they cannot.

To lure humans out into the sea, Eluge are known to grant powers using their magic to mortals in pacts. Mortals given pacts carry part of the Eluge’s mana, and this closeness to their mana makes them more easily to influence, especially with frequent usage of the powers granted. This leads to magical possession by the Eluge, where the mortal lures out other intelligent beings to the Eluge by any means necessary.

Magic:

For the majority of history, magic was something reserved for mythical beasts and races. Mankind was naturally incapable of wielding it, but this changed with the discovery of mana crystals.

Scattered across Salacia are various crystals, each resonating magical energy—known as mana—into the surrounding areas. This mana is what gives beings the ability to use magic. Mana wafts through the air in waves until it contacts living beings, where it is absorbed and can later be converted into magic.

What determines a being's ability to cast magic is their mana affinity, their ability to absorb ambient mana and retain it. Humans, and other species of mankind have naturally poor affinities, and cannot draw magic from the mana that the crystals naturally release into the atmosphere.

Through recent developments in technology over the last few centuries, mankind has been able to create several methods to wield magic of their own; mana crystals are harvested and processed to produce more potent mana at the cost of their lifespans and implants are installed into the living to increase their mana affinity.

Different crystals release different forms of mana which can be implemented into different kinds of magic. Some spells require the mana of specific crystals or even a mixture of the crystals leading to the science of alchemy which is the study of how mana crystals interact with each other in various ways.

Mana affinity comes not just in how well someone takes in mana, but which mana they take in. Some will take in mana that allows for fire magic with more potency than others for example, and the more you are exposed to a mana of a specific type the more you gain an affinity to it. It appears that as the body is exposed to one mana, it adapts to it and gains greater affinity, but exposure to other forms of mana slows this adaptation leading to many mages seeking specialty in a specific mana to accelerate their affinity adaptation.

Magic is still a new thing to humanity, and as such there are still things unknown about it. Issues such as mana crystals being much more potent with mana when untouched, unmoved, or undamaged but needing to do the following to process it for man are still prevalent. Additionally, tampering with mana crystals to allow them to be used for mankind leads to a significant decrease in their lifespan, with no records of untouched mana crystals dying out but the possibility existing for processed ones.

Conflict:

On a small island, there is a vast group of mana crystals more potent than any other found in history. These mana crystals hold the power to affect one’s minds similarly to the Eluge. These mana crystals have synchronized mana to that of what the Eluge produces, and they absorb the mana that the Eluge produces with each Flooding Season.

It is believed that with only a slightly more advanced way of spreading the effects of a mana crystal, this group of crystals would be able to affect whole civilizations with the magic cast from them. This had led to the idea of the first superweapon, akin to the world’s nuke. Two nations have both learned of these crystals and thought to take them for themselves before anyone else can, creating a monopoly on the greatest weapon ever made and ensuring they both had the weapon to potentially use and so that nobody else would.

However, to receive these crystals, the nations would have to acquire the territory of the island, which is mostly surrounded by a third nation who has ownership of it. In order to gain access to the crystals, either nation would need to acquire the rights of both traveling through the third nation’s territory, and the rights to mine the crystals. Whether or not this will be done diplomatically, economically, through war, or other methods is unknown.

This third nation is keen on leaving the crystals as they are. Since they are some of the last crystals to be left entirely untouched, they are in their most potent state. Removing them would likely mean like other crystals, the clock on their lifespans would begin. Instead it believes the best course of action is to wait until a method of using crystals without damaging them is developed before the crystals are processed.

The crystals are only potent enough to provide the power to become a super weapon (or to do whatever else intended) after the Flooding Season, when the Eluge are most active. In this time the nations may become more aggressive in their pursuit of goals.

Future Goals:

Right now I intend on figuring out how mana crystals are processed into usable ones and how the implants people have to increase their mana affinity works. Then I’ll either make my first town or race. Any feedback would be great but if anybody can think of stuff regarding to the first bit that’d be even better.