Magic System for my Roman-based World

Alright, here it goes. A basic explanation of my world, the Arcane Roman Empire, power systems. I request that you read the whole thing before making opinions, please.  First: my world functions off of a trinity of Divine, Arcane, and Infernal. With Divine being powered by Belief and Faith of humans creating Gods and Fades within the divine plane and powering the miracles of priests. Arcane is powered by mana that  human wizards gather from the environment, wizards use this mana to cast spells, rituals, enchantments, chants and all of the machines and such they use. The infernal is powered by life-force with this coming from either the spilling of blood and flesh or the act of sexual activity with warlocks using that energy in accordance with an infernal hex to do magic. The first Magic system I will start with is the divine. The Divine has three types of casters: Priests, Clerics, and Druids. Priests are the normal casters who use the faith and belief in a god to do miracles and enact their will, they scale with greater faith and connection with their god. Clerics are people given a piece of a god's power and are avatars of the god, anyone can become a cleric a god just has to pick them. Most clerics can't handle all of that divine power and so usually die after using just a fraction of it, making being a cleric very dangerous since they have the power to take down archmagi and ascended warlocks but will most likely die in the process. The third type of divine caster is a druid. Druids get their power from the ambient belief of concepts like time, space, nature, gravity, and death. Natural non-man made concepts that will pretty much always exist in some way. Druids use that belief energy by connecting to the concept and becoming a protector of that concept so that it's never forgotten within the public eye and doesn't get exploited or destroyed. This connection requires the druid to focus completely on the concept and feel the belief waves that fuel it. Similar to Priests, Druids scale with connection and communing with their concept of choice. All divine casters function under the domain of their patron (Patron being either concept for Druids or Gods for Priests and Clerics), for example, a priest of Neptune can only do miracles relating to water, sea creatures and the ocean; so they can water bend and call upon the fish of the world but can’t call down lighting like a priest of Jupiter or charm people like a priest of Venus. All divine magic is bound by its domain no matter how powerful the divine caster. While rare, gods can add, remove and change domains; this domain changing is based on the faith and belief of people of what that god is the god of, with gods with a lot of domains like Saturn of time, Agriculture, Wealth and liberation having pretty weak priests with a lot of flexibility in casting compared to Pluto, God of Death, Wealth and Wizards who has stronger priests but less flexibility. As the more domains a god/patron has the lesser the power their priests are but the greater the flexibility. However this domain changing is pretty rare since one of the main jobs of Priests is to keep the domains and ideology of their god the same and unchanging, so that their god doesn’t mutate. Switching gears, Fades. Fades are beings within the divine plane that humanity has imaginated up that many people are aware of; stuff like Centaurs, Dragons, Sirens, Phoenixes, Satyrs, and Unicorns, if humans have thought it up and people know about it. It’s in the divine plane. Fades can’t be of things within the real world, so there are no fades of animals, humans, undead, demons, constructs or succubi, because Fades are products of human imagination. Divine Casters can summon Fades if they fit their domain, so a Priest of Neptune can summon a Mermaid but not a Centaur, or a Priest of Mars can summon a Dragon but not a Nymph. Fades do what humans think they do because of their pure belief structure. Priests can communally cast to summon angels and powerful fades, and the next thing. Angels, Angels are beings made a part of a gods faith structure to follow their will unquestionably, and they are the servants of the gods outside of priests and general commoners. Gods are made from Fades who are worshipped and put faith into making them strong enough to become a god and their most faithful can do miracles and follow their divine word. And if a Priest becomes connected enough with their god their god possesses them and acts through them directly, this gives the caster no control and the priest can’t stop it once it begins; however it only lasts for a few minutes. Divine Casters can create kinda magic items, there are three types: Infernal counters, Blessed items, and Relics. Infernal counters are stuff that just wards off demons, like holy water and holy symbols, simple things powered with belief energy to ward demons that even an average person can power. And infernal counters are items that all priests can do, regardless of domain. Blessed items are the main divine items, they are temporary enhancements and blessings to an object, like a Mars priest blessing his sword to be harder, a Venus priest blessing a ring to bring true love or a Pluto priest blessing their necklace to glow when there are ores around. These Blessed items, like all things within Divine magic, have to follow the Domain rules.Blessed items are temporary and only last for a few days to a few weeks at the max. Third, there are relics, these are items thought to be possessed by Gods, like Jupiter’s lightning bolt or Pluto’s helm of invisibility, and these relics grow and decline in power in relation to the belief and worship of the god and the item. 

Jesus, Okay next one. Arcane Magic. Arcane Magic has two types of Casters, Wizards and Sorcerers. Wizards are the arcane scientists who learn, create, modify and store everything arcane, they can do lots of things that will be explained later. Sorcerers are humans modified by one or more  Arcane Transformation Rituals. These Transformations permanently transform the body to give it powers like arcane sight, telepathy, superhuman abilities, and more. While all ordo wizards have these Transformation Rituals what makes Sorcerers unique is that they don’t know the arcane and have been just granted this power by a wizard for some reason. And with this they can effortlessly cast set arcane spells based on their transformation rituals and mana (of course). So basically Wizards are scientists and Sorcerers are superheroes. Wizards use mana to cast everything Arcane; they get mana from study and practice with Arcane magic. If a wizard runs out of mana they fall unconscious for sometimes days or weeks. Within the main caster of Wizards there is two meta-types of Arcanist and Artificer with 11 types for the Arcanist based on the 10 schools of magic plus universalist, and about 5 types of artificer of Armorer, Arcane Programer, Machinist, jewelry-maxer and cyberneticist (Note that wizards can mix and match stuff from all, but they main specialize in one or two school/types of magic). The ten schools of magic are Abjuration, Biomancy, Chronomancy, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation. This is just the 8 schools of magic from dnd because if pathfinder did it, I can do it plus Chronomancy and Biomancy. Biomancy is the school of life, healing, mutating, polymorphing into a T-Rex, clones; that’s all biomancy. Chronomancy is the school of time and it can just slow down, speed up, or stop time for self, objects or people or areas. But I do have to explain Artificers, so Armorer is just a war Armorer who builds weapons and armor for themselves and mostly the military; they are basically Lockheed Martin. Arcane Programmers are artificers who build arcane computers for research and stuff; they use the programming language of Wizardry to create software for their arcane servants to give them complex commands and rules. Machinists are an Artificer who just builds a ton of Arcane machines (Arcane machines will be explained more), mostly in the form of constructs which are basically robots. Jewelry-maxers are like real life min-max who craft a ton of powerful magical Jewelry to wear like 10 rings and multiply their arcane power. Cyberneticists, they are transhumans who modify themselves to improve with magic items in the form of metal implanted into their body. Wizards scale with studying magic and practicing it like pretty much anything. Ok, Finally actually stuff, Forms of Casting within the Arcane there are four main forms of Casting: Spells, Rituals, Chants and Enchantments, All magic comes from one of these forms. A Spell is a one time effect a wizard casts, the wizard casts it, it happens, done. A Ritual is a one time powerful effect, similar to a spell but it usually takes more mana and always takes a greater cast time, minutes to days instead of seconds for spells. The effect can be permanent like the Arcane Transformation Rituals or healing a limb or temporary like divination. Chants are like spells but they need to be focused on else the effect ends, the most common is an aura or elemental, an elemental is made from the environment's elementals animated with magic. With the focus the elemental stays but if the focus is broken, the effect ends and can’t be restarted without another cast; the chant takes a little mana to continue. The fourth is Enchantment, Enchantment is a permanent effect on another object and beings. Enchantment is what creates arcane servants and magic items and machines. Alright, the next main thing about wizards is their spellbooks(Who couldn’t guess), however there are two types of spellbooks, manuals and grimoires. Manuals are like a textbook for magic, mass produced by printers it tells wizards how to do magic based on their topic. Grimoires are much bigger and are tied to the wizard’s soul past apprenticeship. Most Grimoires are 1000s of pages and have enchantments to organize and store mass amounts of information; about everything a wizard wants, arcane magic, alchemy, general data, new ideas, drawings, and even infernal magic. As so every Grimoire is unique and based on the wizard. And some wizards are able to summon their grimoire from nothing. Focus: Wizards use many types of focui for their magic, most commonly staff, rods and wands. Then there are more specialized tools like alchemical mirrors and crystal balls, cards, or orbs. Focui help with channeling spellcasting and multiplying the mage’s power with their enchantments that grant different abilities to the wizard. A powerful enough wizard can create arcane servants, there are three types of arcane servants: Undead, Constructs and Eidolons. Arcane undead are bodily undead without life-eating, like zombies, skeletons, wights, higher versions of each like lord, and Death Knight. All undead have to be animated from a corpse but the corpse as long as it's intact doesn’t really matter. Constructs are a type of Arcane machine that is autonomous and is like a robot. Stuff like Golems, Robots and sometimes even Mechs. Constructs are a part of Arcane Machines which are magic items that endlessly work without user input (Given they have the mana). The most basic is a mana generator to power these machines, Arcane Computers, Wards, Portals, and Healing machines with many others limited only by the logic of the arcane. The third type of arcane servants is Eidolons. Eidolons are non-physical illusions that can only interact with the world using arcane magic, and are beings of pure arcane energy. All have minor telekinesis ability with many being enchanted by their wizard master to have other abilities. Eidolons can take the form of anything the wizard desires. Next, their mental domains, True Wizards of a high enough level and focus, create deep places within their mind that are used for research. Wizards sometimes spend weeks or months in these domains learning more about the arcane within their own mind while their arcane servants take care of them. A wizard in this state can’t easily be broken out with stabbing or hitting them; it doesn't work to bring them out of their own heads. These domains can look like almost anything the wizard thinks of and they use this state and place of hyper-focus for calculations, high-logical thinking, and high-arcane magic. Wizards use it to create and experiment with new spells safely in their own mind since their mind can process the spell logic within, however only arcane magic works. Not alchemy, divine (Of course) or infernal. Since Arcane is within their mind while the rest need another plane to truly work. Material for Alchemy, Divine for Divine and Infernal for Infernal. Mentalists use this place within their mind to make their enemies go insane (mostly non-wizards) from all of the spell-logic. 

Ok, I think that all of Arcane Magic. Next the demonic magic of the Infernal. The infernal really only has one type of caster, maybe two if you count it. The Warlock and The Occultist. Warlocks are the base caster, they make deals with Demon lords or Succubi Ladies to gain infernal knowledge and power. For the knowledge and power the warlock has to start a cult in their name and sacrifice people to them in either blood magic or sex magic, (Mostly based on what master they have). Warlocks write this knowledge down in Infernal grimoires written in the demon's dark tongue and spread it to their dark disciples in hopes that they also become warlocks and expand their master's power. However when a group of paladins and a wizard raid the cult and hang the heretics, there is a grimoire left for the wizard. This wizard is an Occultist, the only practitioner of the Infernal arts that won’t be burned at the stake in a moment's notice because of the Ordo’s influence and desire to learn everything. Occultists don’t deal with infernal beings and only summon and bind them for research purposes. Occultists use high criminals for their infernal magic of blood and sex. Alright, Infernal magic has two main forms as stated before, Blood magic and Sex magic. It should be noted that emotions have nothing to do with infernal magic and doesn’t affect the effect, however the use of infernal magic causes the caster to act more animalistic and less empathic.  Blood magic uses the spill of blood and flesh to destroy, causing harm, empowering predators, creating blood weapons for war, summoning demons, plague control, and animating/transformation of infernal undead (Ghouls, Vampires and Liches). Sex magic is of creation and so heals, charms, growth, summoning of succubi and Fleshcrafting. The use of infernal magic can cause infernal mutations, both naturally and purposefully. Demonic mutations are one caused by the use of blood magic, when a warlock does enough blood magic on their own i.e using their own blood and flesh. The infernal magic slowly mutants them into a more demon-like figure. Stuff like fur, blood-red eyes, bones growing on the outside of the body to protect it, extra hearts to pump more blood, and fangs. Same with Succubi mutations but they are caused by sex magic instead of blood magic, mutanting their skin to become unnaturally soft and calming, bigger sexual organs, and eyes that charm all. These can become real by natural use or by a warlock doing a mutation hex to become more demonic/succubic. With greater mutations of the flesh, it becomes similar to the mind. Warlock with mutations starts to see the world as their plaything, stops caring about others at all with some even torturing others including their followers. Indulgence in every hedonist act they can think of and rejection of society’s norms and technology. Alright, Next, Infernal Undead. While they are similar to normal arcane undead they are different in the fact that they consume life-force in some way. First, Ghouls, Ghouls are the mindless slaves of warlocks that feed off of rotting flesh, they have sharp teeth and claws, however with most being harder to control and dumber than zombies, warlocks find this to be kinda a pain but needed servant. Next, Vampires, Vampires are transformed humans who have become blood suckers of the night, A warlock will probably make their top cultists vampires to have an immortal servant caste under their control. Vampires feed off of the blood of the living, duh, and with age and blood they develop blood powers, like super strength, speed, and armor, seeing the unseen, control over animals and minor demons, and animation of ghouls. Vampires can create more vampires by biting their neck and letting the victim drink the vampire’s blood, however these vampires aren’t under their sire’s control unlike most vampire lore. Next, Liches, Liches are the top of the infernal undead hierarchy, feeding off of the souls of the living. They are pretty unkillable since either you need to cut off their soul supply or destroy their soul jar. A warlock becoming a Lich is the height of mastery over infernal magic and shows that you are a true infernal creature, living forever at the cost of others. If a Lich gets destroyed their soul cage forms a new body in about 6 days. Also as Liches, they gain the ability to use human souls for their blood magic instead of blood or flesh, since they have none now, just bone. Meaning that a lich always has to go out hunting for some souls. Fleshcrafting is a sex magic art that can create cambions (Half-human, Half-Demon/Succubi creatures), these cambions usually follow their master and are tied to the material plane so they can’t be banished. Cambions have powers that their infernal parents had, and Fleshcrafters try to mix and match to get the Cambions that they want. Cambions need both human and infernal food, so a demon cambion will need normal food mixed with some blood to feed both sides of their nature. Same with succubi Cambions who need normal food mixed with semen or other sexual fluids into their food. As a part of fleshcrafting is the creation of Infernal objects, these are items created by the flesh of infernal beings, these items feed off of the life-force the flesh consumes (Blood/flesh for Demons, Semen/Sexual fluids for Succubi). Infernal objects have a kind of awareness not comparable to arcane magic items. And the object strength is based upon the strength of the flesh of the infernal being and the amount of fuel given to it. Summoning these creatures, the summoning of the creature is based on the type of Infernal magic, Blood magic for demons and Sex magic for Succubi, using the correct hexes of course, (first contact with an infernal being, the infernal being will start the talking). However when summoned (unless they are servants of a Warlock’s master), they will be uncontrollable and most likely attack the casters, and so Warlocks summoning out of their master’s domain or Occultists put up binds and protection circles to control them.

These are general rules for all three and how they interact with one another. First each magic system is based in one of the three planes, Divine for Divine, Material for Arcane, and Infernal for Infernal, (Arcane doesn’t need the material plane but it works with the logic framework of it, for a case where the material plane isn’t need look Mental Domains.) And so only divine magic can summon fades since they are in the divine plane but not demons and opposite for infernal magic. Energy for each can’t mix and match, you can’t use your faith for arcane spells, you can’t use blood for miracles and you can’t use mana for hexes. Expanded from this is that the magic systems can’t work together really, you can’t create a magic item of both infernal and arcane origin or a spell of divine and infernal origin it just doesn’t work. Without the system's source of energy the magic doesn't work. Countering, Arcane can counter all three systems, Divine heavily counters Infernal magic and infernal magic doesn’t counter anything. In order for Arcane to counter something, the wizard has to know what the spell being countered is and the caster. Since divine magic was created to combat the infernal, a priest just needs to believe to Counter the infernal. Counters take less energy then the spell being countered, Mostly. Any feedback would be nice. This is in a world of the Roman Empire with magic in the year 280 A.D.

Posted Jun 29, 2026, 11:26 PM UTC

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