Magic Systems and Union Station
When I approached writing my latest novel, Union Station, I wanted to make the magic an interesting part of the story. And so I thought for a long time about how magic works in stories, what other media included interesting systems of magic, and how I could utilize that in my writing.
Although my book is certainly not high fantasy, I think Dungeons and Dragons does a reasonable job of categorizing magic. This is helpful because if just anybody can cast any spell that would not be entertaining, or it might be wildly entertaining but not sustainable. In Dungeons and Dragons, magic is basically divided into three categories: magic that is learned from a spell book (wizardry), magic that comes naturally and is sometimes uncontrolled (sorcery), and magic that is taught by a supernatural entity (warlock-ry? warlockness?)
I feel like wizardry is the least interesting means of casting magic, at least for my purposes. I wanted more specialization for the mages in my story, and if they can all learn one another’s spells, that specialization would be heavily diluted.
I wanted my casters to have their spell craft be a part of them. Their specialization in magic should say a lot about them as characters. The narrator, Thomas Jackson, is a book collector and bookbinder, his magic would have to be all about his passion for books, and so he is a bibliomancer. Ellis is a dipsomancer, and nearly everything about him is part of bar culture. Paula is a mathematician, and so her spells are rooted in mathematics. Gabriela is the most technologically adapt and her spells have to do with computers and programming. Gabby also provides one of the better metaphors for what is happening to reality in the book as she puts it in terms of someone rewriting code.
Besides D&D, other games were good inspirations. White Wolf’s World of Darkness games, particularly “Mage the Ascension” and my memory of the campaigns we played in the 90s, helped shape my thinking on the fundamentals of magic as reality becomes malleable and perception dictates reality as much as reality dictates perception. Unknown Armies from Atlas Games is another game I played in the 90s that was a big influence on my mages and how they work in the world of Union Station. If one wanted to play a roleplaying campaign set in the world of Union Station, I’d think that either Mage the Ascension or Unknown Armies would be solid choices for providing the rules system. Next to D&D, Call of Cthulhu is probably the ttrpg I’ve played the most, and although Union Station is the least Lovecraftian of my four novels, there are some definite tropes that I think are shared by Union Station and Call of Cthulhu adventures: the time spent in libraries researching in particular and the “what if reality isn’t what we think it is” theme in general.
The books of Tim Powers were another significant influence in how I wanted to incorporate magic into my book. While I think his writing is less focussed on the mechanics of magic than an RPG might be, Powers consistently manages to get such a perfect fit for the magic in his books. The rituals and spells that occur in his stories, particularly in the series starting with Last Call, feel so natural to the world he has built that instead of testing the willing suspension of disbelief ever new ritual adds to the feeling of verisimilitude.
Magic in Union Station is more vulgar than in Powers’s stories. But I wanted to maintain that feeling of verisimilitude, so although there are general magic spells and dream magic is discussed in particular (something that will be explored more in depth if I ever get around to drafting the sequel), magic users all have unique specializations. I hope readers will enjoy the characters in the books using magic, instead of feeling like what each caster can do is arbitrary.
