So I spent the weekend both reading about other magic systems and working on the writing system(s) for Tenwan. The biggest decision I’ve made after doing a lot of research is that the magic circles/inscription system is, of course, not exactly the primary means of using magic, at least not among the majority of magic users. I’ve decided that everyone can “use” magic in the sense that everyone can, with very little (if any) practice “inject” magic/mana into a spell. This is where inscriptions and magic circles come into play, but only for things that are more complex than, say, lighting a candle. Want to start a small spark to start a fire in some kindling? Most people don’t even need a word for that, though using the Tenwan word for “spark” helps to direct the mana and channel it the way you want. Want to start a fire in very wet wood / a fire that burns despite rain? You’re going to need an inscription or full on magic circle for that. And the wetter the wood / the heavier the rain, the more power is going to be required. And the more likely it is that the spell will fail, since you’re asking fire mana to operate within it’s inimical element, so there’s that.
In addition to that, I’ve determined that the smaller uses of magic just go through the user, essentially — when you spark a candle or cause a small crack in a rock or something like that, you’re essentially pushing mana out of yourself in the shape you want. This is also how pre-written inscriptions and magic circles are triggered, which is what makes them so easy to use. This also makes magic circles kind of dangerous if they’re not written properly. The mana within a person is kind of like “spirit mana” and doesn’t really have a specific element. People can certainly have “leanings” towards a specific element, but the mana within a person isn’t inherently belonging to any one element. If a magic circle to pull water from the plane of water is written improperly or too loosely, a person with an affinity for fire and fire spirits could summon boiling water or the water could come through so hot it just immediately goes up in steam. That’s great if you’re summoning water to boil for cooking or create steam for a sauna, but not so great if you were trying to summon drinking water.
Larger uses of magic, like summoning water from the water plane, go through “spirits”. These spirits are called upon in the inscriptions/magic circles for their direction, their goodwill, and more importantly their beneficial response to the request. Basically magic at higher levels is just spirits fulfilling requests (if they feel like it). Since they’re not human, however, spirits can be “guided” or “bought” through the use of ritual words and phrases. Asking politely but firmly and with clear directions basically always works. Some spirits (fire, mostly) need the requests to be a little open-ended or they’ll feel “smothered” and they’ll maybe not respond as well/strongly as you want, while other spirits need very strong, clear directions with very specific parameters (earth, mostly). I like the idea of there being very strong high level spirits that are much harder to make requests of but that govern multiple “elements”, and lower level spirits that are much easier to petition that belong to very specific elements. E.g. dragons are masters of fire, air, and earth and are therefore virtually impossible to make a proper request of. A salamander, however, is a fairly low level fire elemental that can be petitioned easily with a few kind words about how bright and they are and how useful their power is.
This is definitely still a work in progress, but it’s helpful to write it all out here and this is a nice little record for me!