Meredith Mansfield, Author

I’ve reached a point in my Arthurian story where I’m going to have to start writing something about the (very limited) human magic systems. Merlin’s magic is based on draconic abilities and I can do anything I please with that. But any purely human magic systems in fifth-century Britain would be based—at least somewhat—on the original Druidic practices. Somewhat, because the Romans appear, uncharacteristically, to have done their best to squelch the Druids. (The Romans were usually fairly lenient toward local religious customs.) And, of course, because Christianity would have come to Britain sometime in the fourth century and that would have had some effect on how—and by who—the ancient practices were carried on.

So, I have tried to do some research on the Druids. Unfortunately, the only really reliable answer I’ve been able to arrive at is: Nobody knows. The bare handful of ancient writings by Greeks or Romans contemporary with the Druids barely say anything about their practices. And most of those are phrased by comparison, always unfavorably, to Greek or Roman practices, which actually says more about the attitudes of the writers than about the Druids themselves. Later writers appear to have made up a lot of what they say they know.

About the only thing that seems reasonably certain is that the Druids did have some methods of divination and might have also had some knowledge of healing and herbs.

So, it looks like I’m going to have to make up whatever magic system I use for the few humans who will have the ability. And, in this case, try to make it fit into a fifth-century context. Fortunately, I intend for any real magic (as opposed to herb lore, for example) to be fairly rare and somewhat limited.

Nevertheless, I thought now might be a good time to go into some of the questions I might ask myself in developing a magic system for one of my stories. These questions don’t always need to be answered in the story, but I may need to know the answers, even if my characters don’t. Also, some of the answers can be fodder for more conflict or obstacles for my story.

1. Who can do magic?
2. How do they acquire magic?
3. Where does the magic come from?
4. What is needed to perform magic?
5. What can magic do?
6. Are magic users organized in some way? How?