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Just finished the SA books and ... the magic system ?
(biglemmowski.win)
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this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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Cosmere
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There are some fundamental concepts that span all of the systems. Investiture is the "mana" here but can show up as matter too, like the mists or shardblades. Investiture always wants to be used, and in a way that rewards people for satisfying the Intent of the shard it came from, like how radiants progress by personal growth and deepening the bond. When it's being used, it makes vibrations that can be picked up by Seekers and the like.
Magic systems in a particular area are affected by what's going on (or happened in the past) with the shards there. Like how the Dor works because 2 dead shards are corked up and trying to get out. The shards can also consciously affect the rules to an extent, like putting limiters on how much power the radiants get. There are a bunch of side stories set on worlds with no shards, there's still magic but it gets wacky because shards fought there once or something. There's also magic that Ado himself set up, that tends to be either subtle like Hoid's stories or stone singing, or bonkers megastructures, with no in between.
Most magic has a Connection to the world it came from, but people figure out how to bypass that and you get the Cosmere Space Age.
Connection is something you have already seen a lot of, in the form of Bondsmith shenanigans and to a lesser extent the wind runner lashings.
The Intent of the user also affects how the magic works, it's why you can use magic without realizing, or do really complex stuff without doing all the math yourself. It's usually bundled up with a Command, where you give a verbal order and your Intent kind of gives it flavor.
The fact that different metals do different things shows up a lot, but it's not 100% consistent what each metal does.
And then there's the 3 realms. You've seen how the first 2 work, and that whole scene at the end of RoW is them looking into the third. The third is also where souls are (including the bits that govern memories and what magic you can use), Investiture returns there after it's been used, and all of time and space are one there. There's no alternate timeliness or time travel, but you can see the branching possibilities for the future, or play "what if" games like burning electrum. When something is looking at all of that for you and handing you the TLDR, it's called Fortune.