InspoPosting: Magic Systems #1

The soul potions system revolves around a magic where individuals can impart a portion of their own soul into a vial, or other suitable container, then transform it into a potion that can grant one of a myriad of different effects. The separation of a portion of their sould takes time off of their life. This could be a day, a month or a year. It could also be mere minutes or seconds, depending on the effects they are attempting to elicit. When they later consume these potions, most of the portion of their soul is returned to them, however a small portion of it is permanently lost in the production of the effect.

This becomes more interesting when we begin to consider people consuming potions made by others. Or people creating potions using other people's souls. Since, in addition to the effect of a potion, you also consume the majority of the piece of soul that was used in it's production, consuming a potion made by someone else would actually increase your lifespan. The rich and powerful would likely be able to afford the cost of enticing someone to give up that little bit of their lives, in exchange for monetary reward, and the poor may have no other option than to sell their literal lives to provide for themselves, or their loved ones.

A world with a magic system such as this would likely lead to the emergence of an "ancient aristocracy" of individuals who can afford to never use their own souls for potion brewing, and instead only consume potions made by others. Their increased lifespans would likely only lead to further opportunities to enrich themselves, contributing to the cycle. It may not be uncommon in a world like this for the poor to be dead by 30.

This magic system revolves around a single source: the soul. It also puts forward that the function of that soul is that of storing a person's lifeforce, which correlates either directly or indirectly to their lifespan. The soul in this case, can also be divided and essentially commoditized, which provides and interesting situation in regards to accessing this magic. As discussed above, there may be a publicly facing ancient aristocracy, profiting in their lifespans, however just as likely, due to this ability to commodify lifespan itself, there would certainly also emerge a black market for these potions, allowing people the ability to preserve their own lifeforce when creating postion.

One further, as of yet unanswered, question, is whether or not an individual can draw on the soul of another against their will. If this were the case, there would certainly be periods throughout the history of this world where mass enslavement would have been present, where the droves of slaves would be used for their souls, and discarded after that had been drained. If it were not the case that souls could be forcibly taken from others, then the commoditization of the soul would definitely be far more difficult, as it could only really thrive on the back of the exploited underclass, and only those among them desparate enough to trade a longer life away in exchange for some sort of worldly goods.

Finally, it has also not yet been discussed how approachable access to even one's own soul is. The article so far has loosely assumed that this access is in large part readily available, however limiting the people who are capable of accessing this magic would drastically change things. Both the commoditization discussed here, and the ancient aristocracy discussed further above would likely not exist under these circumstances. Instead, those capable of performing these magics, while probably living somewhat shorter lives, would certainly be the ones who wind up claiming power, as the potions they create would grant them powers a step above anything anyone else has access to. However, combining this limited access with the ability to utilize the souls of others may actually worsen the problem of the ancient aristocracy, as few people would be able to stop those who are able to use these powers and choose to use them to become effectively immortal.

So far I haven't really clarified how I invision this magic actually being performed. I think the most likely scenario would be some form of ritual magic. The practitioner would extract some portion of their soul into a suitable vessel, at which point they could then perform different actions upon or add additional ingredients to the vessel, defining or modifying the effect which it produces.

Alternatively, simple incantation could also be a good option. Reciting the disired effect or utilizing some sort of words of power while focusing on the vessel could be a quicker more efficient manner of production.

If the desire if for this to be more available in combat or emergency scenarios, then incantation will more suitably facilitate that. If, instead, I wished to focus more on people needing to be prepared, or would rather magic not always be the quick and easy solution to every proplem, a more protracted ritual would be far superior.

The results of this system are fairly obvious: potions. Due to the core mechanics of the system, finding a way to allow for enchantments, hexes or especially charms would likely be a bit of a stretch. It's definitely possible, through some sort of mechanism like imbuing the extracted portion of soul into an object or other person instead of a vessel, however I don't feel like it's really in the spirit of this system to go in that direction.

As with pretty much any magic system, the exact effects available can really be anything. In this case, since the system is fully potion focused, I think I'd lean into the classic potion aesthetic of a orally consumed postion which grants the drinker superhuman abilities. I would probably focus on enhancement to existing human abilities such as strength, speed and endurance, however more skilled potion makers might be able to craft potions which push beyond that and grant truly supernatural abilities such as resistence to extreme heat or cold, the development of animalistic features like clawed hands and scaly armor or maybe the ability to see through solid objects.