The questions is pretty self explanatory, in your worlds, how does magic "punish" mages who overuse it?
In my world, on one of the continents, magic is extremely widespread, so thousands, if not more use magic daily, for different purposes. Magic consumes the energy of it's user, so continuous use of magic will tire a person out. If someone were to ignore that, their body might just shut down and die. But it is a different case for different types of magic. Mages who create fire and flames might "burn out" this means that if they don't stop for a second and cool down during a fight, they face the risk of them erupting in flames from the inside out, burning to death, where in any other case, they'd be almost completely immune to fire. Or how healing magic is a foolproof way to fix almost any wound, but the trade-off is that it must be done slowly and carefully, otherwise the healing is botched. This also mentally wears down healers, causing them immense amounts of stress. Another example would be how people who manipulate a certain element, like metal, when running out of options, could choose to "sacrifice" their blood, and turn it into the element they are used to controlling, which leaves these people open to the possibility of running out of their own blood, or turning more of their blood than necessary into solid elements, which would be fatal. These are my best examples, are there any rules or limitations like these in your worlds?
Overuse of magic can warp your features to match the magic. For example, one who casts wind magic may grow feathers, and one who casts plant magic may become overgrown. But this isn't seen as an adverse effect, more like a status symbol.
Magic does cause physical exhaustion, but this can be mitigated by simply taking breathers and properly exercising. The real danger comes when one casts the wrong kind of magic relative to their soul color. If they attempt to cast a spell of a different "color" (power/focus level) than their soul, then they "overtune" themselves, eating away at their soul over time.
My magic works pretty similarly. Magic is tied very innately to one's culture, ideology, and overall personal beliefs, so it's very easy to get lost in those beliefs and be consumed by their magic. It's a very yin-yang state where balance is very important. Like Halflings uphold freedom above all else, but there is a certain point in their lives where they need to settle down and pass on their knowledge to the next generation, or else they'll find themselves so lost to the spirit of adventure & freedom that even their very name and memories of them can be hard for others to hold on to. Some cultures do utilize this aspect of magic, though, like with Dwarves who see becoming one with the earth (and therefore returning to Caia, the earth mother) as the greatest thing they can do after living a good life. It also helps that they believe in a "shared memory" of the earth, so by becoming one with it, they are spreading their memories & lived experiences to others that can tap into that.
Magic is completely random, to the point that the idea of using magic actively is the same level threat as hearing someone's building a nuke.
Passive magic is easy but extremely slow, essentially steering and siphoning small amounts of ambient energy, building monuments or conducting ceremonies that slightly improve a crops harvest, can help speed up or disinfect a wound over weeks, or help stave of rot on stored foods.
Actively using magic tugs at the natural currents of energy, disrupting their flows and stores quite violently. The results are extremely dangerous and completely random, it could turn a random blade of grass 20 ft away into bismuth, it could replace your spine with a live fish or turn every piece of moisture in the air into molten glass. The affects are completely random, but due to how hard active magic is to control, it's almost always destructive.
Is there anyone who ever could control it?
No one person ever could, but there are legends and stories of groups and communities able to call upon magic actively and partially control and direct the randomness.
There are tools and items that have historically been used to control magic to a degree, such as the bladder of a sheep filled with smoothed limestone balls, its pours filled with salt, lit in blue flames, the bladder tanned in blood and river water of the sacred Bol. This was supposedly an antient practise used by the regions first inhabitants to call to the gods to help them steer the flow.
One of the etiological myths from the Moar say that the swamps and marshland which dominate the low country was created by a tribe of half-men shamans that were able to collapse the stone bedrock of the land and make the region rain for a century withought end to wipe out a competing people, all by steering energy flow.
My chief consequence is that magic takes energy which you need to channel through yourself to shape and control. This means if you do too much it's going to burn you out so to speak and that magic is going to leave a lingering effect behind. This effect accumulates making you less human over time. Ancient mages don't look normal, they've got anatomical differences that very wildly depending on what magic they've used most
For my [Eldara] and [Arc Contingency] settings, which use the same magic system(s), there are a few limiting factors on any one individual's magic becoming too powerful:
In my world Magic is loose but tied to linguistics. Words have power, but not in the way of "spells" but of the "deep meaning of the sound."
Any half-decent sorcerer could start a fire by simply commanding the fire to start, but this is inefficient---it basically takes the same amount of energy as starting the fire using a flint and steel, and would take energy from the speaker directly.
However, there are many *other* ways to use magic in more efficient ways. There's fighting magic, hard to control, hyper-draining of one's body, and usually subconsciously suppressed until one can't any longer resist it, or a high-stress moment causes it to "come out" so to speak. This is how one of my novel's protagonists, Karemane, uses magic. He was exiled for having it (that's another fish to fry) and therefore suppresses it.
Wardell the Wizard, in my book, uses words for magic in the more traditional vein, being a schooled and taught wizard (he was raised by Gerad, one of the best, and only, light sorcerers of his time). He meditates to search the "inner tunnels" of his mind for the right word to use for a specific task, which changes for time to time. For example, his warm-up exercise involves starting a fire with his mind, for which he retrieves a word by meditation (usually Koru but it changes) and whatever word comes to his mind most strongly is that which is connected most effectively to the power needed at that moment (everything is a cycle) and speaking that word with that emphasis in mind will start the fire efficiently and also by drawing energy from everything in the vicinity evenly as opposed to totally from the user.
Ontologically, trying to do something/more beyond one’s capabilities will almost always cause the magic to backlash near-entirely against the user. Fear of backlash is so dangerous that it’s practically ingrained into every magic user on an instinctual level. The making of miracles is seen as esoteric, and a call for help, at best.
if one simply exhausts their internal energy theyre just going to be out of magic for a while
but theres ways to seal and reduce your energy (curses, forbidden magic)
or they can try to merge their own energy with ambiental energy but its risky and could result in a quick energy drain
It's going to depend on the type of magick used. In most cases magick is borrowed from the gods. You must have divine ancestry and make a deal to borrow some of their magick. It's strongly genetic when it comes to whether one can actually wield it or if it'll just consume the user and break their mind and body. Another type of magick can be learned by anyone but is well guarded. It can still drive the user insane but also allows its users to access a wider range of magick. Your best bet at using either is to be a recent descendant of a god and ideally have a god as a teacher. Only the god of magick can teach you to use all types and he's not exactly fond of doing so.
There are of course other types of magick that are more invoking gods to ask for favors (they'll decide if they want to help or not so no guarantee) or small spells you can purchase that are often things like fertility or healing potions many of which are just old wives tales or just poorly understood medicinal herbs. A few are actual spells and potions originally created by the second category of magick users and passed down over generations by the first category.
If you don't have the right mind and training for using any of the more powerful magick as I first listed you'll usually just end up sickly in mind and body, with the magick consuming the user and taking it them as a host. The God of Magick wove this into the craft so that the users of magick would be deserving of it. The other gods tried to ease the cost and lent out their own power but it only works when you have some blood connection and thus only 16 of the gods are available to do so and most refused to do so for more than one person at a time. It's been very convenient in creating a secret society but other than that its fairly useless and most people don't even believe in magick anymore.
Flux Magic: Doesn't directly impact the user much, unless you f up and hurt yourself. Excessive use can damage the environment though.
Spirit Magic: Tends to alter your mental state to be more "in tune with nature", which can be both good and bad. Also manifests differently depending on which parts of nature you bond with.
Dark Magic: Corrupts the user, attracts demons, feeds/empowers demons, and corrupts the environment. Very bad, banned almost everywhere.
Light Magic: Mostly safe, though it does tend to piss off demons, potentially making you a bigger target.
It has a limit that can only be alleviated through time or murder. And some people have had a lot of time/murder on their hands.
Using magic is an unspoken announcement that using magic against you is fair game. And since magic has no strict entry requirements, you WILL be surprised by who else is packing heat.
They don’t get “punished” per say, but they do lose a use. In my world humans can’t use magic anymore so they adapted by growing magical plants and crops so they have to take good care of each flower and all that. However, a remnant of their magic is an empty flame, they can use their crops to fuel that flame which will take on the magical properties of what fueled it. So if you really want to shoot a fireball you’re gonna have to lose a good portion of your garden type shit
It may result in unforseen mutations well more likely in your children
Magic in my primary world involves channeling the same raw energies of possibility that the gods used to create the world to make small changes to reality - essentially finger painting over the gods masterpiece. (This is actually encouraged by the gods and their religions because it is mortals exercising the divine urge to create)
As mortals are imperfect vessels of such chaotic and powerful energies leakages can happen during spellcasting. These aren't directly harmful - no zapping yourself or your friends into fish - but often result in transformations to your local environment. These can often be personal to the caster, and usually reflect the casters state of mind. Someone afraid of flame will usually raise the local temperature or ignite nearby flammable materials.
In humans, Ether is a vital fluid similar to blood, so it exists in limited quantities in the body. It travels through the Ether Meridian System, which is analogous to the circulatory system, with Connection Points functioning as mini-organs that purify Ether throughout the body.
If an individual uses too much Ether in a short time, they can become "anemic." Overexertion can cause the Meridian System and Connection Points to fail, become clogged, or rupture. Another drawback is sweat and salt; both can degrade Ether on contact, so abilities like Body Aura, a film of Ether over the body, are slowly eroded as the user sweats.
There are other drawbacks, but they are linked to Mana, swarms of microscopic, eusocial, hive-mind multicellular beings that use humans as hosts and produce Ether. Some of these beings are connected to the nervous system, so the individual may develop neurological problems if something affects their swarm.
That each spell is essentially a story that wishes to be understood. Often very insistently.
That sounds pretty interesting. How does this work?
Not really a lot of people around to teach you, you can find "help" in places you don't want to find it. Powerful magic users are rare.
You can bypass the whole energy drain thing by wearing talismans and drinking potions, but the spell casting itself requires diligence, as a ritual that fails hard enough can produce sights not meant for five-fingered beings to experience.
You get strong, you get dumb. You get smart, you go weak. You have the hearing of a bat but are as blind as a mole. Quid pro quo. You animate (wake up) something lifeless, you get sleepy.
This also works in training. If you actually hone your body, as in bodybuild, you can get smarter. If you study a lot, you can hulk out.
Magic use draws on the soul, and can very easily exhaust it, which kills you and also turns you into a husk monster as well as fracturing the memories of your existence. So casting fireballs and stuff isn't exactly the best idea, because that exhausts your soul incredibly fast.
Most magic is just ways to utilize it while getting around that use case. Soul binding lets you telepathically manipulate materials without a soul energy cost, enchanting gives magical properties to items and those properties can be used without a soul energy cost, hethite crystals can refill your magic pool, and blood magic has you compensate by using your blood as a sort of cost sponge, though that also corrupts the mind over time as the blood gets saturated with magical energy, causing madness.
It takes a long ass time to get anything done with magic, plus it is mentally taxing to triple check all your drawn runes and circle vectors so that the fabric of reality doesn't unravel in ways you didn't plan to unravel in the first place.
Honestly, most of the time it is easier, faster, safer, and cheaper to do something manually instead of using a spell. The rare examples are either spells so tiny they are basically insignificant except as a fun parlor trick, or to achieve things that are just not possible to do the normal way (like reading the future).
There are space “elves” that hate the fact that you’re breathing and will erupt from portals to take your head come hell or high water.
And there are some… beasts in the collective galactic unconscious, that really want to eat your brain.
Magic on Äskiia is a primal force: an integral energy that underlies and permeates everything. Drawbacks do exist, but they’re all usually outweighed by the benefits of using magic; such as longer lifespans, better health, and a decreased ability to feel pain. One major drawback in the modern day however is that the ruling church demonizes all magic; declaring that it is “unholy witchcraft,” and so practitioners of it, known as Vezmak, are persecuted severely.
Mages have a pool of Mana in their body. Think of it like a second form of stamina. You can physically run and get exhausted over time. Magic usage is the same.
A Mage uses all of their magic in their pool, now they can either chill and let it recharge and regenerate the same way we catch our breath and get some energy back, OR they can go the adrenaline route and push themselves further. If their Mana Pool is empty, they send their soul outstretched towards the heavens. Think like an astra projection. One hand grasps their heart, the other reaches to the stars and forms a connection with the universe. They now have unlimited mana usage at the cost of their physical health.
Think similarly to Netrunners from Cyberpunk. If Mages overcharge and use too much, they begin to go numb and lose feeling in their extremities, then their core, then they begin to shake terribly as nerves start to die, then their muscles begin failing, then their organs fail, then they die a slow and agonizing death.
for example:
Yalnué, the Astral Elf, is fighting an unnamed Knight. She fires magical bolts at him but he deflects/tanks all of them. She’s out of mana and he’s approaching, so she only has one option left. She makes that inner connection to the universe and her body is filled with adrenaline, like a second wind. Her stare bores through his as she reaches out and picks him up off the ground, her muscles aching and tearing as she physically carries the weight via telekinesis. She concentrates as she condenses the knight’s mass, crushing him into a ball of gore and metal. Her nerves aching terribly as her arms shake uncontrollably, losing feeling in her legs as well as they give out from underneath her. She won the battle, but now has to suffer the remainder of her mortal life with dead nerves in her arms and legs and torn muscles.
In Chiasmus magic is naturally volatile, many people cause things to happen unintentionally and it is up to clerics to perform rituals that exorcise it by employing it for a harmonious purpose.
I split my magic into three arts and for the most part the time taking is what limits people. Its still widely accessible to some degree so in order for it to not make regular people redundant I added an underlying ablity all people possess and then one major limiter for each of the arts.
Example: You are doing alchemy and you have all the components and glyphs to just summon a sword instead of getting one from a master crafter. You make the sword after a long amount of bending and then as soon as you pick up the sword it crumbles.
I made it so that the more you have to generate components vs. having the base component made by hard crafted machines or skilled people, the more likely it is that it will be unstable and crumble away into something unusable.
Over or underusing it at one’s “level.” Either can mess with the tension/soul.
Two things, like yours it can tire out a mage, pushing all that energy through your body is taxing, and secondly, what is basically magical radiation. A spell can warp things around it if it goes on too long, even objects that use magically powered crystals are designed to not run constantly, because not only does it drain the crystal, it can effect the world around it, and the person using it. For example, say you have a little heating plate used for cooking that uses a crystal enchanted with a fire spell to heat it. You leave it on after you're done using it, not only are you at risk of a fire, but the constant magic might start to do some strange things. If your walls are wood, they might start growing little twigs that have blue or purple or pink leaves, the granite used for your countertop might start to grow rock blisters, essentially, that aren’t soft and shine like pearls. If you're nearby, you might notice yourself not feeling well, and then the changes begin. Blotches of strange colored flesh on your skin, your hair slowly turning a different color, relatively harmless, but stay by it long enough and you might find yourself with eyes that can see through solid objects, and no you can't turn it off, and you'll start growing crystals on your skeleton, very painful.
In some places on Icarus, naturally occurring magic is common and has shaped the people living there. In Mu-Tai, the Yon Mu telkhines often develop brightly colored fur and sometimes horns, likewise the Kirin of Quirinai look like a strange combination of a dragon and a unicorn, with patches of glittering metallic scales and an iridescent sheen to their fur.
All magic comes at a limit. Accounting for your own inability to reach X point with some other, primordial nature. You could learn to punch really hard or fast with enough time and effort, or punch that much harder with magic right now—at risk of giving up your hand to the black Thorns, for which there's no known cure. Magic your own eye as a scope to track a target, and you risk going blind with a Thorn poking out of your skull.
But true magic, for those select few capable of wielding it, fundamentally warps your state of being. Even from birth the effects will begin to show, and unleash in full once the ritual is complete around fifteen years of age.
Someone who learns they have lightning might've been hyperactive since early age, very smart but easily frightened at little noise. Now, they could get full seizures any time they wield magic in their own senses without careful preparation. They could enhance their limbs to run faster at risk of being unable to walk ever again due to nerve damage. Can't carry metal of any kind, unnaturally comfortable during storms to the point of euphoria.
First: magic is given by exposure to a heavy metal. (technically it's an exotic substance extracted from flaws in reality, but it acts like a heavy metal.) So you're going to be constantly trying to outheal the brain damage.
After that, the emotional state of the spellcaster is delicate. They need to maintain enough willpower to control their powers without letting themselves fall apart. Emotional outbursts fuel magic, which means that you're at constant risk of losing control.
Finally, magic breaks reality, bit by bit. The stronger the magical outburst, the more of a flaw it will leave. Teleportation and conjuration are heavily restricted for this reason.
Theres two ways to go about it, either be born one of the elemental clansmen or make a deal with a supernatural entity such as a demon (which are essentially ethereal parasites rather than hellish denizens), or a being with the higher knowledge. Downsides are that if you go the demon route, the more you use the magic the easier it will be for the demon to possess you. There is no cure. If you make a deal with a being possessing the higher knowledge, then youre basically st their mercy and completely reliant on them liking you enough to let you keep using their powers. Just as likely to heal all your pain as they are to kill you for entertainment.
If youre born elemental, then the catch is that you're seen as an enemy of humanity and hunted down. There is no cure.
The body begins to break down into less than dust. Body part will take on a blackened/burnt appearance and start fading away. It’s not actually burning and doesn’t give off any heat or anything. The body just spread this stuff and shatter into nothingness. Usually it doesn’t spread far though, because this HURTS. Even the healing portion of the magic which has a pain killer aspect to it can’t stop the pain. It’s kind of like a phantom pain. You could have lost the entire arm and still fill pain in all of it.
It is a sci-fi world so there isn't any magic. Just like today. People claim to use magic but it is just incidental. The real magic is in science.
Magic in antegria is part of life.
Every living being has organs dedicated to it, they have an appearance similar to a small heart, a gland and a dense network of nerves and capillaries that extend throughout the body,It doesn't matter whether you use it or not, the gland filters the arcaneum that is present in the world, which is mainly absorbed through nutrition. Knowing how to use the arcaneum means knowing how to shape it and basically transform a "waste" into a resource.
But what happens if you use it too frequently?
Obviously it varies, but the main symptoms are.
1: Arcane tachycardia, that little heart that pumps the arcaneum in your body beats much more forcefully, pulsates and causes cramps so much that you double over and sometimes have syncope or fainting.
2:Arcaneum fever, very common for those who use elemental magic such as fire or electricity, for a certain period you feel like you are boiling or imploding
3:Arcaneum deficiency, you feel too weak, muscle cramps, very often in the upper body, migraines and nosebleeds, even very severe ones, accompanied by strong tinnitus.
4:But then there's the most treacherous, using healing magic without a real basis or where you put your magic. With healing magic you can stimulate your immune system to fight infections quickly but if it is stimulated too much you will end up destroying yourself, even worse if you try to regenerate some wounds, you can create absurd tissue growth, basically you get cancer.
Some consequences are a bit rare but can be devastating. Teleportation magic, with it you can create warps, connect in the space of dimensions and then exit in the place you want, but be careful if your memory makes mistakes you can remain in Trapped in the space between dimensions is not very pleasant, it is a place without logic where physical laws of other universes collide or you can find yourself in another parallel universe.
But when it comes to reintegrating magic, it is recommended to eat foods of animal origin, therefore meat but preferably from "animals" that already have a high content of arcaneum, obviously nothing is better than a wizard 😅 but it's unethical and a bit inconvenient, at most they use arcaneum transmissions
Mana is a buffer between the raw power of magic, and the soul of the individual casting. casting when your mana is thin or entirely used up is a fast way to destroy your soul, and leave your body comatose until it expires from exposure or thirst.
In the event you don't push it that far, it will still effect you with rebound related to the type of magic you are trying to use in such condition. Fire magic makes you heat up and potentially combust, Water magic cause you to sweat and dehydrate, Air makes it harder to concentrate and causes you to act flighty, earth makes it harder to move as though ground doesn't wish to let go, Void magic frays the mind towards obsessiveness and madness, not to mention the sub elemental schools effects.
In my world, magic is so saturated in the world that it crystallizes. Channeling magic requires a crystal of a compatible type of crystal (with certain notable exceptions). Trying to cast without a crystal just makes the spell fizzle or be considerably weakened. Using the wrong crystal can cause a tremendous backlash on the caster. The backlash depends on the spell and crystal, but can vary from an elemental explosion to a debilitating curse.
It doesnt interact well with technology and depending on the level of magic used, can fry technology in the area. Alternatively, anti magic factions use Faraday cage style prison to cut magic users off from the aether.
Magic not only requires blood, but it requires significant sacrifice. For example, if someone with healing abilities helps someone whose eyes were burned by fire, the healer is blind for as long as it takes the other person to heal.
Mental instability and addiction.
The closest thing to “Magic” in my setting is accomplished through the use of Psion, an energy rich fluid that is found within nearly every planet of the setting. As its name implies, Psion has a psionic effect on those who interact with it, especially if it is ingested or otherwise absorbed into the body. The effects of this are dependent on how your interact with it, as well as which type of Psion is handed.
Yellow Psion fill you with joy, Blue with melancholy, Red with rage, Black with lethargy; to name a few. Some of them are also highly addictive, with Green Psion causing a vast craving for more of it like heroin, but providing a massive amount of false confidence and mania.
It's not the most reliable, especially contrasting against how easy it can make just about anything. It can become a crutch that's a lot more flimsy than you might think.
Magic defeats magic. Grow 200 acres of turnips at the snap of your fingers, get stuck with nothing but a bunch of seeds when a weird-smelling wind blows through.
Wizards are what they are not just because they're good at spells, but also because they can apply practical knowledge and magical wisdom to just about everything they do.
It's useless against dragons is all I can say, as the magic of dragons cancels out all other magic but itself at the least.
In my world, the general most used type of magic poisons the users (there's also very specific magic that only certain god-like being can use that works a bit different).
Different people have a different resistance towards magic. Those who don't (or barely) have a resistance to it, will get sick immediately and can even die.
Those who have some form of tolerance for it, can spells but only up until a degree. So those with the most tolerance can do the most magic.
The poisonous effect kicks in quite quickly and the more magic you use, the worse it gets. Pain like every nerve is on fire, to passing out, to eventually dying. The poisonous effect can be broken down by your body but it can take quite a while. One character used more magic than he can tolerate to save the day, and he was on the brink of death for days and it took him quite a while to regain his strength.
There is an antidote but it's extremely difficult to make and thus very valuable and rare.
This draw back is this system means that those with the highest tolerance can do the most magic and could be the most powerful even though they aren't very skilled.
Knowing magic means you are magic and being magic makes you vulnerable to magic. There's safety in mundanity, and you forgo that when you start to learn magic. This can be as simple as being more easily affected by spells to as subtle as magical predators or spirits that can only hurt or possess you if you're magic.
Also, if you are trying to do magic and you screw up badly enough, you might get an explosion or some other random magic.
Channeling mana threw you causes small crystal.growths to grow in your body, if done in moderation it's mostly harmless, some light shiny flakes on your skin, maybe some itching and minor temporary pain
If you either channel to much or just aren't careful enough well, you got rocks growing in your body l, do the math on what happens when those start getting bigger then grains of sand, in extreme cases your body can full on start to petrify
emotional instability
Well in my world, only Elves can use magic, but humans can siphon it from leylines that sprawl across the world. Elves are symbiotic with the magic. They need it to live and it needs them. But if they use too much, it can overpower them and poison them into insanity.
Overuse of healing magic can cause cancer
Nobody’s quite got the right interpretation of magic on Tjarral—everyone has bits and pieces. For the Gomirna, magic is something that comes from giving your vuxa or creative spirit to Guxaça, a demonic entity that eats it and spits out so-called “miracles”. For the Koorra, it’s communing with the spirits of the dead and yet-born, persuading them by force of will to sing your song and change the world. For followers of Kathan, it is inherently selfish—a consumption of the soul (one’s own and others’) in a pretence at godhood. In the Vekshagriya and Ashi religions, it’s the result of dedication, work or prayer or devotion building up to the universe relenting to your will. (This is also called “elbow grease”.) On the banks of the Yashdar, it’s a fact of life—Abbat, God of Sixty-Three Names, occasionally chooses peculiar ways to manifest His power in people.
Across the world there are stories of animals made of glass, vampires and chimeras, jewels and weapons enchanted with spells—all apparently the result of lost lives in vast magical conflicts that took place…at some point. (The calendar is usually a bit unclear as to when these magical battles actually took place. Often at the same time as “real life” battles, according to some folks who would be wearing tinfoil if aluminum wasn’t still incredibly rare. Sometimes the drawbacks of magic involve having to listen to people who don’t know much about it but say they do.)
Every user has unique magic and it comes with different drawbacks. The mc basically just has intense chronic pain.
The first drawback is that you can use it to summon demons.
The real drawback is that summoning a demon is pretty useful, and with no drawbacks for you, if you know what you are doing.
Demons are hungry for life and souls, but the powerful ones are not stupid. They won't ask for your soul, just for... everyone's else.
The demon will kill your enemies and eat their souls it's a win win. It will give you power, power to call on greater demons and receive more powers. You don't get magical corruption all over your body from it, you don't go mad from it if you are careful to not stick your mind in front of the eyes of something too powerful... you can just do it.
It's easy, you just need to keep sacrificing them more souls and they'll give you what you want. Or to do that other things they ask you to, like tainting the land and giving them a place where they can have their voices heard... a couple of them might slip through but they'll know better than give you problems. And now you have the power to call on the big players for help...
Until, of course, they have enough of what they need to get what they really want. Last time they got close to it, the southern half of the continent got wiped out, and the rest of the world was lucky that the whole thing was a botch, so the not so big players that got through eventually fell asleep and it was only an age of bronze collapse level of consequences.
People who use magic, are no longer able to touch iron without suffering contact burns, with the reaction being more severe the stronger they are. It would be possible for someone who is extremely weak in magic, to feel discomfort and uncomfortable levels of heat from iron but long enough exposure would eventually result in burns.
This also applies to Elves, regardless of whether they can do magic or not.
Producing magic to use takes a lot of calories and it's extremely inefficient at range.
If you overuse it you also get brain damage. Magic is produced by a specific region of your brain and, when you use more than you have available, it gets forcefully ripped through. On a small scale you can fully recover, but if you overdo it too much it doesn't just destroy your magic lobe, but damages your entire brain
In the first world, described briefly in the prologue, there were no drawbacks. This is why the first world no longer exists. In the second world, magic instinctually attracts non-humans, like a moth to a flame. A mage in an unprotected village will result in the eventual destruction of that village as it will be attacked until there is no longer magic there to attract those drawn to it. Those who use magic must therefore either be "state" sponsored, extraordinarily powerful, or rich enough to hire and maintain troops to protect the area around their towers/laboratories/residences.
There are also spells which have always had deleterious effects on the caster, to make them choose not to use those spells. These spells (aka Wish, etc.) are quite powerful, so as to make them somewhat worth the cost. Mages themselves will spend years, if not decades, in study, rather than out in the world adventuring or selling their abilities. Those that do sell their skills, tend to sell them for specific tasks, as opposed to hiring out as a member of an adventuring party. Think Dragonslayer... in that when the time comes for the adventurers to require the mage, they would activate an item to notify the mage, who would teleport to that location to perform the required task, before teleporting back to their home.
All of this also creates a sense of distrust and unease in regards to magic and magic use in the general population outside of walled, well-protected cities. It also creates a large demand for mercenary troops. Mage contracts are very popular among them.
If you've ever seen a shonen anime before, then it's pretty straightforward. A person's magic/powers are fueled by the soul energy of person using them, and you can use them for as long as your soul has "stamina." If your soul runs out of energy, then it's out of energy and you'll have to stop. That said, you won't be out of options; you can strain yourself to scrape deeper and deeper at the growing risk of literally shattering your soul like a fragile glass. If this happens, your ego ceases to exist and your body warps into a glass-like husk of itself called a Fractured, bent on trying to mindlessly piece itself back together by stealing pieces from other beings' souls.
Uour ability to summon shadow energy is directly proportional to your malicious intent. The larger agent of destruction and evil you are, the greater access to shadow energy you have. Through that doesn't mean you increase in skill, only stamina and energy levels.
Using shadow energy in large quantities has the risk of you loosing your mind to the temptation of depravity and evil, with your mind now forever corrupted because of how much your physical form is pure shadow energy. This essentially reduces you to a primal animal who acts on their most brutal and depraved instincts and desires.
This is nearly irreversible and the only way to avoid it is by having great self controll. Some high level shadow mages use their mentality to help them, intentionally creating a darker asp3ct of their mind and soul, creating their own need for bloodlust, and then keeping that bloodlust under control forever, as to act like a gauge for how much power they want to use.
Additionally people who feel no emotions are also capable of skirting this but only to a degree, as even they have desires they deem depraved.
Magic as a whole typically has physical consequences on the caster in my world.
After shapeshifting/transformation magics wear off, the caster (if self-casted) or the target of that type of spell—for a brief period—takes on some of the traits of the creature they transformed to. Example: transform into a dragon? Brief period of fiery indigestion, affinity to the type of magic innate to that dragon. In most severe cases, can even have draconic crests/horns on their brow.
Elemental magics: especially after longterm use, impart characteristics upon their casters. Fire magic users can develop eyebrows or even hair of perpetual flames, ice magic users gain an icy aura and their breath might regularly mist upon exhale, their hands are cold as ice.
Dark Magics: incur much steeper and more significant physical downsides than using other magics. Practitioners of dark and forbidden magics appear to decay from repeated use, the very practice straining the soul so much that the physical body begins to fall apart. Types of magic that draw from the Betrayers and dark pacts are, for the most part, forbidden across Nocterra. Even things like Blood Magic, while widely accepted in Hemigon, are looked upon with dark suspicion in most realms of Nocterra, even if they are not expressly forbidden. Death magics, necromancy, pacts made with entities such as the Watchers or Betrayers, hexes and curses, and rituals involving forbidden practices are illegal as codified by the Harrowghast Accords. Zebnoth is a bastion for these various forbidden practices.
Divine Magics: more rare than a typical high fantasy setting but still somewhat widespread. Divine magic can be manifested thru belief in a Scion (a divine facsimile of each God created before their departure from Nocterra), the Domain that a Scion rules over, or even things like a Paladin's Sacred Oath or a Cleric's Holy Symbol. Divine magic generally also produces physical changes in the caster. Their appearance might come to closer to resembling their Scion's domain or, in the case of Paladins, their oath. Users of Divine magic typical look radiant, healthy, and full of vitality. Frequent use of Divine magics has been known to cure incurable diseases in the caster over time.
Its really, really fucking hard and takes A LOT of concentration just to do basic shit.
Keep in mind, my "magic" system are psychic powers, like telekinesis and telepathy. But it really isn't just the "ability to move objects and read minds".
It takes knowledge, practice and understanding, just to move anything bigger than a coffee cup.
If you tried to read someone's mind without understanding what you're doing, you'll just get incoherent noise back.
Most psychics dont get beyond the basics, moving small objects or getting a glimpse at a surface thought, which isn't entirely useless, but you won't be throwing vehicles at the bad guys any time soon or extracting any useful information from a captive.
The other half of the problem, just because you have psychic powers, doesn't mean you can break the laws of physics.
For instance, psychics who are seasoned and practiced can do some impressive feats. For instant, some psychics are able to affect material objects down to a subatomic level. Theoretically, a powerful enough psychic could turn lead into gold. And a few have tried, only to cook themselves to death because breaking apart and reassembling atoms releases a lot of radiation and energy.
So either you'll be unable to do anything substantial with your powers, or you'll be a massive danger to yourself and others.
In my divine-based magic world, magic consumes stamina. Users could pass out when their staminas run out.
sometimes it just doesn't work
Sometimes your target has magical protection and your spell doesn't work
Sometimes your magical protection doesn't work and the spell hits you anyway
In one country you go to jail if you practice it unlicensed
simple enough magic has no drawbacks, everything else makes u go nuts
I'm writing a progression fantasy and in my world you imbue the world magic into a weapon which was forged with the magic. You can overload the weapon at certain points and it will advance to the next stage, changing the material of the weapon itself and imbuing its user with enough strength and constitution to wield that power. Once you've reached the fourth stage (onyx) you have topped out advancement. If you try to overload your weapon to trigger another advancement it will tear you apart from the inside out.
Unless...
The stuff that mediates magical phenomena is squirrelly, and you REALLY want a method in place to ground or bleed off the excess when you cast spells and whatnot. If you don't, and let it go nuts in your body, the following things will happen in order:
https://preview.redd.it/tgls7ji2ln8g1.png?width=1010&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f66a469ba01d220015aab90f20a08bb9da4d6ea
There aren't really any drawbacks to using magic in my setting. Sure, you would get exhausted from excessive usage, kind of like physical exhaustion after intense exercise. But there is no risk of burning yourself out or permanent damage. Now that I am thinking about it, using magic is pretty similar to working out in our world and actually turns out to be pretty beneficial for your overall health. Touching the Flows (the underlying magic current in my world) reinvigorates the user's body and in turn improves bodily functions. Regular spellweaving can even extend someone's lifespan. For most this only means a few extra years, maybe a decade at best. But in the ancient times, some exceptional Spellweavers managed to live much longer. Some lived for around 150 or 200 years. But none compare to the last High Lord of the Towers. Having gone down as one of the most skilled Spellweavers in history, the High Lord lived for nearly 300 years, and might've gone even longer had he not been taken out in an underhanded way, by one of his fellow Lords.
It's mentally and physically draining for the user is the main one
In my settings, using necromancy or interacting with Fiends draws negative plane or lower-planes energy respectively into the area, often in strange ways. Necromantic energy might prematurely age a person or a bystander. Fiendish energy would make afflict the person or make the environment worse (cows might give curdled milk or bear deformed young, etc.).
In my world, magic is rituals and symbolism performed over time with conviction, to warp the world’s understanding of itself and thus manifest whatever effect you’re casting for. It takes time, planning and material. It’s not the kind of thing anyone can do alone, not without wasting most their life on something relatively minor. It’s really not something you can do on a whim, or in a stressful situation like combat.
Many kings will reward you handsomely, even offer you their daughter’s hand in marriage, if you can actually find a practical way to overuse magic!
magic comes from consumption of old gods, which are completely non physical beings. overuse of magic will cause a physical human body to transform into a non-physical form, a state it cannot exist in. the first symptoms are hair falling out, weight loss and height loss, after that your blood dries and your skin turns to dust.
The main key is that magic:
A: Has somewhat limited uses. For instance, predictive magic can only show you probabilities.
B: Takes a lot of time and effort to learn. It’s broken up into controlling the different elements of the periodic table (so water spells require control over hydrogen and oxygen). Magic is something that on paper anyone can do, but requires so much investment that few ever are able to master it.
This is why humanity’s invention of gunpowder was such a big deal, they were previously a race with few mages, but gunpowder weapons (considered a form of alchemy in universe), allowed humans to take on and defeat the mages with relative ease, allowing them to eventually conquer and colonize the Greater Races, who relied on a small mage class in warfare.
In my world, you don't lose the ability to cast when you run out of mana. Instead, you start casting using your own life force, and if you use too much of that, you just straight-up drop dead. Or in slightly more cruel cases, you fall into a coma for a while and then die
Even minor life-force use will cause a condition I call "mana sickness" with such symptoms as nausea, physical weakness (sometimes to the point of barely being able to move), splitting migraines, clouded thoughts, massively increased need for sleep, blurred vision, immunodeficiency, and a whole host of other stuff depending on how much of your life force you use
A variety dependent on the spell's constituting elements. Time spells age even the elves into feebleness or dust, but its drawback of trying to stop a projectile in time and space can cause you to freeze in time and space.
One character I wrote early to demonstrate and play around with this was a young boy who tried and succeeded in creating a small forest in the desert that would last through the elements. Though his skeleton turned into a tree and tore him apart.
Sometimes there are also overlaps, like fire and dawn magic, spells can cause a burning sensation, though only fire leads to self-immolation, self combustion.
With earth, pebbles can manifest within the body, or at random points blood transmutes into soil, mud, clogging arteries. This the people recognize as Mud-Blood Anathema, as it often happens with Earth-Callers, construction workers/architects using specialized in Earth Aspect Maghia [per the Imperial Systematization of Maghia/Arkhaine Arts].
Dusk Maghia's equivalent to Mud-Blood is nekrosis, as most necromancers use the Aspects of Death and Time to raise and graft the dead [though there are Undead raised by the fundamental materia of Dawn, and the other forces].
Still working with some, like teleportation that may have Jaunt like effect.
Earth magics (I.e. standard elemental magics like pyromancy, geomancy, cryomancy, etc) might just tire the user for a while, or if they really overuse it they could basically get a psychic shock which is similar to a heart attack for magic users, and die
Bodily magics like sanguomancy, osteomancy, soul magics, etc are far more dangerous as it often require the user to use their own body as fuel and ammunition, bypassing the need for large amounts of mana or other psychic reserves to do crazy stuff although it could very well destroy your own body or at least do irreversible damage and disfigurement which is why it is mostly done very very sparingly and by a certain races or practitioners even then they rarely go beyond the basics
Cosmic magics on the other hand, allow you to harness the power of stars, nebulae, black holes, quasars, etc but since it is partly unnatural for any mortal to harness, the mental fortitude one must have to even start to dabble in it is extremely immense and if they falter for even a moment, they could go insane
Multiple sources only certain are great for certain kind of magics. There is no one size fits all. Divine magic is given for one. And you are always aware of your benefactor.
The biggest drawback however. Magic is tied irrevocably to willpower. It makes them willful yes. But it also forces them to believe in what they're doing.
Psychological attacks and other undermining factors can and do limit what they're capable off. Doubt is poison for one.
Overuse can make a mage completely malleable to outside influence.
Mages tend to isolate for this reason. And otherwise limit who is in their social circle and have access to them for this among other reasons.
No drawbacks, only limits. Using magic is kinda like exercising. You can get stronger snd better but only to a certain point. and if you push yourself too hard, like running a marathon, eventually your legs are just gonna give out underneath you and youre gonna need time to recover.
Im a firm believer in people shouldnt be punished for doing magic. The whole "all magic has a price" always bothered me.
You can do whatever you want within your natural biological limits.
There’s a byproduct of all magic use, an anti-magic called “miasma.” It can cause a variety of things to become corrupt: people, places, objects. However, much like carbon dioxide, plants (and certain animals in my world) can process miasma and create magic. This is actually a big part of the story I’m writing set in my world. A large continent-spanning forest acts like the lungs of the world, cleansing a major amount of miasma and expelling fresh magic back into the world. A cataclysm destroys the forest, upsetting the magic/miasma balance and eventually helping set the stage for the story!
Mechanistically, there isn't any punishment beyond simply running out of use of the powers for a while (the setting is keeping it simple and just using classic D&D mechanics for it). Social impacts exist though, mostly around perceived misuse of the powers.
Precision.
For most magic, you can just sort of use a standard spell. You know wave the hands, say the words, provide the focus, and boom fireball. Something everyone can learn with enough study and practice.
But there are hundreds of ways to cast the same spell. Some faster, some slower, some stronger, and some weaker. But the reason they aren't used is because a mistake will be catastrophic. Like that fireball burning all the oxygen within a mile. Or instead of a ball it's a line that doesn't go out. Or it just explodes in your face.
And that's just a fireball. Imagine what would happen with something like a light spell. Or something that makes sound.
Or something that changes density...
There's a few drawbacks.
Magic will always cost the energy of something in my setting. The more instant effects will typically cost the caster their own energies -- mind, body, or spirit -- or will consume some object the caster possesses, some item related to the specific effect (not just random, in other words). In the case of the caster using their own energy, some casters will overclock their effect on purpose and put themselves at risk of fading from reality forever -- it kinda drains your permanent hp/mp/sp rather than your current, to put it in rpg terms. It also lowers all stats related to mind, body, or spirit, since all other stats are derived from one or another of these three.
There are some styles of magic that kinda get around an upfront cost, and these are melee fighting magics. A certain amount of energy is built up by landing attacks; with enough gained energy, before it dissipates, various magics can be cast. Usually, these effects are simple and short-lived, like stronger melee attacks for a time, or lowering the defense of target.
Elaborate magics require caster energy, material components, special preparations for the environment, specific symbols hewn of the correct materials, etc. They also cost time to research, prepare for, and to cast. Likely, depending on the intention, for the spell to come to fruition as well.
Each region has it's own additional stipulations, but that sums it up.
In mine it's dependent of the specific techniques, as "common" ones are more curated to leave little alteration, but the rare ones usually still leave effects dependent on it.
And all attract evil spirits even if very slightly.
Depends on the magic. Most magics barely or don't change the user, since magic is a natural force of existence. All sentient beings can use it once trained and it's just as natural as using a tool. The drawbacks depend on the system and individual. Usually, individual drawbacks are the most important, as even the same abilities don't work exactly the same, and this their drawbacks can be insanely different too.
So, using Fire Manipulation may result in overheating for one, another may fall sick, another may not have any drawback.
But, the magics of Gods and transcendence in general do seem to physically affect the appearance and mentality of those blessed by it. Daemon Forms are a transformation one can achieve after mastering their full magical capability, as well as mastering oneself, their virtues, sins and contradictions must be in harmony and viewed honestly and unbiased. Their forms are beautiful yet terrifying body horror. The Gods of mankind also possess similar Daemon Forms, and love twisted but not unpleasant designs for their creations.
Lastly, the powers of the primeval 777 x 72 will turn you into Apostle like monsters or Lovecraftian horrors, based on their varied, twisted forms, and that of their hundreds of thousands of world eating children.
Most magic operates on the idea of either transferring properties from one thing to another (like burning medicinal herbs and salves and smearing the ash on a wound only to set it on fire as a method of healing with fire magic) OR a merging of two or more things (like having the mind and “self” of an animal and human break apart and combine together as done by Greenblooded seers)
So in some way all magic boils down to either a complete loss of self like when a Seer might contract “Madness of the Wild” when they take on a larger beast court (the animal bodies they become one with and a court tends to cap out at 7 bodies) than they’re supposed to. The Madness of the Wild is basically where your human anchor body is such a small amount of your accumulated self that you slowly grow more and more impulsive and emotional until you become a feral animalistic creature across all your bodies.
Magical power is drawn into our world from another world, one where “the rules” do not apply. Every time this occurs, however, it further fractures the fragile barrier between worlds. Ultimately, repeated magic use will shatter the barrier completely, ending existence as we understand it, and almost certainly all life along with it.
The barrier cannot be repaired. The only way to escape this fate is for everyone to stop using magic entirely, before this happens. However, swearing off magic is also a sure way to leave yourself powerless before your enemy’s magic. So all the various powers are trying to use just enough magic to achieve supremacy, so they can bring an end to Magic on their own terms, and without everyone’s combined magic use bringing the curtain down on everything.
People die or lost something deeply important to them
You mainly get tired, but overuse can harm the user. But it depends on what you have exactly.
The thing is, getting tired doesn't seem like a horrible downside. Until you're in the middle of a fight for your life. And you're alone.
Which is a horrific commonality for everyone with magic/power in my world
(I say magic/power cause it could fall under either, and both are used by the people who have it. There's no standard way to call what they have, because it's not really important enough to be argued about. So long as you make it clear what you're talking about it really doesn't matter what you call it. Like, several people just don't call it anything, or even think to. Whenever someone's power is talked about it's most commonly said "They/I can do/use this thing."
Nobody cares what it's called, they only care for how it's gonna be used. Cause that's the difference between life and death. Everything else doesn't really matter then.)
Magic corrupts the soul.
The only way to use magic is to form an binding vow with a "soul" of someone who died. It's not really the soul, but what remains of it, mostly the dead's last wish.
Once the bond is formed, you can use it as a source for your magic, but the more you abuse it and the more you will be corrupted into making said last wish come true, slowly losing your identity and your self control if you are not careful.
It's essentially chemistry, and it comes with the same risks. There's plenty you can do just by boiling herbs, in which case tasting something is probably more dangerous than making it.
However, a lot of alchemy involved acids, explosive reactions, and toxic fumes are common hazards. Even careful alchemists often have some telltale injuries, especially if they do any experimenting.
There's a certain social danger too. It's not unheard of for people to be killed over the recipe for some tincture or access to a rare ingredient.
if you're a mage- your mind can be hijacked at anytime by the first mage Imrak
if you're a demigod or have descent from one - Imrak will plant a target on your back for your power to one day be harvested
if you were any other magician ( wizard, druid, sorcerer, conjuror ect ) - you had a even bigger target planted on your back by Imrak and didnt survive past the first century
Misshaping and Arcane disruptuon
Shaping (magic) can give you great power, letting you reshape the ground, turn a losing fight on its head, repair grievous wounds, and more. Further, The Myst is generous and deals kindly with those who buy in bulk. You want to strike down a man with lighting? Why not everyone around him too? You want to breathe under water? Why not bring an your friends as well? Just increase the DC a little bit, push your knowledge a little further, invest just a little more Aether, and the world is yours.
Just don't mess up.
If you mess up a shaping can cause it to go haywire. The lighting you were calling down strikes you instead, instead of breathing water you can now only breathe water, instead of teleporting back home you shed your body and get tossed into the cycle of reincarnation. Nothing happening is the best outcome.
Arcane disruptuon happens after you shape, successfully or not. Shaping requires an expenditure of aether. The shaper 's body is partially made of Aether. It's easy enough to replenish, but doing so too quickly is akin to water going down your windpipe. You can't shape anything at all until it calms down, and in the middle of a fight that's not good.
I have a medieval fantasy world and magic is heavily policed for a few reasons. Firstly, there's interdimensional magic hunters out there and Myroth has previously suffered an incursion from these style of parasites before, they don't want to again. Secondly the most common form of magic is channelling the magic through an enchanted object, this is by far the most accessible but requires skill to use regardless. Since enchanted weapons have life force bestowed upon it unskilled use of a magical item causes it to 'Blister', which means that the life force is allowed to proliferated unchecked within the item, leading to a development of sentience within the item, which in turn can lead to possession of its user etc.
In general most magic directly draws from lifeforce and thus the slave trade is far more common and more insidious to match this and this has even lead to a magical radiation disaster that toppled a country.
Magic is a broad category of course but most magic is now regulated through a guild system i call 'The Concord' and thus anything magic is met with a stern 'oi dya ave a loicense for tha?'
I have two magic systems, one completed and another in development.
1: Essence:
- Divided into three particles: U, O, T
- U determines the nature of a creation (properties), O is a blank slate used to create, and T is used to either transform an object back to O or change the creation to another type of creation (unless it has a soul)
- Users are born with it and have to be Yuthinian (a fantasy race)
- Original casters were directly created by the Goddess of Creation and Chaos, being primarily made of these particles and could use them freely without worry due to their malleable souls and physical forms
-Current users can draw it form their soul, but no longer change their forms as freely due to them all being hybrids with very rigid structures and being under another god's jurisdiction (God of the Present and Fate)
- Magic is drawn from souls and is influenced by emotion, which if one is VERY emotional, it can be hard to control and activate
- The particles spread, and do come back after a bit, but the body still suffers. Users will be tired and emotionally drained.
- It is not possible to replenish said magic with sustenance or rest, users MUST wait for the particles to come back to their body.
- Some can shift better than others, others can control objects better, each user is born with a different distribution of the particles, affecting their abilities and strategies of using the magic.
- The magic can never be destroyed nor destroy. It is creation itself.
- Derived after two goddesses
- One takes, other gives
- The One Who Takes is the goddess of the sky, stars, and fate, only giving her subjects magic to what she deems they'll need
- Magic leaks out with every use, slowly emptying the life of the user (very slow, usually takes 200+ yrs)
- The one who takes assigns an "Affinity," or an elemental theme to the magic of each user born, so no diversity!
- The One Who Gives is the goddess of earth, life, and freedom, those lucky enough to have her touch have the Power Affinity
- Based on personality, or, those say, of destiny (doe to the One Who Takes' influences)
- Can get fatigued from overuse and need a LOT of replenishing after
- The farther from the goddess, the longer it may take for magic to fully charge up
- Both magics come from stones everyone is born with. It is always show externally, not within the body
- Stone is resilient, but can still be cracked or broken. That means a shortened lifespan or death
you can overuse your magic refining gland which can lead to problems from skin issues to not being able to use your magic
Magic does always something, but sources of magic are practically endless and replenish (like the water or carbon cycle).
The drawback is that magic can go so catastrophically wrong. You could wash your clothes with magic, but doing it by hand doesn't have the risk of "cleaning" the blood vessels in your hand. This would never happen to a competent (and sober) mage, but the risk is there. And the faster you do it and the more significant the effect the more likely it is to go wrong and the worse the wrong could be.
Certain magical use is actively causing destruction of the world and contamination of all species in it.
It is the same problem people have with power in general. The more you are able to solve big problems, the more big problems find your doorstep. The world is on fire when you are paying attention. The more problems you solve the more problems you notice. Those without the power of magic are more likely to suffer, but it may be a peaceful suffering. They toil in feilds and build homes, magic users fight demons and eldritch horrors. The more capable a magic user, the more truths they know, amd the more their battles effect others.
Growth requires risk and/or time. Every time you cast something, the energy has to come from somewhere, and external energy sources are almost always too cumbersome to be used. For those who could use them if they wished, it's seen as a sign of weakness or shame. The first time you cast something, no matter how much skill, and talent you have, no matter how much of a "magical discount" you've racked up by casting things repeatedly, you must pay the full cost of whatever you're doing on it's entirely. For small stuff that's mostly not a big deal, but for the real magic, the powerful stuff that's actually useful, that is a non-negligible risk. Additionally, the same resource you use to fuel your body, is the same resource you use to fuel your magic.
In my world, everyone has a different "mana font" or capacity, and people who overuse it can lead to exhaustion (at best), the loss of their magic (emotionally and socially destructive) or the loss of their life (obviously the worst case scenario). Someone might "recharge" quickly (high-level mana regeneration) but have a low capacity. Others might have a large font, but slow mana regeneration.
If you have either one of those (extremely large pool, or unltra high-speed mana regenration) you can get what they call "seers sickness" if you don't manage it carefully by using enough of it to keep it at a level your body can handle. Or you can try sealing it, to avoid it converting your organs into mana.
Seer's Sickness is when they start to convert, and depending on the organ that's morphing changes the symptoms. It was first noted in Seers who began to go blind, but was found to affect other mages as well, but the Seer's Sickness term stuck. For major organs, once converted past a certain point, they no longer function normally, and your whole body can shut down during a "mana flare", so having high levels of magic is dangerous.
So it's actually best to have low mana levels, as the main draw back to magic is that it's hard to use (circles are required for spells and any sort of casting), and any error made in construction of the spell can cause it to go sideways. Lack of control can also deplete the body of mana, and break your font/pool. Once broken, you cannot get it back, but you can still access mana through crystals created for that very purpose. The drawback to those is that they're monopolized and highly regulated, and expensive, but even more so if you go the black market route, where you risk a faulty crystal that might give too much mana too quickly and lead to Seer's Sickness.
So magic is almost like an illness, but also a basis for social standing in some societies. Tricky stuff. 😉
That's the gist of it in my stories. 😅
Using magic is unlimited for my world as long as they use below their threshold. It’s like opening a valve connected to an ocean. The problem is not so much about how many times you’re using the power, but now much you’re using it at once. If you call more power than you can control, a mage will start feeling like they are falling into a void. This is called Overstepping. The more they do it and the longer they do it, the more they will find it harder to stop summoning the power. Soon, the power will turn them into crystalized statues.
In my main worldbuilding magic is widespread like people drinking water.
When a person overuses magic they have a totally random chance to die, become a "former" or a "hybrid/chimera"
A hybrid/chimera is a person with body parts from other species, either temporarily or permanently from magic
If a person becomes a "former" they go through a monsterization process and their final form is based on the spell, magic type they used and how intense the spell was.
Example for "formers":
Last stand type: A version of "formers" often resulting from a battle and the use of last resorts spells
A human overuses a normal magic dragon type spell so violently that their body burns and melts like molten metal, and slowly starts to rearrange and becoming a dragon-like humanoid
Accidental type:
A human practices learning high powered spells by using two of them at once, one is to rapidly decay its targets and one to heal the user fast, he casts the spell and increases output and a magic crystal from his wand explodes and gets transported somewhere.
His body's skin begins to dry and fall off, and starts bleeding at the same time his blood slowly turns black then he feels his jaw getting ripped apart, then he falls unconscious, he wakes up next to a lake then starts looking at his reflection, he sees a pair of glowing blood red eyes and a bloodied skull.
The process is utterly painful every second is felt like an eternity, the victim often remains conscious until the process is complete.
All of this is not finalized though, because I'm busy with something else.
In the planet of Aether, magic use and magic exposure are slightly different, constant use of magic can actually change the biology of you and your ancestors, especially depending on the environment, which causes more extreme adaptations in the environment and less random than in actual evolution, The Terran colonists who landed in the dense, enchanted forests, used magic constantly, their descendants evolving into elves, The terrans who landed in the more hostile area used magic less, but the area was high in magic, and the exposure caused their descendants to evolve into orcs, the reason there are still normal-looking humans is because those guys were in areas with little magic, some organisms on the planet became mostly made of magic, which is why there are seemingly evolutionary impossible organisms, like small fire dogs, this fantasy worldbuilding is actually in the same universe as my sci fi one, and this one essentially started from the question, "what if I gave magic a scientific explanation" and made this
Using too much requires the wielder to use blood instead, so basically: hypovolemia
At first it digs through a casters magic reserves, then stamina, leaving them incredibly tired, if they can still focus and keep casting, the spells start to eat at their very life force.
Genetic mutations, scarification, etc