I'm looking for a word for magic spells that use scientific principles.

Discussion in 'Author Discussions' started by Fishy_MC_FishMan, Jul 8, 2020.

?

Do any of these words sound good to you?

  1. techcraft

    1 vote(s)
    11.1%
  2. technocraft

    3 vote(s)
    33.3%
  3. scimage

    1 vote(s)
    11.1%
  4. scimagery

    3 vote(s)
    33.3%
  5. magetech

    3 vote(s)
    33.3%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. Fishy_MC_FishMan

    Fishy_MC_FishMan The Fishiest of Fishes

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    I’m writing a story about someone who uses scientific knowledge in a magical world, and I’ve found I need a word to describe the science based spells the MC is making. I’ve thought of words like techcraft, technocraft, scimage, scimagery and magetech. Do any of these words sound good to you for the intended purpose? Do you have any other good word ideas? Any advice appreciated, thanks.
     
  2. Kaze Ling

    Kaze Ling Well-Known Member

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    You probably want to come up with your own term but Technomancy does exist and sounds good to me.

    Technocraft or techcraft sounds like some kind of artificer to me so my vote would be Scimagery for the spell category and they are a Scimage.
     
  3. raitei

    raitei ⟪Procyon lotor paronomasiaabsentii⟫

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    - Magitech (yeah, just one different vowel)
    - Scientia Magia (and as the extension, Scientia Magus as its practitioner?)
    - Physicraft (lame, I know)
    - Physiamagecraft / Physiamagia (and as the extension, Physiamagus as its practitioner?)
     
  4. Nightow1

    Nightow1 Well-Known Member

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    TBH "science" is just codification of laws of how the universe works. If magic was common and mainstream in that world, there would not be a separate classification between "science" and "magic", "magic" would just be another science subject like physics and chemistry and biology. So your coursework would look something like:
    Science-
    Physics, Magic, Chemistry, Alchemy, Biology, Necromancy etc.

    They would be part of the scientific framework, not apart from it.
    Our world has a separation because no one can prove or do what is called magic. Other universes would be different.

    Historically, we have something similar when it comes to biblical reading. The denomination called "Methodists" espoused methodical strict reading of religious texts, so if leaning towards a historical slant, I would call it Methodical Spellcasting and the faction that comes from it "Methodists" like the religious denomination since "Science" is basically a codification of methodology.
     
  5. Fishy_MC_FishMan

    Fishy_MC_FishMan The Fishiest of Fishes

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    The world where my story takes place has two sets of laws. There are the known laws of physics like those that exist in the real world, and there is another separate set of magical laws. These two sets of laws are completely separate, but are able to interact with each other according to certain rules. The most important rule is that a set amount of magical power is needed to perform a set amount of work on the non magical system. Magic is not bound by laws of physics as we know them. It can do amazing things like change the mass, or shape, of objects, but the changes it can make are not without limitations. For example you couldn't use magic to limitlessly raise water up a hill so you could use it’s flow back down to power machines because all the energy gained this way would have a cost in magic. One thing I like about this story’s system is floating cities. Magic can ignore gravity, and allow a city to float without much cost in magic power, but if you wanted to increase the cities altitude, thus increasing its gravitational potential energy, it would take a lot of magic power. As for why I use different words to describe the study of the two sets of laws, it's’ because they really are separate sets of laws, so why not use different words to add clarity? The MC comes for reality so he naturally refers to the set of laws he’s familiar with as scientific knowledge, and the study of these laws as science. As for why he doesn’t refer to the study of magical laws as a science, it’s because there is already a name for their study in the world. Even if there are similarities between the methodologies being used between these two studies, because they both study different things there is no reason why they shouldn’t have different names. In fact I think doing so adds much needed clarity to the fact that the two sets of law are different.

    Thanks, I think I'm going to go with the Scimagery for the spell category, and they are a Scimage option.
     
    Kaze Ling likes this.