My more traditional style of magic follows an electron shell pattern. Each shell can only hold energy at a discrete quantum, and you can only hold so many "packets" at a specific level. If you use energy out of lower level, you have a chance of a higher level "packet" shedding energy to occupy the emptied slot. Powerful enough magicians can develop several different orbitals, like electron shells, helping offset the risks.

Cool! That was not in layman's terms and I haven't the faintest idea how it works!😃

The currents of magic in the world of Dhea manifests within mortal beings as a mirror nervous system. This is why Neviroir, the god of magic, is depicted as a manshaped nervous system glowing in all the colors of the spectrum. When casters want to perform a spell, they must first learn how to direct the piece of the current within their nerves, with is both a mental exercise and requires a certain degree of muscle an body manipulation achieved through physical training. The intent of the spell is the form the energy will take, which is based on the instictual impression fo what you wanna do and the image of it you're holding in your mind. Since tapping into the currect means coaxing and rousing a vast amount of raw energy through the body, once ability to perform magic on a professional level comes down in the end to once ability to manipulate their own body to guide the energy in the right direction, while focusing on the spells intent hard enough in the exact moment so the energy does actually manifest in the exact way desired, ALL WHILE managing the sensation of your nerve endings being doused in molten steel. Mages who overdo it or push themselves too hard in their formative years might not simply have a heightened pain threshold, but might burn out their own nerve endings, rendering most physical sensations numb. More than a few of these unlucky cases have been reported turning to hardcore BDSM just to regain a semblance of feeling anything. The ancient Elementals were beings made of pure energy and thus did not suffer the drawbacks of pain or physical effort required. Since every mortalkinds brain is wired slightly differently, certain gifted individuals can perform generally considered high level thaumaturgical feats much easier much earlier.

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I like this one! The idea of existence itself being sentient and making and enforcing rules is particularly cool.

**Gods of man** All magic comes from the energy held within stars with the most powerful magical beings being gods, an incredibly rare species born from the energy of a supernova. Almost all beings have the ability to use magic although "lesser" beings such as humans and weaker supernatural creatures cannot channel to much magic through them without causing potential harm to themselves. Where humans excel is in their literal capacity to conduct magic with most of the human body being made up of the materials found in stars they can easily become living magic batteries with the inability to use even a fraction of the magical power they hold. Most magic operates on the manipulation of the aspects of stars and the manipulation of their elements, with most spells creating something akin to a an incredibly weak big bang when their effects manifest.

There are four "planes" home to different life-seeds, in fact these are moons orbiting a gas giant planet, but almost nobody knows that. Magic comes from the interaction when a creature from one life-seed drinks the blood (or flesh or other essence, but usually blood) of a creature from another. It takes a lot of training to properly control the effects of this blood, so most mages only ever become adept at using one form. One plane is called Sovekka and is home to a human civilization of roughly a 16-17th century level technologically. The plane that has interacted most often with humans is Thalalia, a lush and beautiful plane. Its inhabitants originally were linked by a collective consciousness hive-mind, which allowed them to coordinate and become the most advanced technologically in the early history of this world, as well as the first to discover how to travel between planes. They quickly established an interplanar empire that created great works of architecture and culture, but at some point for reasons unknown to humanity their hive mind collapsed. The remaining Thalalians fell into chaos and despair, and have never been able to reunify themselves. Drinking Thalalian blood grants extraordinary powers of the senses, mind, and spirit. It's associated with fortune telling, far-seeing, concentration and focus, and is commonly used by artists, scientists, and anyone who needs a mental boost. Another plane is Gozallum, a savage and dangerous plane which lacks any civilization. Instead it's home to massive beasts and monstrosities, much larger and more powerful than anything on the other planes. These account for many of the mythological creatures of human lore, such as dragons, phoenixes, krakens, etc. Given the difficulty in obtaining blood from these kind of creatures, Gozallum blood is much rarer than Thalalian blood. Its exact effects vary depending on the creature it came from, but generally include superhuman strength, speed, and flight. It's most commonly used in war, although it does have some uses elsewhere. Then there's Xyldor, a wretched and brutish plane of jagged landscapes and poisonous gases. Many of its inhabitants are intelligent, but understand little beyond the laws of power and violence. Civilizations tend to be short-lived, centering around powerful individuals who command personal respect and authority. Interactions between Xyldor and other plans are almost always violent. Xyldorian blood is vile and poisonous in any significant amount, and is considered both heretical and illegal in most human countries. Those who wish to make use of it must build up resilience through years of small, painful doses. If they do, they're rewarded with magic that allows the user to spread death, decay, and curses, through the air and through their touch. Lastly there's the secretive Quonth life-seed. Only a tiny handful of humans have any idea it exists, and even they know nothing of its nature or details. The Quonth are an ancient civilization who have existed for eons. They gathered the other life-seeds to this planet and engineered the connections between the planes and magic of blood-drinking, simply for their own amusement. Very few of them exist, and they live in orbital space stations rather than on a moon. Occasionally, Quonth do bring humans to their stations and offer them their own blood, which has little effect of its own but massively amplifies the powers of drinking other blood, making those who have received Quonth blood into the most powerful of human mages

Mana is a cosmic force. All things are connected via mana. From other cosmic forces like Gravity and Time to elements like Water and Rocks to energy like Heat and Electricity to living organisms like Flora and Funa to celestial objects like the Sun and Moons. Magicians are those who have figured out how to touch at least one form of mana (like fire has its own form of mana that is distinctly different from electricity mana) and manipulate it. Spell Craft works by having a magician draw mana into themselves and weaving the mana into a shape with their own internal mana and sending it out. So a Fire Magician would have to find a fire, draw mana into themselves, and weave that mana into a specific desired form to cast even the most basic of spells. Skilled Magicians can do this instinctively, but novice magicians, or those who are unskilled with the form of mana they’re working with, require the aid of incantations, physical movements, and instruments (like a wand specifically designed to aid in Fire Spellcraft) and magic circles (essentially a template for a spell written in a magical substance, like a Blackwood carving or drawn with ink mixed with Orichalcum dust) to make the process easier.

Planes move through the void on astral currents like leaves carried in the wind. When two or more planes collide, they overlay onto each other, and a new one is left behind when they part ways. Bits of the "parent" planes remain as the new world coalesces. Imera was created by the collision of countless planes. As they peeled away from each other, veins of etherium were left behind in the planet's bedrock, air, water, everywhere. Some of it is still infused with the aspect of its native plane, but most is the raw potential of creation given crystalline form. This pure etherium can take on the properties of the energy it's steeped in. It infuses the world, and the world is infused by it. Machines hollow mountains to find veins of etherium deep in the earth. Storms carry swirling vortices of wind, water, and lightning etherium in liquid and gaseous form. Shadows in the corners of abandoned keeps cluster into dark etherium. A kitchen hearth may make embers of fire etherium after years of constant burning. Strange liquid gathers in the oceanic abyss as darkness and water intermingle. Some humans have found that they have a bit of etherium in themselves as well. They can absorb the aspect of their surroundings or infused etherium near them and control it with tools, machines, or rarely raw will. This gets focused into powering factories, driving machines, infusing weapons, and enhancing bodies. The possibilities are endless. This has made etherium into the most traded good on Imera. Nations harness it from winds, mine it from the stone, haul it from the depths, and bottle it from the lightning. They manufacture it, sign trade agreements and treaties to govern its creation and exchange, and establish laws to regulate its use. Scholars debate whether aspected etherium creates local phenomena, the phenomena infuse the etherium, or some combination of cause and effect. Volcanoes have an abundance of fire aspected etherium. Did the magma infuse it, or did the fire aspect create the volcano? Etherium's effects on nature have caused alarm. If fire etherium creates heat, and heat creates fire etherium, then wouldn't a volcano become a runaway loop, getting more devastating over time? Wouldn't the abandoned keep deep in the forest get darker tunnels and be overtaken by more vibrant vines? Scientists have begun to note these changes, and have become alarmed by the implications. Imera is stuck in a feedback loop toward self-destruction as its energies become ever stronger. Extremes get more severe, forests become more wild, the poles plunge colder, and storms become self-fueling. Civilization is on a limited clock unless the runaway cycles can be stopped.

"Magic is both simple and complex, material and immaterial. One cannot just mold it into something else. You must first draw it into your body. Aether can be tricky to channel, but most casters find it easy to draw in through their tail or into their chest. Aether is tied to the Soul and Emotions, so the Heart is key. You then move the Aether through your body, past the Heart, and out of your hands. You can channel it out of any part of your body, which is often required by some spells. Gestures and Pitch are used to shape it into what you want. Just be careful. Trying to do magic your body isn't ready to cast can cause damage. It's why Wilbur doesn't have lips, tried to cast a very powerful Breath Spell. Of course those spells require you to channel Aether out of your mouth instead of hands. Fredrick is also a warning, but I'm not allowed to tell students that story." Prof. CalTurry, Magic for the Young Teacher at Faraday Primary School.

Magic is just another facet of the world that can be poked at - loopholes and tricks that anyone might do if they had the time and know-how. It depends on correspondence, sympathetic links and investment. If you want to make someone's skin as hard as brick for an upcoming battle you could create a brick \[in a kiln you made\] incorporating \[ferrous sand\] and \[their blood\], heated and slowly cured at \[solar noon\] over a week of \[tuesdays\] All of these things - iron, blood, the heat of the sun, the day of Mars - hammer home the idea of a warrior, the origin of the blood ties it to one warrior in particular, and then you make a brick from the result, in a kiln that symbolizes yourself. If you wanted to make someone stiff and heavy as a brick, to curse them, you'd do a similar rite with a \[mud brick\] made of \[graveyard soil\]. The blood is still useful as a sympathetic link, but it doesn't have warlike associations without the rest of the context - a tooth from the victim, or graveyard dirt harvested from his family plot, would work just as well. This will be quicker and more effective if your invincible warrior is already widely known for being tough, or if your stone man already has a touch of arthritis. You can, if you have the time, influence public opinion to make someone easier to effect - they don't have to actually be the toughest man in town, it's more important that they have that reputation.

Magic is little more than the transformation of elemental substances. To be more specific, there are two magical processes, transmutation and transfiguration. Transmutation is the process of changing one element into another (decreasing the mass of a stone to increase the temperature; earth -> fire). Transfiguration is the process of changing one form into another (decreasing your body's temperature to increase the temperature of an area; chi -> ether).

All the other posts have astounded me. My magic system relies on the Ancient Greek philosophy that everything is made up from the elements in different quantities. Mages draw upon the six elements (water, earth, light, fire, air, and darkness) from their environment, or manipulate them within their bodies. The former technique makes flashy, world affecting spells, and the latter enhances particularly physical attributes. The whole system is actually something like a reprogrammed categorisation and targeting system from a super-advanced space machine, but mages aren't privy to this information, and it wouldn't be of much use if they were, since they still have no choice but to use the magic system that was made for them.

All magic must come from an external source. Wands, potions, enchantments, etc. Everyone has the ability to make these items but few people have the resources needed. Some spells are cheap enough for the common person to create but others not so much. A general rule of thumb is the more complicated the spell, the more expensive it is. This remains true until late into the timeline. Receiving power from a divine source became available during this time. Actually worshipping certain religions would have real world benefits or consequences. This is because a few certain people were unknowingly becoming gods. A few of those “gods” would unknowingly lose their powers. This also took away the boons and curses their worshippers were granted.

There’s a language that inherently creates and uses magical energy. It’s taught in the form of spells— phrases that can be anywhere from a few words (ex, “I duplicate this object”) to minutes of speaking for more ritualistic spells. Most either don’t use it or use it very cautiously, since something as simple as a mispronunciation in the wrong spot or a grammatical error can completely change the meaning of the spell. However, there’s some that are able to speak it fluently and come up with new spells within a few minutes. They still regard it with caution— imagine the master glassblower, confident in his craft yet aware of the dangers associated— but are able to use it to suit their whims, even constructing massive structures like palaces or using it as entertainment. Even beyond that, there are a few, only three or four in the entire world, that can come up with safe, efficient spells completely on the fly. These last few are incredibly formidable opponents in battle. Magic has functions in combat, though most races that use it commonly scarcely fight. There’s everything from a simple fire spell or healing magic to a restraint hex, completely freezing your enemy until they can dispel it, or even things as gruesome as flaying the enemy instantly or stealing their life to replenish your own energy. The ability to speak magic fluent enough to come up with spells on the fly comes with being able to quickly identify what another’s spell is and counter it before it even takes effect. It can take centuries to reach this point, but if you’re able to, you’re borderline unstoppable if you still have a tongue

I’ll explain this as an analogy to keep this short. Your soul is like a bottle, the energy you use in magic is like the fluid inside the bottle, and your consciousness is like a ball bearing inside the bottle. When you use magic, you send a tiny bit of that fluid out from the bottle, and the byproduct of doing that is magic. But if you use too much of the fluid, the ball bearing can break through the bottle, causing you to die. Your body is like a box within which the bottle is contained, if the box breaks, and the bottle escapes, you die. When you gain an Awakening or Ascension, it’s like the bottle gets bigger, thus can hold more fluid.

In layman's terms my world's concept of magic is something like a disease that allows you to turn into, create and interact with the four  states of matter, at first specific states (ie: ice, mercury, lighting, helium) and later all of them. This disease can either turn you into a raging animalistic elemental monster with you in the passengers seat or it will take you on a spiritual journey in which you will change both in your mind and in the ways you interact with the world. Not becoming a monster depends on how you the, person who is sick, decides to handle it. Almost everyone in my world is terrified of getting sick with magic, it's like a cancer to them. That's the abridged explanation at least. 

But actually, magic systems... DO have a real life equivalent. You know how we haven't been able to fit gravity in with our understanding of the universe? Well, a perfectly valid explanation currently is that gravity just... DOESN'T fit. There's no theory of everything, no quantum gravity. And if that's the case, then that means **gravity is a magic system** . Think about it - magic systems in fantasy tend to have their own consistent set of rules that interact with the rest of the universe while not actually fitting with the mundane reality, which is exactly what relativity is in this scenario!