Welcome to the World Factory (Kintsugi Space World Building Thread)

I am necroing this thread to gush excitedly about one option for the Physics of Magic.

The setting I came up with this for is one that features the ability to hop between universes. For various reasons, things can't be transported (at least not successfully) to universes with sufficiently different dimensional properties. (I haven't decided whether some pairs of universes require one to pass through an intermediary first, but that's also possible.)

"Magic" describes a wide variety of phenomena, but the connecting thread is that some sort of pattern in the material dimension induces a pattern in the magic one. In most universes, Magic is matter in one of the Magic Dimensions, which are discrete (you can be at position 0 or position 1, never 0.5, for example) and obey different physical laws depending on the layer matter is in. Patterns can be a wide variety of things - brain activity? Spell circles? Burning herbs? Motions? The possibilities vary widely, depending on 'verse.

Within-universe teleportation is using Magic to manipulate the Folding dimensions; the magic folds the 3D space such that the target location is directly adjacent to the starting one in foldspace, and then pull the thing you're transporting across.

ofc the entire story takes place in only two universes, so this is less relevant there. Danahume has a much wider range of magics - presumably there are more layers to the magic dimension - than Baluverse, but Baluverse magiphysics were deliberately designed to be a riot.

*straightens glasses* How about BOTH?
In Danahume, magic can be gathered into higher and lower densities. Higher densities let you exert more power on the physical world. However... higher densities also start to bleed energy into the physical world. If you give too much light to plants, they roast. The effect of excessive magic concentration is similar, but even more dramatic... biological organisms that are exposed to high magic, even with a rigid magical protection that prevents bodily harm, will experience a dramatic increase in entropy. At lower levels, this manifests as memory issues, raised body temperature, and possibly manic behavior. Over long periods of time, it can cause permanent brain damage, usually associated with delusions and hallucinations. At the very highest levels of concentration, objects will heat up and start to behave radioactively...
oops.



Baluverse... well........
There's an entire class of animals which satisfy their entire metabolic needs by removing the entropy from substances through a long and convoluted sequence of pattern -> pattern -> pattern...
Yes, that's right.
There's a species that eats trees and shits diamonds.