November Magic

November means a lot of things to a lot of people. Movember, another month in COVID lockdown, or just another month. To me and a lot of other people, it means NaNoWriMo.

This year, as in other years, I’m trying something new and different. To me, anyway. Urban fantasy with a physics based magic system, set in the present day.

Rather than use the overworked wizard, I went with arcanist.

The Physics of Magic

Of the 4 forces that we know of, gravity is by far the most long reached and versatile. If we want to be able to have a force that is magic, personal control of gravity is a good start point. Being able to sense gravity makes a good analog to Doc Smith’s “sense of perception”, which basically gave you a 3D picture of the surroundings according to the density. Colour requires reflected light, though, so you need eyes for that.

There are some social implications. Modesty is pretty much of a lost cause among arcanists. Arcanists can tell whether you have an adorable pancreas or not. An arcanist medic can also tell if you have a healthy one.

I’ve set the thumb rule as an arcanist being able to move what he can with his own strength. They can also tap external sources of kinetic energy by establishing a gravity field and harvesting useful energy by letting mass flow through it. The limit there is essentially the ability of the arcanist to visualize in three dimensions.

Flying cars are easy. The arcanist driver can just harvest the energy from the wheels and use it to lift the car into the air and fly it. Energy blades are possible, too. A very thin strong gravitational field makes a blade that will rip apart anything by tidal forces.

Rostam Intrepid Cannon is 16, and he thinks he knows it all, but there’s a lot he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why his Iranian-Canadian parents named him for two legendary heroes. He doesn’t know normal 16-year-olds can’t power lift time and a half of their own weight and do calculus in their heads.

He doesn’t know why a man named Zhuban Ghorbani murdered his father with a blade of energy and wants to kill him, too.

He knows he can find refuge at a place called the Crossing of the Waters, but he doesn’t know where it is or how he’s going to get there.

He is determined to go back to Iran to rescue his mother, but he doesn’t know how he’s going to do that.

Rostam Intrepid Cannon has a lot to learn. He doesn’t know how little time he has to learn what he needs to know.