Functional Magic

She's nice like that.

"The power of influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces."

— Magic Definition, Online Dictionary

Magic that works. Maybe not exactly the way anyone wanted it to work, but it is not imaginary in the story and you may rely on it to do something. This style of phlebotinum is sometimes subject to magibabble, its own flavor of technobabble. Depending on the story, it may leave the Willing Suspension of Disbelief somewhat unstable.

Methods for spellcasting are covered under Spell Construction. Compare Superhero Origin for gaining the potential for magic, and Power Source and Mana for fueling it.

In many settings, whatever sort of magic is present, not everyone can work it, or some people can work it much better than others. If such a gift only works, or works much better, if the gifted individual is properly trained, that's Training the Gift of Magic.

Some flavors of Functional Magic:

Inherent Gift: Along the lines of Piers Anthony's Xanth books, in which characters are born with abilities that are quite specifically defined, in addition to their superhuman ability to survive puns. This also can happen in Magic Realism. Often the Inherent Gift is simply the ability to use magic; usually elemental powers. The Gift may be inherited or it may appear seemingly at random. In some settings, Training the Gift of Magic is required to do anything useful with this innate magic — or even to keep the Gifted from burning out or going insane. If this is inherited, an entire ethnic group or species might be defined by their ability to practice magic.
Rule Magic: An underlying magical rule system lets users alter reality; for example, the use of "True Names", Sympathetic Magic, or Ritual Magic. Most "study spells and say words of power" magic systems seen in fantasy literature, films, and TV shows are Rule Magic. Real-world examples include Wicca, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and Onmyōdō. Vancian Magic is a completely fictional example. This variety is where you find things like the "Law of Contagion" — that is, if you have a piece of the target, you can affect it from afar since it's still part of a "whole", even if it's miles or kilometers distant. This is, however, usually just one rule in a larger system. This form is heavily dependent on The Laws of Magic or the author's own custom-made limitations.
Rule magic can sometimes be Sufficiently Analyzed to the point that a standardized system of Formulaic Magic is developed to allow precision construction of complex spells akin to computer programs. One example of this variety of rule magic takes the form of Geometric Magic based on systems of complex figures, or matrices of Instant Runes, connected by Tron Lines implied to function somewhat like a circuit board. (This type is a common feature of the Advanced Ancient Acropolis.) Another flavor uses complex arcane equations as a superior replacement for the antiquated Language of Magic to focus and channel the mystical energies. (This form tends to be favored by Fantastic Scientists and other scholarly mages.)
Magic Music: Music has magical effects. Used in settings where bards have magical abilities. As one might guess, it is rarely used outright offensively, tending instead to focus on healing friends and befuddling or beguiling enemies. Particularly modern and more offense-oriented versions may use literal Power Of Rock.
Alchemy: Magical chemistry. Effectively a variety of Rule Magic, but it is limited to creating magical substances rather than the direct application of power/energy by force of will. Differs from other Rule Magics in that it often employs only the magic inherent in the materials used, rather than magic from the "caster"; depending on the setting, practitioners of alchemy may or may not have (or be required to have) magical ability of their own.
Force Magic: Practitioners of magic tap into and control or weave together one or more magical forces. Often invokes a Background Magic Field and/or a Sentient Cosmic Force. Magic which waxes and wanes according to how close the manipulator is to a "Ley Line" falls into this category. See also Minovsky Physics, Mana, "Magic A" Is "Magic A".
Device Magic: Magic performed with some form of mystical device or relic. The device may be inherently magical (usable by the average Joe to cast spells) or a conduit for magic within the caster (usable by inherently magical people but a regular device to everyone else). Making new devices is sometimes a trade in magic-heavy worlds. Some settings reveal pre-existing artifacts to be Imported Alien Phlebotinum or Lost Technology. See also Magic Wand, Magitek, Green Rocks, Swiss-Army Weapon, Magic from Technology.
Language of Magic: The use of a specific tongue to control and shape magical effects. This tongue often has a special quality or metaphysical importance everyday communication does not — it may have been the universe's Primordial Tongue, or consist of the true names of every thing and action in the universe — that allows it control the things it names or cause effects by speaking them into existence.
Runic Magic: The use of special symbols, usually termed runes, to create magical effects. This may be related to the Language of Magic system, in some cases serving essentially as a written form of it. In other instances, runes are unique symbols that do not form words or phrases, instead serving as magical statements in their own right or possessing shapes that resonate with or channel magic in very specific ways. Runic magic is often fairly passive in nature, and does not cast spells; rather, it's used to enhance and modify specific objects or create localized effects. For example, runes may be inscribed on a doorway to hamper or control passage through it or on a weapon or piece or armor to give it special properties.
Theurgy: Magic is cast by spirits, gods, and cosmic entities with whom the "caster" makes deals; the "caster" in this case knows nothing more than a glorified phone number — and preferably how to negotiate really well. The fictionalized version of "Wiccan" magic seen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, to a lesser extent, Charmed (1998) is mostly Theurgy. The clerics of Dungeons & Dragons and the Priests of World of Warcraft both practice Theurgy (as does any real-world religion whose deity or deities are said to answer prayers of the faithful with miracles and/or intercessions). When Magic itself is a kind of entity with which casters make bargains and cut deals, this becomes a variety of Wild Magic (below). Modern conceptions of necromancy are generally portrayed as this, or Rule Magic with this in varying amounts. Usually, the highest level of this type of magic is Summon Magic, in which the caster summons the entity itself and bosses it around. As one might imagine, this can easily lead to a Deal with the Devil scenario where the entity turns on its would-be temporary master if done wrong, especially if the entity is a demon or some other form of Always Chaotic Evil. Remember, kids — Evil Is Not a Toy!
Wild Magic: No one has any control over what happens or when it happens, although sometimes these can be influenced. The magic is basically alive. It has its own will and its own agenda or, more often, its own set of rapidly changing whims no sane person could hope to predict and it will only help you if it feels like it. Finagle's Law often applies. Usually, Magic Realism permits only this and Inherent Gift.

While some magical systems allow it to do practically anything, restricted only by the user's power and imagination, in other systems the magic user is restricted to only one capability, one that fits a specific theme. Some classic themes are:

Divination: Seeing the future or the immediately relevant. These are the people who produce the prophecies, though they may also be able to see things far away.
Elemental Magic: The magic users typically work with only one element, which reflects their personality. They might be able to create fire with a snap of their fingers but not levitate a single pebble, or vice versa.
Necromancy: Power over the dead and The Undead. Mediums, who can only talk to the dead, get classed with diviners, but those who raise the dead are almost always villains. Still, even then, this is not always Black Magic.
Transmutation: Transforming something into something else. Likely to involve Equivalent Exchange, as noted below (you can't turn nothing into something). Most forms of alchemy involve transmutation, as seen in the classical 'turning lead into gold' trick. At its most extreme, this form of magic may also involve Shapeshifting (either of the caster or of someone else), when it's not an innate ability of the caster's race.
Equivalent Exchange: This is when a spell or magical effect requires a sacrifice of equal value to work. This is often a feature of alchemical, theurgic, or wild magic systems, where the 'books' must be balanced for every magical effect performed.
Mentalism: Power over the minds and emotions of others. Quite often involves Mind Control and abilities that mimic Psychic Powers in a magical context.
Nature magic: Power over all things living. Quite often includes turning themselves into animals or a Green Thumb.
Summon Magic: Summoning spirits, or at least animals, to provide assistance. May overlap with nature magic, but not always.
White Magic: "Holiness." Blessing, healing, protecting, all of the most benevolent of effects. Half of the time includes ways to inflict major pain on deserving targets because Revive Kills Zombie, or at least supposedly deserving targets. Often the power used by a White Mage, Paladin or High Priest(ess) of a benevolent god. Speaking of gods, their powers are often drawn upon especially for healing, because Healing Magic Is the Hardest in many settings.
Black Magic: "Unholiness." Cursing, killing, tormenting, all of the nastiest sorts of stuff. Often includes Necromancy as a matter of course.
Blood Magic: Usually stereotyped as the blackest of Black Magic, this is magic fueled directly by the shedding or spilling of blood, usually in the form of human or animal sacrifices. The blood mage draws on the energies of death and dying, or gains access to whatever magical energies the sacrifice possessed, or both, and uses them either to cast spells (which are almost always themselves rather unpleasant) or increase his personal power level. Blood Magic can also have a White side, though, where voluntary or personal sacrifice produces powerful effects out of proportion to the apparent magical cost involved, or which are impossible to overcome with darker magics.

Related tropes: Whatevermancy is a common naming convention for fantasy magical styles. See "Magic A" Is "Magic A". With all this wonderful diversity, you can expect some snobbish magicians to consider there are Unequal Rites. If practicing magic has a spiritual component, it may cross over with Enlightenment Superpowers. This Wiki has an article on writing Functional Magic systems. For the inverse (magic used for functional purposes), see Utility Magic.

See also Our Mages Are Different; this trope is Our Magic Is Different.

Examples

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Anime and Manga

Ah! My Goddess: While Belldandy has her own supernatural abilities, most of her magic is Theurgy bordering on animism — she casts spells by speaking to the spirits inhabiting objects. She describes herself as being like a telephone line at one point, and was originally summoned through a misdialled (or deistically redirected) telephone call.
Beyblade is an odd combo of Theurgy, Device Magic, and Wild Magic. OK, it's mainly Device Magic, as most of their power comes from odd creatures inhabiting their magic tops. But they have some sort of deal with these creatures (Theurgy). Also, if you're not battling with your whole heart, or if you tick off your creature, it can up and leave you (Wild Magic).
Black Clover: Naturally this exists in a story centered on mages. Magic being an Inherent Gift is a technicality, with everyone in the setting able to use magic except for Asta and nobles tending to have more mana. Magic is, for the most part, Elemental Magic, with each mage having one attribute, with the exception of human experiments, hybrids, and powerful devil hosts. The attributes range from the classical elements to Cotton, Mirror, Time, and Wraith. That said, strong mages can use their attributes in many different ways like healing themselves or shaping their element into different forms. Some mages can use arrays to empower their magic if their attribute is found in nature, and Forbidden Magic uses mana from the underworld to cast powerful spells that defy normal conventions. Spells are stored in grimoires. New spells can manifest through natural talent, training, or intense motivation in a crisis, with the spell corresponding to the mage's personal development at the time.
Bleach: Kidou is a form of Rule Magic that can be used offensively, defensively, and also for healing, tracking, and long-distance communication. In the hands of a skilled practitioner and at high enough levels, it can even manipulate space and time. The main requirement for being able to use even basic levels of kidou is the possession of spiritual power but Shinigami can only excel at kidou if their spiritual strength is great enough. Kidou is taught via incantation that requires a spellcasting chant as well as specifying the classification, level and individual name of the spell. With increasing levels of skill and talent, kidou users can skip chants, double-chant,^notecast two spells at the same time hide spells within other spells,^notewhich can even be done in multiple layers. At one point Urahara hides a spell inside a spell that's hidden inside yet another spell... and distracts the target first by casting a chain of half a dozen other spells and even delay verbalizing the classification/level/name part of the spell until after the spell has been cast.^noteVery useful for emergency barriers that need to be activated swiftly in combat There are even some hints that one or two very high-level kidou users can cast kidou entirely non-verbally. The catch is that the less verbalization involved in the casting, the weaker the spell actually is when released. This means it doesn't just require technical skill to start discarding the verbal component, it also requires great spiritual strength to be able to pull off weakened spells that are still strong enough to do their jobs.
- Shinigami science seems to be kidou-based or reliant on kidou in some way. This blurs the line between Functional Magic (both alchemy and rule magic styles), Fantastic Science, and Magic-Powered Pseudoscience.
- One Espada (Zommari) has displayed a technique called Amor which was considered the equivalent to kidou. It was more akin to the "Inherent Gift" style of Functional Magic and was unique to Zommari rather than being something any, or even most, Hollows can develop.
- By the same token, another Espada (Szayelaporro) seemed to engage in the Hollow equivalent of Shinigami science. Like the Shinigami counterpart, it seems to blur the line between Functional Magic, Fantastic Science and Magic-Powered Pseudoscience.
- There have been occasional references throughout the manga to the Quincies possessing some techniques that are equivalent to kidou and which behave in a rule magic manner but focused through a device that acts as some kind of focus. However, this hasn't yet been explored in as in-depth a manner as kidou.
Code Geass plays fast-and-loose with the rules governing the Geass powers used by key characters, leaving their limitations intentionally vague. Lelouch's Geass, however, has its capabilities fully explored, since Lelouch needs information on his own preternatural capabilities to make full use of them. Specifically:
- Lelouch's Geass requires his target to hear his command while making direct eye contact. The Geass is optical in nature: as such, transparent surfaces such as glass will not block it, and the Geass can be transmitted to intended targets via reflective surfaces such as mirrors.
- Lelouch's Geass has an effective range of 272 meters.
- The intended target of the Geass will always carry out their command insofar as mental and physical capabilities allow. For example, asking the intended target a question to which they do not know the answer will not yield useful information, although the target may direct Lelouch to someone who may have the information he seeks, should they know of such a person.
- The intended target cannot refuse to carry out an order given to them via Geass. In the case of commands they find reprehensible or morally objectionable, they may resist for a time, but they will ultimately submit.
- A Geass command has no known time limit and, in theory, may remain in effect indefinetly.
- The memories of a person who falls under Lelouch's Geass are blocked immediately before, during, and immediately after it takes effect.
- Lelouch can only use his Geass on a person once. After the effect of the Geass ends, he cannot use his Geass on them again unless the effect of the Geass is reversed by outside means.
Death Note employs Rule Magic: the Death Note has a list of rules (as well as some unwritten rules) detailing how to use it, including (but not limited to) the following:
- Victims will die of a heart attack 40 seconds after their name is written into the note unless a cause of death is specified. After the cause of death is written, details surrounding the death may be added within 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
- The Death Note will not take effect unless the user knows their intended victim's face and real name, so as to prevent accidentally killing others with the same name.
- If a specified cause of death is something that cannot be achieved realitically (ie. having the target commit suicide in another country which they cannot travel to), the cause of death will default to a heart attack.
- If a specified cause of death would cause more people than the intended target to die, the cause of death will default to a heart attack.
- If a page or scrap of paper is torn from a Death Note, it will remain as effective as if it was still part of the Death Note.
- Any human who touches a Death Note will be able to see and speak with the shinigami that originally owned the Note.
- A Shinigami may grant the human possessor of their Death Note the gift of Shinigami Eyes, granting them the ability to see a person's name and remaining lifespan. The price for this gift is half of the human possessor's remaining lifespan.
- The Death Note can be loaned by a human possessor to another human, granting them all of the powers of the Death Note, but without being able to see the original Shinigami owner or trade for Shinigami Eyes. If the original human owner dies while lending the Death Note to another, however, full ownership will be transferred to the loanee.
- Shinigami can extend their lifespans by killing others with a Death Note. Humans cannot.
- Shinigami may not use a Death Note in the service of saving other. If the taking of someone's life would prolong another's, the Shinigami will instantly die, and their remaining lifespan will be given to the human they saved.
- The Death Note will become unusable if an intended victim's name is misspelled four times.
- The Death Note cannot affect people under 780 days of age.
Dog Days uses Crest Magic, which is a form of Force Magic: in order to use it, one simply needs to tap into the energy of the land, focus on a mental image of whatever effect they want to achieve, and then release the power. It's so simple that even the protagonist, an Ordinary Middle School Student from the real world, can pull it off with only a little coaching beforehand. The downside is that it also draws on the user's stamina, meaning extended use will quickly tire you out; the hero finds this out early on when his getting the Princess back home very quickly results in his being laid out as if he'd just run a decathlon.
EDENS ZERO features a form of Force Magic called Ether Gear, which forces the flow of Ether in its user's body into a different configuration that gives them special powers. What those powers are depends entirely on the form of Ether Gear the user decides to learn, including Elemental Powers, Technopathy, Magic Enhancement, and the creation of Hard Light.
Fairy Tail uses quite a lot of these, being a series that centers around wizards. Theurgy exists through Lucy's use of Summon Magic, many have elemental magic, Carla and her mother have powers of divination, Mirajane and her siblings have powers of Partial Transformation on themselves, Mest has the power of mentalism to alter memories, a few side characters use Magic Music and nature magic, and Black Magic exists, almost always used by the villains. Magic seems to be an Inherent Gift: roughly only 10% of the population has magical potential.
Alchemy, naturally, is the Functional Magic of Fullmetal Alchemist. Exceptionally talented alchemists are close to, but not quite, Rule Magic users, the only hard-and-fast rule being Equivalent Exchange. Still, "Equivalent Exchange" is only used partially, as alchemists seem to need to worry about balance only when matter is involved, but there's a considerable amount of energy that seems to come from nowhere (even if one were to use matter as the energy source, you'd still need a lot of energy to make fission alone, and a lot more energy just to convert the resulting energy into the adequate form of energy).
- It's Amestrian Alchemy that uses the movement of the tectonic plates (Father is suppressing it somewhat, and totally later on), alkahestry uses "the dragon's pulse" which seems to be something along the idea of Ley Lines and the third is the Philosopher's Stone condensed human souls. Those three are from the manga and Brotherhood, the first anime had only one: human souls, albeit from two places. Condensed into a philosopher's stone in that world, but all other alchemy was powered by souls from another world. Specficially, our world.
Getter Robo's "Getter Rays" are initially thought to be a new and versatile form of radiation, but this is only partially true. Later on in the continuity, they are revealed to be alive, intelligent, inscrutable, and by most definitions supernatural. Therefore using them could be considered a kind of theurgy or wild magic, the rays will only let you do stuff that it agrees with. As this show is a classic Super Robot series, this gives a justification for The Power of Friendship and raw idealism being used to win battles. In later iterations of the series, the rays shift from rewarding friendship and hope to responding to (and sometimes creating) sheer berserk rage.
Nen powers in Hunter × Hunter seem to be a mix of Inherent Gifts and Rule Magic: there are specific ways of using Nen, but each Nen user tends to specialize in and develop a specific ability based on one of the six forms of hatsu (specialized Nen usage): enhancement, emission, manipulation, conjuration, transmutation, and specialization. Furthermore, one can impose limits on their own powers in order to enhance them. Another way of looking at Nen (literally: Mind Force) is a mixture of aura and will. Thus, Nen is essentially a physical manifestation of one’s will which is why there are ultimately no boundaries to the possible forms that it can take (imagination being the only limiting factor in that regard). Subsequently, Nen powers are affected by their user’s mental state and might not work properly if he or she is scared, undetermined, and so on.
The Stands of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure combine many forms of magic together. It is predominantly a combination of Theurgy and Summon Magic, where Stands are materialized forms of their users' spirits and psyches. It also incorporates Rule Magic, as there are rules that all Stands follow, the most prominent being 1) People are limited to one Stand each, although a Stand can evolve into a more powerful form in certain conditions (Star Platinum, Echoes, Whitesnake and its evolutions, Tusk); 2) any damage incurred by a Stand is shared with its user, and vice versa (if a Stand loses a limb, the user will also lose the respective limb, and vice versa); 3) Stands are Invisible to Normals: only those with a Stand can see other Stands (unless the Stand is bound to a physical object) and appear as psychic phenomena to normals; and 4) A stand's strength is inversely proportional to how far away it can move from its user. The individual capabilities of Stands draw upon other forms of Functional Magic: Magician's Red uses Elemental Powers, specifically fire; Hermit Purple can use Divination in the form of psychography with cameras and televisions; Ebony Devil combines Device Magic with Black Magic, being bound to a doll and gaining power the more its user is injured; and Gold Experience can use Transmutation to turn objects into living creatures, just to name some examples. Stands also incorporate elements of Inherent Gift: many people are born naturally with Stands, while others can only acquire Stands by using the Bow and Arrow. But then there's people like Tonio Trussardi who spontaneously acquired his Stand because he wanted to further his culinary skills by studying various cooking techniques (albeit his brother had to be stabbed with the Arrow as well.
- The precursor to Stands, the Ripple, is a form of Force Magic and Rule Magic where the user harnesses their own innate life-force via special breathing techniques and convert it into other forms of energy, typically sunlight, the weakness of vampires, zombies, and Pillar Men. Technically, anyone can learn how to use the Ripple, but very few people manage as it requires precise breathing and willpower, which comes from surviving a tragedy and keeping fortitude. Ripple proficiency is also genetic, somehow. The applications of Ripple are incredibly varied, as demonstrated prominently in Part 2 by Joseph. The main weakness of Ripple is that it is reliant on proper breathing: if anything hampers breathing or the transmission of oxygen through the body, like blood loss, extreme cold, or good old fashion choking, then the user's Ripple weakens and eventually becomes inert.
- In the Steel Ball Run continuity, Spin replaces Ripple as the mystical power of the universe, and is a mix of Force Magic and Device Magic. Anyone can technically learn how to manipulate the Spin by learning how to rotate an object with respect to the golden rectangle, but it helps to have specially designed spherical objects to propagate Spin, as well as training to accurately use the objects as weapons by learning how to aim and throw them as well as anatomical training to know how to use the Spin to the intended purpose. Gyro Zeppeli uses Steel Balls, while Johnny Joestar learns how to use his own fingernails once he develops his Stand Tusk. The Super Spin is even more difficult in that one has to be travelling a certain speed on horseback to collect Spin from the horse itself.
Kagurabachi's system of magic uses Inherent Gift. Sorcerers are able to develop their own single unique sorcery through the use of Spirit Energy which "circulates" through their body after enough training. While anyone can train this Spirit Energy, specific bloodlines can also show greater natural talent, with several Clans able to pass on their sorcery consistently to their children. In general, a person's Spirit Energy is fully reliant on their state, mentally and physically, with doubts and lack of confidence sealing off Spirit Energy use as much as an unfit or unprepared body.
Kubera's system relies on incantations combined with mathematical calculations, which we can see during the flashbacks where Asha and Brilith are taking their magician certification exams. Magic is actually borrowed from the gods and a human's divine affinity determines how much they can accomplish with their spells. The alternative non-human system of transcendentals relies upon a user's own power and seems to be more limited in scope, with many transcendentals being unique to each user.
Lyrical Nanoha uses Inherent Rule Magic with Devices. A person has to be born with the ability to use magic but to be an effective mage, one needs to study up on the mathematical formulas that make up the various spells (Nanoha and Fate, two of the strongest mages in the series, are both math geniuses as well). And of course, there are the various Intelligent, Armed, and Storage Devices in the series that help a mage process said spells.
Naruto is a mix of Theurgy, Rule Magic, and Inherent Gift. While most of the techniques fall under Rule Magic (as they have to be studied, learned, and shaped to perform them), the Inherent Gifts (the various Bloodline Limits such as Byakugan and Sharingan) play a part too. The Theurgy comes into play in that the Summoning technique requires the summoner to sign a contract with the creature they're summoning.
Negima! Magister Negi Magi uses nearly every single magic style listed here, most likely because Ken Akamatsu is such an RPG fan. The largest magical source is Force Magic, as was once explained as magic being an ingrained part of all things, and that mages learn to harness this in creating or chanting spells, tying in with Rule Magic — mages usually use spells by chanting a magic release key and an often string of words, in Latin or some other ancient tongue. They sometimes use a catalyst for their spells. The abilities of the user can grow depending on the proximity to certain Places Of Power. They also used this with the Inherent Gift variety in that magic is also ingrained in the people who use it, meaning that at least half of all magic spells are based on the spell-caster's abilities. Theurgy is also used, in that the more sentient effects of magic (such as spells remaining active while the mage takes his mind off of it, or projectile spells continuing to fly after use) are explained as the work of ancient spirits watching over or advising the actions of living mages (making the series premise seem like less of a Contrived Coincidence). Finally, a mage's power can also be strengthened by holding or using certain powerful Devices, or some powerful spells can be represented by certain objects, such as the Pactio cards. Surprisingly, Akamatsu hasn't used elemental-style magic as strongly as most other magic series.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica uses a particularly nightmarish version of Equivalent Exchange. Magical Girls can do anything, but in doing so they accumulate an amount of taint of grief in their Soul Gem (it is hinted that some kind of karma is involved). Very bad things happen when the Soul Gem can no longer hold all the Grief. It takes Madoka's Abstract Apotheosis to break this cycle, remaking the universe at the cost of removing herself from it (mostly).
In keeping with its origins in Dungeons & Dragons, various forms of Functional Magic appear in Record of Lodoss War. Sorcerers use Rule Magic, priests use Theurgy, and elves use both Theurgy and Inherent Gifts. Device Magic in the form of magic swords, wands, and artifacts abounds.
Magic in Radiant involves harnessing Fantasia through tools to cast spells. Fantasia is an energy found in nature, which can only be seen and used by Sorcerers, that requires a Sorcerer to gather it from the surrounding environment and focus it to a specific point so that it can be used for spells. With training, a Sorcerer is able to accumulate and concentrate Fantasia more easily. Once the Fantasia has been gathered and focused, the Sorcerer carries out their will through imaging an emblem, with each emblem representing an action in the Sorcerer's mind, to execute the desired action through their spell. As a result, repeated association with a symbol makes it easier to produce that type of spell.
Scrapped Princess appears to use a form of theurgy, except the gods that are invoked are unthinking machines that follow commands without judgment.
Shaman King uses a Theurgy and Inherent Gift style way of summoning; most people can't see spirits, but some are naturally born with the ability to see them (Shamans). The Shaman can then make a deal with a spirit to act as a partner to them.
Slayers uses all of the above-listed types at some point. Most humans are restricted to Theurgy and Rule Magic with a bit of Alchemy thrown in for good measure. The Mazoku and Dragons use a combination of Inherent Gifts and Rule Magic. A lot of the Theurgy in this setting calls upon the really powerful Mazoku. Wild Magic shows up when Lina finds out that Giga Slave has the capability of actually summoning the Lord of Nightmares, Chaos herself, into the world, and if the casting is performed incorrectly, allows Chaos free rein to do anything she likes.
Sorcerer Stabber Orphen gives us Voice Magic, a simplified form of Magic Music where an incantation (which varies from person to person) simply needs to be spoken aloud in order to cast the spell. (In the English dub, not so much.) It also combines it with Inherent Gift as well -– in the manga, it is explained that Voice Magic originally belonged to the Noronir, one of six different races of dragons, and the only one to have bred with humanity; only those with Noronir descent have the ability to become sorcerors.
Soul Eater uses both Inherent Gift (with the witches) and Device Magic (with the Demon Tools).
Spiral energy from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is capable of freely manipulating the laws of physics when enough is present. It appears at first to be Device Magic (since no one was seen using it outside a Gunmen) but is actually Inherent Gift/Force Magic: every living being capable of evolution can produce it. Channelling is done through the user's fighting spirit which humanoid beings are naturally better at. The only viable tactic against Spiral-wielders is to demoralize them into despair. One more caveat is the Spiral Nemesis: while it can warp reality, Spiral energy can and will collapse the entire universe into a black hole if overused.
In Witch Hat Atelier, In Witch Hat Atelier, magic is cast through the use of magic circles called seals. Seals are drawn with the ink of the silver wood tree and are composed of three elements: an outer ring, which bounds the seal's contents and activates the spell, sigils, which specify the type of spell created, and signs, which control how a spell will manifest. Each sign and sigil has a unique behavior, and if several are combined within the same seal, their effects will stack. While it is a kind of Formulaic Magic, the general population has been deceived into believing it is of the Inherent Gift kind in a grand conspiracy.
Similarly to Beyblade above, when real magic is used in Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, it's a mixture of Theurgy, Device Magic, and Wild Magic. The Millennium Items of the first show and Shadow Charms of the second show are perfect examples of Device Magic (with a bit of Theurgy thrown in, in the form of ritual sacrifices and pact with whatever spirit is trapped in them), while the Duel Monsters themselves are the embodiment of Wild Magic (with the same Theurgy requirement to use their powers for real as the Items/Charms).
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's also uses Theurgy with the Signers, but it's not clear on where a lot of the other psychic/time-traveling peer comes from.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL also mixes Device Magic in the form of the number cards and — through use of energy being gods — Theurgy.

Comic Books

Most comic book universes are a Fantasy Kitchen Sink with all kinds of magic, but a mix of Force Magic and incantation-based Theurgy ("By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!") are common for comic book magic users. Device Magic, in the form of an Artifact of Doom MacGuffin, are frequent plot devices.
In the Astro City cosmos, magic runs on theurgy, with the god-like Entities commanding the fundamental forces of sorcery. Magicians call on the Entities' power to fuel their spells, offering rituals, prayers, sacrifice, etc. in return. Some of the Entities are selective, only allowing their power to be used for goals they're sympathetic to. The 'big seven', however, the seven eldest and most powerful Entities, will allow anyone who calls on them to use their power. In at least one Entity's case, spells calling on their power are to all intents and purposes contracts.
Marvel Comics' Doctor Strange, whose explicit title is "Master of the Mystic Arts," uses all of the above, including blood and sacrifice magic if necessary. (He doesn't like to do it, but he'll still do it).
The Grid isn't the only place-as-device in device magic. The Speed Force (a Force Magic) powers all DC Comics speedsters, regardless of their individual origins (which are deemed, in current continuity, to have given them not speed itself, but access to the Speed Force.)
A device that is both place and item is the Marvel Universe's M'Kraan crystal, though failed attempts to harness it can have extremely disastrous results for all of reality (perhaps making it a form of Rule Magic, which can become unpredictable when the 'rules' aren't followed.)
Monstress features three forms of inherent gift magic based on species: Some human women have Psychic Powers, most of them become witches of the Cumea. The Ancients and to a lesser extent their half-human Arcanic progeny possess magical command of the natural elements, and their bones produce a substance called Lillium that the Cumea harvest to produce strength and healing elixirs, even reanimating the dead in some cases. While some of the cats practice necromancy (or nekomancy).
Muktuk Wolfsbreath, Hard-Boiled Shaman is set in a world in which classic shamanism just plain works. (That's mostly summoning-based magic, with a lot of theurgy included and a mix of nature and necromantic aspects — working with natural and undead spirits.) The hero is essentially a professional magical technician, albeit with the mindset of a Hardboiled Detective.
Sand Mastery in White Sand is pretty strict in its rules. A Sand Master can control set number of "lines" of the eponymous white sand (how many depends on their power level), making the sand do what they wish, but this dehydrates the user and the sand turns black and useless after a while, taking several hours of exposure to the sun to "recharge".

Fan Works

Child of the Storm: The most prevalent kind is Inherent Gift, but you have Device Magic in the form of Mjolnir, the Darkhold, and the Green Lantern Ring. Force Magic and Theurgy are mentioned, with, apparently, Magic being a fundamental force of the universe, and there's an all-encompassing element of Wild Magic, with many characters noting that magic is just a tiny bit alive.
- Of the sub-schools, Elemental appears when Loki manipulates water and it turns out that Harry favours fire (both of them), though both also have some skills in other elemental areas. Necromancy appears more often than anyone would like, and Blood Magic pops up in the sequel.
In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, Ponder Stibbons has advanced, wothout any possible rivals even noticing, to the position of Vice-Chancellor of Unseen University - the second most powerful Wizard after Mustrum Ridcully. Ponder would be first to say he has got here by sheer accident ^noteMostly. He got an Assassin girlfriend, later wife, who did Political Theory and Practice with Lady T'Malia and saw the advantages before Ponder did. She also bodyguards him against rival Wizards trying to eliminate him and he isn't that interested in the power. What he is interested in, however, is Magitek - making magic work in everyday settings and harnessing it to things like the Disorganiser, the Thaumos Flask for keeping drinks hot or cold, and for running chilled cabinets or freezers in kitchen settings.^noteTaking the magic of long-gone Wizards like Fred Gydaire and using it safely. Ponder's wife is also financially hard-headed and makes sure he gets the patents and percentages on each item sold. Ponder's equivalent of the High Tower would be the High Energy Magic building and the Thaumatalogy Park.
- Elsewhere in the Pessimal Discworld, the very best broomstick technomancers - not all of them are Dwarfs - have been recruited as ground crew and Tekniks to the Air Watch. Their form of Magitek involves creating and maintaining the very best, state of the occult art, Broomsticks for the witches of the Air Service. Not magical in themselves, they understand how magic works. Vetinari and Sam Vimes ensure they work for the City and have unlimited R&D budgets and the very best ground facilities. Dwarfs such as the Messers Schmidt, Mig Oyeff and Mijnher van Fokker have come up with some superlative cutting-edge designs.
Ghosts and Dreams: All of the magic abilities Jae and Aegon have are the Inherent Gift kind.
- Jae is the most magical member to be born in either of his families for generations. He can't burn, has prophetic dreams, is bonded to a dragon egg (and will also be bonded to a direwolf), and, if this aligns with canon, may even be a warg. Many of the ghosts have noticed this, and after doing some speculating and math, believe this to be because he was conceived on the Isle of Faces, during Rhaegar and Lyanna's wedding night.
- While Aegon doesn't have as many magical gifts as Jae, he has arguably the most powerful one — he's a water wizard, allowing his to manipulate water in ways that people could only dream of. This is due to having more Martell (and thus, Rhoynar) blood than Jae, due to his biological mother being Elia Martell.
The Heart Trilogy: This series of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings fics features, in addition to the canon examples, a form of Wild Magic called Raw Magic. Seers like Kathryn are capable of seeing into all realities of past, present and future through Raw Magic which cannot be channelled, only released. Due to its erratic nature, Kathryn's visions are unpredictable when not induced with the right information. In Heart of Fire, Elrond confirms that unlike the magic the wizards utilize, Raw Magic needs energy from a living being's body in order to be cast, and Smaug further explains to Kathryn the difference between Raw Magic and the wizards' magic.
Smaug: View Magic as energy. Like life in your body, like lightning in a tempest, it is a force of nature, the very fabric of the world around us. When a wizard or a conjurer uses magic, he is tapping into that force, merely reaching out in order to grasp it. But grasping and using are not the same… Somewhere between grasping that force and it becoming real through the wizard's staff, the magic becomes diluted, more focused, going only in the direction that the wielder aims it. Raw magic is not plucked and not channeled, it is fresh, wild, and completely erratic. It cannot be controlled or directed, merely released. Think of it as air: when a human blows air from his lungs he can control its direction, and that is regular magic; but with raw magic… have you ever seen a mortal man control the gale force winds?
Holo-Chronicles:
- Most magic is a layered form of Force Magic with possible Rule Magic elements. When casting a spell, one utilizes magic to command one of four metaphysical forces (mystical energy (general things like Elemental Magic and the Mystic Arts as a whole), etherial energy (soul shenanigans and Necromancy, found in areas where things have died), astral energy (Light 'em Up, only found in space), and divine energy (pretty self-explanatory)), which are then used to bend the world in accordance to the MPF in use.
- Vessels tend to use Device Magic, their connection to the Ancient One they are bound to being facilitated by a specific object that may also double as a type of Spell Book (note Ina's connecting item being a literal book that lists her spells). Also counts as Theurgy, specifically when the Ancient One takes over their vessel.
- Traits and authorities both fall under Inherent Gifts, with both of them being innate and unique to the specific individual. The former specifically is a type of Inherent Gift that continuously changes and evolves with the user to suit them perfectly.
Hybrid Theory (C&A Productions):
- There is a lot of time spent discussing how everything works through the First Circle (Natural reality and the art of causing excessively improbable things to happen through Chi), the Second Circle (Impossible things that have precedent, willed into being through Magic), the Third Circle (Concepts forcing themselves to be and always have been at the expense of gaining Paradox). Each Circle is very vulnerable to the one 'above' it.
- Aaron wrote a lot about how he believed chi worked across various manga and it appears that the new world he's arrived in follows his Five Chakra system exactly, even though the local expert, Doctor Tofu, has only discovered part of how it works and how it can be used to boost abilities.
  - Wind Chakra – temple – intellect, speed, and agility.
  - Water Chakra – sternum - health and vitality.
  - Earth Chakra - stomach - stamina and resistance.
  - Fire Chakra – crotch – passion and strength.
  - Void Chakra – the aura outside the body – perception.
The Last Draconequus:
- Madonna, Principle of Motherhood and mother of Discord, displays a Rules Magic variety. She is unable to use her magic for herself. She can only use it for the direct good of her children, like making a cup of unlimited chocolate milk for Discord.
With Strings Attached:
- Inherent Gift—very rare (all the in-book examples are from outside the universe).
- New Zork is almost nothing but Inherent Gift, except for a couple of spells, like silence, that are “commercially available.”
- Alchemy. “God bless healing potions!”
- Force Magic—the wizards of C'hou tap into the kvar, or Field, the raw magic that surrounds everything; they weave it through their bodies and any “spellfuel,” then release it to do whatever. They don't always succeed, either. Paul has learned three spells this way.
- Device Magic, ranging from household magic (e.g., glowstones) to useful adventurers' things like self-propelled boats to legendary relics like the Kansael.
- The Hunter relies exclusively on Device Magic, but there are other forms in his world.

Films — Animated

Aladdin (1992, Disney): Jafar, who at first has access to Alchemy and Device Magic (the staff, which loses its power when broken — the Magic Carpet is another example of a Device), and the Genie, who being a supernatural creature counts as a Theurge. When Jafar has the Genie turn him into "the most powerful sorcerer in the world", he has more powerful Innate Gift powers of transmutation and the like, but he's still less powerful than the Genie until he wishes to be a genie himself (albeit "an all-powerful" one).

Films — Live-Action

Marvel Cinematic Universe: has various beings that can use magic, either through study or using artifacts. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness establishes that there are at least two distinct types of magic; Sorcery, which is what the students in Kamar-Taj practice, and Witchcraft, which is used by Wanda Maxifmoff and has runes as a feature.
The Force in the Star Wars universe is, of course, an example of Force Magic. Considering that Jedi are basically clergy with lightsabers, there's an element of Theurgy as well.

Literature

As stated above, Force Magic, when explained in detail, can sometimes shade into Science Fiction. If, for instance, a space traveler from a high-tech culture lands on a planet with "magic" that turns out to have a scientific justification (or more commonly a Hollywood Science justification), then it's usually revealed to be either Magic from Technology or Psychic Powers. Warlock of Gramarye and The Cyborg and the Sorcerers both use this premise.
A Certain Magical Index:
- The main theory in magic is "Idol Theory", a form of The Law of Contagion and thus a form of Rule Magic where an "idol" or a duplicate of a holy object receives power from the actual object. That is, if one were to make a duplicate of the cross on which Christ died, the duplicate will receive power from the actual cross, although it's a very small fraction, similar to how the Sun provides energy to solar panels, but the solar panels cannot reach the same amount of energy that the actual Sun provides.
- Due to Idol Theory, Device Magic is employed to make use of it.
- Force Magic is alluded to occasionally; Volume 14 has mentions of ley lines, and mana and telesma are mentioned as sources of magic power.
- Index uses Magic Music and mental codes to cast spells.
- The espers also effectively fall into this, being Inherent Gift magic under a different name. Subverted in that they eventually figured out (before the series started) how to artificially "gift" people.
- God's Right Seat uses a limited form of Theurgy combined with the Idol Theory above — each of them has a particular angel from which they draw their powers, and a special ability derived from a certain aspect of God.
Trudi Canavan's The Age of the Five trilogy uses force magic powered by a Background Magic Field, which can be temporarily depleted. Whether one can wield this magic, and to what degree, appears to be a totally random inherent gift. There's also an odd kind of wild magic, in that the gods are effectively beings of magic.
The magic in the Alex Verus series seems to be of the 'Inherent Gift' type. Mages can use one and only one type of magic, which is determined by their personality. The protagonist uses divination, elemental magic seems to be common, and other types are hinted at. The author describes the system here.
Magic works in Selenoth, the world of The Arts of Dark and Light, and functions much like a simple extension of natural laws, for the most part predictable and quantifiable. Consequently, wizards in this world resemble scientists in many ways (though with some remnants of superstitious trappings). What we would call spiritual phenomena exist, but they are also treated somewhat materialistically. For example, immaterial souls survive the death of the body, but wizards with the right magical equipment can analyze and even destroy them, too. This makes the supernatural world of the divine the great mystery of the setting, instead: no wizard-scientist, no matter how learned or wise, has so far been able to understand God.
In The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, magic is based entirely on Theurgy, although the practice of summoning and bargaining with djinn and other entities is governed by numerous Rule Magic-style elements (incantations, pentagrams, runes, etc.). Magical Devices, including several of great plot significance, get their power from having potent magical beings imprisoned inside them. Interestingly, magicians have conspired to conceal the theurgical source of their power from "commoners", playing up the Rule Magic aspects and heavily implying Inherent Gift (an outright lie). Among the titular djinni's greatest complaints about magicians (and, by extension, all humans) is that they take credit for everything that the summoned spirits (not demons, whatever the magicians say) do. Additionally, the spirits summoned have their own powers, like Detonations. They can also shapeshift, and both would be considered to be Inherent Gifts. All spirits can do these to some degree.
- In a very cool inverted example, a human is summoned to the spiris' realm. Just like the summoned spirits are endangered by staying in our world too long (they lose power over time), humans lose cohesion in the spirit world, eventually to a lethal extent. Spirits are much better able to survive in our world than we in theirs; mid-strength ones can be on the job for years on end without dying, but a human can't stay in the spirit realm for more than about an hour without dying, less to avoid permanent damage. By induction from this example, Theurgy is itself, on a meta-level, Force Magic - humans and our realm are order, whereas spirits and their realm are disorder. Bringing spirits into the human world pains them by defining them, but they have powers to break the "rules" of science, whereas bringing humans to the spirit world damages the spirits because the humans bring order along for the ride, and damages the humans when they begin to comprehend and work with the disorder of that realm.
David Eddings' The Belgariad uses several different types. The primary one is sorcery, which tends to defy description (Inherent Gift comes close, though), since the practitioner can basically do nearly anything (subject to personal power). Other examples include Theurgy (witchcraft and magic, which involve summoning and cajoling/controlling nature spirits and demons, respectively) and apparently Rule Magic (wizardry).
- Belgarath explains in the follow-up series The Malloreon that there are several different ways of 'tampering with the nature of things', although his comments on Morindim magic in Belgarath the Sorcerer give the impression that it's just a form of (extremely dangerous) sorcery wrapped up in nonsensical rituals which are only necessary because the magicians believe they are. Perhaps they never figure that out because the average lifespan of a Morindim magician is short, usually ended by being eaten by a demon they lost control of, or another magician's demon.
- Magicians are 'sublime egomaniacs who view the very existence of other magicians as a mortal insult', so they're not big on cooperating or sharing knowledge.
Brandon Sanderson likes playing around with inventive and well-established magic systems in all his works:
- Mistborn series features three different functional systems, all of which require a genetic knack and the use of various types of metal:
  - Chief among them is Allomancy. Here, a small amount of the corresponding metal eaten and then "burned" to produce an effect. Most Allomancers, called Mistings, can produce the specific effect produced by burning one type of metal. Mistborn, on the other hand, can burn any of the metals to produce its effect (not all metals provide powers, however).
  - Feruchemy allows users to store up their own traits like strength, weight or sense in a "metalmind" and then withdraw equal amounts of those traits later. As above, each type of metal corresponds to a specific trait. In the original Trilogy, everyone who can use Fercuhemy has access to all types of metal, while in the Sequel Series Ferrings with the ability to use a single type of metalmind exist.
  - Hemalurgy uses metal spikes to steal specific abilities or attributes from one person (including Allomantic and Feruchemical powers) and give them to another by killing the first person with the spike then piercing the second person with it. Unlike the first two arts (which are Inherent Gifts), Hemalurgy can be used by anyone with the right knowledge. This is by far the least explored of the systems in the series, but precise applications of this art has been used to create entirely new species.
- In Elantris, all magic is Force Magic powered by an energy called the Dor. There are several ways to access this energy with different results — the Elantrians draw complex runic structures in the air in a system call AonDor to achieve a wide variety of magical effects. The art of Chay Shan can provide temporary bursts of strength and speed, and the Monks of Dakhor use a combination of runes and blood sacrifice to gain various powerful abilities. The novella The Emperor's Soul, which takes place in the same world, introduces two more- Forgery, where an individual rewrites an object's history with a plausible alternative that is encoded into a magical stamp which is used on the object, and Bloodsealing, a form of necromancy that uses similar stamps to reanimate the dead, which have the ability to track anyone whose blood they've sampled. All of these magic systems share the use of specific symbols to access magical force, as AonDor, Forging, and Bloodsealing involve carefully writing out the specific effect one wants to have, while Chay Shan and Dakhor magic involve making the shapes with one's body instead. In Chay Shan, this is done with a martial-arts-like routine of movements, while the Dakhor system involves human sacrifices which will cause the target's bones to grow and twist to form the necessary shapes to give them superhuman powers.
- In Warbreaker the main form of magic is called BioChroma — it draws on an energy called Breath (all people are born with one breath they can give away, but cannot be forcibly taken) and colors in the environment to bring organic inanimate objects to life. Generally speaking they can be given only one simple command to follow, but animated corpses called Lifeless have intelligence similar to a robot or computer and can be "programmed" with more complex commands. Breath can be reclaimed and reused from objects, but not from Lifeless. In at least one instance a fully sentient object with was created from an inorganic object (a sword), but this took a great deal of power and doesn't seem to be something that could easily be recreated, if at all, and definitely did not work out as the creators intended.
- In The Stormlight Archive, the magic we've seen so far (only four of ten books have been released) is powered by the titular Stormlight which is infused into gemstones by highstorms, which can be used to run devices called fabrials. Soulcasters are the most relevant form of fabrials, allowing the user to transform objects from one material to another, creating food, metal, or stone structures easily. Some people, called Knights Radiant, who are bonded to specific types of spren (spirits) can draw out the Stormlight from the gems to use as Mana to fuel magical abilities called Surgebinding. There are ten surges, only two of which can be accessed by any given type of Radiant. Gravitation (which allows the user to change the effect of gravity on a person or object) and Adhesion (which allows binding objects together, as well as "binding" people, to allow them to understand each other's languages) are the two surges most heavily featured this far in the series, although Illumination (which can be used to create illusions) is also used heavily. As it turns out, Soulcasting can be accomplished by certain Radiants or with Fabrials, although how the Fabrials duplicate this functionality is unclear.
- All of the above takes place in the same universe, The Cosmere. Although these magic systems all have major differences, they are all built upon an underlying set of rules with significant consistencies between all the systems (for example, all of them use the same energy, called Investiture, as a power source, and a human must be "Invested" somehow to use any kind of magic).
In The Broken Crescent, the Language of the Gods is the programming language of reality, and speaking or writing it causes magical effects.
A lot of the flavor in The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump comes from its ubiquitous use of Theurgy, as it name-drops various gods, faeries and spirits constantly. Depending on the being invoked, a given spell may also constitute Rule Magic, Summoning, Alchemy, Transmutation, Equivalent Exchange, or White or Black Magic. When bound to objects, such as flying carpets or elevator shafts, spirits become catalysts for Device Magic.
Castle Hangnail uses a mix of rule magic and inherent gift—magic is mostly done with spells and artifacts, but the spells and artifacts won't work for someone who doesn't possess a magical gift. And some spells won't work for a person with the wrong kind of gift; there are spells that Sorceresses can do but Witches can't and vice versa. It's mentioned that only someone with the rare inherent gift for Necromancy can get the spell to raise the dead to work and that this is a good thing because the spell itself is quite simple and doesn't require any exotic ingredients. A person who does possess a magical gift may have one piece of magic they can do without any external aids; Molly, the protagonist, can turn invisible just by holding her breath.
Teresa Edgerton's Celydonn contains different types. Even people who are considered learning disabled in-story (see The Castle of the Silver Wheel) are expected to know the difference between witchcraft and wizardry, so it is never explained by any Mr. Exposition.
- Witchcraft is explicitly stated to be the result of an inherent gift for harnessing Wild Magic, which also appears to be Force Magic. In all three volumes of the Celydonn trilogy, it is stated (in varying degrees of detail) that both men and women can possess a talent for witchcraft. In women, the inherent gift usually manifests in early childhood, and in places like Mochdreff, where witchcraft is accepted, it is then subjected to training. In men, the inherent gift is usually latent unless some shock sets it off when it manifests full-blown (and is often associated with mental instability).
- The science of wizardry is Rule Magic. From the conversation between Lord Cado and Gwenlliant in The Castle of the Silver Wheel, it appears that anyone can study it without necessarily possessing an inherent gift.
- One may be both a witch (or warlock) and a wizard. All Adepts are both.
Trainee (child) magicians in Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci books learn rule-based, force, and device magic at school. Mistakes can lead to wild results (and punishment). It is implied that anyone can manage the simplest device magics, although Cat fails miserably probably because Enchanter's magic is demonstrably quite different. Even Janet who is from a related non-magical universe can grasp the basics.
Several kinds from the Chronicles of the Kencyrath. Shanir, like heroine Jame and her twin brother Tori, have Inherent Gift, granting them powers that can range from healing to claws to supernatural bad luck. Priests use theurgy (if they're of the Three Faced God) or force magic (of the other gods, as those gods are actually shaped from ambient energy by their followers' beliefs). Then there is the world itself, which is filled with wild magic, which powers both supernatural events and creatures and can be tapped in to by sorcerers (like Matriarch Rawneth) via rule magic.
Magic in C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia is usually Rule Magic using words, gestures, and other symbols, although some devices exist, such as Susan's horn and Jadis' wand. Hints of necromancy exist. Divination is practiced — most often by centaurs. One witch also uses mentalism, magic music, and shape-shifting. The character Aslan uses an inherent gift to create almost any effect he desires since he's actually Lewis' allegory for God the Son. However Aslan states that he has limitations with his magic, but these limitations are self-imposed. He says he "follows his own rules." Aslan himself also used song in order to create Narnia.
- Jadis' species (said to be a cross between giants and Jinn) also possess an Inherent Gift. Jadis also states that in the world of Charn, Rule Magic was outlawed and only those with Inherent Gifts were allowed to practice magic. Outside of Charn, however, the Inherent Gift doesn't work, so Jadis is forced to use Device Magic with a wand in Narnia, and is rendered magically powerless when Edmund destroys it near the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Magic in Chronicles of the Raven is a combination of the Rules Magic and Elemental Magic varieties. Long study and preparation are required, but ultimately spells are triggered by saying the name of the spell. Most of the common ones cast involve one element or another (e.g. Earth Hammer, Hot Rain).
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson uses Rule, Force, Device, and Wild Magic. In an odd subversion, the most commonly used rule magic, called "Earthpower," is actually a conscious wild magic that voluntarily submits to control by words and devices, whereas what is called "wild magic" in the book is actually force magic released from matter and controlled by the mind of the one wielding the white gold.
The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce had ambient and academic magic. Both are inherent, but academic magic is more rule-based, while ambient magic is more nature magic with some aspects of wild magic.
- To clarify, ambient magic is more like Force Magic. The key difference is that an academic mage mostly has their power come from inside themselves and thus are free to pick a magical specialty. An ambient mage already has their power tied up with something, which can range from plants to weather to even dancing, and rely more on drawing power from outside sources. Whereas academic mages have trouble building up their powers, ambient mages struggle to control a great deal of power that's constantly flowing into them. Also ambient mages only account for 25% of the mage population and most "magic sniffers" don't recognize ambient magic in children. In fact, most people aren't even aware of ambient magic's existence.
- Also, all magic is inherently somewhat wild, as it's made clear that you can't really defy nature, and doing so has disastrous consequences.
- There's explicitly mentioned device magic. Mages are able to make objects that Muggles can use for magical effects.
From Codex Alera, the human civilization uses a strange mix of inherent gift and theurgy (elemental spirits called furies do all the heavy lifting, but all Alerans have the innate ability to summon and command them). In the same world, the Canim Ritualists use rule magic powered by blood, while the Marat have the inherent gift of forming empathic bonds with other life forms.
Erna, the world of The Coldfire Trilogy, is saturated by a mystical energy called the Fae, which responds to the human subconscious. Humans can learn to manipulate the Fae via rule magic, becoming sorcerers, and some are born with the inherent gift of seeing the patterns of the Fae, making them natural sorcerors (these people are referred to as Adepts). It's also possible to break the normal rules of magic after making a sacrifice of some sort- the greater the sacrifice, the greater the power. All Fae can be considered Wild Magic. There are four basic kinds of Fae:
- The Earth Fae is the most commonly used and is comparatively stable. Most human sorcerors and adepts use this kind of Fae.
- The Dark Fae is only accessible at night or underground (hence its name- it is far more powerful than the Earth Fae, but also far more volatile- humans who aren't careful can end up causing it to spawn horrors simply through undisciplined thought. It is usable, with difficulty, but the only real master of it is Gerald Tarrant. Generally considered Black Magic. The eponymous coldfire is the essence of the Dark Fae.
- The Tidal Fae is connected to the motions of the planet Erna itself. Its power varies greatly- sometimes it is the most powerful form of Fae, and sometimes it's barely there at all. Humans can't use it, but the Rakh can, especially the females, who do so instinctively. In the second book, it is revealed that some human adepts are beginning to be born who can use this form of Fae.
- The Solar Fae is connected to the sun and is immensely powerful, but can only be accessed through acts of tremendous faith on the part of humans. The church of the One God, though it frowns on most forms of Fae, maintains stockpiles of weapons and artifacts which have been empowered by the Solar Fae. Generally considered White Magic.
Magic in Robert E. Howard's Conan and Kull stories seems to be Rules Magic, usually focused in a device like Thoth-amon's ring or the Heart of the Elephant. Alchemy also plays a big role. And it's always Black.
In The Craft Sequence the eponymous Craft is Force Magic, powered by different sources, with the gods of the setting drawing from the souls of their followers, and Craftspeople drawing from starlight and the earth itself. These power sources let Rule Magic work, in the form of contracts, which further allows Device Magic, Theurgy, and other magical effects to work.
There is magic in Dance of the Butterfly, and it works. Though largely unexplained, it is mainly used to enhance abilities or weapons.
Jack L. Chalker's Dancing Gods series combines Theurgy with ludicrously elaborate Rule Magic and takes them to their humorous extreme, resulting in a universe entirely governed by fantasy tropes.
Harry Turtledove's Darkness Series, which depicts an alternate, magic version of the Second World War, uses Rule Magic (spells are weakened by proximity to water, while they are powered up when close to "Ley Lines") and Device Magic ("sticks" and "eggs", magical equivalents of guns and bombs, respectively), as well as some forms of Alchemy. The Nazi-analogue Algarvians also make use of a kind of Black Magic toward the end of the war, as a last resort; it's powered by mass human sacrifice, drawing upon the many ethnic prisoners they took over the course of the conflict. There's also a magical Manhattan Project, utilising heavily mathematical and rigorous investigation of the fundamental laws of magic, much akin to the study of physics.
In Barbara Hambly's Darwath books, and her Ferryth books, mages possess an inherent gift, which must then be developed with training in Rule Magic.
David Weber:
- In The War Gods series, magic is done by manipulating the energy contained within just about everything, á la Force magic. The catch is that energy in inanimate things like rocks is harder to manipulate than in animate things like people. There's also something called "wild magic" that just lets the wild mage use all kinds of energy effortlessly. Those devoting themselves to a particular god may also get power from him/her.
- Hell's Gate series, co-written with Linda Evans the mages of Arcana draw on something very like The Force. They also can spells in batteries to power various devices.
Played pretty straight in Destined to Lead, even going so far as to outright state what the rules are. Interestingly though, unlike most Rule magic, one of the rules is 'There are no such things as magic words, magic is conducted solely by feeling, so everyone can say whatever they want.' Hence- you get spells like "Burn!" and "Ha-shè!" in the same book.
The witches and wizards of Terry Pratchett's Discworld typically avoid using magic, since it's ultimately all wild magic, so there's no guarantee exactly what will happen when you use it. When they do use it there tends to be a certain amount of rule magic to it, and the rules are often made more complicated by the wizards themselves, who invented most of them so that laypeople wouldn't get the idea that magic was easy and start trying it themselves — that, and all the spectacle and paraphernalia of magic really impresses the non-wizards.
- The main reason behind this attitude is that the last time magic was used so casually, it led to the Mage Wars, which almost destroyed the world:
  - That's why [magic] was left to wizards, who knew how to handle it safely. Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards — not "not doing magic" because they couldn't do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn't. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn't been quite as clever as that, and on many of them, the grass would never grow again.
- When left unsupervised, wizards- even failed wizards like Rincewind- start building towers so they can Fantastic Nuke the surrounding area and rival towers, or in the case of necromancers, hide in dark caves somewhere to practice their art. Which is why the Colleges of magic are necessary, both to keep the wizards occupied via politics and intrigue (less dangerous than a fireball duel, and way more fun) and to have official members of the Department of Post-Mortem Communications (who are NOT necromancers, despite appearances) investigate caves to throw fireballs at the aforementioned (unsanctioned) necromancers.
- In The Science of Discworld series, HEX, the nearest thing to a magically-driven supercomputer, matures and comes into his own as a directing entity initially developed to perform millions of magical operations very quickly. HEX appears to be the sanest and most competent intelligence in Unseen University and something that can handle advanced magics safely and reliably. And with full awareness of the consequences of getting it wrong. A HEX analog devised by a rival institution, seen in Unseen Academicals, comes adrift, however, and behaves very erratically to the detriment of the city of Pseudopolis. Twenty-foot tall chickens are involved.
In Doctrine of Labyrinths, there's a little bit of everything. Most of the wizards/practitioners have an Inherent Gift (and the ungifted are called annemers), and how/why they use their magic very strictly depends on the school to which they belong. One of the main characters, Felix, has an extremely powerful inherent gift and uses Rule Magic to get what he wants done, except, according to his school, the Cabaline, any use of magic upon a fellow human is heresy. Furthermore, the Cabaline also use a device called the Virtu to anchor and channel their spells. Another group, the Corambin practitioners, use a combination of Inherent Gift, Rule Magic, Force Magic and Device Magic to manipulate what they call "aether" or "vi" that exists in all things, or to power some very cool steampunk devices. Yet another nation, the Troians, have an entire sect devoted to Divination and dream magic, and even have a sort of celestial garden in which dreamers can sort of, you know, hang out; yet another sect of wizards use Tarot cards for divination. There is also a discussion about what magic is, really. Felix defines it as an elemental, ambient force manipulated via metaphors; there can be good metaphors, or harmful metaphors, but bad metaphors simply won't work. There is also an interesting dichotomy between light and dark magic, clairance and noirance. It is explicitly said that clairance isn't necessarily good, nor is clairance necessarily bad; they exist as two differing categories of magic. Felix, himself, is particularly gifted in noirant magic; he's a natural at necromancy and uses his gift to lay the dead to sleep. Finally, there's some Summoning Magic involved: one could summon an evil spirit, called a rachenant or fantome, to do one's bidding, but it will generally subsume the summoner's will or one could just latch on to you because you look tasty.
Steven Brust's Dragaera series has four different kinds of Force Magic:
- Sorcery, where the force comes from raw chaos filtered through the Imperial Orb.
- Pre-empire sorcery, where the force comes directly from raw chaos.
- Witchcraft, where the force is the caster's own psychic energy manipulated by rituals.
- Psychics, where the force is the caster's own psychic energy manipulated directly by the mind.
Dragon Keeper Trilogy: there are Sorcerers and Necromancers and Seers and Qi-users. Necromancy and Sorcery is unexplained, but Qi is force-magic. Everyone has qi(life force) and can make use of it through proper training. However, a bit of good ancestry never hurts.
In Dragonlance Wizards use Rule Magic (which is really just Vancian Magic, as the setting is a DnD setting), Primal Sorcerers and Mystics could be considered to use a form of Force magic, and Clerics use Theurgy. There is also Device Magic in the form of many magic items. Technically speaking, Wizards get their magic from the gods of Wizardry.
The Dreamside Road: Shaping was heavily studied in-universe, so much so that the IHSA designed a level system to track student Shapers’ progress.
- Sucora Cloud left a series of films for her niece, Enoa, for the young woman to study Shaping, if she chooses.
The Dresden Files magic includes most types:
- Inherent Gift: Everyone has some spark of magic in them and can manipulate magic - in Backup Thomas says anyone can learn it to some degree or another, comparing his own skills to Harry's as taking a six-month correspondence course to having Ph.Ds from three separate Ivy League schools. There is also some measure of hereditary talent passed on matrilineally. However, if the talent is outright rejected by the time you reach a certain point in your life you lose it altogether, and you lose the ability to pass it on to your descendants. Molly Carpenter narrowly avoided this deadline; her mother rejected her magical talent because she got in deep with some a dark magical cult as a young woman, and narrowly avoided being sacrificed to a dragon for power by its leader, before being saved by her future husband, Sir Michael Carpenter, Knight of the Cross. After that, she buried her power, associating it with dark magic - unsurprising, given her awful experiences with it. She became a deeply religious woman, and, well, the Bible does say a bunch of nasty stuff about witches, which is discussed in a later book - though her objections seem to mostly be rooted in the danger her daughter is exposing herself to.
- Theurgy: Various demons, faeries, and other things have been summoned. This is generally a bad idea because they are rarely happy about it. There are also rites, described as a magical vending machine. Mess up a rite and the sponsor being gets upset.
- Rule Magic/Force Magic: Most spells are a weird combination of all three. Magic is described as more of a power source that wizards tap into, magic words are just to help them control it. Use words that are too familiar to you, use magic without proper concentration, or just plain screw up and it can go bonkers. Meaning it does everything from not working, to random explosions, to giving you a seizure. Familiarity is a problem because magic is all about what you believe and think in the Dresdenverse. Associate giant balls of napalm too closely with the word "fire" and you have problems of the insurance variety.
- Alchemy: All potions are made with seven ingredients (one for each of the five senses, one for the mind, and one for the soul), plus a liquid base. What the ingredients are varies between potions and wizards, are mostly symbolic and suited to the Urban Fantasy setting, and aren't always physical objects. In one instance, Harry makes a teleportation potion out of Jolt cola, an old bus ticket, some motor oil, a bird's feather, chocolate-covered espresso beans, a small broken chain, a flickering shadow, and the sound of mice scampering.
- Device Magic: Wizards can enchant items, using one of two methods. Either cheap, short-term enchantments that need recharging or more expensive permanent enchantments. Apparently misuse or improper enchanting can lead to anyone using the object getting seriously surprised.
- Divination: Future sight does happen, but it's generally too vague to help before it's immediately useful. Some wizards have a short-ranged future sight, often to about three seconds, though they see what's likely to happen, not a deterministic path. Doing divination outright violates one of the Laws of Magic, and as such is grounds for summary execution.
- There is a specific attribute of certain beings called "Intellectus" which is seemingly a form of limited omniscience. They don't know everything all the time, however they will know the answer to any question through virtue of asking it. Harry compares to a normal person who would have to go through the process of solving a quadratic equation, whereas a being with Intellectus would just look at the problem and know the answer without having to actually go through the process of solving it. It is also mentioned that beings who have this ability are ridiculously old and powerful. You can also gain this ability by becoming Warden of Demonreach, though in that case, it only works on the island, and related to island-specific things, such as being able to know where and how many people-or other things-are on the island.
- Elemental Magic: Most wizards specialize in a certain area of magic. Harry prefers fire and force spells for example. Harry used to use wind magic a lot, but this got mostly downplayed in later books, though he returns to it in Skin Game.
- Necromancy: Generally frowned upon, but not inherently evil. Using human corpses is evil because it allows a wizard control over another person, a big no-no in the Dresdenverse. The line of reasoning is that you think along the lines of what you do, and when what you do is enslave dead people to your will, you aren't thinking happy thoughts.
- There are also Ectomancers, people capable of speaking to ghosts. A highly skilled ectomancer, as we discover in Ghost Story, is capable of doing all kinds of other cool things with ghosts as well.
- White Magic: What all "normal" magic is called. Also means legal magic.
- Black Magic: Two things get called black magic. One is normal magic tainted by being used in evil ways (to kill other people, mind-control them, etc.). The other is a special power source, described as nauseating and vile, used by vampires (Red and Black Court, at least) and those wizards who have tapped into Kemmler's form of necromancy — pretty much the ultimate in The Dark Arts in the setting.
- Equivalent Exchange: Basis of a spell's power. A wizard can either use their own energy, stored energy in an enchanted object, or the ambient energy around them (Harry once froze water by sucking the energy from it).
Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series:
- Uses the True Name system, practiced by wizards who have an Inherent Gift, but still have to spend years learning all the Names in the Language of Magic (which is also the Language of Truth, except when dragons are talking). Although no human can live long enough to learn literally all. One nice touch is that names change from place to place—a powerful spell from one end of the world will fizzle and die at the other.
- A kind of Equivalent Exchange is discussed in one book: Ged is inquiring about the ability to change ordinary rocks into diamonds, which is apparently possible. The instructor's response is that Ged should consider what the consequences would be if all the islands in Earthsea were changed into diamonds since the rocks they used to be comprised of would then be lost. This makes it easy to see how Reality Warping Is Not a Toy.
David Eddings's The Elenium and The Tamuli take place in a world where spells are a form of Theurgy. The incantations are in fact specially-worded prayers to a specific patron deity. If the deity is amenable to the request, they use their power to carry out the wish. The deity themselves receives power from the belief of their followers.
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede uses:
- Rule Magic — Telemain the magician makes a study of every type of magic he can lay his hands on, analyzing spells and altering them or creating new ones in his own field. His focus is almost entirely theoretical (at one point, he declares he's "in research"), causing him to constantly spout magical technobabble and get distracted by the magic he comes across. Morwen the witch approaches spells rather like cooking, just follow the recipe and you're done. She is less focused on the theoretical side, though she is just as keen to examine the wizards' staffs as Telemain and insists on a thorough explanation of his wizard-melting spell. This seems to apply to wizards, witches, enchanters/enchantresses, sorcerers/sorceresses, and humans like Cimorene who use dragon spells.
- Wild Magic — the Enchanted Forest itself fits the description of Wild Magic, as does Mendanbar's semi-sentient sword.
- Device Magic — magic mirrors, which play a large part. Also, witches and magicians are said to get their power from magical objects and ceremonies.
- Inherent Gift — certain sorts of magic users, such as dragons and firewitches, are born "generating" their own magic.
- Force Magic — mostly Mendanbar and Daystar, who are able to sense the "shape" of magic and manipulate it at will. Also, their powers stem directly from the "ambient magic" of the Enchanted Forest, making it much more difficult for them to cast spells while outside of it.
In An Exercise in Futility, Conservation of Mass and Energy is tweaked to include magic. A chemical called seidrium stores magical potential. With proper training, seidrium can be converted to just about anything.
In Fairy Oak, magic is divided into two natures: Dark, which can destroy and kill, and Light, which can heal, repair, and give vitality. All Magicals are capable of flight (during the day for Magicals of the Light, and at night for the ones of the Dark), and various transformations which are, again, limited by the nature of their magic. Magic has some strict inheritance rules, such as magic passing only from aunts and uncles to the children of their siblings, and perfect twins not being able to inherit magic powers. Going against these laws would result in the offending Magical being turned into a tree for eternity. In every generation, there is one person who possesses the Infinite Power, which is the nature of magic in on itself. They are very powerful, but can't live normally amongst other humans, while normal Magicals can live peacefully with non-Magicals.
In Forging Divinity, there are multiple magic systems.
- Dominion Sorcery is a type of Force Magic, drawing upon extraplanar power sources, as well as extracting a related cost from the user. For example, Flame Sorcerers draw on their own body heat in order to cause the Dominion of Flame — the external force — to create an effect.
- Core Sorcery is a form of Transmutation magic; it allows someone to manipulate materials or magic that are already present in the world. Taelien, for example, uses Core Sorcery to manipulate metal.
- Edon's apparent divinity may actually be a third type of magic, Artifact Sorcery, that draws power from ancient magical items.
Sorcery is only known to work on the planet of Ivory in Doris Egan's The Gate of Ivory, and it works under very specific formulas and principles, a form of Rule Magic, although the knowledge is hidden in arcane metaphors and coded treatises to preserve trade secrets. Not everyone has a talent for sorcery, but it does seem to be hereditary. Ran, one of the protagonists, suggests that it might be the result of alien tampering with human genetics.
All magic in Larry Correia's Grimnoir Chronicles is force magic in that it's based on a symbiotic relationship with the Power, an other dimensional being Made of Magic and having vast... power but it's expressed in two different ways. Acives express it through Inherent Gift while kanji and runes are a form of Rules Magic that give powers to non-Actives, increase the power of Actives or give an Active a power they wouldn't otherwise have.
Harry Potter books use Inherent Rule Magic plus Alchemy, plus a number of magic devices, though it has been hinted that this sort of magic is just the beginning. The Unforgivable Curses would be Black Magic achieved through Rule Magic, Force Magic, or some combination thereof. Lily Potter's mysterious protective magics for Harry are explicitly described as Blood Magic, and most fans interpret it as the self-sacrifice variety. There are also traces of Wild Magic in instances such as the Ford Anglia spontaneously gaining sentience.
- We also have Magic Music from the Merpeople. Really, Harry Potter uses all forms of magic except for Theurgy. And even then, if the (unconfirmed) legends about the Peverell Brothers of old receiving the Hallows from a personification of Death are true, there might be some of that as well.
In Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett's Havemercy magicians of Volstov have Inherent Gifts powered by Force Magic from a source called "the Well". There are also mechanical dragons. Ke-Han magicians use Elemental Magic but how they power and/or focus it is a mystery.
He Who Fights With Monsters: Magic comes in two broad categories; essence magic and ritual magic. Essence magic is internal and comes directly from the user, making it powerful and difficult to counter, but it's expensive to get the powers in the first place and improve them. Ritual magic is external, relying on ambient magic, circles of power, and material components. The advantage is that anyone can learn to use it, including essence-users. People often learn one or two rituals related to their jobs.
The Illumination trilogy by Terry McGarry is unusual in that it's one of the few works that contains multiple types of magic but has neither theurgy nor wild magic. Magelight could be described as a combination of inherent gift, rule magic, force magic, and device magic, and in practice functions as black magic with Dark Is Not Evil employed. Heartlight is force magic and white magic and can be learned by anyone. Mindlight is an inherent gift, mostly used for divination, and tends to drive the user insane. Interestingly, the three are best divided by the three most common presentations of magic, respectively magic as pseudoscience (complete with Magi Babble), magic as a connection to nature, and magic of an unexplained nature with deliberately vague capabilities and limitations.
Inheritance Cycle has Inherent magic, where a person must possess the talent to perform magic.
- Sorcerers use Theurgy magic, summoning spirits. Shades are created when that goes wrong and the caster is taken over. Overlaps with Summoning Magic
- Rule magic is present; gaining someone's true name means absolute control over them. Spells also require knowledge of words of power that make up an entire different language. Galbatorix finds the language's true name and gains absolute dominance over magic.
- Magic was originally wild before being tamed by an ancient race that is all but extinct.
- Angela can perform divination with Device magic using dragon knucklebones.
- Mentalism is present because a magician can seize control of their opponent's minds. A magician's duel involved overpowering an opponent's mind before physically attacking to avoid Mutually Assured Destruction.
- Magic can be used to grow trees. Nature magic!
In The Iron Teeth mages have an Inherent Gift to use magic crystals. The crystals themselves are Devices created through Alchemy.
Journey to Chaos: Magic is using mana to diverse and practical purposes. Eric spends the first book trying to get a handle on all this stuff.
- Inherent Gift is rare because it follows specific bloodlines. Bladicraft, for instance, can only be used by members of the Bladi Clan.
- Rule Magic is the most common variety practiced because anyone can learn it if they have a teacher or a book. It's called "magecraft" and it involves a lot of studying. The most important lesson is the Three Laws of Magecraft; Mana, Knowledge and Will Power. The second most important is that Rule Magic is a crutch for learning Force Magic. Rules make performing magic easier for beginners. Experts don't need them.
- Alchemy is ambiguous. Since the study of mana is as old or older than the study of chemicals, no one bothers with a difference.
- Device Magic is also common. Wards against spells and physical harm are often sold to warriors while an artist is more likely to buy something to asist their latest work. Both of them stop by the corner store.
- Force Magic is present in pulling mana from the surrounding environment or from a Place of Power, but most mages are only good enough to pull it from their own soul. Once a mage has a sufficient level of skill and power, they can forgo Rule Magic and focus entirely on Force Magic.
- White Magic is called "healing magic" while Black Magic is called "combat" or "battle magic". There is no color for magic that is neither.
- Blood Magic is a downplayed example. Only the blood of Basilard or his relatives count because their blood is magical. The blood of someone like Eric is useless for magical purposes.
The Kane Chronicles is mostly Rule Magic with a return of Theurgy with hints of Force Magic. Wizard used words and rituals to affect reality and draw upon their own reservoirs or stored magic. Its effectiveness is tied to Ma'at, or the order of the universe compared to chaos. Theurgy was forbidden for centuries and the gods imprisoned, but recently has made a comeback.
In Krabat, magic is rule magic based on words, gestures, drawn signs, and a few other bits, with some Theurgy.
In China Miéville's Kraken some of the cult are able to use Theurgy. There are also a number of people with Inherent Gift, some of whom channel it through Rules Magic and there is the odd magic item or two as well, like the Star Trek phaser that actually works.
Kroniki Drugiego Kręgu only has Inherent Gifts, but they vary in strength and type: you get Illusion Weavers, Observers, Wind Masters, Sparks and so on.
Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn uses Rule Magic for wizards and witches and Inherent Gifts for magical beings such as the titular unicorn. Magic sometimes acts like Wild Magic for Schmendrick the Magician, but this is because he is incompetent. He has an intuitive grasp of magic that comes to him in moments of great emotion; but even then, he speaks certain words in a certain way to use it.
In Charles Stross' The Laundry Files, applied thaumaturgy is a branch of higher mathematics and thus is Rule Magic. Alternate universes can be accessed by generating a complex geometrical curve either by mind alone or through the use of computers (Device Magic), which can be anything from cryptological supercomputer nets to smartphones to more esoteric implementations such as games of fairy chess. Some of those universes are utterly different from our own, but the beings that live in them can be communicated with or summoned (Summon Magic and Theurgy). The series contains examples of:
- Divination: The Predictive Branch of the Laundry uses a mixture of traditional (crystal balls, entrail reading) and modern (webcams pointing at crystal balls, stochastic mapping of Tarot card readings) to get a roughly 50% hit rate.
- Mentalism: Geases of various sorts, most prominent of which is the Laundry warrant card which at one level works like psychic paper, and at another can be invoked to bind the mouths of witnesses to occult phenomena.
- Necromancy: Extra-dimensional entities are summoned to animate the bodies of the dead. More powerful ones can also possess the living, displacing the original inhabitant or consuming them.
- Blood Magic: If one is not mathematically inclined, the entropic decay caused by suffering and death can be used to power magic.
- Music Magic: The series contains one specially-constructed musical instrument, the Eric Zahn violin, that is used to exorcise possessing entities, through the representation of mathematics in musical form (and a little blood magic).
- Black Magic: Arguably. While the Laundryverse contains god-like entities, they are inimical to lesser beings such as ourselves, seeing our suffering as fuel for their continued existence or resuscitation. The morality of magic is purely human imposed.
The The Legends of Ethshar novels by Lawrence Watt-Evans have numerous different types of magic practised by different disciplines: Wizardry is rule magic (but with utterly unpredictable results if you bungle it), sorcery is device magic, Theurgy (used by priests) and Demonology are naturally inverses of each other, witchcraft and warlockry are two distinct flavours of Psychic Powers (the latter being slightly less flexible, far more powerful, addictive and invariably fatal in the long term), and then we have the less common magicians like the Ritual Dancers, Herbalists, Scientists, Necromancers, Prestidigitators... Several don't really count as magic to us but do to most Ethsharites. According to the author, different authorities in the world claim the number of "distinct" magical types to be anything from 3 to 12, and the author usually claims "only" seven types. Magic in Ethshar is complicated.
Magic in The Lord of the Rings is inherent to elves and wizards, although wizards also focus their inherent power through a staff or use device magic for certain effects. Other tricks they use, such as summoning animals, are exercises of lore. Sauron used device magic when he channelled his inherent power into rings.
- Force Magic is also brought up in the background lore. It's explained that whenever Arda was created, magic was woven into the fabric of creation.
- We have Magic Music as well; Eru Ilúvatar created the world through song, and the Valar helped create the world with music. The elves themselves sometimes employ magical music.
- Tom Bombadil uses Magic Music as well as his inherent power over nature.
- The Barrow Wights, men of Angmar, also use Necromancy.
Magic in Loyal Enemies is rule magic of the Hermetic Magic variety and you need an inherent gift to do it. All spells require focus, verbal components, and hand gestures. A sufficiently proficient mage doesn't require the latter two, although focus itself makes it hard to concentrate the spell in one point. The more complex the spell, the more research and calculations must be made before trying to cast a spell, and the most complex require entire rituals and years of planning. Some complex spells, though, such as teleportation, can be cast easily if one does it in a place where they've been done before (in the case of teleportation, think reopening a tunnel with a buried entry instead of digging an entire new one).
Magic by the Numbers: The series has five magic systems: they are Thaumaturgy (Sympathetic Magic), Alchemy (magic potions), Magic (creation of new ancient artifacts), Sorcery (Mind Manipulation), and Wizardry (Summoning Ritual). Given that the author, Lyndon Hardy, is a physicist, they have a scientific precision and internal consistency, with the books exploring the many implications/uses they all have.
Lev Grossman's The Magicians has heavily rule-based magic, in which young mages are required to memorize information on the factors that affect their spells from massive books before they can cast them. In fact, an entire year of their education is spent learning how to calculate these factors and act upon them without even thinking about them.
Magic Ex Libris uses Inherent Gift and a sort of summoning, as libriomancy involves summoning magic items from books, using shared belief/imagination of the readers, so sort of vaguely theurgic. Sorcery is a lot rarer, also Inherent Gift, and seems to be mostly Wild Magic with a little Rule Magic mixed in.
Esther Friesner's Majyk by Accident series differentiates Magic (stage illusion) from Majyk (a pseudo-living force that puts the spunk into spells, the kick into cantrips, etc). Magique is a third tool but it's just Majyk from concentrate with lots of preservatives and has a tendency to make with the boomcrashtinkletinkle. The series also differentiates the Majyk used by humans (or cats) from the Majyk ingrained in species like fairies, Welfies (this 'verse's version of elves), or gods.
The Malazan Book of the Fallen has different kinds of magic:
- Mages work their magic by tapping various Paths of Magic called "Warrens", which for better or worse can be seen as parallel realms that mimic the planet's geography in their own way. Some races have access to their own Elder Warrens, which tend to be associated with certain elements (like Tellann being associated with Fire and Kurald Galain with Darkness) and from which the Warrens accessible to humans are derived (Telas, the Path of Fire from Tellann; Rashan, the Path of Darkness from Kurald Galain, and so on). Necromancy and demon summoning, which is considered a form of necromancy, use Hood's Path (the Path of Death) and Aral Gamelon (the realm most inhabited by demons) respectively. Healers use Denul, the Path of Healing. With the exception of Tattersail in Gardens of the Moon, mages do not generally need any spells but can do anything they can logic into working with their chosen element. Mages tend to have an inborn gift for working magic and can either fumble themselves to mastering it or be taught and usually can only truly master one Warren, two being considered very impressive. Those people whose talent is too weak to learn proper magic tend to develop exceptional talents in another area or an instinctual sense of divination.
- High-ranked priests and other adherents of gods with high standing can gain access to their deity's own pocket Warren, though that largely seems to be limited to Healing Hands or whatever element and thus Warren that deity is associated with — adherents of the God of Shadow use Meanas, the Path of Shadow and Illusion. Magic worked with the help of Elder Gods usually involves blood sacrifice.
- Alchemy exists and is a form of magic, though more sciency than other forms. It's never explained in detail what Alchemist Baruk does exactly to work his magic, but since he's called High Alchemist, he must be good at it.
- Shamans, witches, and warlocks who call on spirits and use intuitive, primitive magic also exist. These forms are rarely practised anymore outside of certain tribes but are a remnant of what the Warrens used to be before the Elder God K'rul formed them into the Warrens to make the access to magic easier and more egalitarian rather than the exclusive domain of Gods and Bonecasters.
Mercedes Lackey uses a variety of magic systems in different series. Although most of her magic characters in any of her series have an inherent gift for magic, there are notable exceptions, e.g. Madame Arachne and her son Reginald in The Gates of Sleep and the villain in Jinx High.
- The Velgarth series (which includes the Heralds of Valdemar series), shows instances of Inherent (in the "mind-magic" Gifts of the Heralds, and the Mage Gift of her mages), Theurgy (both with the Shin'a'in Shamans and the Karsite Priests, as well as her northern "barbarian" tribes), Rule Magic (traces show up in most of the magic systems shown), Music Magic (in the Valdemar Bards, as well as the use of drums and flutes by the Hawkbrothers), Force Magic (the "high" or "true" magic used by the mages), and White and Black Magic (the Vkandis Priests and any of the magical Big Bads respectively, especially the Blood-path mages.) The idea of treating magic as a scientific endeavor, with predictable rules and outcomes, causes serious distress on the part of one of the mages, especially when it turns out to work.
- In her Elemental Masters series, we see Elemental Magic, combined with aspects of Nature Magic (particularly for Earth mages), Force Magic, and Theurgy.
- In her Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, Champions tend to make use of Device Magic, Witches and Hedgewizards are mostly Nature/White magic, while Wizards and Sorcerers (and their female counterparts) are more Rule/Theurgy magic. In the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, humans get magic when their lives start to resemble stories.
- In the world of her The Obsidian Trilogy, as well as the sequel, The Enduring Flame, there are four major types of magic at work. Wild Mages use a combination of Theurgy and Wild Magic (what else?). High Mages work with a combination of Rule Magic and Force Magic. Elven Mages (perhaps the least-explained form of magic in the series) seem to work with pure Force Magic. Lastly, the demonic Endarkened and the corrupted mages who serve them use a Force Magic-oriented form of Black Magic, with Necromancy included in the whole charming package.
In Monster (2009), the most common form of magic is predominantly Rule Magic, utilised with either runes, gestures or incantations; it can be used by just about anyone, though it takes a good deal of education to make a living out of it. However, given the current state of magic in the world, most people in the world are unable to even see the supernatural in action, and those who can have a lot of trouble remembering spells — hence the eponymous character's rune handbook. Following the death of Lotus, The Magic Comes Back, allowing Muggles to see supernatural activity and removing the memory haze.
Primarily Inherent Gift in The Mortal Instruments, as one of the defining attributes of being "human" is the inability to use magic and thus free access to magic is generally limited to Downworlders and Shadowhunters. Warlocks (who are half-demon) are the primary practitioners of magic, although the Shadowhunters have their Runes and the fairies possess strange powers.
Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind features an interesting form of Rule Magic. It's based on the concept that you cannot create or destroy energy, and all of the force in your magic has to come from somewhere, ranging from a fire to your own body. Kvothe doesn't consider sympathy to be real magic though, it's just something it's possible to learn how to do. There's also alchemy, which seems to be an entirely parallel version of chemistry with some extremely strange effects, but is still Rule Magic. Sygaldry is also mentioned but is really just a set of rules for applying long-lasting sympathetic bindings to inanimate objects. The magic of myth and legend and fireside stories in the setting is a True Name system which is incredibly difficult, requiring not so much the learning of names but the study of how to find them when you need them because they change continuously.
In A Net of Dawn and Bones by C. Chancy, known more by her pen-name Vathara, there are four main types of magic available to humans, and four main sources of power (celestial, infernal, fay, and terrestrial) which have their own strengths and weaknesses.
- Sorcery is theurgy based on gaining power from spirits through the use of persuading, coercing or creating other beings to do one's will. It requires a lot of preparation in order to use and is the easiest to turn to dark purposes, though benevolent wielders do exist.
- Magecraft is an Inherent Gift that cannot be taught to people who aren’t born with it, and is relatively rare and the fastest kind of magic. It is magic tied to the elements and the cycles of the world and is often indicative that there has been ancestral contact with powerful beings. Examples are Aidan’s fire magic inherited from his demonic father, and Steven's water magic from his mother's Finwife ancestry. Having one type of magecraft may prevent the emergence of another type, as Steven laments that his water magecraft makes it all but impossible to access the fire magecraft from his father's side.
- Wizardry can be learned or inborn. It deals with astrology, patterns and numbers as well as the use of symbols to cause effects. It is apparently complicated to decipher and is also related to seers and diviners.
- Enchanting is related to name magic and invoking truths about the universe in order to achieve the desired end, which in the hands of experienced casters essentially becomes low level reality warping. It is difficult to master, but also swiftly invoked with practice. Myrrh uses biblical verses in various combinations while the sequel Seeds of Blood introduces Buddhist Sister Usagi who uses Buddhist sutras.
The Never Ending Story uses Inherent Gifts for certain supernatural creatures (Luck Dragons, the Childlike Empress, and even regular humans when inside Fantastica). Human imagination is also a form of Force Magic, which is why humans have special powers when inside Fantastica. Also we have Device Magic in the form of the Neverending Story book itself. The AURYN also has the power to grant wishes, as it is an extension of the Empress' power, which could be considered a form of Theurgy.
Talent from The Night Angel Trilogy is an example of Inherent Gifts. Talent is also a form of Force Magic since it recharges with the Sun. Also, several other forms of magic exist in-setting. The ka'kari, Curoch, Iures, Kylar's wedding earrings, and several other items are obviously Device Magic. Kylar's immortality/resurrection cycle are a form of Theurgy mixed with Equivalent Exchange, as is magic cast using the Vir. The Chantry uses Rule Magic, and all magic has elements of Rule Magic as well, particularly the Theurgy.
A subtle form of device magic appears in Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus. Sophie's foster mother Lizzie is a witch who can control the flow of time with the help of an antique clock. The clock is eventually destroyed in a train accident, and time slips out of her control.
The world of "No Need for a Core?" has many forms of functional magic, including mystic martial arts and psionics to go with wizardry and enchanted objects.
In Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series, there are a few types of magic. "Charter Magic" is strict Rule Magic. "Necromancy", with the bells, is Device Magic paired with Inherent Gift. "Free Magic" is less strict Rule Magic, with an element of Wild Magic.
In Gail Dayton's One Rose Trilogy, we get a nice example of the "Inherent Gift" variety. There are four distinct branches of magic: Northern, which is mostly Elemental Magic, southern which is also Elemental Magic with a side of White Magic, eastern which is White Magic, and western, which is largely Necromancy mixed with Summon Magic.
Land of Oz: L. Frank Baum didn't exactly strain to maintain consistant rules of magic in his books, but it is established there are different types, such the inherant fairy magic of Ozma, and the learned magic of devices and potions the Wizard comes to employ after being an out-and-out humbug in the first novel. (It's implied that Glinda, as powerful as she is, falls on the Wizard side of the divide, but it's never explicitly stated.) In Glinda of Oz, this becomes an overt plot-point, as Ozma gets trapped in a submerged domed city because her fairy magic can't be used on the magical devices which power the city.
There are three main types of magic-user in The Powder Mage Trilogy by Brian McClellan. All three types have a "third eye" that allows them to "see" magic (and identify other magic-users), in addition to more specialized abilities. The types are:
- Privileged: The most powerful, and rarest. Basically the closest to traditional wizards, they have a wide range of elemental powers and a Privileged is basically treated as a Person of Mass Destruction. They cast spells using elaborate hand gestures rather than spoken incantations, and a Privileged can usually be recognized by their distinctive rune-stiched gloves. The Predeii- immortal predecessors of the Privileged, some of whom are still running around- also exist. They're very similar to ordinary Privileged, except that they're a lot more powerful.
- Marked: Also called Powder Mages, who have power based on gunpowder. They can ignite it (or prevent it from being ignited) at will, have limited telekinetic ability in regards to projectiles fired from a gunpowder weapon, and can inhale gunpowder to enter a kind of trance that enhances their physical and mental abilities. They also have a limited ability to disrupt Privileged magic, which is one reason Privileged don't like them much. Though not as versatile as Privileged, a Marked equipped with firearms is extremely dangerous- and they live in a world that averts Medieval Stasis and Fantasy Gun Control.
- Knacked: The most common (comparatively speaking) and weakest. Knacked have one magical power, usually a natural trait or skill enhanced to supernatural levels. There are many kinds of Knacks, but being able to go indefinitely without sleep, having a perfect memory, or being able to pick locks without a lockpick are all examples.
- Other kinds of magic-user are hinted to exist, but the main three are the only ones who get much face time- except for Ka-poel, a "barbarian" girl who has a form of extremely potent sympathetic magic that can defeat even Privileged. As she isn't terribly keen in sharing information on her powers (and is mute on top of that) it's unclear exactly how her magic works, how far her powers go, and how common it is in her homeland.
Re:Zero features three distinct forms of magic, though only one of these is seen as "proper" magic, while the other two are considered to be powers of a different sort, albeit all three are supernatural:
- Magic with a capital M is a combination of Rule Magic, Force Magic, and Inherent Gift magic. Every person in the world is born with a Gate, a piece of their soul that allows them to store and channel mana through their body. Each Gate is aligned with at least one of the six elements - Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Yin (Shadow), and Yang (Light). Though every person is born with the potential to cast spells, not everyone has a Gate capable of such a feat, and most people allow their talent to remain dormant for their entire life. Those who decide to study and learn to control magic cast spells by focusing on their Gate, imagining their desired effect, and speaking the proper spell (which usually involves a signature word associated with each of the elements (Goa for Fire, Huma for Water, Dona for Earth, Fula for Wind, Shamak for Yin and Jiwald for Yang). The caster can also choose whether he wishes to utilise his own mana or to forge a contract with a Spirit and draw mana from the surrounding atmosphere.
- Divine Protections are an Inherent Talent distributed to all beings at birth by the Od Laguna, a mysterious thing which is variously speculated to be God, Soul of the World, or the Creation Box. Allegedly, Divine Protections are received by the people "loved by the world", and cannot be tampered with, copied, or removed. They are simpler to use than proper magic and can take pretty much any form, however, most of them are barely perceptible to their holders. The ratio of Divine Protection holders is 1:100 for useless ones, 1:1,000 for useful ones, 1:10,000 for somewhat rare ones, 1:100,000 for really useful ones, 1:1,000,000 for unique ones, 1:10,000,000 for more than one, and the existence of those with more than one Divine Protection is considered strange. Anyone with a Divine Protection can also learn magic.
- Authorities are the dark inverse of Divine Protections - themed after the Seven Deadly sins, only nine Authorities are known to exist, yet all nine can become exceptionally powerful if wielded by the correct user. Upon the user's demise, the Witch Factor carrying the Authority will try to find its way into the nearest compatible host, unless preemptively sealed. Authorities cannot be inherited by people with Divine Protections, and should the user be incompatible with the Authority, usage of it will likely result in physical and mental deterioration. Historically, the Authorities were inherited by the Witches of Sin, a collection of highly compatible individuals, until Satella, the Witch of Envy, went insane after taking in an incompatible Witch Factor and swallowed up her fellow Witches along with half of the world, before being sealed away. However, versions of all the authorities found their way back into the world and are now held by the Sin Archibishops, chosen commanders of the Witch's Cult dedicated to Satella's worship.
Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Cycle uses almost every variety of magic above, but most of it qualifies as Rule Magic. Even then, there's an Inherent Gift needed, which leads down either the so-called Lesser Path (Device Magic and Alchemy) or Greater Path (Force Magic). It's extremely rare for any magician to be capable, let alone skilled, in both. Beyond that, magicians usually have a talent for one application in particular, such as Pug's mastery of rifts and Miranda being able to effortlessly teleport anywhere she's ever been. Priests also perform a combination of Rule and Theurgy magic, but it hasn't been explored yet whether any talent is needed, or if it's entirely the blessing of the gods. Then there are characters like Nakor and his seemingly random assortment of "tricks," and William's unheard-of natural ability to communicate with animals that fall outside the system altogether. We later find out (from Pug's musings) that all magic is the same magic, and the classifications are completely self-imposed.
There are three main branches of Rule Magic in The Saga of the Noble Dead — thaumaturgy deals with physical matter, conjury with natural and elemental spirits, and sorcery with the mind and soul. The three can be combined to produce more advanced effects (necromancy, for example, is said to involve both sorcery and conjury). There are also three ways to cast magic — spells produce weak but instantaneous effects, rituals are more powerful and last longer but also take longer to cast, and artifice allows items to be imbued with permanent powers. All undead (and some humans and elves) also have Inherent Gifts of various types. Theurgy is also said to exist according to rumor, but whether it actually does or is just a variant usage of the above is not yet clear.
In the Schooled in Magic series, magic is mainly Rule Based. There is Alchemy, Runic magic, Ritual Magic, Blood Magic, Pact magic, and Fairy Magic. It is not yet clear how all these relate to one another and if they all follow the same basic rules or not. It does seem that being good at one area of magic does not guarantee that you will be good at others and in fact, Emily finds Alchemy very difficult because it just doesn't seem to make sense to her like other magic.
Sorcery in Second Apocalypse is described as "singing in the voice of the God" to reshape reality, and has a number of very specific properties. Only a relatively small section of the population can become sorcerers - these are known, appropriately enough, as the Few. The Few can be identified by their ability to see the effects of sorcery, but need extensive training before they can actually wield it. Upon mastering cants (spells), a sorcerer develops a metaphysical "mark", visible only to the Few but that cannot be hidden from them - the sorcerer's level of skill and how long they've been practicing can be determined from how intense their mark is. There are several different types of sorcery:
- Gnostic Sorcery: Is based on logic and reason. It was invented by the Nonmen and taught by them to humans, but following the Apocalypse, knowledge of it was largely lost. In the present of the first trilogy, only the small school of Mandate continues to pass it down, at great price to its members. The few surviving Nonmen Quya (mages) and the Consult also continue to practice it with skill learned through eons.
- Anagogic Sorcery: Relies on poetry and analogy as the basis for its cants. Its effects are similar to the Gnosis but generally weaker and less efficient - a Gnostic sorcery could simply summon fire from thin air, for example, while an Anagogic sorcerer would need to summon a spectral dragon's head and cause it to breathe fire in order to achieve the same effect. This sort of sorcery was invented by humans and is the form most commonly used by the sorcerers of the Three Seas region.
- Daimotic Sorcery: Involves summoning one or more demons and binding them to the sorcerer's will, then forcing them to use their powers on their behalf. Demons are very powerful, but come from the Outside and hate being forced into the physical world. It's believed that demons get their vengeance in the afterlife, torturing the souls of sorcerers who bound them. But sorcerers are already damned anyway. Certain members of the most powerful and ambitious Anagogic school, the Scarlet Spires, are known to practice the craft.
- The Psukhe: The most unusual form of sorcery, to the point where some debate whether it is actually sorcery at all. Its practitioners rely purely on emotion and intuition rather than intellect and blind themselves to open their perceptions to the Outside. Uniquely among sorcerers, they bear no Mark, and their works cannot be detected by any sorcerous means. The Psukhe is the exclusive province of the Cishaurim, the sorcerer-priests of the Fanim faith; Their level of power is difficult to determine, as most Anagogic sorcerers consider the Puskhe to lack the raw power of Anagogic sorcery, though the most powerful Cishaurim are at least a match for the strongest Anagogic sorcerers.
- Metagnostic Sorcery: An evolution of Gnostic sorcery in which the sorcerer holds multiple cants in his head simultaneously while chanting, greatly increasing its power and versatility (some effects, such as teleportation, are possible only using the Metagnosis). Anasurimbor Kellhus invents this form of sorcery during the series, and only the most talented Gnostic sorcerers can accomplish it.
Septimus Heap has two different kinds of Magyk, a Witch and a Wizard one that are themselves split in a Darke and a non-Darke fashion. Both kinds can be used by professional Wizards/Witches and non-spellcasters alike, but with several limitations for the latter. Also, most spells can be encoded in objects called Charms.
Shadow of the Conqueror has three varieties of magic in the setting:
- Lightbringing magic is good-aligned and obtained by being a sufficiently good person. It grants abilities that basically make you a D&D cleric. Note however that if you commit any immoral act, even so much as lying, you lose your powers.
- Lightbinding magic is neutrally-aligned and obtained by a mysterious ritual called "The Vigil," which Daylen may or may not have accidentally reverse-engineered. Its first variant, Lifebinding, grants you the ability to temporarily enhance physical attributes, such as vision, strength, mass, stamina, etc. The second type, Worldbinding, gives external powers like gravity manipulation or lightning blasts.
- Lightblaring magic is evil-aligned, and seems to be restricted to the Shade. It grants the abilities that they use in their endless attempts to wipe out humanity, such as darkness fields, flight, Telekinesis, controlling dead flesh, and killing plants in the area.
- There is also sunforging, the process of crafting magical objects called sunucles. How it fits into the above scheme is unclear, as it seems to function as a skill that anyone can learn, like masonry or playing music.
In Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series all the kinden have inherent gifts, some of which, like flight are shared by several races, others of which like the Ant's telepathy or the Wasp's energy blasts are unique to the race. The ability to use magic is itself an inherent gift that only some of the kinden like the Moths or Mosquitoes can use. The Moths magic seems to be more in the realm of Psychic Powers (clairvoyance, dream visions, Mind Control) while the Mosquitoes, no big surprise, use Blood Magic. Meanwhile the ability to comprehend, use or create technology is itself a gift only the Apt races can use.
Zig-Zagged in Terry Brooks' Shannara series. The magic of the series is constantly changing and evolving, so at its heart, it's Wild Magic, except that it will (seemingly of its own accord) settle down and act like one of the other types (typically Rule Magic and/or Inherent Gift) for centuries at a time. It's tricky that way.
Magic in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire seems largely to be powered by theurgy (the two most flashily powerful sorcerers both seem to get their powers from the Lord of Light, and the abilities of wargs and other skinchangers, as well as the green dreams of the North seem to be related to the weirwoods, known as the Old Gods) and force magic (magic went out of the world when dragons did. Now that dragons are back, magic is coming back in force.) Then there's whatever the Drowned God of the Ironborn gets up to (and if Patchface is part of that, given his "resurrection"). Equivalent exchange is repeatedly made explicit, in the lines that "Only death may pay for life" and "king's blood" holds power. Blood Magic in general seems linked to all the various kinds of magic.
- Though the use of magic in the series is intended to deconstruct Functional Magic, with magic largely serving as a mysterious influence without apparent logic or form. Melisandre's POV chapter goes into considerable detail about how uncertain, frustrating and unknowable magic is... especially for those like her who try to use it. The upshot is: magic has its rules, alright — but, the user is very highly likely not going to know enough about all of them to play with the stuff at all safely. As well as that, getting too complacent about what you do know means that what you don't know is likely to bite you very hard indeed. So, playing trial and error with magic = tragedy. Like, maybe, "Doom of Valyria" levels of horribly tragic.
The Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster:
- The superpowered bards are the most powerful magic-workers. It's a combination of Inherent Gift, Magic Music, and rule magic (training to know what you're doing). There's also an element of Wild Magic — any good song played by a Spellsinger will have an effect, but without years of training, the caster doesn't know what that effect will be, although it's implied that the genre and subject of the song always have something to do with it.
- There are other magic-users in that series too. Wizards like Clothahump use Rule Magic: Transmutation and Alchemy primarily, with a little Summoning, healing effects, and Divination thrown in. Rune-casters use Divination to locate things or determine the best course of action; Colin could also predict the future but is possibly unique in that ability. Finally, extreme mental states such as insanity or dying can let magic-users achieve feats far beyond their usual limits.
Magic in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth can be used to do anything and thus falls into the category of Force Magic, at least in theory. In reality, most of the magic users stick to established uses for their abilities (light webs, wizard's fire, etc). Everybody except Richard uses Additive Magic although Subtractive Magic is not unheard of. Device Magic is also fairly common.
- The above is absolutely the perspective one would naturally come away from "Wizards First Rule" with, but later books in the series go much further in depth regarding the inner workings of the world's magic.
- The abilities of most magic users are Inherent Gifts; Richard and the other students at the magic school are referred to as "gifted," and when such abilities awaken in them, they are tracked down by magical nuns who bring them back to the magic school to have their abilities refined. Further, many people with specific magical talents are also gifted by birth, such as Confessors and Dreamwalkers.
- Magic is explained at length, repeatedly, to be the creation of ruling deities in the world, the Creator and the Keeper of the underworld, and some magical effects and abilities, such as the increasing prevalence of Subtractive Magic users, are imbued through interaction with agents of these deities.
- Still later in the series, other characters attempt to explain that magic is extremely limited in what it can and can't do, defining it as Rule Magic, only for Richard to ignore them and prove that it really is Force Magic after all.
Orson Scott Card's The Tales of Alvin Maker series is set in an alternate America full of Functional Magic, where whites have Inherent Gifts, Africans have Device Magic and Native Americans have Force Magic. These distinctions are cultural, not racial, and it is possible (albeit very difficult, especially as one gets older and more set in one's cultural identity) to learn another culture's form of magic.
The Three Worlds Cycle uses underlying Force Magic, with some Alchemy and Device Magic based on it. Simply put, magic is mediated by a weak force, emanating from "nodes", which are magical sources linked to geographical features. People can draw on this weak force, but risk aftersickness or, worse, anthracision (being burned alive from the inside out) if they draw too much. Nodes also produce 3 strong fields at right angles to each other, which are beyond the grasp of human control (they would cause instant anthracision).
- In the Well Of Echoes, the second quadrilogy, walking tanks known as "clankers" run on this weak force, channelled through specific crystals and guided by a controller. Hovering Aachan "constructs" also run on the weak force, but have specialised machinery to channel the strong forces to fly.
- There's also a more direct form of magic called Geomancy that the protagonist of the Well Of Echoes, Tiaan, uses: rather than rely on the omnipresent field to do magic, it relies on one-off geographical activity and the energy it produces to produce effects: for example, Tiaan manages to conjure up a heat ray from a crystal by tapping into a stalactite breaking off the ceiling of a cave and falling into a lava pool.
The Tortall Universe books, especially the latter series that focus heavily on expanding the setting, have lots of this. To explain in detail would be a page of its own, but magic can be used for everything from instantaneously cleaning an outfit, to tracking someone down, and turning mere stones into glowing, fully functional lanterns.
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: A number of different kinds are discussed, including a ceremonial sort, mental (which is like Psychic Powers), Sympathetic Magic, costly magic (at times gained by demonic pacts) and music, plus more.
The True Game series by Sheri S. Tepper has a detailed and structured system of magic.
The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign: The primary form of magic that humans can use is Summon Magic, with all of their other powers being associated with it. The modern form of this is the Third Summoning Ceremony, which requires two people — a summoner and a vessel. Vessels need to have a disposition for being easily possessed by spirits (Inherent Gift), which is usually hereditary but can also be implanted artificially. In order to summon, a summoner has to bind a blood contract with a vessel, drawing on the power of one of the setting's god-like figures (Theurgy). The actual process of summoning is extremely complicated and governed by numerous rules (Rule Magic). Summoners make use of long poles, the titular Blood Signs, as tools in the ceremony (Device Magic). Through all of this effort, summoners are able to summon Materials, the supernatural denizens of another world, and have them possess their vessels. This transforms the vessel into the Material, giving them Super-Strength, Super-Speed, and immunity to non-magical means of attack.
Villains by Necessity: The series has Rule Magic mostly, involving chanting/singing, making particular gestures, and specific preparation beforehand. Druid magic is mostly healing or controlling/speaking with animals, occasional shapeshifting and greater feats if certain magical plants are available. This seems to be Force magic, as it comes from natural elements. It's unclear just where everyone gets the ability, though it's sometimes hereditary.
The Wheel of Time:
- The books largely use Force Magic interlaced with Rule Magic, where channelers tap into and draw power from the "True Source" that drives the titular wheel. Channelers are limited in capability to their own personal strength and sex (men and women use different halves of the Source). The series also contains Device Magic ("ter'angreal," which can occasionally be used by non-channelers) and Theurgy (the True Power, which involves drawing power from the Dark One). While channelers draw on a form of Force Magic, it is used exclusively as Geometric Magic — channelers "weave" different strands of the One Power into patterns that do certain things. Because men and women use different halves of the Source, they each have different weaves which do the same thing. It's also stated that when a person learns to do something a certain way (e.g., lighting a candle with a weave of fire) they find it extremely difficult to impossible to learn any other way to do it. There are also several other, less common, forms of magic unrelated to the One or True Powers:
- Dreamwalkers can enter Tel'aran'rhiod (essentially a spirit/shadow world that most people only pop in and out of when they dream involuntarily) and manipulate it for a variety of effects, including spying on the real world, entering the dreams of others, and predicting the future. There's some overlap with the One Power — several channelers are shown using the One Power to enter the world of dreams even if they don't possess the inherent ability required - but dreamwalking itself does not require the One Power and there are dreamwalkers who cannot channel.
- Wolfbrothers have a spiritual bond with wolves, which lets them communicate with them telepathically, enhance their senses, and enter Tel'aran'rhiod, which also functions as the wolf afterlife (though Wolfbrothers don't have the full range of dreamwalker abilities- they can manipulate the dream environment but not enter human dreams, for example). Wolfbrothers can be at least as capable within the World of Dreams as other dreamwalkers - Perrin is able to stop balefire, something nobody else seems to have even considered the possibility of. Being a Wolfbrother is an inherent gift.
- Min has an odd form of divination that lets her sometimes see images around people which predict their futures. Sometimes she knows exactly what it means, and sometimes she has to guess, but no vision she did understand has ever failed to come to pass. She's the only person in the series to show this ability, and Word of God is that while not unique, it's very rare. It is also completely involuntary and, given the nature of events in the series, often shows her bad news.
- Hurin, a minor supporting character, has the inherent gift of being able to "smell" violence. This ability is uncommon, but not unheard of.
- Recurring villain Padan Fain has a number of bizarre, unnatural abilities, including necromancy and spreading a Hate Plague. Word of God has compared this to a Wolfbrother's powers in that it's a very primal form of magic, but exactly where his powers come from or how they work is mysterious. Word of God indicates that there is some specific supernatural force driving Fain, but hasn't gone into further detail, so this might be a form of Theurgy.
- There are also a couple of nonhuman races in the setting that have their own forms of magic - the Ogier have Treesinging, which lets them craft virtually anything from living wood without harming the tree and also to bolster and encourage the growth of plants, and the Aelfinn and Eelfinn can answer questions and grant wishes respectively, though the exact means by which they do this is unknown, and are powered by human memory and emotion.
In the Winds of the Forelands series, magic is mostly the province of the Qirsi, who have a variety of different kinds of inherent gifts, divided into Deeper and Lesser powers. Most Qirsi have only a couple of these powers, a rare few called Weavers have them all. Using any power saps the Qirsi's life energy, which is why they a frailer and shorter-lived than the non-magical Eandi:
- Gleaning: Lesser power, common to almost all Qirsi, lets them see snatches of the future. This ability can be further focused using a special crystal called a Qiran.
- Healing: Lesser power, Exactly What It Says On The Tin
- Fire: Lesser power, allows the Qirsi to summon and control fire.
- Mists and Winds: Lesser power, allows the Qirsi to control the weather.
- Shaping: Deeper power, allows the Qirsi to reshape or destroy physical objects by force of will.
- Language of Beasts: Deeper power, allows the Qirsi to communicate with animals.
- Mind Bending: Deeper power, allows the Qirsi to use what amounts to a Jedi Mind Trick (against other Qirsi) or complete domination (against Eandi).
- Weavers: The rarest and most powerful Qirsi have all of the above powers, plus the ability to know what powers another Qirsi has by looking at them, to enter the dreams of other Qirsi, to control other Qirsi's magic with or without their consent, and bind the magic of many Qirsi together for extremely powerful feats. They're also generally less squishy than other Qirsi. Big Bad Dusaan is one, as is The Hero Grinsa.
- The Sequel Series Blood of the Southlands introduces a second Mage Species, the Mettai, an offshoot of the Eandi who practice Blood Magic. Their abilities are generally more flexible and less defined than the Qirsi's, but they have less raw power. Mettai magic doesn't shorten the caster's life, but they have to bleed themselves beforehand and chant a short incantation specifying what effect they want, whereas for a Qirsi it just takes an act of will.
In The Witcher series, both novel and games, magic is a mix of Rule Magic, Force Magic, and Innate Gift. All magic derives from Chaos. Unlike many other settings, Chaos is non-native to the universe of the Witcher series, instead originating from a dimensional cataclysm in the distant past. A user of magic or object with a great deal of power is called a Source. Some children are born as Sources and must be trained, or their abilities will eventually drive them mad. Spellcasting itself is extremely complex, taking years of study, requiring detailed knowledge of the sort of magical feat you are trying to perform, such as detailed biology notes for shapechanging, detailed coordinates for teleportation. This means Sorcerers and Sorceresses are extremely well-educated, comparable to modern-day scientists, making them valuable advisors to Kings. Witchers use heavily simplified single-effect spells called Signs which do one thing and one thing only, usually things useful to aiding their primary profession of hunting monsters.
- In an amusing subversion on the stereotype of the Hot Witch that comes up often in fiction, the novels note that anyone willing to give up a daughter to mages to be trained generally didn't have much use for the girl, as a trained sorceress would have bigger concerns then her birth family once fully trained: if they were pretty they would be married to cement political allegiances or broaden the family to help out farmers or family business. Therefore, most sorceresses started out as the kind of girls nobody would want to marry, namely rather homely ones. They only become beautiful after they're trained with magic and have their bodies altered to look better because sorceresses are expected to be attractive-looking. This often causes them to have a slight chip on the shoulder towards women who were naturally born beautiful, leading to the Vain Sorceress stereotype seen in fairy tales.
The "Klatha" of James H. Schmitz's The Witches of Karres would qualify as "Force Magic" though the Witches themselves have made up strict rules regarding its use.
In The Witchlands, magic is an Inherent Gift that allows one to draw power from the Origin Wells, making it a form of Theurgy. It manifests as either Elemental Magic or Psychic Powers, though some abilities skirt close to Mentalism or Necromancy.
Rick Cook's Wiz Biz series of novels have the magical races (elves, dragons) possess Inherent Magic, while the humans use insanely complex and fluid Rule Magic with a dash of Theurgy. Wiz gets to the basics of the Rule Magic: where previously a human must study for years the exact words and actions to perform a spell, Wiz uses a few simplest and most reproducible spells as an assembly language and creates a programming compiler for more complex spells.
The magic of A Wizard in Rhyme at first seems to be straight Theurgy, with wizards getting power from Heaven and Sorcerers from Hell (complete with literal deals with the devil), fitting well in a world where saints and demons occasionally interfere directly. Then later the heroes discover that some elements work like a standing electronic field, so it's also partly rule magic. Later still it turns out that pagans unaffiliated with either side can use it, and even the characters lose track of how it actually works.
Sergey Lukyanenko and Nick Perumov's novel Wrong Time for Dragons has the Middle World be full of magic. The most powerful magic is Elemental. The four Elemental clans rule over most of the human lands, while the numerous Totem clans are scattered throughout, most lacking any unity (like their chosen animals). The most organized Totem clan is the Cat Clan, who have carved out a small parcel of land between three of the Elemental clans' lands and use their cat-like wiles to have enough political influence to play the game on equal footing with the Elemental clans. In the lands of the Elemental clans, the mages use their power over their respective element for the benefit of the people. For example, the fields of the Earth Clan always bring bountiful harvests, while their mines never run out of valuable resources. The capital city of the Water Clan is a wonder full of beautiful fountains, canals, water mirrors; every night a refreshing light rain washes away the dirt into the sea.
In Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, magic is a combination of Rule Magic and plain old cajoling. Essentially magic is a way to talk to things (whether alive or not) and convince them to change the way they are or the way they act, using a special Speech. However, actual spells require intensely specific magic circles and incantations to work properly, to the point where magic and magical research begins to highly resemble writing computer programs. The wizards in question are quite literally the tech support staff of the universe, which is a deliberately created artifact, so this is to be expected. Still, as one character puts it, "The powers knew how it worked when it was fresh from the factory. We know how to handle all the little quirks it's developed since." A sufficiently complex system will develop quirks that seem like wild magic to the uninitiated. This is true today, it would be a thousand times truer for a full universe.
The Young Ancients has a mix of Rules Magic and Devices. Builders can enter a meditative trance state where they reprogram reality to their specifications inside a limited field, creating new rules like "all water flows to point A." But direct effect fields like this are inherently limited, so generally they encode the field into a metal plate, and use acid to mark it with a distinctive sigil that both identifies the magic device and serves as a convenient on/off switch. So most Builders use their knowledge of chemistry and physics to produce magic devices, like flyers and shields, magic weapons, water filters and pumps, and so on.
Lauren Buekes' Zoo City combines Inherent Gift with a twist on Theurgy and Force Magic. "Zoos" get their powers from their animals which are a form of familiar. The twist is that they didn't make any conscious deal to get their Animals; they were bestowed on the zoos for committing violent crimes by a mysterious force called the Undertow. There are also shamans who receive visions through Alchemy.

Live Action TV

In the Arrowverse, Firestorm eventually learns to use his/their transmutation ability, although it's described as a consequence of Stein's device rather than magic. It first manifests during a fight with a Mook, when Firestorm is able to turn his rifle into water with a touch. He later tries the same but ends up accidentally burning the object instead. He's later able to repeat the trick with a Thanagarian meteorite and the Dominator bomb. After some practice, he's able to turn things into something other than water, such as turning Thawne's obelisk into a pile of (perfectly edible) jelly beans.
On Bewitched this was a case of Inherent Gift specific to a Mage Species, although occasionally other magical creatures did show up. Ordinary humans could not learn to use magic, but could be granted magical powers by a witch or warlock.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have shown all of these. Alchemy and theurgy were the most popular, as most spells required some kind of plant or animal part. Spells that didn't generally required dealing with gods or demons. There were a few that used Rule Magic. Also, while one could train in magic, and those people usually got telekinesis, there was one girl in Angel who naturally had telekinesis as an Inherent Gift and another who generated electricity the same way. Witches seem to combine Theurgy and Inherent Gift. Plus, there are the natural abilities that every demon has. There were even a few cases of Wild Magic, such a girl who felt she was invisible turned literally invisible, plus all those ghost hauntings.
- The above instance of a girl turning invisible is due to the Hellmouth, which is a nexus of supernatural energy. Thus it is also force magic. Also, while Willow sometimes invokes goddesses it's not clear whether she's actually drawing power from them or even if those gods exist. But Theurgy is played straight with Osiris, who personally makes an appearance in Season 6. However, Theurgy of a different sorts is also used and there's one episode where a bunch of JerkAsses were going to sacrifice a girl to a demon in return for money and power.
Charmed uses all the types of magic. Potions are Alchemy and Eye of Newt, and some spells require reagents, too. Real witches have an Inherent Gift, as do demons and other supernatural creatures. There are specific rules to magic such as it being triggered by emotions, and phases of the moon and time are also mentioned. We also have Force Magic with things like the Nexus, and the novels expand upon saying that non-witches can tap into ambient sources of power (such as the Nexus) and cast spells. We have Theurgy of sorts whenever people make deals with demons in return for superpowers. There's also device magic; for example, a mist that will turn a mortal into a Physical God. Finally, all magic is wild to a degree, and there are several instances where the sisters have tried to make their lives easier with magic only for it to inevitably screw up.
Mahou Sentai Magiranger and Power Rangers Mystic Force are technically Rule Magic mixed with the Inherent Gift and a magic-users-only version of Device Magic (the Rangers' Morpher-wand-phones). Magiranger's magic words were a set of ten words with a specific meaning, one for each button on the phone, that could be put together to describe the type of effect you wanted. Mystic Force had a different system, with magic words being a mix of made-up words derived from Greek, Latin, Gaelic, or even the Magiranger system making for some Bilingual Bonus.
- Samurai Sentai Shinkenger and Power Rangers Samurai is the same, mixing Rule Magic (invoked by writing Japanese kanji) and Inherent Gift Magic. The Sixth Ranger notably does not have the Inherent Gift, replacing it with Device Magic instead (he doesn't write the kanji, he texts).
- Furthermore, many Power Rangers are powered by Device Magic, (e.g., magical coins in their transformation devices, a magical crystal powering all of their technology) and it turns out that all Rangers, regardless of whether they use magic or technology or both, are powered by the Morphing Grid.
The Fairy magic in the Merlin (1998) series was shown in the actual series to be mostly Rule Magic that could only be used by fairies. Wizards used either Theurgy (getting their powers from The Fair Folk) or Inherent Gift (if they were half-fairy themselves, as Merlin was). Wizards were ordered in power depending on how they called on their magic; weak wizards used words, intermediate wizards used gestures, and the most powerful wizards only had to think. The novelizations expanded on the system quite a bit, in that fairy magic was mostly illusion, but a half-human, half-fairy could combine fairy illusion with human feeling to create much stronger magic.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch, of the Inherent Gift variety. It also has specific rules and is largely based on wordplay.
Supernatural has used virtually every flavor of this at some point in time, from magic items in curse boxes to Sam's assortment of psychic powers, to spells, sigils, and incantations that do everything from exorcising demons to allowing Dean to hear the thoughts of animals.
Introduced into Teen Wolf in season three. Druids can potentially use what appears to be a combination of Rule Magic and Theurgy, enhanced by the addition of Blood Magic. Telluric currents and a Place of Power (the Nemeton) also play a significant role.
Present on True Blood. Inherent Gift seems to be fundamental to exactly how much magical power one can truly achieve without additional help. For example, Marnie was a mediocre practitioner of Rule Magic at best despite a lifetime of practice until she was possessed by Antonia, whereas Lafayette seemed to exhibit considerable magical potential without any training. Fairies and at least some of their part-human descendants also have an Inherent Gift for Force Magic. Maryanne the Maenad employed powerful Theurgy and Blood Magic as part of her worship of Dionysus.
The Twilight Zone (1985): In "The Uncle Devil Show", the title character teaches Joey how to perform actual magic through the Tim Ferret and Friends video. Joey is able to make cockroaches come out of a vase (though he meant for flowers to appear), give his poodle Ben four eyes, give his oblivious parents the heads of a lizard and a wolf, create a fantasy world and turn his toy dinosaur Binky into a real Tyrannosaurus rex.
Wizards of Waverly Place: Formulaic Magic and Item Magic. It's strongly implied that the incantations mainly serve to focus the thoughts of the wizard on a specific spell and aren't strictly necessary.

Tabletop Games

In Deadlands, almost all magic is some form of Theurgy, powered by either deities and nature spirits (good spirits), or manitous (evil spirits). The most peculiar one is the hucksters' magic, which is performed by engaging the demons in a test of wills disguised as a psychic game of skill and chance (99% of hucksters prefer poker). If the magician wins the card game and the demon loses, it must do something at his bequest, and if the manitou wins, it wreaks havoc. Non-Theurgy examples often use Theurgic elements:
- Tempests, greenies, and sykers are all Inherently Gifted, with sykers incorporating elements of Force Magic.
- "Enlightened" Martial Artists (read: Chop Sockey fighters) believe they're using their Life Energy to brutal effect, but it's actually a type of Force Magic.
- In the After the End setting of Deadlands: Hell on Earth, there are witches, who aren't a species but instead use a blend of Alchemy and Rule Magic. Contrast certain Mad Scientists in The Weird West, who were exclusively alchemists (with less-than-pure Theurgic inspiration).
- Most of the "technomagic" in any of the game's three settings uses Device Magic mixed with one or more other types; there are also relics, which are made magical through a variety of means, but typically remain so forever (and can be used by anyone).
Dragon Dice features a setting in which literally any playable unit has the potential to use magic - there are specialized units that can more reliably utilize magic, but given the right results, any unit can produce magic results that can be used to cast spells. It is a system of Elemental Magic where a unit's magical capabilities are determined by the elements that it is comprised of on a basic level.
Speaking of Dungeons & Dragons:
- Bards use Magic Music.
- Divine magic users (Clerics, Druids, Paladins, and Rangers among others) mainly use Theurgy. And until fourth edition followed strict Vancian rules where they had to prepare their spells for the day by asking their deity or the abstract form of nature for them.
- Wizards use Rule Magic which also followed Vance's rules but was prepared by studying their spellbook.
- Sorcerer magic is Inherent Gift magic that casts most of the same spells as Wizards, but without the Vancian requirement to prepare spells ahead of time.
- Warlocks use Force Magic powers gained through one or more pacts with various supernatural entities: faeries, Fiends, Eldritch Abominations, gods (rarely) etc. It's actually rather simple: a mortal approaches the being: offers it something(service, their soul, help in a vendetta against another such being, etc), the being collects it, and warps the soul of the mortal, giving them mystical powers that can be used through willpower alone. In Third Edition, this was Inherent Gift magic similar to the sorcerer's, but with a more demonic flavor.
- And of course, there's Device Magic in the form of more magic items than you can count.
- Psionics, while called something other than magic, is essentially an Inherent Gift Force Magic that uses the same energies and principles as magic, doesn't work in an Anti-Magic field, etc. In third edition at least, you had the option of treating Psionics as something different such that one couldn't directly counter or dispel the other one the same way they counter and dispel their own type of power. In practice though, it was easier to treat it as the same stuff accessed a different way.
- On top of those are: Incarnum, which is sort of a mix between Theurgy and Force Magic, calling the soul energy into forms centered on specific parts of your body.
- Binding: Binding extradimensional entities called "Vestiges" to yourself, a form of Theurgy
- Truenaming: Based on using specific utterances (combinations of "truenames") to make magic stuff happen.
- and Shadowcasting, a form of Force Magic, with perhaps a tad of Innate Magic thrown in, centering around using the shadowy shadowstuff of the Plane of Shadow to make...shadow...magic.
- Artificiers used Rules Magic via Device Magic (their magic worked by applying magic enhancements to objects on the fly, so instead of casting Fly on yourself, you'd make your boots into Boots of Flying).
- Dragonfire Adepts used the same Force Magic system as warlocks but were described as the Inherent Gift-y gaining their abilities from (somehow) infusing their souls with draconic energy instead of the warlock's (potentially inherited) pacts.
Exalted uses all of these in one form or another, but the most predominant are Charms, an Exalt's innate abilities that may be classed as Inherent Gifts or Theurgy given that Celestial Exalted are granted their powers by a God or Demon Lord, though Terrestrials gain their Exaltation from their Dragon Blood. Sorcery functions as Rule Magic, basically allowing the sorcerer to hack the raw source code of Creation and reshape Essence into whatever form she sees fit, but still requires a natural ability to manipulate Essence, generally from Exaltation. There's also Thaumaturgy, a combination of Force Magic, Rule Magic, and Alchemy, with a hint of theurgy (especially for the Arts dealing with various spirits). Generally weaker than the other kinds, and often requires expensive components, but can be learned by anybody (some rituals are so basic and straightforward that they don't even require initiation, just the barest degree of occult knowledge) and has a lot of homely utility.
GURPS uses a combination of Force Magic and Rule Magic. In GURPS Magic various other systems are detailed, culminating in "Syntactic Magic" which basically lets you do whatever you want whenever you want (or at least try).
In Ironclaw Elemental magic, thaumaturgy, mind magic, and basic White Magic (despite being practiced by priests) are all a combination of Inherent Gift and Rule Magic. Necromancy, on the other hand, is Theurgy with an element of Wild Magic as it binds angry and often unwilling spirits for power. The "Book of Mysteries" supplement has other forms of Theurgy with different levels of risk, from offensive spells with Lutarism, to some particularly vile spells for Druids but not elemental attacks, to practically no risk for the secret prayers by the same Church that uses white magic.
Urban Jungle: Occult Horror has both Innate Gift magic (Personal Power) and Theurgy (Petitioned Power). Personal Power recharges automatically but is capped at 1d6, while Petitioned Power has no limit but is dependent on the whim of whatever Eldritch Abomination was petitioned. However, either source of magic can be used to power Ritual Magic or Psychic Powers.
Nephilim basically revolves around this. Your character is a Nephilim that has access to three kinds of magic, and developing its magic skills is basically its goal in life
- Sorcery is Force Magic
- Kabbalah is a form of Theurgy (handed down by Jesus, who is a Nephilim), specifically of Summon Magic
- Alchemy lets you produce physical compounds that store magical effects. When you activate the compound later successfully, you get the effect
As of the New World of Darkness:
- Vampires use Inherent Gifts, with some covenants (and one bloodline) practicing a strange form of Theurgy based around blood magic.
- Mages use Force Magic laced with Rule Magic (and by a different set of rules than the mages of the old World of Darkness).
  - The Sourcebook Night Horrors: The Unbidden also goes into how magic can go wild either in terms of a mage losing control of their own power, or spontaneous and inexplicable magical phenomena occurring. The reason for the latter can be anything from the result of a big magical battle, to power accumulating over time, to spirits passing between dimensions, to just because.
  - In the Second Sight supplement book, various forms of lesser kinds of magic are also mentioned, including Alchemy, Psychic Powers, and a Cosmic kind of Equivalent Exchange. You don't want to know what you have to do for some of the higher-ranked spells/rituals from the Cosmic magic list.
- Prometheans (think Frankenstein's Monster) use an odd version of Inherent Gifts derived from Alchemy.
- Changelings practice a mixture of Theurgy and Nature Magic based on deals their masters made with primal forces.
- Werewolves straddle the line between Inherent Gift, Rule Magic, and Theurgy — their powers are supposedly inherent to their nature, but with only a few exceptions they must be learned from spirits.
- Hunters... well, it depends on the Conspiracy. The Lucifuge use Inherent Gifts based on the fact that they're the children of Hell. The Cheiron Group uses Device Magic based on cutting parts out of supernatural entities and grafting them on to themselves, whereas the Aegis Kai Doru's Device Magic is centered around the retrieval of ancient relics. The Ascending Ones use Alchemy to concoct elixirs that bestow them with unnatural talents. The Malleus Maleficarum use a form of Theurgy involving rituals associated with saints. The Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit uses Psychic Powers that aid interrogation and detective work. And so on.
- Sin-Eaters appear to use Force Magic; they draw upon forces present in the Underworld and filter them through certain Manifestations to produce effects. They also practice Necromantic rituals that allow them to interact with, bind, and repel ghosts.
- Mummies have two types of magic: Affinities, which are Inherent Gifts flavored with Wild Magic, innate powers that can be gained or lost at the whim of Fate, and Utterances, a form of Force Magic enabled by the strength of a mummy's life force, said to come from sources as old as the universe, and perhaps even older still.
- Demons use Rule Magic based around utilizing the pre-existing occult physics of the World of Darkness.
The Lost Citadel is an odd example. As a setting for Dungeons & Dragons, it used to have the exact same forms of Functional Magic as baseline Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. However, after the Fall, magic was dwindled and corrupted; it's no longer possible to cast any spell higher than 5th level, almost all offensive spells have been lost, and using magic in "the old way" risks falling afoul of Woe and drawing the attention of the Dead. Thus, magic practitioners in-universe are largely switching over to Ritual Magic instead, and players are incentivized to follow suit by rules that make it safer to use Ritual Magic.
Pathfinder, originating as a fork of D&D 3rd edition, has the same base classes who get their magic in the same way, but there are some differences.
- 2nd edition classifies magic into four different traditions stemming from different sources, with distinct spell lists that are used by all classes rather than each class having their own spell list. Arcane spellcasters such as wizards or magi use logic and rationality to analyze the magic inherent in the world around them. Divine casters like clerics and champions gain their magic from an extraplanar source, usually a god. Occult casters like bards and psychics get their power from unexplained and mysterious sources that they seek to study. And Primal casters, namely druids, call upon the power of nature.
- Sorcerers, rather than always casting arcane spells, can have different traditions based on their bloodline. For instance a sorcerer descended from aberrations can use the occult spell list while a Feytouched sorcerer may cast primal spells.
- The warlock class wasn't in the SRD for D&D3 so it's not in Pathfinder, but the witch class fills the thematic role as one who gained their power through a pact with an otherworldly patron. This patron provides a Familiar who acts as something like a living spellbook, with the witch preparing their daily spells by communing with their familiar. The witch's patron can follow one of multiple themes, which determines the tradition of their spells.
Psionic talents in Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution are similar to the inherent gift variety of this.
All magic in Pugmire is device magic employing relics of the Old Ones, and relies on Clarke's Third Law. Artisans (wizards) use relics known as "foci" to produce various effects that resemble magic, while Shepherds are injected with an elixir during their initiation that transforms their blood into "Blood of the Old Ones" but still need their holy symbols to cast spells.
Rifts uses pretty much every flavor of Functional Magic in the list above. The main commonality is that all magic users act as living batteries of Mana (called Potential Psychic Energy or P.P.E.), which they can tap to power their spells.
- Many magic users (the Ley Line Walker being a classic example) use Rule Magic in the form of Spells or Invocations that must be memorized by the user. However, unlike in D&D's Vancian Magic system, wizards don't have to study their spells every day.
- Mystics have Inherent Magic: all their magic and psychic power comes from within themselves, and they can't learn spells like other types of mages can.
- Shifters are a combination of Rule Magic and Theurgy. They learn spells like Ley Line Walkers and other types of wizards, but they focus on summoning and control magic and can make contact with powerful beings (usually evil, but not always) to gain even greater power for themselves. The Priest class from Pantheons of the Megaverse are a more classic, god-granted, form of Theurgy.
- Alchemy is rare; while magic potions can sometimes be found in the game (and the Philosopher's Stone makes an appearance), Druids out of the England Sourcebook are about the only character class able to make potions.
- Force Magic is something available to just about every single magic class, by way of Ley Lines and the eponymous Rifts, which are near-limitless sources of magic power a mage can tap into to enhance his own store of Mana. Likewise, proximity to a Ley Line or Ley Line Nexus increases the power of magic and psionics. Some classes, like the Ley Line Walker, have powers that can only be used when close to or on a Ley Line. Magic users who can't tap into Ley Line energy are the exception, not the rule.
- Ley Lines and Rifts are also behind Wild Magic, in the form of Ley Line Storms, which is basically when the buildup of magic energy along a ley line goes critical and all Hell breaks loose, sometimes literally. Wild Magic was much more prevalent during the Time of Chaos immediately following the Coming of the Rifts when magic was nearly impossible to control and made the random dimensional anomalies and disturbances of the main setting seem sedate by comparison.
- Device magic exists in many forms, from magic scrolls to rune weapons, but the most prevalent form of Device Magic on Rifts Earth is Techno Wizardy; which combines magic and technology to create Flaming Swords, guns that fire force bullets, and vehicles that run on magic energy.
- Rifts: Underseas has whale magic, as in magic performed by whales. No, really. It's probably the closest the books come to Music Magic.
- Most of the styles are relegated to specific classes. Elemental magic is the realm of Warlocks, Necromancy is used by, well, Necromancers and Nature Magic is used by a few classes here and there (like the Old Believer of Mystic Russia). Summon Magic can be used by most wizards, but Shifters specialize in it. White and Black magic are mostly judged on a case-by-case basis, though Necromancy is mostly always evil, and Nature Magic is mostly always good. Shifters are generally considered to perform Black Magic, but that's more of a stigma attached to the class than anything inherent in it. Divination is available to some classes, like Temporal Wizards, but is mostly found among psychic characters, as is Mentalism. Transmutation isn't used very often, and Equivalent Exchange is more or less non-existent.
Magic in Shadowrun blends Wild Magic with several of the other systems, most notably Force Magic; magic is an unstable, quasi-living force that can sometimes simply cause things to happen (as with The Awakening), but it can be controlled either through complex formulas (as practiced by mages, the setting's Rule Magic users) or by interacting with one of the aspects of magic (as shamans do; they practice Theurgy). As well, there's a certain level of Inherent Gift involved, as only certain people are able to become mages or shamans, those with a particular affinity for the astral plane. Later supplements imply that the only reason any of this works is that the magic user believes it works and that people who are particularly attuned to magic are capable of creating entire magic systems of their own (which makes it more Clap Your Hands If You Believe mixed with Inherent Gift).
Magic in Unknown Armies is almost entirely Rule Magic, although, crazy as most magic users are, they often believe that they're using some other system. There is some wild magic as well, mostly used by Non Player Characters. Device magic does exist, but it's rare - imbuing an object with magical power so that anyone can use it is a difficult process, either because it involves long, complicated rituals, or because you need the collective belief of millions of people to imbue an object (say, a holy relic) with great symbolic significance, or because they're spontaneously created during events of extreme emotion that coincide with a release of magickal energy and are thus irreproducible.
The Valdorian Age setting for 5th edition Fantasy Hero has Divine Magic, Necromantic Magic, Elemental Magic, and Black Magic, but it's all just Theurgy. Spellcasters make pacts with different types of extraplanar beings to get results, who will eventually call in all those favors they've done for the spellcaster ... and none of them, even the Divine Servants who power Divine Magic, are exactly "nice".
Warhammer has an interesting combination of these. The Negative Space Wedgie at the poles cause the local equivalents of the arctic and Antarctic regions to essentially be overrun with Wild Magic. This is spread through the world by the "winds of magic" which can be tapped into by wizards as a power source (Force Magic), to power learned spells (Rule Magic), or enchant items (Device Magic). However, the ability to work these kinds of magic is itself an Inherent Gift that a tiny fraction of individuals are born with, albeit one that generally needs training and perfecting.
- There are also a number of priests and shamans who practice a kind of Divine Magic, though the lines are blurred here as to whether it is something different from the usual magic of regular wizards or just the same kind of Rule Magic / Force Magic with a religious aesthetic. Empire Warrior Priests, for instance, can call upon the wrath of their god Sigmar to create minor magical effects in battle, and rules-wise this is treated slightly differently to normal magic (and the priests themselves do not count as wizards). Conversely, Khemrian Liche-priests make invocations to their ancient gods, but their powers are treated as out-and-out magic and they do count as wizards (the same with Ogre Butchers, Orc and Goblin Shamans, and Skink Priests). Many Dark Magic spells used by Chaos Sorcerers and Dark Elf Sorcerers also involve pacts with daemonic beings for their power, though this is not the sole means by which either type of wizard works their art.
  - The essential problem is that what would otherwise be relatively simple force magic is complicated by the fact that the force itself is 1. Sapient 2. Chaotic (both the math version and the alignment version) and 3. Made of daemon-gods that consider you, at best, an amusing plaything…
The equivalent to magic in Warhammer 40,000 can loosely be described as a combination of Wild Magic and Theurgy. Only replace "Wild" with "Horror". With training it can be made to look a little like force magic but, as with Warhammer magic, the force drawn upon is alive, aware, and abominable.
- The horror aspect is most closely associated with the theurgical form, which is why all the "civilised" races have banned it, but that doesn't mean horror can't happen anyway, since the wild form involves using the caster's own willpower to enforce order on the literal embodiment of chaos from where all psionic power originates. Bad Things happen if their concentration slips even momentarily.

Video Games

Chrono Trigger: The magic learnt by the main cast (sans Robo and Ayla) is a hereditary Inherent Gift; it just takes a visit to Spekkio to unlock it. Robo is a robot, so he can't inherit the 'spark', as Spekkio calls it, and it's later revealed that only after Lavos fell and began influencing the progression of the planet did people begin to develop powers. Ayla was born before this, so she doesn't have the gift (but, oddly, her final attack is a form of Summon Magic), while the other cast members do, because they were all born long after.
While the details of how a magic-wielding City of Heroes Player Character operates are limited only by the player's imagination, the description of the Magic origin in the character creator specifically mentions three types; those who wield magical artifacts (Device Magic), those who study and cast spells (Rule Magic), and those who have made pacts with mystical entities (Theurgy). And that's not even getting into the other four selectable origins (Science, Technology, Mutation, and Natural), or Incarnate powers available to all top-level characters (which would fall somewhere between Theurgy and Wild Magic).
Doom³ managed to have one Device Magic weapon in a world where teleportation into hell had become a possibility through technology. The Soul Cube could not be analysed due to its immunity to radiological scans (making it impossible to determine its atomic makeup), was sentient, had a constant body temperature, and levitated (making it impossible to calculate its density). Its creation involved sacrificing the Martian race.
In Dragon Age magic has several flavors. Mages (one of selectable player classes) is a mix of Force Magic and Inherent =Gift. Only people born magi can use magic, and the power of magic comes from The Fade, which is a combination of a Spirit World, a Dream Land, and a Background Magic Field. It's possible for Mages to use Theurgy to enhance their own powers and even summoning magic with demons but it's dangerous because it can cause Demonic Possession. Even good spirits can create Well Intentioned Extremists. Dwarves are stuck with inherent Anti-Magic so instead they use game's highly toxic resident Green Rocks lyrium to craft magic weapons (include laser beam staffs) and even a big Magitek ball that accidentally shifted them into another dimension filled with demons giving them Device Magic, they may also possess Alchemy assuming they invented the skin salves that can stop lightning bolts. Bards can apparently use Magic Music or they're just really good at singing. There's even a Magic from Technology example with the Templars who get Anti-Magic and Smite Evil by drinking lyrium, too bad it eventually turns them into crack-heads.
- Also contains all the magical styles including Equivalent Exchange (Magic might be tearing down the barrier between the real world and the Fade (the Background Magic Field); and Blood Magic, portrayed as the classical blackest of black magics, although perhaps not as bad as everyone thinks.
Drakengard does not use Force Magic or Wild Magic. It has a form of Theurgy (pacts), Rule Magic (casting curses and seals), Alchemy (magic potions are sold everywhere), Device Magic (all equippable weapons can cast a certain spell imbued in them), and some people seem to be better sorcerers for no other reason than they happen to have an Inherent Gift, though it doesn't rule out others becoming sorcerers.
The Elder Scrolls
- Most magic in series is a mix of Rule, Force, and to some extent (with enchanted magical artifacts) Device magic. In terms of gameplay, casting spells is simply Rule magic. You learn spells and then, if you have sufficient Magicka, you can cast them. In-universe, magic is explained to exist as Force magic, thanks to a Background Magic Field. During the creation of Mundus, the mortal plane, Magnus, an "et'Ada" (original spirit), discovered that by creating Mundus, he and his fellow et'Ada would be forever bound to it and significantly weakened as a result. He and his followers, the "Magna-Ge" (star orphans), bailed out on creation and fled to Aetherius, the realm of magic. As they fled, they punctured holes between Mundus and Aetherius which we see as the sun and stars. Magic flows through them into Mundus, visible as nebulae.
- After its founding, the Mages Guild first codified and popularized the idea of the "Eight Schools" of magic (though by the 4th Era, Thaumaturgy and Mysticism would be absorbed by the other schools, and many of the individual spells would be re-classified between schools even before then). To note:
  - Alchemy, the study of the magical virtues of different forms of matter, their effects, combinations, and recombinations. To include the concoction of potions, elixirs, and magical draughts.
  - Alteration, the distortion of reality through the manipulation and reshaping of physical objects. To include spells of paralysis, levitation, jumping, water breathing, water walking, locking, lock opening, feather, burden, and personal elemental shields such as flame cloaks.
  - Conjuration, the summoning and binding of spirits from Oblivion or Aetherius. To include soul trapping, spells that conjure Daedra or other creatures, spells to banish same, summoning of bound weapons and armor, as well as (for classification purposes) the forbidden necromantic arts of reanimation, conjuration, and manipulation of the undead.
  - Destruction, the splintering of material bonds by the direct application of force, typically elemental in nature. To include damaging spells of flame, frost, shock, and disintegration, as well as magic that drains essence or personal attributes.
  - Illusion, the altering of perception in oneself or others. To include spells of light, invisibility, fear, frenzy, and silence, as well as magic that affects morale and obedience.
  - Mysticism, the class of spells used to alter the nature of magic itself. To include effects that dispel or absorb both spells and the magicka that feeds them, teleportation, as well as telekinesis (which fits here as well as anywhere). Most of its effects were either dropped or reclassified under Alteration.
  - Restoration, the opposite of destruction, magic that resists damage or restores wholeness by reknitting the damaged material. To include wards, healing, curing of disease and poison, physical fortification, and the turning of undead (a forced purification effect).
  - Thaumaturgy, the magic that affects the will and personal state of mind. To include spells that calm, charm others, defend from magic, and allow the user to levitate or walk on water. It was the first school to become obsolete, its effects divided between Alteration, Mysticism, and Illusion.
- Still other types of magic exist, which don't fit neatly into the "schools" at all. One example is the Thu'um, the draconic Language of Magic which allows for small scale Reality Warping. The Thu'um crosses over Force magic with Divine magic, since ES dragons are divine Aedric beings. Another example is the magic channeled from the Heart of Lorkhan, the "dead" creator god of Mundus. It too is similar to Divine magic, but with a much more eldritch twist. Its power has been used to turn mortals into Physical Gods, as well as create a Mystical Plague which warps and twists the affected into terrifying Humanoid Abominations.
Emerald City Confidential uses Device Magic and Rule Magic. Characters can cast spells if they have a license and learn certain words. There are also magical MacGuffins that augment their power, such as the Spirit Rod or Keystones.
Eternal Darkness uses a combination of Rule Magic and Theurgy; spells are set up almost grammatically, but require one of four Eldritch Abominations to lend their power alignment to the spell. Some characters occasionally have prepackaged Device Magic that lets them cast various spells a limited number of times, at least until they gain access to the Tome of Eldritch Lore that lets them cast spells on their own.
The EXA_PICO games use Magic from Technology which in practical terms functions through a combination of Rule Magic and Inherent Gift. Magic power derives from a series of towers built by an ancient civilization and can only be accessed by so-called Reyvateils, who are the beings that administer the towers or those descended from them. Spells are cast through songs, sung in a language called "Hymnos", which function like computer programs that interface with the tower with which the caster is affiliated to summon forth magic.
In the Exile and Avernum cRPG series, magic is pretty much everything but Wild Magic. Both arcane and divine magic is present, but the energy required to cast spells is the same for both. There don't appear to be any Ley Lines or somesuch, so the source of mana is somewhat unclear. Just about anyone can learn magic, but learning is not cheap, and likely also heavily restricted via legal means. Both divine and arcane casters can summon creatures to do their bidding, divists mostly spirits, and arcanists just about anything but spirits. Alchemy certainly exists, and so does Device Magic. Magical creatures are plentiful (sort of) and possess Inherent Gifts.
Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy notably featured rare (for this series) examples of straightforward Device Magic, as several items could be used to cast spells even by classes prohibited the use of natural magic. However, most of the game stayed true to a Dungeons & Dragons style magic.
- Final Fantasy VII has Device Magic in the form of Materia (sort of like processed life force), as well as Inherent Gifts, though other forms of magic seen in the game are markedly less Functional. If you believe the theory that most of the Final Fantasy games are connected to each other in at least some small way, all magic in the series seems to originate from the Elemental Crystals and Summon Spirits (both forms of sentient Earth Spirits), who like to essentially download information on how to do magic directly into people's brains, which makes nearly all of it a combination of Rule Magic and Theurgy.
- Final Fantasy VIII uses a combination of Theurgy in the form of Guardian Forces and Force Magic in the form of para-magic, the ability to do such sometimes being granted by Guardian Forces. What really stands out is how the para-magic is considered a natural resource, as both the power source AND structure of the spell can be harvested from natural magic gysers called draw points, or traded with / stolen from others by using a guardian force's draw ability, e.g. you can harvest fire spells from a Fire draw point and cast them without decades of practice, but they're basically raw materials and you can make higher-level fire-only spells from those charges with Guardian Forces as your craftsmen, and once you run out of fire charges you can't make more on your own. Sorceresses use magic that resembles the Inherent Gift, but the methodology in which they use this magic is what para-magic is based on. Though Guardian Forces are used to allow SeeDs to siphon para-magic, they are not required to actually cast it, as most Galbadian and Estharian soldiers have a few spells as part of their equipment loadout and can cast it without GF assistance.
- Final Fantasy X: While normal magic (i.e. Lulu's elemental spells and Yuna's white magic) isn't explained to be governed by any real rules, the abilities of a summoner are said to be an Inherent Gift, as when Wakka first talks about Yuna, he says she "had the talent", implying only some people have what it takes to bond with the Fayth and summon Aeons.
- Final Fantasy X-2: The Garment Grid system is a form of Device Magic, allowing the girls to access the abilities of the person whose memories are held within the sphere e.g. Lenne, a popular performer in ancient Zanarkand, is the one whose memories make up the Songstress Dressphere; the magic the girls gain access to from the spheres comes in virtually all flavors, (Black Mage covers Elemental Magic, Songstress uses Magic Music, the Beastmaster uses Summon Magic, etc) making it very versatile overall.
- Final Fantasy XII uses Force Magic, the Mist is the source of all magic, and when concentrated into nethicite, it starts to act like plutonium gone beyond the critical mass.
- In Final Fantasy XIII, the main characters are all marked as l'Cie by fal'Cie, which grants them the ability to use magic. Their summons don't show up until later and are related to the mark somehow.
- Final Fantasy XIV features several different schools of magic that use it in different ways.
  - Conjurers and their job, White Mages, use Force magic and Theurgy, calling upon the elementals and the energy of the world around them to use elemental powers and fittingly, White magic. However, certain Non Player Characters have the Inherent Gift of becoming Hearers, who can Divine the will of the elementals. Those even more gifted become an entirely different race blessed by the elementals called the Padjal, who are known as the Seedseers.
  - Thaumaturges and their job, Black Mages, use Force magic and Rule magic to use elemental powers, using the energy of the environment and mana within themselves.
  - Arcanists use a stricter variation of Rule magic and Geometric Magic. They can become Scholars or Summoners, which use Theurgy to call on the fairies' and Primals' powers, respectively, while still keeping the Arcanist's spells. Anyone who does any sort of summoning, whether it is a Beast Tribe summoning a Primal or someone calling upon the Twelve's pantheon is obviously using Theurgy.
  - Astrologians use Theurgy to call on the power of the constellations with a touch of Divination.
  - Another form of magic unusable by players is The Power of the Void, which is a form of Theurgy Black Magic with a touch of Wild magic since it usually involves a Deal with the Devil with the Voidsent.
  - Red Mages use a combination of Force Magic and Device Magic. Unlike Black or White Mages, Red Mages do not draw aether from the world around them, but rather use aether from their own bodies. This carries significantly greater danger to the caster than other forms of magic, but Red Mages have developed a technique to maximize their effectiveness while minimizing the risk; by using only small amounts of their aether, which they project through magicked crystal mediums attached to their rapiers to magnify their magical powers.
  - The exact form of magic Blue Mages use is more difficult to categorize, due to how unique it is compared to the other magic classes: Blue Magic is learned through observing, then replicating, the abilities of monsters. This gives Blue Mages a great degree of versatility, such that even though they are officially classified as a Ranged Magic class, in practice, they break the Damager, Healer, Tank triangle.
  - Other jobs use "magic" in different forms as well - Monks and Ninjas use chakras and ninjutsu, respectively, which are both Force magic but the latter has more Rules and even a touch of Ritual magic. Dragoons can call upon the power of dragons through Theurgy, Bards use Magic Music, Paladins use some White magic, and Dark Knights use a touch of Black Magic. Gunbreakers use Device Magic, casting spells using aether cartridges fired from their gunblades.
- Final Fantasy XV's signature magic is Crystal magic, where summons are worshipped as gods and attune to a select few through the power of magic crystals, which are a dying breed. Noctis himself has an Inherent Gift which allows him to use a specific set of teleportation and levitation magic, and if anyone else tries to cast it using his focus they'll get mixed results but suffer permanent brain damage. Even though there are also draw points in this game, para-magic isn't as popular because the most powerful spells are mostly area-of-attack yet they don't just ignore the caster and their allies, and magitek-powered conventional weaponry is far more effective.
- Final Fantasy Type-0: in Rubrum, magic is an Inherent Gift granted only to the nation's youth, with magical aptitude waning as people age. As such, the main forces of Rubrum's military is comprised of Child Soldiers no older than their teens. Many members of Class Zero can use unique forms of Device Magic derived from their weapons of choice. To name a few examples: Ace can cast special spells using his deck of cards, Deuce uses a flute to play Magic Music, Cater has a magitek pistol that can fire magic bolts, and Queen can cast special effects using her broadsword. Offensive spells are categorized by the manner in which they are utilized: RF ("rifle") fires spells as a ranged projectile, SHG ("shotgun") unleashes magic in a close-range conical area of effect, ROK ("rocket") fires an explosive projectile, MIS ("missile") unleashes a homing projectile, and BOM ("bomb") creates an explosion of magic around the caster.
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles has Device magic. While everybody has inherent skill in casting magic, you need special items called Magicite. You can only cast the spell specific to that Magicite, and Magicite seem to disappear after an adventure is completed. It's possible to find extremely rare relics that give you permanent Magicite, but they're still items you need to use to cast specific spells. Casting any magic more complex than the basic elements that come with each Magicite requires multiple casters to cast spells together, with the end result not only depending on what spells were used in the spell fusion, but also the timing, (i.e. two spellcasters using Fire at the same spot at the same time creates Fira, but having one person delay it by a second turns it into the powerful Firaga.) This adds a bit of Rule Magic.
The exact workings of magic in the Fire Emblem series tend to be loosely defined, but most games tend towards Device Magic: magic can only be performed with the right equipment, typically tomes or staves. Like non-magical weapons, they have limited uses and will break upon running out of durability.
- Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade has a strange mix. The basis is Device Magic mixed with Inherent Gift, but the three types of magic operate differently. Light magic works off of faith in the unknown or in the rightness of your cause. Dark magic works by inviting dark forces within oneself and requires a great deal of self-control, lest its user submit to the dark forces and essentially lapse into a coma. Anima magic is Theurgy, as it involves learning chants to communicate with nature spirits, which can take years to correctly hear and decipher.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses has more in-depth workings. Portrayed as Force Magic rather than Device Magic (magic can be cast without the need of a weapon, although some items can enhance magical effects), there are two schools of magic: "reason" (Black Magic), which is based on practical knowledge; and "faith" (White Magic), which is based on reverence towards the Goddess of Fodlan. Inherent Gift is also at play in the form of Crests, enchanted bloodlines from the Goddess and Her disciples that bestow enhanced abilities to those who bear them, from conserving magical charges to enhanced physical strength.
Golden Sun:
- Magic- sorry, Psynergy involves manipulating the four basic elements that are Venus (earth and plants), Jupiter (wind and lightning), Mars (fire and lava), and Mercury (water and ice). While normally restricted to the descendants of Psynergy-wielding clans, non-Adepts can use Psynergy after contact with a Psynergy stone (concentrated psynergy that normally functions as a party-wide full mana potion).
- Elemental Djinn bestow some of their power to the person who holds them, changing the type of psynergy that they can wield, and can be used to summon increasingly powerful spirits and gods against enemies.
- Some are non-elemental, such as a skill compared to ki that uses the mind's power instead of the body's (chi).
- The third game (set three decades after the first two) adds in light and dark psynergies, possibly as a result of Alchemy being released on the world. There were dark and light-themed psynergies before, but they fell under Venus and Mars respectively.
.hack is supposed to be a game within a game, so obviously, the "real world" has no clear example of magic. There are some things that advanced programmers can do that are reminiscent of magic, but that's debatable. The "game world" uses Rule Magic, unsurprisingly. What little there is of the background story suggests that Wild Magic is also at play.
King's Quest: These type of spells are all Alexander seems to be able to cast. Not that he can't be terribly inventive with it.
Kingdom Hearts, as a fusion of Disney and Final Fantasy, also utilizes their respective magic systems. cutscenes tend to use Disney-like inherent and wild magic, while characters tend to use Final Fantasy's more rule-oriented design in combat. But that's a general rule. Certain elements in the plot sometimes emphasize different forms of magic, such as The Keyblade and King Triton's Trident representing Artifact Magic. Finally, a few worlds, such as Port Royal, play with the rules of having two very different magic systems collide.
Most magic depicted in The Legend of Zelda games is either Inherent Gift, Theurgy, or some combination of the two, with some Magic Music for good measure. Device Magic, some light Rule Magic, and Alchemy also show up on occasion.
- Inherent Gift: Magic use in the Zelda series is often restricted to certain individuals, or occasionally races. When individuals are shown using magic, whether they were born with the ability or learned it because their race as a whole is capable of doing so is generally not elaborated upon.
  - Ganondorf is frequently shown using some kind of Black Magic to do evil.
  - The Seven Sages of Ocarina of Time, individuals representing the six races of Hyrule in that game, have abilities that, when combined, help seal Ganondorf away.
  - The Champions of Breath of the Wild all have single-application magical abilities (with the exception of Link, depending on your view) that are seen nowhere else in their respective races. The origins of the Champions' powers and their connections to earlier depictions of magic in the series beyond the superficial, if any, are never elaborated upon, and only one of the powers, Daruk's Protection, is shown to be heritable as Daruk's descendant Yunobo is shown to also be able to do it. To further confuse things, we see that Revali developed his own ability, so they don't seem like 100% Inherent Magic in his case.
  - Some of the Sheikah (and their defectors in Breath of the Wild) have been depicted using ninjutsu-type abilities, such as flash-stepping, Doppelganger Spinning, teleportation, and even some limited summoning of inanimate objects.
- Rule Magic: It's uncommon, but has appeared in Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild.
  - The Link of Wind Waker is not actually an incarnation of the divinely ordained legendary hero and is only a kid who proves his worth to the gods over the course of the game for the right to wield the Master Sword. He gains a Magic Meter before this that initially just powers his Deku Leaf glider and later powers his elemental Trick Arrows. Thus, his magic is not divinely ordained.
  - The Champion abilities in Breath of the Wild take on some Rule Magic qualities once they're passed to Link, and become Vancian in nature, apparently because Link isn't the original bearer- they can only be used three times before needing to recharge (with the exception of Mipha's Grace, which works once before recharge), they have cooldown times, and can't be "turned down", like how Mipha could "turn down" her healing abilities to fix minor scrapes- when Link gets access to it, it only kicks in to save him from death.
- Magic Music: Since Ocarina of Time, some kind of musical element driving magic has been relatively common in the Zelda series. The songs played on the Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, Spirit Flute, or Goddess's Harp have all had effects ranging from opening ways to areas, summoning your horse, or contacting a friend, to changing the direction of the wind, the time of day, or summoning storms. This is downplayed somewhat in Twilight Princess, as the role of music is limited to Wolf Link activating Howling Stones.
  - Goes back even further back to the very first game in the series, where Link obtained a flute that allowed him to summon cyclones for fast travel and open up secret pathways.
- Theurgy: It is stated in several games that Link and Zelda are reincarnations of a legendary hero and princess predating the founding of Hyrule who carry the blood of the goddess Hylia. Zelda's magic is often White Magic related to sealing away evil, and Link's magical ability often originates from deities in some form, whether that's Hylia Herself (health and stamina augmentations in Breath of the Wild) or the trio of Golden Goddesses (Din's Fire, Farore's Wind, and Nayru's Love in Ocarina of Time). The Triforce itself is an artifact of the Golden Goddesses.
- Device Magic: Appears in the form of various artifacts that often originate from the Sheikah, as well as some of the items that Link uses on his journey, such as the Gale Boomerang in Twilight Princess, as well as the Wind Waker and the Spirit Flute.
  - Breath of the Wild features numerous Sheikah artifacts from 10,000 years ago in the game's plot, ranging from the iPad-like Sheikah Slate that Link and Zelda are shown using and the Ancient Armor and weapons, to the mecha-like Divine Beasts, Guardians, and Shrines. All of these are made out of mysterious ancient materials that far surpass other contemporary materials in all aspects at the time of the game's scenario. Additionally, the Trick Arrows in this game, unlike in previous games, do not require any kind of magic source from the user in order to operate. This is also true of all of the elemental weapons depicted in the game.
  - Hyrule Historia suggests that certain magical items seen in pre-BotW games, such as the Ocarina of Time, Gossip Stones, Howling Stones, Sheikah Stones, and others may be made of the same material as Skyward Sword's Timeshift Stones, bringing some Alchemy into play.
In Magicka a steam game there is an elemental rule-based magic system. You summon 8 different elements that combine with each other in different ways to create new deadly effects. Some deadly to yourself as well. For instance, summoning lightning elements while wet hurts the player. Combining rock and fire though yields a fireball, while combining water and fire yields steam, etc. There are hundreds of combinations.
In Might and Magic VIII, there are three races (which function as classes in that game) with inherent racial abilities.
The Myst universe uses Rule Magic. Write in the right language with the right ink in books made with the right sort of paper and the book will become a portal to the universe described in the book. Opinions differ as to whether this creates the universe or merely links to a pre-existing one, and whether "be of the right bloodline" is also in the conditions.
- Typically only the insane believe the Art actually creates worlds, and Anna/Ti'ana and Katran/Catherine disprove the latter. Also, the Bahro have the ability to Link as an innate gift, and Yeesha can break the rules and do pretty much whatever the hell she wants in her ages.
- Anna and Catherine disproved the former as well, being from Earth and Riven respectively as opposed to D'ni descent. Catherine also displayed a talent for bending the rules to their breaking point; it's possible Yeesha's gift is merely an extension of this explaining why her belief that she was the Messiah ultimately doomed her attempt to free the Bahro in Myst V: End of Ages.
The Magecraft in the Nasuverse contains:
- Alchemy — The folks at Atlas, although it's a bit more complicated than mixing potions or making magic items. They "create the future, using the ingredients of the present." Basically an organization of Chessmasters who use The Plan to do everything. They can do this because they organize their brains into supercomputers. A more classic version is part of the Einzbern magecraft, for instance, taking a silver wire and then using magic to form it into an eagle to attack one's enemies.
- (limited) Device Magic — Mystic Codes (the "wands", so to speak), Conceptual Armaments, Knight Arms
- Elemental Magic — Although different from the classic ones. The element of a magus is determined by their Origin. Whatever that Origin is, the magus is more likely to specialize in it.
- Force Magic — Powered by Ley Lines or similar mana pools, which are natural places to manipulate Mana.
- (limited) Inherent Gift — Humans need at least the Magic Circuit to use magecraft, and individuals born with a higher number of (or better) Circuits will have an inherent advantage. There are also Mystic Eyes, a form of Magic Circuits inherent to the eyes, the most powerful of which are the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, which allow the user to "see" death as a concept and be able to fully realize it.
- Mentalism — Includes psychic powers (under Mystic Eyes) and Reality Marbles (close to Sorcery).
- Rule Magic — The "theory engraved onto the World". The magecraft also applies Equivalent Exchange, although it's not as obvious. Mana is a requirement to perform magecraft. Although, some techniques can be used to reduce the cost of mana in performing magecraft like Shirou's case; his mana cost for Gradation Air is practically zero within Unlimited Blade Works.
- Summon Magic — Developed by Tohsaka, Makiri, and Einzbern to facilitate the Grail War.
- Theurgy — Epic Spirits, Elementals, et al.
- (limited) Wild Magic:
  - The Counter Force.
  - Of course, then you have the thing called (True) Magic or Sorcery, which is defined as "the impossible" (that is, the powers of Reality Warping, Time Master, Dimensional Traveler, Immortality, and so on), which Only the Chosen May Wield.
Phantasy Star uses different types of magic over the course of the series. While the first game uses a non-descript type of magic, Phantasy Star II introduces the concept of "techniques", which are considered to be distinct from actual magic in Phantasy Star IV. Phantasy Star Online conceptualizes techniques as a form of Device Magic via Magic from Technology that is learned from special discs and encompass an array of Elemental Powers, including fire, lightning, ice, and so on. Inherent Gift is also at play: humans can learn magic, but newmans excel at it, while robots make for poor casters (and in some games, can't use magic at all).
In Sabres of Infinity, magic takes the form of the Bane. the Bane is a magical force that exists in all living creatures, but only those with a considerable potency in their blood (known as Banecasters) can use it to manipulate their surroundings.
Sakura Wars tends towards Inherent Gift when it comes to piloting the series's iconic Steampunk Mini-Mecha: only a select few individuals have the spiritual energy to be able to pilot these mecha, and most of those people tend to be women, save for the typically male commanding officer. Some characters also have elemental properties to their attacks, such as Maria and ice magic, Gemini and fire magic, and Kamiyama and lightning magic. Claris, from the 2019 reboot, is one of the very few characters who actually practices magic outside (or in her case, alongside) piloting mecha, using another Inherent Gift-based magic called "libromancy", magic from the written word, which she uses in conjunction with a Spell Book.
The Secret World features many different varieties of functional magic used throughout the game by either the player character or the NPCs.
- Theurgy: A variation- because they have been symbiotically bonded with one of the Agarthan Bees, players have the ability to wield magic, either casting traditional spells or channeling energy through their weaponry.
- Inherent Gift: Many characters were simply born with magical powers, in some cases because of genetic inheritance, in others for no percievable reason at all.
- Rule Magic: Secret Worlders who haven't been touched by "The Buzzing" and don't possess inherent gifts have to learn how to use magic through incantations, gestures, and rituals. Though it works as good as the other two variety, it takes a long and risky education process to master- though some people find it easier than others- Hayden Montag was casting advanced spells before he hit adolescence, while John Wolf had to study for thirty years just to cast a simple fireball spell.
- Device Magic: The Illuminati have taken this to an artform in crafting various Magitek objects to control or enhance magical processes: Lore entries mention imprisoning demons inside specially-made hard drives, Dr Zurn provides a full-body workout for your powers and a flashback to the Tokyo incident with a simple injection, and the faculty at Innsmouth Academy reinforce their wards with W.A.N.D. anima devices.
Shin Megami Tensei uses multiple flavors:
- Theurgy and Device Magic: Humans in most games must rely on machinery to perceive, negotiate with, and summon "demons" to perform magic for them. Negotiation is important, because demons have multiple factions, and siding with one means a tougher negotiation with others.
- Alchemy: The Demon Fusion mechanic, which treats demons as components by which you can produce new demons, and thus, new magic.
- Inherent Gift: A rather gross sort. Some humans become able to cast magic, but at the cost of slowly transforming into demons themselves. Prevalent in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, and Digital Devil Saga, though Shin Megami Tensei IV's Whisper mechanic blends it with Theurgy instead, allowing the demons to teach you magic and add it to your skill pool.
- The Persona series delves into magic quite a bit, and Persona 3 works especially hard, via the school nurse Edogawa's magical theory lessons, to establish a consistent, reality-based magic system. Essentially, Persona summoning could be considered a form of Theurgy, with the Personas themselves utilizing Elemental Powers. Fuuka and Mitsuru are also capable of a limited form of Divination, and certain spells, like Psy-type attacks and skills that induce status effects like Brainwash or Rage, fall under Mentalism. Persona 5 more explicitly uses Theurgy, as every member of the player's party is shown forming contracts with their Personas when summoning them (save for Morgana and Akechi who already obtained a Persona before joining).
Most of the puzzle mechanisms featured in Shirone: The Dragon Girl are magic (magic barriers, moving platforms, hard light bridges, all powered by magic orbs that seem to act as a power source). There are also magic rune stones that give Shirone the ability to teleport to a sigil she can see, or to power one mechanism at a time. There is also a device that stores large objects into small crystals.
An expansion pack for The Sims 2 introduced this. It's mostly Rule Magic, all spells require items called reagents that can either be bought, or made in a cauldron for free, albeit time-consuming. Benevolent spells typically have reagents described to be from a good source, such as crystallized moonbeams, and dragon scales willingly given up by an elder dragon. Malevolent spells require reagents described to be gotten from causing harm, such as snake venom painfully taken from a snake, and literal Eye of Newt. Also you have to be a member of the Mage Species, which you can convert to.
In Suikoden the magic system is definitely a Rule Magic of sorts: all magic in the setting is based on the invokation of "Runes", which is a symbol representing the nature of a certain thing, such as Fire, Wind, Water, and so on. Runes can be inscribed on objects, which grants the object magical properties, or on people in the form of glowing tattoos (usually on the back of the right or left hand, but on occasion the forehead), which grants the person with the Rune magical properties or the ability to cast spells, depending on the Rune in question. The spellcasting itself is a matter of personal ability, like any skill. Many Runes are unique or otherwise extremely rare, and with difficulty new or more effective versions of old Runes can be created by Runemasters. Runes also are a form of Theurgy in rare cases: aside from the common Runes and rare ones, there are the 27 True Runes, which are both aware and sentient, though usually not very communicative, and in fact most can't communicate at all. Aside from being more potent then regular Runes, True Runes have two side-effects to having them inscribed on a human being: firstly, the subject is immune to the effects of aging, though he or she can still be killed. Secondly, each True Rune's "will" is frequently demonstrated by forcing the character (most often the hero and lead antagonist) along certain paths of fate, as each True Rune has a complicated destiny associated with it.
Tales Series
- "Aselia" world, featured in Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Symphonia and their spin-offs, has Inherent Gift and Force Magic. Elves and their part-human hybrids can use mana around them to cast spells. Humans, who have too little elven blood to cast traditional spells, can create pacts with spirits for Summon Magic (Theurgy). Finally, humans can also ingest magic rock called "Aionis" (Device Magic) and achieve same Force Magic as elves.
- In Tales of Destiny all magic is strictly Device Magic and provided by magic swords that some of the heroes hold. Most of them provide only Elemental Magic.
- Tales of Vesperia uses a bit of Force Magic and Device Magic together: to perform magic, one must use a Blastia to weave the Aer around them into a spell to use. The exceptions to this are the Children of the Full Moon. They have no need for blastia and tend to be extremely powerful.
- Tales of Zestiria and Tales of Berseria uses both Inherent Gift and Theurgy. For Seraphim/malakhim as well as hellions/demons it's Inherent Gift, while humans have to create pacts with the former. Seraphim/malakhim also has "domains", which are Inherent Gift with a hint of Wild Magic. For some of them it's useful power that protects an area around them, while for others it's straight-up curse, that summons demons or makes them so unlucky, that they become a Walking Disaster Area.
Touhou Project's Spellcard system is notable because of how it deals with Rule Magic; the rules are basically a self-imposed consensus agreement, in order to ensure everyone has an equal footing in magical duels. Most characters in the game fall under Inherent Gift, complete with Superpower Lottery. However, Theurgy is used in several notable instances, such as summoning the powers of gods, and several characters display some form of Device Magic.
The Ultima series uses Rule Magic except for Ultima VIII which shoehorns in every single style, and forces your character to learn all of them in order to complete the plot.
Wandering Hamster's lead protagonist Bob the Hamster has a type of magic called Magic Smite, which is equal parts Full-Contact Magic and Vancian Magic. Other magic users, including James the Bubble Mage, use elemental magic.
The Warcraft series uses pretty much all of the variants. (In story terms, at least. In terms of game mechanics, every class with any magical ability uses Force Magic — magic powered by mana in most cases, or in the case of death knights, runes charged with magic that can be spent on a spell and periodically recharge on their own.)
- Mages and warlocks use Arcane Magic and Fel (type of arcane), a combination of Rule magic and Force magic. It relies on drawing power from the Twisting Nether, and magic energy tends to flow along ley lines.
- Paladins use a type of Theurgy, drawing their powers from the "Holy Light" and/or giant space windchimes called Naaru.
- Shamans use a third type of Theurgy, drawing their power from communion with the elemental spirits — this is much more pronounced in the novels, where they have to go so far as to ask the spirits for each individual favor.
- Druids and some hunters can use Force magic from their connection with nature.
- Priests use Theurgy from many different sources, which can be Holy Light, Naaru, Loa, old gods, etc.
- Death Knights' powers seem to come from within their own altered natures. It's actually a combination of talents gained from undeath and an understanding of runic magic, which essentially involves replication of ley-line patterns on a small scale in order to produce effects — so, Force Magic's involved in the lore, too, with a bit of Rule Magic involved since each sort of rune (is supposed to) create only one kind of effect.
- There's also a wide variety of magic items for Device Magic. Any piece of gear that increases your stats can essentially be considered Device Magic (apparently your character's Strength/Intelligence/Agility/whatever is augmented simply by equipping the item), and these can be disenchanted into reagents used for enchanting other pieces of gear.
The Witch's House: Subsequent playthroughs after getting the True Ending reveal that Ellen couldn't cure herself; someone else had to take her place, as well as the fact that Witches' powers are granted to them by demons (in this case, the talking cat) in exchange for souls to devour, making the game's magic theurgy, with Equivalent Exchange.

Webcomics

In Autumn Bay there are different styles of magic, most of which are Rule Magic (though sorcerers are the Inherent Gift type, they, too, have rules to follow). We see a sorcerer, a witch, and a bibliomancer perform an information-gathering ritual.
Blindsprings has "Academic Magic". While specifics have yet to be given, it appears to be some form of Rule Magic, perhaps with elements of Device Magic (as seen in the rune-inscribed cards or pages that Harris uses to cast his spells). Alchemy has also been mentioned.
Theurgy seems to be the main magic in the world of The Challenges of Zona with Tula getting her power from the Goddesses of the Moon and Earth while Gruach gets his from Shuach, the evil Fire God. However, Mentl uses Magic Music and Vito seems to use Rules Magic, but neither of them is from that world but ours. Shamans have been mentioned but not shown as yet and seem to user a lesser form of Theurgy, than Priests and Priestesses, calling on their tribal totems.
Magic in Crystal Heroes is Force Magic that technically anyone can use, but the fact that some are naturally better than others at it gives it a hint of Inherent Gift. In-universe, it is treated as a natural physical and biological process that has been scientifically analyzed. Mages use mana in their bodies and/or ether in the atmosphere to generate energy that can be used for various effects (largely, typical RPG combat and healing spells).
In Dominic Deegan most magic is the inherent gift type, a celestial body known as "the heart of magic" streams magic down to different regions of the planet at different times and people are born with the potential to use magic predominantly in those areas. But the orcs cast spells by "asking" the land, and infernomancers draw upon the power of their demon lord, and vice-versa.
In El Goonish Shive spellcasters have to be "awakened" (though there is an intermediate state that grants some magical ability if not specific spells known as "dreaming"). Awakenings can be granted by a magical being (such as for Nanase) which is arguably a form of Theurgy but can also be triggered by a device (Elliot and Ellen) or an event significant to the individual (Susan). Once magic is granted spellcasters follow Rule Magic with the rules for each spell automatically appearing (in a notoriously verbose form) in their spellbooks as they practice and gain more spells. It should be noted however that each person's spells, and therefore the rules they follow, are unique (and usually related to their personality, circumstances, or events that caused their awakening) except for Wizards who are able to learn other people's spells (as well as getting their own spells presumably). On top of this there are other sources of magic, including Magic Marks (given by an Immortal and giving the marked person one particular spell), Device Magic and plenty of Magical Alien Machines that seem to focus Forced Transformation abilities (at least of the ones we've seen), characters who have been genetically engineered for magic from birth. And that's not even focusing on some elements of magic that are only just being introduced, let alone explained.
- Additionally, all magic seems to run off of Wild Magic, in that sometimes magic has unexpected, but usually harmless side effects. It's even been stated that magic has a 'flair for the dramatic'.
- It actually goes deeper than that, the author has managed to combine the seemingly incompatible Rule Magic and Wild Magic. Recent comics have made it clear that Magic itself is sentient in some way and even seems to have some sort of personality. It is able and willing to change the current laws of magic and in fact has done so in the past.
Erfworld is basically "Tabletop Magic: The Deconstruction". In-Universe, Erfworld was created by gods to be a literal tabletop-game world, complete with homogenized schools of magic (that were given face-slappingly stupid names like "Weirdomancy" to make them easy to understand and remember) to and supernatural constrictions on the world to make it follow the rules of tabletops. After thousands of years on autopilot without any divine players, the game factions have been inadvertently learning how to break the rules and invent new forms of magic that were never meant to be part of the game, the most widely accepted and unknowingly game-illegal of which is by linking the minds of casters from different schools of magic. The main characters (Parson, Charlie, and Dorothy) are mortal players from other worlds who have stumbled into what was once a parody of games and is now a bloody, war-torn joke.
In The Far Side Of Utopia at least a handful of the characters are mages and practical applications for magic seems to be the main study of Levinworth Academy (the school the most of the characters are going to).
Fey Winds has Force Magic and literal Rule Magic: fey and other creatures of nature (as well as some very rare mortals) tap into "the Song," the force of magic, directly; while humans, elves, and other mortal races must employ "the Rule," a system of formulas and spells. Most of the main cast are also chasing after artifacts (Device Magic) left behind by a strange fey/war golem called Sylphe when she rebelled against those who wanted to use her in a war.
Most magic in Gunnerkrigg Court is the Inherent Gift type: Antimony's and Surma's talent as mediums, as well as Zimmy and Gamma's various telepathic abilities. There are some borderline cases, as well: The Blinker Stones are magic devices that focus the user's latent Psychic Powers. Ysengrin's "terrifying skills of gardening" border on Theurgy, as they were a gift given to him by Coyote (but they otherwise function like an Inherent Gift). The Donlans' abilities seem to be a hybrid of Rules Magic and Magic from Technology. And various symbols from Alchemy appear frequently, but their significance is unclear.
In Last Res0rt, magic is powered by soul energy. Most sapient beings have a stable, or “sterling”, soul that they can use to power a burst of creativity every now and then, but having more or less than a sterling of soul disrupts that stability and allows one to draw more energy. Usually this is a case of Inherent Gift, as with Celeste hybrids, Touched and Light Children; but a sterling who survives a sufficiently traumatic experience might find their soul “shattering”, allowing them to become a djinni-si or Dead Inside.
morphE is set in the Mage: The Awakening canon and follows their rules on magic pretty faithfully.
Most of the magic in The Order of the Stick falls into three categories; Durkon uses Theurgy by praying to Thor, Vaarsuvius uses Rule Magic, and the Gates are based on Relic Magic. However, since the webcomic's universe is specifically based on Dungeons & Dragons, all of the magical types shown in its entry above will likely apply at some point to a supporting character.
In the Mega Crossover Roommates the most widespread is the Inherent Gift type magic user/being, which is explained by supernatural ancestry in the case of "humans". Although Sarah's certain powers border on Theurgy as she won them from a Fair Folk. Also magic is wild by definition as it's an acknowledged plot device so prone to do what's dramatically appropriate and not (or not entirely) what the caster wants. The rules that apply also wary widely between users as they have more to do with what they believe about magic and more importantly what is believed about it in their canonical story. It also has Device Magic, but most magical objects to date were physical manifestations of spells created by The Fair Folk either as side effects or just because they can.
The Silver Eye uses a combination of Inherent and Device. The Nedarians, an ancient race of people who founded the countries the story takes place in, used their magic to create curses. The curses worked - and still work - on humans, objects, and buildings. They all died out hundreds of years ago, with the exception of Melete. And possibly her husband, Syllor.
- Descendents of Nedarians, like Velvare and Apen, have minuscule amounts of Nedarian blood, but it's not strong enough to create curses. However, if they experience powerful enough emotion, their Nedarian-ness starts to show through. Their eyes change color, and their hands turn transparent (letting their bones show through) and catch on fire, in ascending order.
Sluggy Freelance has two kinds of spellcasters: there are the ones who are parodies of Harry Potter characters, who use a combination of Inherent Gift and Rules magic (they have to go to school to learn how to cast spells, but if you don't have the knack for it no amount of schooling will help you), and then there's magic cast using the Book of E-Ville. The Book contains a number of Theurgy spells, but it also seems to have a will of its own and has granted Gwynn an array of magical abilities, making it cross between Device Magic and Wild Magic. Of course, this is just human spellcasters; there a number of magical beings in the Sluggy verse that are too diverse to get into here.
Stand Still, Stay Silent is set After the End and underwent a The Magic Comes Back episode. The limits of magic have yet to be made clear aside from the Power-Strain Blackout point of a couple mages, but Finnish magic has so far been shown changing the weather, used to keep a radio from picking up Black Speech so it can actually reach headquarters and for attack purposes. The application range for Icelandic magic has been shown even less, as the only one getting focus in the story is just barely awakening to his powers and dedicates his efforts towards only one much-needed application, which is protection from very dangerous ghosts. A Norwegian (Iceland-trained, as Norway has no magic school of its own) healing-oriented mage gets a mention.
- It has been implied that religion has something to do with it. Word of God put forth that the Icelandic mage in the party has not received training from the Finnish mage because whichever spirits listen to Finnish mages wouldn't listen to an Aesir worshipper, and that Sweden's lack of mages is related to the Swedes' cultural hat being Flat Earth Atheists.
In Tower of God, Shinsu is life, it runs the world, it fuels the world, it shapes the world and it is for all intents and purposes the world. Through Shinsu, anything is possible, amazing feats, destructive powers even creation of life. The people of the tower live and literally breathe Shinsu since it makes up their atmosphere instead of air. A powerful Shinsu user can create something from nothing and turn something into nothing. The use of it can either tear your body apart and kill you, or it can make you immortal. Anything is possible with it.
In True Villains the magic seems to be made up of some weird mix of Inherent Magic which Mia possesses, Alchemy which Sebastian uses, and then one of the other types for the rest of it- possibly Theurgy, as Bayn goes to see his god, Ket, to restore his power after he loses it. However, Sindal was noted to "study" wizardry, so maybe Rule Magic too? Maybe all of them.
This is a crucial element of the world in Unsounded. Magic is so commonplace it's not even called "magic", because that word implies something mystical or unknown — instead, it's called "pymary". Specifically, it's Rule Magic, controlled by speaking a Language of Magic. It works on Equivalent Exchange, the transfer of physical characteristics from one place to another, ^noteex. empowering a glamour using the visual aspect of a flower bouquet and has many rules that must be strictly adhered to lest bad things happen — Word of God has compared it to computer programming. When the system gets overloaded, though, it turns into Wild Magic, and random objects may start melting or levitating, or your coffee might attain sentience.
- "Tacit casters" combine this with Inherent Gift — a rare subset of people born with the ability to cast pymary mentally, without speaking. This gives them a dangerous advantage over regular wrights because if you can't hear what they're casting, you can't prepare yourself for it.
Magic in Widdershins is Theurgy with a touch of Rules Magic. Magic depends on summoning spirits that embody various emotions and using their powers; although there's considerable scholarly investigation into optimizing those deals, a large measure of a wizard's talent comes from how well they can build a rapport with the spirits, which is mostly intuitive.

Web Original

Liches in Angel of Death use Force Magic by tapping into the power of The Underworld to steal the inherent magical power from human souls they eat. The result is Black Magic with an emphasis on Necromancy, though the main character still tries to find ways to use it for good.
ARCHON uses several versions, including Elemental Powers, Necro Mancy, and White Magic (Though the latter is through 'Carnemancy', magic that can heal or damage flesh), in its extra lore. All forms of magic use Whatever Mancy naming conventions.
Magic in Chaos Fighters is slightly complicated. The system as a whole is rule magic and elemental magic. However, formation spells are more heavy on rule magic than free form spells. Then, there's magical skills which is physical attacks powered up with aura. Weapons charged with aura when stabbed onto the ground produces wild magic, which is a type of magical skill.
Chatoyant College has various kinds of magic in the story but it is clear in the lessons, and hinted at in the story for the other kinds, that there are strict rules to how it is applied:
- Inherent Magic: This is magic that comes from within a person. It depends on the magical abilities of the person concerned and it broadly follows the 4 elements: earth, air, water, and fire.
- Trance Magic: This is when someone utilizes the magic in the stuff around them. One needs to go into a trance to access it and it is more flexible.
Deucalion Chronicles features most types of magic, but all of it is, at the most basic level, Force Magic drawing on the framework of reality, Afflatus.
The Dragons And Dwarves duology has magical portal open in Cleveland, which allows magic to work in that city.
In Engines of Creation, people in the Pactlands utilize elemental-based magic in many practical uses.
Homestar Runner plays on this in the Strong Bad eMail "shapeshifter", where he sarcastically notes how lame shapeshifting powers get when rules and limits are tacked on:
Strong Bad: (in sarcastic tone) You can turn into a machine gun but not bullets. Contemporary jazz turns you back. You can only turn into things your grandma's knitted you. Crap like that!
Linkara's magic gun is a combination of Device, Theurgy, and Blood Magic, being made in a ritual to an Eldritch Abomination which entailed torturing and murdering a little girl and imbuing her soul into said gun.
- The Gun and Sorcery arc later revealed that all magic in this universe is White Magic: All magic is connected to the soul, and the soul is inherently good, magic cannot be used for evil. The only exceptions are the above ritual (which involved an entity from a dimension where the rules are different) and Malachite (who was powerful enough to overpower the rules). It's also revealed that most of the arsenal of freedom is a mixture of Rule and Device magic: Linkara has a book of spells, one of which lets him turn an effigy of something into the real thing (ie., a toy sonic screwdriver becomes a real sonic screwdriver). When Harvey asks why Linkara never tried making a 'destroy the bad guy button', Linkara explains that there are rules that even he doesn't understand. When Linkara was starting to turn evil, due to the above mentioned nature of magic, his arsenal started turning back to toys .
In Impractical Magic the Magic School has five courts, each with their own magic and their own culture. The Summer Court has engraving that works by extremely strict rules, very much like a programming language. They also have potions. The Autumn court uses a Language of Magic. The Winter court uses Elemental Powers. Though they vary between elements of wonder and the rule of cool to moments of Sufficiently Analyzed Magic. The Spring court use mind magic to manually learn spells and then automates them with their own magical limited AI's. The Night court is full of reality warpers. But their magic is based on belief, understanding, and force of will. This frequently requires them to induce partial insanity or use psychedelic drugs so that they can twist their understanding of the world enough to execute complex/non-intuitive spells.
Mage Life All living creatures in Mage Life is born with some form of an inherent magical ability. Some may even cultivate it and make it grow.
No Evil: The Spirits of Scourosi are beings of magic, with physical forms, who have used Magic Music, potions, and artifacts created by themselves or other Spirits. The only mortal seen with magic so far uses a Spirit-created artifact.
The Saints, an Urban Fantasy web novel, follows a coven as they use their magic to commit crimes.
Tall Tales: An urban fantasy story where magic exists. Jackie is seen to perform ritual magic while Benedict appears to have inherent magic.
In Trinton Chronicles it seems like along with superpowers magic exists and is used for everyday chores from cleaning up tables to moving heavy or otherwise hard-to-move objects with ease.
The Whateley Universe has several of these forms. It's Rule Magic, but with Theurgy and Force Magic (ley lines are a popular energy source for mages like Fey) and Alchemy and Device Magic as features of the Rule Magic. Some of the classes listed above are done by mutants instead of mages, although in Winter Term there is a special topics class called 'Necromancy: Threat or Menace'. Apparently, last winter term there was the same magical special topics class, but it was on theurgy.

Western Animation

In Aladdin: The Series, the Genie states the unpredictable dangers of "mixing magic".
Avatar: The Last Airbender makes copious use of Inherent Gifts in the form of Elemental Magic, though it appears to not be genetic and anyone is born with the chance of becoming a bender. Aang, as the current Avatar, is the only one that can do this for more than one element, as well as having Force Magic and functionality as a medium from the Avatar Spirit.
- Each element requires a different, and largely incompatible, approach to control. While Uncle Iroh is shown to use a Firebending technique inspired by the principles of Waterbending to deflect a Lightning strike from Azula, it is said that even this takes a lot of spiritual flexibility. Actually bending two different elements would be unthinkable.
- Also, bending itself is said to be originated from people copying the moves of either Badgermoles (Earthbending), Dragons (Firebending), the Sky Bison (Airbending), or the Moon (Waterbending). It was shown that waterbending and firebending can change depending on the visibility of the moon or sun respectively. That and statements by the creators suggest that the abilities are affected by nature, which is likely the source of their powers, also making all bending a form of Force Magic (the connection of the moon and ocean spirits to their elements may make it technically Theurgy).
- Bending isn't the only form of 'magic' implied in the show, though. One episode revolves around a gifted, very accurate fortuneteller, whose abilities are not explained.
- There are also the spirits, whose abilities aren't clearly defined (and probably vary a lot from spirit to spirit), and may be the ultimate source of bending. Interestingly, the spirits are the only entities in the show whose powers are generally referred to as "magic".
- It's also mentioned by Guru Pathik that the distinctions between elements are an illusion, and the Lion-Turtle implies that element-bending is derived from bending the energy within oneself, implying that the whole thing is Force Magic that just behaves like Elemental Powers because the users have spent so long treating it that way.
- The creators have also gone on record as saying that they wanted to create the series with a magic system that has an inherently physical component to invoking it, hence the elaborate stances and moves used by various benders. How "good" a given bender is at their area of bending depends on how well they can make those moves, and getting better at bending involves lots of necessary physical training and practice. Of course, they have also shown, with a few exceptional characters across both series, that bending with nothing more than one's mind is possible.
In Ben 10, Gwen initially uses Device Magic — the charms of Bezel each grant power over a certain field — one brings inanimate objects to life and provides a Healing Factor, one gives the user pyrokinesis, another lets them shoot lightning, a fourth lets them fly and use telekinesis, the fifth controls luck and the Keystone increases all of the user's attributes tenfold. Several magic users, mainly ones introduced in the original series, also use Rule Magic.
- Alien Force introduces Darkstar and the Anodites, both of whom appear to use Force Magic.
Nearly every one of the above categories showed up in Gargoyles at one point or another, even Wild Magic. "Avalon doesn't send ye where ye want to go—it sends ye where ye need ta be."
- According to multiple sources, the Rule Magic of the humans and gargoyles doesn't mix with the Inherent Magic of The Fair Folk, who expressly forbade human magics on Avalon, their home. It should be noted that neither was inherently superior as Owen/Puck was thrice affected by human magic and could do nothing about it because of this mix.
Gravity Falls: The Journals contain multiple ritual spells that seemingly anyone can perform, ranging from entering a sleeping person’s dreams to awakening the undead and Summoning demons. While Gideon had an amulet that provided telekinesis in his first appearance. Though only certain paranormal creatures have been observed using magic without rituals or devices, such as Bill Cipher.
Jackie Chan Adventures features combinations of rule magic, alchemy, device magic, and force magic. Most of the time the magic is done by Uncle, who is the Witch Doctor, but other characters played around with it as well. There's also the talismans, one for every animal in the Chinese zodiac, which are classified as Device Magic. Though the talismans were made by stealing a demon's Inherent Gifts (the demons can also provide power for Theurgy, but this is not used seriously apart from Summon Magic past the first two-thirds of season one). Pretty much every kind of magic was used at one time or another by the nonrecurring characters in filler episodes.
- The one rule about magic that seems to be hammered in the series is that "Magic must defeat magic".
Almost all the magic used on Kim Possible is device-based, mostly in the form of monkey-themed ancient relics discovered by archaeologist/freak Monkey Fist. However, at least one character has been seen using magic powers without the aid of a device.
Several forms are used in the overarching magic system of The Owl House.
- Inherent Gift is the most commonly featured, explained as deriving from a sac of magical bile attached to the hearts of witches and demons, though bug demons are also noted to have "some" magic. Witches and demons generally cast spells by tracing a magic circle in the air and willing the desired effect. The protagonist Luz's human lack of this organ is her main stopblock to using magic.
- Runic Magic is established early-on as a method that Luz is able to use, finding "glyphs" in nature that allow her to tap into four elements of the Boiling Isles - light, ice, plants, and fire - to use spells. Language of Magic is added into the mix when she and others later discover that combining glyphs in circles can produce more complicated effects, with another character explicitly comparing it to language, while also having themes of Rule Magic and Geometric Magic.
- Wild magic is mentioned by name as a dangerous force though this is later heavily implied to be an outright lie concieved by Emperor Belos for use of fearmongering. To minimize wild magic, the society of the Isles relies on the "coven system" that permits the people to have access to one of nine major forms of magic, including Magic Music and Alchemy.
- Device magic is focused mainly upon magic staffs and the palismen that form them, acting as companions, flying transportation, and to focus magic for stronger spells. Other devices include training wands and the various tools of divination such as crystal balls.
- Finally, the entire magic system has overarching themes of Force or Theurgy magic, with the Titan whose corpse forms the Boiling Isles being revered as the source of all magic on the Isles and the glyphs that Luz uses.
The Inherent Gift variant appears in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Twilight Sparkle happens to specialize in magic, so her range of abilities and overall power are far greater than that of other unicorns. Pegasi and earth ponies also have magic; they just can't directly control it like unicorns can. According to Word of God and evidence in the show, earth ponies are many times stronger than unicorns and pegasi, they are the only ones who can grow food and tend to be better with animals and whatnot. (Fluttershy is an abnormality) It would also certainly explain other abilities the non-unicorns have expressed, such as the Pinkie Sense, Fluttershy's stare, and so on.
- According to Word of God, Fluttershy's stare isn't magical in nature; it's just her inherent drive to protect everything and provide what's best for it, concentrated into a sort of emotional taser.

Examples

Video Example(s):

The Mystic Arts

Alternative Title(s): Inherent Gift, Rule Magic

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The Mystic Arts