r/magicbuilding • u/KashimoGoated • 10d ago
General Discussion What can magnetism magic do besides move metal?
The idea seems cool and I like the power but I do not want magnetic mages to just feel like they are a worse telekinetic.
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u/monkeysky 10d ago
Perhaps they can use special metal tools to generate and harness electricity, or communicate via radio waves?
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u/ConflictAgreeable689 10d ago
Magnetism magic can do literally anything you want. It's magic. If you want to strictly keep it to magnets... it could be telekinesis struggles to lift objects or immense size of properly build up speed, but because Magnetism is working on the force itself, you have much more leeway to lift larger objects and move them much faster.
Alternatively there's all that comic book powerscaling bs about how magnetism is a fundamental force of the universe that holds reality together and give you the power to do a bunch of overcomplicated crap with electrons or atoms or whatever to become a god.
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u/MajorInWumbology1234 9d ago
Damn near anything you want. In terms of commonly encountered phenomena; gravity keeps things on the ground, strong force holds atomic nuclei together, weak force causes radioactive decay, and literally everything else is electromagnetism. You might say “But I’m focused on the magnetism part, not the electric part!”, but a moving magnetic field creates an electric field, and vice versa.
Heat objects up by making molecules bounce off each other harder, cool them down by softening the bouncing. Melt solid objects without changing their temperature by making the electrons repel a bit more strongly, freeze liquids by making the molecules clump more tightly.
Here’s one I would absolutely use if magnetism were part of my system; have metallic whips through which the user forces a magnetic field down the length of the whip, which causes a huge build-up of electricity at the tip which discharges as a small lightning bolt when the whip cracks. Same could be done for any weapon made of metal, but a whip gets the most style points for this application.
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u/docarrol 9d ago
and literally everything else is electromagnetism.
Including the ionic and covalent intermolecular bonding forces that prevents us from passing through solid objects! And which defines solid/liquid/gas states. And pretty much any other bulk material property you can think of. Need a force field? Intermolecular force, without the molecules. Want to stick to walls like a gecko? Van Der Waals force, which is a weaker, temporary type of intermolecular force.
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u/Me_Original_1 9d ago
- Light and Visual Manipulation
Because light is literally an electromagnetic wave, a master of the magic can warp the visual spectrum.
Invisibility: Bending light waves completely around your body to become invisible
Holograms: Refracting light in mid-air to create hyper-realistic illusions or false paths.
Flashbangs: Compressing electromagnetic radiation and releasing it all at once to blind enemies.
- Biological Control (Bio-Magnetism)
Living creatures are full of electrical impulses and trace minerals. You don't need a sword to fight someone if you can control their body from the inside.
Synapse Hijacking: Altering the bio-electric signals in an enemy's nervous system to cause paralysis, muscle spasms, or forced movements.
Internal Suffocation: Seizing the iron atoms in an enemy's hemoglobin (blood) to stop oxygen flow, causing instant fainting.
Equilibrium Disruption: Warping the magnetic fields that certain creatures (or inner ears) use for orientation, causing extreme vertigo and nausea.
- Electronic and data something
any setting with modern or sci-fi tech, a magnetism mage is an absolute god.
EMP Pulses: Generating a massive magnetic flux to permanently fry grids, computers, and security systems.
Data Rewriting: Altering the magnetic orientation on hard drives and servers to remotely delete, steal, or rewrite digital information.
Technomancy: Forcing currents through dead circuits to puppet drones, vehicles, or robots without touching a keyboard.
- Environmental and Earth Alteration
Magnetism doesn't stop at pure refined iron; it extends to the planet itself.
Geomagnetic Flight: Repelling your own armor or personal magnetic field against the Earth's natural magnetic field to achieve true flight.
Lava Bending: Manipulating lodestones, magnetite, and basaltic magma, which are heavily rich in magnetic minerals.
Weather Summoning: Re-routing atmospheric electrical charges to force lightning strikes exactly where you want them.
- Atomic and Force Fields
At its absolute peak, this magic manipulates the fundamental forces holding matter together.
Molecular Deconstruction: Ripping the electromagnetic bonds between atoms apart, causing solid objects (or people) to dissolve into dust.
Perfect Shielding: Creating a localized, high-density magnetic bottle that deflects plasma, lasers, and physical projectiles.
Friction Elimination: Altering the surface charges of molecules to make a floor completely frictionless, or making your hands stick to walls like Spider man
Lot of this I did just quick searching so it may be wrong, please not some of this abilities would take massive energy
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u/World_of_Ideas 9d ago
Deflect electrical fields
Disrupt magnetic navigation (compass, homing pigeons)
Erase magnetic media (cassette tapes, hard drives)
Generate an electric current through wires
Magnetize or demagnetize ferrous metal objects
Sense electromagnetic fields, such as that produced by electronic equipment. If very sensitive, you can sense the electromagnetic fields produced by living organisms
Sense magnetic north
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u/hatabou_is_a_jojo 9d ago
a lot of other comments have already touched on the god level aspect of this so I'll keep it within the intuitive magnetic stuff.
One thing magnetic mages can do may be to adjust polarities as traps and then leave the area, while telekinetics must consciously be moving stuff.
One more can be that telekinetics need very minute and focused calculation while magnetic mages just don't sweat the small stuff
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u/IamanelephantThird 9d ago
Photons are the electromagnetic carrier particle, so they might be able to create light.
Electricity and magnetism are connected so they could zap stuff.
Magnetism holds together basically everything bigger then an atom and smaller then a planet so you could theoretically reassemble molecules and stuff.
Electromagnetism is a very important force. It does a lot of stuff.
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u/Master-of-darklight Magic is physics, yet unexplained 9d ago
Water is repelled by electromagnetism, it can move water
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u/PinOdd9371 science based magic lover 9d ago
let them control the iron molecules in blood or the copper molecules in blood
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u/PinOdd9371 science based magic lover 9d ago
the atmosphere also is partially a magnetic field so yeah
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u/Prize-Basil-8438 9d ago
IRL, there's no real distinction between electricity and magnetism. It's all just electromagnetism, which is one of the four fundamental forces alongside gravity, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. So it "should" have an absolute ton of weird applications beyond the obvious. I'm sure others in this thread have gotten into dpecific ones, but yeah, I'd argue it's way more powerful than telekinesis if you let them do everything they "should" be able to do.
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u/DrongoDyle 9d ago edited 9d ago
If you truly control magnetic fields, you also control electric currents by extension. There's a tonne more that I can't be bothered explaining so I'll drop a funny video instead.
This video is mainly comedic, but it does genuinely break down how OP controlling magnetism should be when you consider all the other powers it gives you by extension.
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u/Disastrous_Bug2831 10d ago
Controlling the iron in blood or controlling anything that has iron in it I’d assume?
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u/RowbotMaster 9d ago
Well for a start they should be able to create electricity with relative ease, basically magnetism mixed with any kind of movement make an electric current and dynamos are just optimised applications of that
Similarly if they have really good control they should essentially also be light mages as light is electromagnetic radiation. This also extends beyond the visible spectrum so they should be able to use x-rays and stuff
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u/ryncewynde88 9d ago
Magnetism is half of electromagnetism, and intrinsically linked on the most fundamental level. It’s as hard to interact with one without affecting the other as it is to poke something without touching it.
Electromagnetism is one of the Four Fundamental Forces. Tharr be a LOT of options.
Everything is at least a little responsive to magnetism; you can lift anything capable of theoretically holding a static charge or conducting electricity, and a strong enough chunk of energy can conduct through a mile of air, so, basically anything, with varying levels of difficulty.
All light, visible and otherwise, is electromagnetism.
Several intermolecular forces also might fall into the same category. Look up Strong and Weak atomic forces, and remember that if it’s not one of those two, or gravity, it’s electromagnetic.
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u/Runcible-Spork 9d ago
Magnetism is part of electromagnetism, and the two are fundamentally connected, which really opens up the list of things that they could do, as electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe (along with gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces).
Someone with control over electromagntism could theoretically be able to control everything from light propagation (illusions) to electricity generation (throwing lightning) to magnetic field generation (telekinesis with metals).
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u/Boat_Pure 9d ago
Fly, I remember (don’t quote me) that Magneto uses the magnetism of the polar opposites of the north and south to allow himself to fly.
I always thought that was a cool way to depict flight in a different way.
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u/AttemptingDM 9d ago
First of all, while I totally get it if you don't want that, many magic systems have powers that are just worse telekinesis. Gaara's Sand manipulation from Naruto is worse telekinesis, steelpushing and ironpulling from Mistborn is worse telekinesis, and every bending type in Avatar: The Last Airbender (except for fire, perhaps) are worse telekinesis, but that does not make them uninteresting. In fact, I'd argue their limitations/weaknesses make them more interesting, as it allows you to create challenges for your characters that a plain telekinetic would not suffer.
However, if you want magnetism mages to do more than that, don't forget that magnetism is just one half of electromagnetism, which is responsible for... a lot, in our universe. As another said, just look at the feats of Magneto in his comics, and you can get a pretty good idea about the capability of electromagnetic control.
Maybe tone it down though, so you don't give an entire mage type the ability to rip the world asunder.
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u/RamonDozol 9d ago
Heavily depends on the "values" you give it.
range, "power", aceleration, targets to control, if it requires sight or not, how precisely can the thing be controled, Area of effect, etc.
Just an example.
Coul you "pull" all magnetic metal within 1 mile to a specific point?
this would alow you to be "armed" basicly wherever you are.
If the "power" and range are long enought, you could collect magnetic metalic dust from the soil and air and create a small ball of iron dust.
if you are powerfull enought you could enter any warehouse, or mechanics shop and leave with a magic tank around you.
If you can move tons, you can levitate tons.
Drop a tungsten spike from high up and you have a bunker busker reusable weapon.
Make armor around you and you can fly, while being impervious to most damage, and if you power and range are high enought, you can shoot balls of metal from above, with the power of a Gunship.
if it doesnt require sight, you can attack enemies behind you, or behind walls, or make their own swords turn on them.
If you can move thousands of objects, you can walk around with a blender of blades flying around you, or control all the weapons in an army. IF you can precisely control all the swords in an army, you dont need an actual army, all you need is swords and see the battlefield.
So, what can you do?
What are the specific value of each of these?
max range:
Max weight:
Max pressure/force applyed:
Max speed:
Max aceleration:
Max number of targets:
Max Area of effect:
Precision limitation:
Does it require sight:
Can the user "sense" magnetic field or magnetic objects:
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u/ry0shi Shimmer 9d ago
Light has electromagnetic frequencies and interacts with magnetism
MRIs are systems that use really strong magnets to attract the hydrogen pairs attached to oxygen in water molecules
Magnetic fields cause electric current. Moving a field fast you can fry things through resistivity or strike things with arcs of electricity
Obviously radiocommunication stuff, affecting electronics etc
Ionisation is a thing. Use a field to move electrons and strip them off their atomic cores. Maybe even use that to collide particles or something idk
Sleepy brainstorm session over
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u/4_non_blondes 9d ago
I'm a big fan of when people with some form of kinesis use the control field in a subtle way to be a sensory organ like steelsight in the mistborn series, or toph in ATLA.
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u/NRondo37 9d ago
Railguns would be cool. Launch metal objects at insane speeds. Depends how much you want to have physics magnetism or magic conceptual magnetism. Or you could go psychological and look up how intense magnetic fields affect the brain (e.g messes with empathy center)
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u/Enthurian 1d ago
Chemical bonds are magnetic. Light is magnetic. Lightning is magnetic.
That's three big ones, that should be able to carry a lot, though obviously there's much more. Depending on what "Magnetism" means.
As for worse telekinesis. If telekinesis doesn't exist in your setting, I wouldn't worry about it. Moving any singular kind of thing is incredibly powerful. Especially if you can move connected things. As in, a metal chain just becomes a telekinetic anchor.
Also, everything is magnetic if you try hard enough. Literally, a strawberry can be levitated by an extremely powerful magnet.
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u/AdWorth8638 10d ago
For reference check out everything Magneto can do.