I have seen a lot of interesting power-share cosmologies for magic. I enjoy exploring how magic might work, and find settings that have a codified, interesting schema of how magic works/is utilized often get my imagination going the most.

So, here’s one I don’t recall ever seeing before (though that certainly doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist).

Everyone has a maximum amount of magic capacity. Let’s say it’s on a scale from 1-100.

That power determines the strength of any spell you cast. It can never improve. If you are born a 32, you are a 32 forever.

That power is divided equally among all the spells you know.

So if you are a 32 and you know one spell? You cast it at power level 32. But if you know two spells? No matter what you do, once you know two spells, you cast them both at power level 16.

And never more or less than that.

Spells are fairly narrow. A ball of fire spell is not the same as a small spark from your thumb. If you know a ball of fire, you can’t dial it back to less than your maximum.

Some people have such weak magic capacity they can’t learn more than 1-2 spells, or the results will be so weak as to be useless.

Other people have such a powerful magic capacity that only knowing one spell is dangerous.

Of course, some governments probably want a few capacity-100 spellcasters that know just one army-crushing offensive spells.

Other spellcasters prefer having a wide range of minor powers, because while each spell is less powerful, they are more likely to have a useful spell for any given situation.

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