/lit/ - Literature

>>23358645
>none of their use of magic made for better storytelling
You either didn't read LOTR or these other civilizational canonical epics, likely both.

Just take Sauron's ring for example. Magic artifact, made of part of his soul, made to dominate all servant rings that Sauron made. This is all we are told; nothing about how soul splicing or imbueing works.

Now take the arrows used by Ravana and Indrajit in Ramayana: Shiva's arrows, super destructive, that RavanaCo has because of Ravana's ascetic and yogic practice. One arrow destroys worlds, one destroys kings, one destroys armies. Nothing is explaining about how they work, just how ThisGuy got them and has them for.

Now take again Wukong's Gold-Clasped At-Will Cudgel. Found in the dragon king's palace, weighs a billion jin, can shrink to the size of a heavenly pillar or a needle. How the GCAWC is made is never explained, only how Monkey got it and how he uses it.

Same thing everywhere: the Grail, the herbs ("pharma," synonymous with magic) of Hermes against Circe, and the ritual of Odysseus in Hades, Monkey's 72 Taoist Form-Changes. Nothing explained, it all just works, carrying the plot forward. Same thing with the One Ring, same thing with "the elves used their magic".

Even in works where a form of "magic" has mechanics, like Louis Cha's wuxia novels, they take on a literary/philosophic bent. It's closer to poetry, with nothing meaningfully qualified or quantified. Would you prefer this? It's higher effort than "Illuvatar Sang and It Was So", but it is still the same bs.

Even if everything is q&q'd like an AI generated Clancy novel, all of it is still just props carrying the plot. All that is required of a conceit is that it does not self-contradictory; not explaining magic as a DnD ruleset circumvents the possibility of self-contradiction 100%>

>...I just want a coherent system to larp with
Perhaps a picrel battlefeed is more your speed.