[quote=@Rabidporcupine]
[@Thinslayer]
Thanks. Oh, also, probably won’t have time to post it til a bit later, but I actually have a couple of ideas to build on the magic system you mentioned before. Mostly because somehow, I think I might’ve completely independently come up with the exact same one, at least in terms of the main three schools of it involving runes, working with spirits, and casting using your own soul. Legitimately surprised the hell out of me when I saw that bit.
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lol that's awesome. I'd like to hear what you came up with.

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Fun story. After years of meditating on the topic, the only magic system that's 100% consistent is conjuration, and it has deep roots in religious mythos. Magic is, at its core, any alteration of natural laws. Natural laws, in turn, are the expression of divine (spiritual) power and authority. The divine spirit commands the world to operate in a particular fashion, and it is so. Ergo, in order to cast magic, you must communicate with the divine spirit and persuade it to heed your words. However, it is more feasible to communicate with its subordinate servants, namely angels and demons, who inherit divine authority over the world. This is where conjuration comes in - you summon one of these higher spirits and trade with them something of value in exchange for the use of their authority. Angels, being divine servants, cannot be summoned by any but their divine master, so the only spirits humans can feasibly summon are demons - and even then, being lesser creatures, we must trade at a disadvantage. That is why magic is perceived as dangerous IRL.

All the trappings of magic point toward conjuration. Runes are written language, but stones do not understand language. Minds understand language. Spell chants are spoken language, but rocks don't have ears and can't listen. Minds can listen. Elemental bending and dances are a type of sign-language, but the earth can't see. Minds can see. If you want to move something without touching it, something else must touch it to apply that force - and if you want that something to be nothing, that would be an alteration of natural law. Any kind of magic that involves communication, or even telekinesis, necessitates a sapient, miraculous response, implying spiritual operation. Thus, all such magic is conjuration.

So, if we want to step away from religious mythos to give our magic system a more natural bent, we'll have to get creative. A simple method is to grant humans the same kind of authority over the world that angels and demons have. We could treat the divine spirit like a natural power, kind of like the Force in Star Wars, to eliminate having to bargain for power. And if we want to steer clear of the danger involved in conjuring demons, we could make the spirits largely neutral, like sprites or fae.

Thus can we develop the three schools of magic:
* Wizardry (wizard), for invoking divine power directly;
* Conjuration (warlock), for invoking divine power through its servants;
* Thaumaturgy (sorceror), for invoking divine power granted to oneself.

If we're doing wizardry, you'll need to communicate with the divine in a language it can understand. There's no reason it can't understand you in any way you choose to communicate, but if we want to make it challenging, we'd want it to understand only a particular language that you have to learn, such as runes, Latin chants, or bending.

If we're doing conjuration, you'll need to communicate with a higher spirit in a language it can understand. Again, there's no reason it can't understand whatever language you use, so for all the same reasons listed above, we'll give it some specificity. Since we're now dealing with an individual, sapient spirit, possession is a possibility; whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on what we're aiming for. You could also have it as a separate familiar. Either way, it's giving you its power, whether by controlling you directly or by granting you its authority.

If we're doing thaumaturgy, then remember, in order to move something without touching it, something else has to touch it. With thaumaturgy, that's your own spirit. So you have to move your spirit. That will induce an out-of-body experience. Death is separation of spirit and body, so thaumaturgy would risk your death. To prevent that in our tale and add a comprehensible cost, we could say "mana" is the binding energy you expend for spellcasting.

If we want to add in some kind of cost to the other two schools, mana could be a component element of your life force, in which case expenditure would age you - or possibly just exhaust you somehow (though that's more governed by bodily energy and the ATP chemical than anything else). Or it could be a new kind of substance, like aether in Final Fantasy.

So yeah. It gets fun trying to rationalize everything.
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EDIT: Edits galore. Holy smokes.