aside_dish
Active Member
Hey guys,
Some of you have probably seen bits of this already, but I wanted to share the final product.
I’ve been building out a project called The Magical Code of Regulations, which is exactly what it sounds like: a full legal code for magic, written in the style of real administrative law. It treats magic the way we treat things like tax and finance, with a ton if oversight, licensing, enforcement, and a whole lot of bureaucratic gobbledy-gook.
499 pages of it, in fact, lol. Was inspired from my time at the IRS, where I stared at tax code all day. Eventually, learned to embrace the pain, and wanted to exert that pain on others, whether they be worldbuilders, D&D players and DMs, writers, or just people that want a cool-ass coffee table book.
The focus from a worldbuilding standpoint is primarily about how a society would realistically try to control magic. So instead of just defining spells or systems, it gets into questions like who is authorized to cast, how high risk magic is classified, what happens when someone bends the rules, and how different areas like necromancy or prophecy get carved out and handled differently.
One thing I leaned on pretty heavily was the use historical annotations to include little notes about when and why something was enacted, which ends up doubling as worldbuilding. It’s kind of like how, in real life, you can trace legislation and case history to understand why a rule exists in the first place, except here those explanations sometimes involve magical disasters, political overreactions, or someone very specific causing a problem that now everyone else has to deal with (thanks, David).
It’s meant to read like a real system that exists inside a semi-functioning world (but with some humorous sections added in for some brevity), and I thought you guys might find it interesting because I just haven't seen others go as in-depth when it comes to fantasy law, and I think you could find use for it when crafting your own worlds and stories!
Anyways, if you’re interested, the eBook is up for pre-order on Amazon here:
Amazon.com: The Magical Code of Regulations: A Fantasy Rulebook of Spellcasting Laws, Arcane Regulation, and Magical Compliance eBook : Frigo, Christopher: Kindle Store
And it’s already available as an ePub on DriveThruFiction here:
https://www.drivethrufiction.com/en...ical-code-of-regulations?affiliate_id=5121378
Print versions on Amazon are planned for May 12, maybe a bit sooner if I can manage.
More than anything though, I’m curious how other people approach this side of worldbuilding. A lot of magic systems focus on rules and limitations, but not as much on governance. If your world has magic, what actually keeps it in check? Is there a formal system, or is it more cultural, religious, or just chaos that no one’s figured out how to contain?
Would love to hear how you’ve handled it.
