Feudal Magic

[Liosse de Velishaf]

I'm working on a story with a type of magic where works much like granting fiefs. You must study and practice to use it, but basically, you get the raw ability by recieving a grant of magic from a superior. Kings might hand it down to their vassals, gods to their priests, spirits to whoever they take a liking to. It is handed down in the form of a specific amount you can channel at once, and when you hand a sub-channel down, it is lost to you unless you retrieve it through a complicated ceremony. There are differents types of and uses for magic, but I won't go into those. Mainly, I'm interested in what similar things have been done before, and what holes I may have in the concept.

[TheIT]

No exact parallel springs to mind. The closest I can think of is from the Runelords books. It's been a while since I read them, but I believe it was possible in there to acquire an attribute from a person through a tattoo and some sort of ceremony, for example one person could give another person their beauty or strength (and lose the attribute themselves). A king or leader would have great power since they can tap into the attributes of their subjects. One of the villains of the piece ended up almost invincible by stealing abilities from others. It's a bottom-up system rather than top-down like what you're describing, but it does involve transference.

Question:

In your system, how do the originators get magic to begin with in order to be able to dispense magic?

Sounds like an interesting system. Good luck!

[Liosse de Velishaf]

That's the fastest response I've ever had. :)

I've never read Runelords, though it's on my list; I can't think of anything else similar, either.

The top get it from creatures with inherent magic. The gods and spirits and possibly a non-human race or two posses magic as part of what they are. Some posses more, like gods, and some less. Only humans out of the intelligent species have no magic. Or, at least, that's how I am operating now. There may be some place the gods/spirits/etc get it from later in the world-building process. Nothing that's really common in fantasy right now, though. But they only way for humans to get it at this point is to be given it.

[Juliette Wade]

Interesting stuff, Liosse. I'm wondering what kind of metaphors you use to describe its use and its transference, and whether it's viewed as a commodity... What people might be willing to pay/sacrifice in order to be in line for some of this... There's a huge vocabulary opportunity right there, and I hope you're taking advantage and enjoying it.

[Liosse de Velishaf]

Yeah, I've been havin some trouble wth vocab... If declare magic off limits to the landed nobility, I could apply feudal terms, "fief", "vassal", etc... A whole new kind of nobility. Maybe the non-heirs won't be screwed anymore, and it could even involve conflict between returning the power to the king on death, and passing it down. Just like the landed nobility, we could have all sorts of inheritance claims, and political marriage to get your hands on someone else's magic. It also creates an interesting limit on who can use it... or not, depending on which way I go.
Would you rather have land or magic?