Hello everyone! 😊 I'm Ari Kelly and I am a big reader and creative writer. One of my favourite aspects of writing is world building, which made this group catch my eye. I tend to have side-quests and smaller projects when i'm writing, but I have a main project that I'm working on that I'd be happy to share. I'm excited to be a part of this community and to see what I can learn from this group! ( p.s. this process can feel a little weird or awkward at first, but introducing yourself can be the first step to having a connected group, so I invite everyone to introduce themselves 😊)

Hey everyone, I’ve been building out the world for my wip the ‘Fractured Inheritance Saga’ and wanted to share the synopsis for Book 1: The Fall of Light. This first book sets up the crash of the Formation Matrix, shows life under the UEA, and introduces the lingering mystery of the Architects. It’s the foundation for the saga, and I’d love to hear what stands out to you. The intended audience is YA/NA Sci-Fantasy readers — so I’m especially curious if the premise feels accessible and compelling at that level, while still carrying the depth world-builders appreciate. 195 years after the crash of the Universal Formation Crystal, humanity survives within domed cities under the stratocratic United Earth Authority and the shadow influence of the Legacy Council — four powerful families who rose from the Rift Wars. Each year, adolescents are conscripted to New Kyoto, where contact with shards of the Formation awakens abilities that dictate their futures. Jake Garmin, however, awakens nothing. Branded a non-manifest in a world where power is status, he faces ridicule from peers and reassignment by the Authority. But Jake refuses to let failure define him. Haunted by visions of his missing mother — once a decorated soldier who vanished on a classified mission — he becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind her disappearance, even as his father deflects his questions. Within the Academy, rivalries with Legacy heirs and the constant reminder of class divisions draw Jake into a web of political intrigue, where factions maneuver behind closed doors and every ability is currency. His supposed failure masks a deeper anomaly: a flicker of resonance tied to Phenix, one of the last Architects whose fall seeded the Formation itself. But the dangers of New Kyoto extend far beyond its walls. Beyond the Dome lies the Southern Ridge — a vast scar of fractured land where crystal resonance has warped creatures into deadly forms. When Jake’s squad is deployed into this wilderness, survival becomes as great a test as politics, and the mystery of the Formation proves more dangerous than anyone dares to admit.

I might have already talked about this in the comments under a different post, but wanted to make it its own topic of conversation, so take this idea as a prompt as well, and feel free to add your own takes on the idea. Chaos and Order are the two fundamental forces inherent to all existence: - Chaos is the force of creation, change, and motion. - Order is the force of stagnation, logic, and stability. Either force alone is incapable of creating something interesting and lasting: - Chaos would end up destroying whatever it created by creating something on top of it immediately as it lacks patience. - Order would choke a world to a cold, stationary death because it lacks creativity. When the two exist alongside one-another, or even mix together in any ratio, they end up creating living, changing, interesting things. The creation of the universe Eldara resides in happened at random in the eternal sea of Chaos. It popped into existence by sheer chance, and Order immediately took hold of it, creating a sort of stable bubble in the Chaos-ocean. Another thing I like to believe is that any sufficiently large amount of energy or complex-enough system will develop a kind of consciousness of its own, and so, the "bubble" itself - the barrier between Chaos and Order - is a kind of god, called Eldritch. It acts partially as if it was alive, with a kind of metaphysical metabolism, and healing from injuries sustained from both without and within. This is relevant because the timeline of the Mortal Realm, which hosts Eldara and its star system, is made of the combined/woven-together individual timelines of a new set of gods called the Nex, which, in turn, all sprout inwards from what is the equivalent of scar tissue on the side of Eldritch, following a rupture event caused by a particularly strong wave of creation within the Chaos-Ocean.

I had a conversation about this recently on reddit and thought I'd share. Is there an underlying philosophy to your magic system(s)? If yes, what is it? Does the individual magic user's own philosophy affect their magic?