how to maek spell

The easiest way for me to express my views here is through a bit of case study and stream of consciousness (it's fucking late and past when I wanted to sleep give me a break). Most of the scaffolding for my argument is going to be developed in the Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga example.

The basic outline here to keep in mind is:
1. Develop spell concept.
2. Discover a means to access the Manafont that is fitting the concept of the spell.
3. Research previous and similar spells to your own and the methods used by mages to create those spells.
4. Identify the core differences between your spells and those and what would theoretically need to be done to create your spell.
5. Practice and run simulations until you have your method of changing the Manafont down pat.
6. Actually go and do that shit.

Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga

- all very boring spells, just plain "deal X damage"
- if this is what Lenore is aiming for, just a "it's like the other lightning spells but does more damage maybe it's 250 MP for Group target PWR x 25 or whatever", then it's pretty boring honestly and I don't THINK that's what you're going for?
- even if it were just that, the progress of developing this kind of spell could be broken down thusly
	- Studying each individual spell in this family closely and seeing how they vary, researching the history of the spells to see if they were developed 1) all at once (unlikely because each mage can only develop one spell in their lifetime), 2) by subsequent mages in sequence over the course of history, or 3) whether they are simply universal axioms of spellcraft in a way that have always existed. Of course there are other possibilities, but for the sake of argument we'll consider these three.
	- In the case of possibility one or three, it means there's an existing structure that already ties together all three spells. What exactly is this structure, and what would have to be accomplished in changing the manafont to add something else to it? It's very difficult at times to simply add another floor to a building, for example. At best you end up with something that mostly blends in but is still noticeably incongruous, and to build that you still have to make adjustments to the rest of the building. In spellcrafting terms, this means you may have to change parts of the manafont relating to those other spells too to get this stuff to work.
		- Speaking of which, what does it mean to change the Manafont? Well, there's the matter of REACHING IT. And there's probably a lot of research to be done on that point on how other mages have reached it in the past and etc. Kain's noted to me that the rate of spell invention has slowed since the Gates to the Underworld were closed, meaning that one method of reaching the Crystal and thus the Manafont has been closed off for a lot of modern mages. And once you get there, what do you have to do to change it? Is there a ritual involved with alchemical reagents? Do you have to create a machine? Is it purely manipulating raw magical energy? Do you need the help of an Eidolon associated with the other spells to modify them? (Ramuh or maybe even Raijin?)
		Different mages have probably had different approaches, and you may have to research to find what to do there as well. There may be certain requirements wrt gemstones if the three spells are magical axioms (perhaps existing from the beginning for the sake of an Eidolon like Ramuh - and in that case the way you want to access the Manafont is probably with their help as opposed to using other methods). If they were invented by one person all at once, you may have to research their style of spellcraft, maybe even find an artifact of theirs to act as a catalyst for changing their spells.
	-Now consider the possibility that the spells were created in sequence by mages throughout history, maybe centuries apart. In that case, what's been the major difference between the spells? And why couldn't they all be invented at once? Or why wouldn't the first mage have invented Thundaga from the start? Surely they would have had more need of that than Thunder, especially seeing as you have to be a very powerful mage to invent a spell at all.
	These kinds of questions would likely change what sorts of breakthroughs you need to make with the Manafont to make creating a new spell possible. Maybe thunder, and thundara HAD to exist for thundaga to be created. And each subsequent spell's creation required a new and more complex innovation.
	Maybe thunder was invented with application of running magic through what are traditionally conductive materials for electricity. A ritual apparatus build to interact with the manafont and channel it through a loop or a circuit that imitated what you'd do for electricity. This would "teach" the magical energy of the manafont to move in a similar way to electricity.
	For thundara, maybe it had to be more complicated. Maybe this spell's creator was an alchemist instead of a machinist, and their method involved taking the ritual apparatus and replacing the conductive material with a specially designed alchemical brew that was also conductive but had a particular reaction similar to electrolysis when magical energy was run through it in the proper way, and that reaction is what produced the raw change necessary in the manafont to create the spell.
	And then maybe Thundaga was a machinist again, using a device similar to a magical tesla coil. Or maybe they were purely a mage with no other talents, and they develop a means of imparting the new spell on the manafont through casting other lightning spells in a certain order, like a binary code made up of thunders and thundaras, or they do other tricks of spellcraft that gradually build up the power of the spell they're casting, maybe with a large number of lightning enhancer artifacts.
	-Naturally, the steps leading up to this point could use a lot of practice and modelling. Maybe a huge amount of mana is gathered in one place to simulate the Manafont and used to test ritual apparatuses, alchemical brews, or spellcrafting methods. You might have to also account for the ways your simulation differs with the real Manafont when you get into the scale of the real thing, and that could change your calculations and what results you expect in the practice sessions.

The same basic principles as above apply to the following spells, but I'm only going to give a briefer outline of the issues that would likely come up in inventing those spells.

Thunderstorm

- here we get to a spell that's actually sort of interesting thematically. More specifically, it has to do with drawing inspiration from nature and influencing natural forces. In a way, it's very similar to Geomancy.
- Maybe the person who first started looking into this spell was also a Geomancer, but he wanted to be able to allow non-Geomancers to have the same benefit of creating and working with Elemental Fields. So he possibly did a lot of research on Elemental Stones as he developed this spell, to see how they function and see how magic might replicate their effects. He may also have looked into how magic can allow communication with and manipulation of nature spirits in the way a Geomancer can do naturally.
- Another aspect of the spell to consider here is the association with water. Given these are normally opposed elements, or at least one element that is dominated by another, finding a way to make them work together in a spell could be difficult. The mage inventing Thunderstorm might have studied Blue Magic to see how their multi-part spells functioned in order to see one method of combining elements, or look at a Time Magic spell like Flare Star. Of course, these are different mechanically (doing different sets of different element damage vs one set of damage that uses the most powerful choice of element), so you can probably expect the necessary steps to develop the spell to differ.
- Elemental Spikes have an association with Elemental Fields, so maybe what's done here will have to do with studying that spell as well.
- Now for actually changing the Manafont...maybe a large number of electric and water elemental stones would be needed? Maybe water and electricity spirits need to be brought into the Manafont? Maybe the mage tries to create an elemental spirit within the Manafont? Maybe their method of even accessing the Manafont should be one of creating a tunnel to the Crystal out of nature spirits, rather than going through Memoria or some other method.

Let's pretend for a moment Electrocute wasn't a Blue Magic and was something that could be invented by a mage. Or maybe even Blue Magic is invented that way.

Electrocute

- Here's a spell that differs from the Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga line in some even more interesting ways. First of all, it's persistent rather than a one-time casting. Second of all, it's channeled directly through the user, in a way that likely harms them just as much as their foes.
- So what to do here in terms of research? Well, it's almost like a status effect, so maybe the inventor was a Dark Knight. Those guys are big fans of hurting themselves already anyway, and they're supposed to be masters of status magic, which tends to have more persistent effects than other spells. Maybe Melt was used as a foundation for Electrocute, since it's a spell that 1. harms the user and 2. deals damage over an extended period of time to their foes. So that's probably a good place to start researching to create this effect.
- What would a mage do upon reaching the Manafont? Well, the natural thing to do is to try to channel the Manafont or large amounts of magical energy through them, probably causing them a great deal of harm. This might even be the biggest obstacle to creating the spell - surviving that channeling process.

Now, given all this, what other ways can you make spells more SPECIFIC and interesting than "lightning element, ancient tier power"?

What about a chain lightning type of spell that actually grows more powerful the more targets are available to it? One that uses a target's life force or mana to empower it and grow stronger to hit the next target as it jumps between them? You would probably look into how electricity can jump between targets and work with that (usually you need some sort of ionized 'beam' of particles in the air for electricity to jump in an arbitrary arc between objects). You could look into spell enhancers like elemental enhancers and pick apart how they work. A mage who often has to fight swarms in their profession, or has to deal with monsters with a hive-like structure (one queen supported by a ton of drones) might invent this spell to make their life easier.

Maybe you want an anti-mage spell. An electrical element spell that disrupts an opposing mage's ability to do magic (Silence status) the same way Freeze stops an opponent from running away. Or you want a spell that also does MP damage, burning away someone's mana reserves. Maybe it actually targets their neurological system and reduces their thinking capacity and sends them into a rage (Berserk status). A mage who sees the danger in magic or has many mage rivals may invent this spell to give themselves an edge against them.

Maybe this spell is more of a way to support physical attackers the mage works with, and the spell gives a boost to physical attacks done against the target that is weakened by lightning, or it dispels effects like Protect and Regen on the target. A mage in a kingdom for which skilled mages are rare might develop this spell to augment their armies and cut down on the disadvantage they have from having fewer mages. One mage with this spell could support a battalion of mundane knights.

Maybe the spell relies upon the body's strength and electrical currents to power it, and its damage tier is partially based on the amount of HP you give up in the spell's casting. Or maybe giving up HP in casting the spell can buy extra effects, sort of like building a limit break, but more limited in function. A Dark Knight might develop this kind of spell, as with Electrocute, or simply a MUSCLE WIZARD who is so physically hardy he has no fucks to give when it comes to harming himself for stronger spells.

Maybe the spell does ARM instead of M. ARM damage and pierces Reflect in addition to other interesting effects. This kind of spell might be developed by a mage who's been stymied by Shell, Unusual Defense, etc or is hunting Carbuncle.