Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor: Glenn has for the last year been sponging off the head mistress of a magical academy living in her house. But in a cruel plot twist she decides he is going to be a temporary lecturer. And being the disinterested kind of slacker he doesnt take his job seriously, showing up to class on the first day half way through to the disgust of the mandatory cat-eared student/rich girl who has a particularly distorted worldview on the usefulness of magic. The lecturer proceeds to display a lack of effort in teaching to the point where at one point he doesnt even bother finishing writing his first sentance on the chalk board before sitting down and dozing off. Rich cat girl goes off calling him out and he prevokes her into disclosing her worldview on magic with all its peaches and cream for everyone delusion before he breaks her by informing her that unlike medicine or agriculture which has helped the masses magic is purely for killing. She promptly challenges him to a magic duel and he stands by an lets the student electrocute him with a Shock-volt spell (lets call this a magic missile variant).
Relaxing that evening on a building roof he spots a student in a lab trying to create a summoning circle. He breaks in on her and she confesses she cant get it to work at which he shows it was simply insufficient mercury and helps her get it done.
Next class he demonstrates his own shockvolt on the chalkboard before writing out the spell in runic which we learn has been adopted as the standard magic script. The shockvolt comes in three 'sentances' and he asks what happens if you break the spell into four sentances. After a suggestion that it produces a wild result, he calls the students idiots for knowing nothing about magic and proceeds to their shock and horror to demonstrate that the four sentance break causes the shockvolt to literally curve to the right. He demonstrates several more variations on the shock-volt spell by adjusting the phrasing getting numerous results, including a paralyze spell (a hold person variant).
It all quickly escalates early in the series to a terrorist attack on the school by a group of rogue magicusers while the other lecturers are off for the day at a conference.
Glenn is attacked in the courtyard while terrorists come and collect a particular student and take her away, their lecturer having apparently been killed. Cat eared girl is on the verge of being raped by a terrorist when her lecturer shows up and at her prompting eventually decides to rescue her. They proceed to fight hard to save the day taking out the terrorists and rescuing the abducted student in some bad ass heroics to break multiple levels of barrier spell with counter magic written in his own blood. By the end of these early episodes we understand this magical lecturer is a serious bad ass hiding in plain sight.
In terms of lore development, magic is suddenly a multidimensional look-up table of every possible rune combination that generate every possible effect from those combinations including varying range, and power.
Later episodes reveal even more background on the magic lecturer as he develops his student's skills and we get some world building.
Grimoire of Zero: A Beast-fallen white tiger (like a lycanthrope without lycanthropy, but still a curse) mercenary and witch hunter encounters a couple of young witches, one who wants his head for ritual magic, the other who feels he owes her a replacement meal for landing on her cooking fire. The witch named Zero takes the beastman under contract and having used him as a warm mattress for the evening uses hus shoulder ad a riding seat. While witch number two tags along. Early on we learn some world building:
- Witches have waged a war with the church for hundreds of years and have lost.
- Magic is either a sorcery pact with a demon, or a new kind of magic learned from a grimoire.
- there are multiple political factions of spell casters:
- Witches of Zero who are a resistance fighting oppression and extermination by humans, and have the Grimoire of Zero from which they can learn magic (which we learn Zero is not a member of, but is ultimately entirely the source of their magic book).
- Rogue witches murdering humans left and right.
- State Mages who are exterminating all other witches.
Zero isnt a member of any of these groups. She demonstrates a magical prowess with the ability to deny another wizard use of a spell from the book of zero which she scribed as a child living in a cave with some witches before departing to explore the world. Her grimoire has been stolen and used to teach magic to others. They all journey through settlements, and cities reaching the capital for a showdown.
How not to summon a demon lord: Demon lord Diablo (a pc name of an online gamer) is pulled into a game universe by two inept characters who stuff up because the spell reflection ring on Diablo's finger reflects their bind soul magic on them and he winds up with two slave girls (not quite the standard sexy harem as one is the runaway elf princess). Here beastfallen are refered to as fallen (barbaric outcast animal people), demihumans are a generic term for the sexy cat and bunny girls while dwarves and elves are definitive groups, and there are humans and demons (Diablo being one). Diablo, like the primary character of Ainz Ooal Gown from the Overlord anime is obscenely powerful compared to the characters in the setting. Consequently most 'powerful' NPCs are embarrassingly squashed with minimum effort on repeated occasions thanks to his ring of spell reflection and his nuclear level spell which leaves a crater where an invading army of fallen used to be (other than the local human lord who might even be his near equal). The hero is definatly a pervert and this earns its mature/adult rating. He almost wipes out the elven kingdom after his elf slave is abducted by her vile brother.
These three anime offer an aerial view of their setting's cities:
Bastard Magic Lecturer: this has a city straddling a river and surrounding shield wall. With the academy backed up against a mountain. Its a clean, spotless city maintained with magic.
Grimoire of Zero: this has a city backed by a horseshoe cliff-face with multiple growth walls guarding its down slope forming an inner and outer city. Its streets are like the last paved in stone brick though narrower, and we see signs of slavery, abuse, inequality and racism, and public executions.
Demon Lord: this city straddles a cross-roads and is confined by a hexagonal shield wall. Roads are apparently 'dirt', and slaves are a part of the setting.
These three cities are very different at ground level yet come with streets and alleys overlooked by buildings two or three stories high. All lack the continuous flow of farm produce necessary to feed the populace by any means less than significant instantaneous magic food production, and you dont realy see sewers to deal with waste. At night a character might be attacked by some villainous spellcaster from a dark alley in all three cities.
Three spells:
Minor Runes (1st level)
Range: As spell effect
Duratìon: as spell effect
This spell allows the caster to produce any first level spell simply by varying the spoken magic of the minor runes spell.
Hunting Quiver (2nd level)
Range: 0'
Duration: permanant until dispelled
This spell comes with a spell storage state allowing the magicuser to stockpile magic missile arrows up to one per spell caster level in the quiver. These can be drawn and fired once per round with what appears to be a magic glowing bow made of energy by the mage.
Light Bombardment (3rd level)
Range: 200'
Duration: 1 round
This spell unleashes damage equal to the hitpoints of the spell caster. The area of bombardment is subjected to bombardment by an intense light affecting a volume of ten feet of radius per spell caster level. Damaging ground, structures, and opponents.
