Mind Over Magic Prop Concepts

The spindle, a device used to craft helpful abominations from the corpses of small creatures. It was important that the crafting stations embodied a spirit of the magic they used, in this case dark magic.

The inspiration for the wand shaper was a reverse baseball lathe or a 3D printer. A piece of a magical tree that when embued with excess nature magic could conjure a new wand as easily as a tree grows a new branch.

For every room type in the game I did sketches of rooms filled with different magical items. We wanted an assortment of props not just in their percieved function but also their scale, an added layer of complexity in how a player constructed their spaces.

The first cooking station the player receives in the game and it has to look it. Still magical in that it stirs itself, but there is clearly room for an upgrade. It's off kilter look makes it feel like its frustrated with me.

A step in the fantastical direction, a wok lifted off its grate by dragonfire emphasized both magical need in its use but also added ornamentation making it feel more powerful than its cooking predecessor.

The dragon stove never made it into the initial game, but a dragon flamethrower cooking apparatus is a pretty neat idea. Full of utensils and magic curios it's a one stop shop for all of your mage's cooking needs.

A magical polishing stone operated by chisels and calipers imbued with spirit. The silohuette of this crafting station made for a fun visual of a mage hunched over the table, tinkering away at an amulet or ring.

Does the wand choose the mage or does the mage choose the wand. All i know is that the wands better have a lot of BLAM. Wands for all seven of our magic disciplines.

The first group teaching station we explored was fire. We weren't initially sure of how characters would interact with it, or what it's dimensions would be. We settled on a layout that would work across disciplines, with the phoenix as its mascot.

The dark teaching station harkens back to early skeches of students summoning an eldritch abomination from another dimension. This idea allowed dark magic to not simply be death magic, but something more complex and interesting.

For our lightning teaching station I explored a variety of ideas that revolved around runes and cyphers. We eventually landed on the idea of celestial bodies, with our lightning magic connecting the various planets together into a chaotic structure.

The water teaching station also acts as a small aquarium, with plants and fishes swimming around in the base while the station is not in use. Who knows what happens to the fish when the station really gets going.

The nature teaching station grows a tree of knowledge for the characters using it. An old and gnarled tree that can only grow in the soil of the teaching station. Without nature magic sustaining it, it reverts back to its seed shell.

A suit of armor used to decorate the school. Different types of weapons could be useful against defending the school from different types of intruders.