A Question of Magic

Figuring out the magic system for this thing is a pain in the butt.  The only thing that I know of even remotely similar to how I want magic to work in my world is the Force from D6 Star Wars, and even that's way too powerful.

There is a checklist/mental exercise for game developers called the Power 19.  I don't remember where I got it, and eventually I'll post the whole thing, but most of the points of consideration I talk about here come from the Power 19, or logical extensions of some of its questions, namely, "What is your game about?" and, "How does x reinforce what the game is about?" where x is any design element, from character creation, to combat, to XP, to the format used for publishing it.  The question on my mind is, "How does the magic system reinforce what the game is about?" or, more to the point, "If magic is so weak and subtle, why bother to have it at all?"

The very question of magic has been nagging at me for longer than I have been seriously working on this game.  Why do we tell stories with magic?  What is its narrative and mythic function?  What deep-seated need does it fill, what ache in the human condition does it assuage?  How is it different from religion, and why hasn't it been replaced by technology?  When so many other narrative conventions are just bigger and cooler versions of real-world things, people, and events, why does magic consistently defy anything anyone has ever empirically experienced?

Most of those questions are not particularly pertinent to game design, and though it's led me to read a lot of Campbell and Jung, as far as this discussion goes, let's leave it at that for now.  I'm writing ethnological fantasy, not historical fiction, so I'm contractually obligated to at least consider magic.

Part of it is that I believe in magic.  Not in some dippy pseudo-Wiccan 'majick' sort of way, but I really believe there are spiritual forces at work in the world and people's lives, call it whatever you want, and I think a game can and should simulate that to some degree.  It's a question of realism, just as much as I try to simulate blood loss and discrimination in game, I try to simulate the supernatural and numinous.  But the magic I believe in is not like the magic in most fantasy (especially high fantasy) stories and games: basically a hand grenade based on INT.  I think about magic the way Thomas Aquinas thinks about God: "surpassing the knowledge of our reason" (Summa Theologica Q62a2) -- God is greater than any conception of God; magic is that which more mysterious than the most mysterious thing a mortal mind can imagine. (So, yeah, it's kind of an Aquinas/Lovecraft idea.  Just work with me.)