We’re going to look at the three most common fantasy-setting systems of accessing magic; which are (a) Metric Magic, wherein anyone can learn or practice supernatural powers, (b) Genetic Magic, wherein magic or supernatural powers are genetic or inherited, and (c) Spooky Magic, wherein random people may end up discovering magic or being born with magic or other supernatural powers, akin to a lottery system. As it turns out, all three options are chock full of terror.

In my adolescence, I suffered several episodes of night terrors and sleep paralysis. I created the character of the Deep Man, referenced in the video, and also saw other strange shadowy figures on nights when I would wake up frozen and scared. For some reason, these episodes stopped around the time I was 14 or 15, and I didn’t have another one until the night Hurricane Sandy struck New York and New Jersey. Since then (October, 2012), I’ve experienced usually 4-6 episodes per year. Usually these episodes occur far apart from each other, on the scale of weeks or months; but during a stressful and isolated period of late 2018 summertime, I experienced 5-6 episodes almost back-to-back, with very minimal recursive periods.

We can sort fantasy realms into two general systems: one in which our real-world understanding of physics usually applies and therefore magic breaks those understandings and/or the fundamental laws of physics themselves; or another in which the fundamental laws of physics and the universe differ from our own enough to justify the existence and use of fantasy-world magic. While the former usually tends to be the more grotesque and horrific of the two, the latter retains the same basic source of fear: constant paranoiac uncertainty.