The Gaming Den

I have this world concept that I'm trying to represent.
The basics are this:

Humans have access to Soul Magic. (IE, they can do magical things, powered by their souls) The way they unlock this is through 'Enlightenment'. It's a very touchy feely setting. It's a bit like Chinese Kung Fu mind over matter, Shaolin stuff. Except that it's not just for Martial arts, it's for everything.

Enlightened Farmers literally have developed a personal understanding of their land, and how to farm it. It's not really based on science, it's based on belief and inner enlightenment. Doctors do a combination of Chinese Medicine, Cupping, etc. Ingredients have magical properties, if they are collected/gathered by people who have achieved a level of enlightenment in the process. The Doctor then refines the ingredients, and his own ability/inner development effects how strong/pure/powerful/effective the final product is. This is true of everything in the world.

A Master Farmer makes better foodstuffs, a Master Chef elevates it even more. Master Tutors actually allow students to learn better, etc.

I ran a MTP game in this world once and one of the characters was a blacksmith.

He made a blatantly magical metal by:
Harvesting a certain kind of flower at Midnight, which he used in the water that cooled the metal. He only used the wood from a certain tree, that had a certain type of moss in it. He built his own tools, effectively making them magical for this purpose, etc... Like I said, it's the height of Touchy Feely is real. Which pisses off the Dwarves to no end.. because they're immune to magic, so many of the human magic items don't work for them, and humans can do things that just make no sense to them metalurgically speaking.

I really want to run this game, but I am completely at a loss on what system to use, and how to represent it.

Sounds like Joel Rosenberg's "D'shai" series, IIRC.

I could be misremembering, but it seems vaguely akin to parts of Earthdawn's fluff about their difference classes having different magic and different Karma regain rituals.


It also seems akin to the Zap Apple episode of FiM, where Granny inspects the jam jars by giving them a army-style pep talk to ensure that they are tough enough.

However where your setting seems to differ is that this sort of thing is unique to humans and the other races don't have access to it. Based on that I don't really have enough to go on to suggest a system. What do the other races get and what makes "soul magic" unique?

I mean you could rough it out in 3e D&D by something like replacing "human bonus feat" with "soul magic: choose a craft or profession skill, you get a Competence bonus to the chosen skill equal to your character level. If this is a Tome game, you gain minor access to a Sphere that represents the chosen endeavor"