MC: Magical Girl

This article's content is accurate to the most recent public game version, 0.4.8d.

This article pertains to material only described in in-game lore.

This article contains lore not currently mentioned in-game, but which will be expanded upon in later updates.

Magical Girls are magic-wielding girls that use their powers to fight against the Magicos and their Minions. While the term "Magical Girl" may bring to mind many associations, as popularized in Earth media over the past decades, Magical Girls in the world of Magical Camp refer to something specific and do not necessarily adhere to all the common tropes associated with them.

Description

History

Magical Girls, as can be inferred from their name, are girls with magic. This is only the bare minimum required, as there are several other requirements to be considered an actual Magical Girl rather than just a girl with magic. In fact, the difference between a magical girl and a Magical Girl is in the expressions and associations themselves; for centuries it was simply that females would contract with magical creatures to gain some of their power in turn for providing some form of service. Magical knights, mystic ninjas, priests, shamans, and witches all fell under the umbrella term of magical girl, or girl with magic, but it wasn't until fairly recently that this was refined. Olivia for example is noted as having become a magical girl between the World Wars, and Marianne was a witch magical girl before her.

Things began to change some time in the early-mid 20th century on Earth, with that world's popular media and real magical girls driving each other towards a more specific aesthetic and expression. This was in combination with the pioneering of actual cuteness-based magic such as Marianne's Heart Blast, and presumably the efforts of others as well, such as Ayame and her proclivities.

Their efforts eventually resulted in an entirely new branch of magic as a sub-type of the fairy magic that empowers girls: Cute magic. Proper Magical Girls are able to actively derive power from cuteness, so most of them do their best to become cuter since that directly translates into greater magical ability and strength. Due to all this, the image of the modern cute Magical Girl was born and shaped.

Requirements

The first major requirement that sets apart a Magical Girl from other magic users is the source of her power. Properly, she forms a contract with a fairy to gain the power of a Magical Girl. The full criteria for being selected is not known, but there are two obvious criteria: having an innate potential to use magic, and being a girl.

For the first requirement for a fairy contract, actually being able to use their magic prior to becoming a Magical Girl is not necessary. For those that were already able to use magic, their previous magic will mix with the fairy magic. This gives the resulting Magical Girl an initial boost to their magic, but it will also set the development of their powers along a corresponding thematic path. This strict development prevents certain processes such as Core Siphoning that would introduce foreign elements into their magic.

The reason for the requirement to be a girl is somewhat less obvious at first glance than the previous requirement. In actuality, it is possible for a fairy to contract with a male. However, there are reasons why they normally choose not to do so. For some reason, fairy magic does not react as well with males compared to females. Over time the magic granted by the contract will be lost, unlike the more permanent affair with a girl, and this is the more benign of the possible outcomes. A particularly bad reaction may prove imminently more explosive for the unfortunate magical boy.

Aside from the contract with a fairy, the other major requirement of a modern Magical Girl is Cute magic. Individual Magical Girls will use all sorts of different magical styles, weapons, or traits unique to them or their species and heritage. While this means that not all Magical Girls will directly use Cute-element magic spells as part of their arsenal, they are still empowered by Cute magic to a degree.

The requirements of a fairy contract and Cute magic are important for one major reason, that being the primary duty of Magical Girls: the elimination of Magicos.

Duty

Modern Magical Girls have come together for one reason: to fight the growing Magico menace. By the will of Arcanos, the Magicos seek to overrun and devour all life in the universe. Magical Girls are one of several factions that are part of the Anti-Magico Alliance that actively oppose the Magicos. For some reason, the Magicos seem allergic to fairy magic, and Cute magic in particular is quite effective against almost all of them.

The scale of the Magico threat is largely what sets apart the behaviour and purpose of Magical Girls in this reality from many popular media depictions. The scale of the threat is universal, multi-universal in fact, with all the lives in this universe and any universes Arcanos would move on to in jeopardy, with Magical Girls being one of the few things standing in their way. This weight of duty in many ways makes being a Magical Girl more of a "special forces soldier" than the "heroes" shown in media, with all the levels of grey morality that implies.

In a war against a nigh-unending enemy with limited numbers of your own, this gives a lot more leeway to the actions of Magical Girls with regards to ethics and morality compared to the end result. Magicos are an existential threat that could prove to be apocalyptic to a society unprepared to handle them, so in the act of destroying a Magico, sometimes necessary sacrifices are made. For all that Magical Girls ostensibly defend those that can't defend themselves against the Magico menace, they will sometimes employ less than savoury means, or even less than savoury Magical Girls in order to accomplish those ends.

Training and Organization

Facilities

From what is currently known of Magical Girls, they seem to be a distinctly Earthly phenomenon. There are three training facilities on Earth: The titular Magical Camp located in a pocket dimension but nominally covering Europe, the Magical Café in Japan, and the Magical Compound in America. These facilities are run by the senior Magical Girls Marianne, Ayame, and Patricia respectively. Most is known about the first of the three as it is the setting of the game, with only small amounts known of the other two.

Both the Magical Camp and Magical Café were created around the same unspecified time. The Magical Compound is the newest of the three facilities, having only been created in the late 2010s. The facilities are largely financed by the fairy global government, though supplemented by the connections and resources possessed by each individual director. In this respect Ayame and Patricia manage to outdo Marianne, and this can be seen in the Magical Camp's food situation with it having to resort to a contract with the rather unpalatable Gob-Gob company.

Each training facility recruits Magical Girls locally from within its sphere of influence, either by fairies working with them or through senior Magical Girls referring a younger girl with potential. Some exceptions to this exist, and the types of recruits preferred may vary. Marianne's Magical Camp for example has poached several American girls and many of its trainees seem to lean in a delinquent direction, whereas Ayame prefers her Magical Girls to actually align with the popular image of a cute girl fighting for love and justice.

Training

In the Magical Camp there are two distinct parts to their training: theoretical lessons taught in classrooms, and practical training against Magicos under controlled conditions. The former is not seen within the game as the recent session of classroom learning has just ended, with practical training season having begun shortly before Eric(a) arrived.

Practical training in Magical Camp takes place within the pocket dimension it is located in, which is littered with dungeons containing Magicos imprisoned within. The environments and Magicos are mostly within the limits expected for a trainee to be able to handle, and a spell over the dimension will teleport any defeated trainees back to camp before they can suffer irreparable harm. While the theoretical lessons can reasonably be expected from the other two facilities, it is unknown how they handle practical training given their lack of a pocket dimension filled with Magicos.

Once graduated, Magical Girls are allowed out on missions to fight Magicos outside, on Earth and presumably elsewhere in the multiverse. It can be seen that at least some graduated Magical Girls still operate out of the Magical Camp and presumably the other facilities as well, as a handy home base or headquarters of sorts.

Rewards

In exchange for the services of Magical Girls, the fairies will provide performance bonuses and even wishes. Performance bonuses can be gained even by trainees, but wishes require defeating live unsealed Magicos and are thus normally only available to graduated Magical Girls.

Defeating Magicos in the wild rewards Magical Girls with stamps in a system similar to a customer loyalty program at a fast food place. Once enough stamps are accumulated they can be exchanged for a wish from the fairies. The exact mechanics and limits of these wishes are still unknown, with only a couple of known examples thus far:

• A vampire Magical Girl wished away her weakness to sunlight.
• One Magical Girl is saving up stamps in hopes to cure her brother's cancer.