Science is the study of our world in the many ways it can be viewed, whether that's chemically, biologically, or through the observation of physics. Now this is all well and good, but surely you wonder how that relates to a fictional world where in a single human with no outwardly definieable difference can somehow produce fire from his fingertips or cause water or dirt to levitate. That's a good question, and honestly there are many ways to explain such phenomenon to be canonical to your realm.

For example, and this is all a giant tangent from what I really wanted to talk about, in the series necrotourists, the mc, who is never given a name besides "boss" as far as I had read to, never 'produced' any kind of phenomena, in fact it is stated that Mana is an extradimensional being which is commanded by mages to take the chosen phenomena from another dimension, and place it within his own, effectively it's not controlling anything, it's a dimensional distortion of the material chosen by the mage that is already doing what they want, possibly even coming from several other dimensions, let's say in dimension b, where in he is pulling his floating earth from, it's a cliff there, but he then begins to move it in a figure 8 pattern. The dimensional distortion isn't moving in a figure 8 in dimension b, because now the floating stone needs velocity, velocity being a 3 dimensional abstraction of motion with direction and mass. So it no longer pulls from dimension b as dimension b is stationary, however, in dimensions c through p, the stone within these dimensions is moving at a velocity that matches the effects of the figure 8 being attempted, so in a way, the Mana is a movie Maker taking frames from alternate realities and pasting it seemlessly into dimension A to create the motion picture of a rock floating through a figure 8.

Necrotourists utilizes a rather unique variation of what magic is by use of physics and the mutliverse theory.

But necrotourists is also really funny and often off the rails ridiculous, so... Take it with a grain of salt I guess? I dunno. I enjoyed how wierd it is.

Back to the actual topic I wanted to speak of, as an author having a greater understanding of science in all it's myriad facets can allow you to place more detail into your story, and even have it potentially be more physically possible.

For example, many authors have very large world's, now, based on science this means several things that can cause a rather large plot hole. One, if the planet is solid, and it's obviously not a gas giant, then gravity must be far more than anticipated, many authors simply never state how large the world is, simply because making unknown continents can be time consuming on top of everything else, however, an alternative is a hollow section of planet that allows it's overall mass to be less, thus decreasing gravity. But that brings forth new problems like how thick the crust is before this cavity, and how is the outer crust supported on this cavity? Arguably it's a great chance at a cavern world setting, and depending on how you do it, it can be an inverted world setting as well. My thoughts on this are rather simple, if there is a cavity, and it supports tectonic plates, each plate above must be connected to a plate below by pillars, these pillars sit on a smaller plate, and act as lava tubes to allow volcanos to still exist, as well as allow earthquakes. Granted as far as I recall only GATE: AND SO THE DEFENCE FORCE FOUGHT, is a fantasy world setting that has ever had a normal earthquake. Others simply have monster caused anomalies. Which is fine to help define the strength and weight of a creature on top of setting a mood for a fight or flight scene, but it's not usually considered as it's a fantasy world. So somehow those things don't exist unless a monster caused it.

Normal ecological and natural disasters are often overlooked in fantasy worlds. If a tidal wave comes it is because some great Leviathan of the ocean surfaced. If a volcano erupts it's because some monster through a rampage in a dormant volcano, if there is an earthquake it's cause a sleeping behemoth awakened from a several hundred years hibernation and is hunting again. Forest fires are caused by a mage who couldn't keep control during a fight with an ogre.

These are all valid excuses yes, but I do believe an author should not discount normal natural disasters being a roadblock for the mc. The middle of a fight and an earthquake hits? A perfect opportunity to slay or be slain as someone loses footing. The eruption of a volcano and subsequent channeling of lava or destruction of a village is an excellent time to find specific habitat monsters. A tidal wave is a wonderful time to find treasure and also show off some sort of prowess and strength, or introduce a character who will hold great importance to plot later on.

Now, more about science in a fantasy world, some stories have the mc use chemical formula as an ability to make their magic stronger or cheaper, or even change it completely into something else simply because color association. A fire that burns in the presence of copper is green, but a green flame is known to be something that can curse, and by this world magic association, the mc can freely send this curse flame about simply because he understands how to make a green flame. Systems can often be broken by science, or in others it's incompatible and the world rejects science, as in one story where in the Mana of an area went haywire and was harder to control because the world was on the Advent of the creation of gunpowder.

Moving back towards world science, topography is highly important and likely very overlooked, as if you have a map of South America, I believe it's in South America, there is a desert along a coastline to the... West of the continent, the reason why is simply how topography effects weather patterns. Most authors won't put forth the effort to make a weather pattern for their world, and that's fine, but at the same time, if you adapt this, and people can chart it out properly, it can easily be used in something like dnd and have a far more accurate system where in things can be properly planned for. In the same way, if you put forth the effort for this in your world, suddenly you are simply moving characters around the world, and the setting creates itself. The desert by the coast in South America, to finish that statement, is caused by a mountain range just to the east which causes clouds to go higher in the atmosphere, which is colder, which makes them condense, which causes all the rain to fall on the Eastward side of the mountain, the winds continue west, but it holds no moisture for the westward side.

Now, to combat this it is possibly to have things called mountain valley microclimates, in the world there are places with staggeringly different climates than an area about 30 miles distant, I know, I'm showing my nationality, whatever, and this is caused by the surrounding topography blocking certain weather anomalies from reaching this area, and allowing others to pass through, much like how in a dungeon you can go from a frozen tiaga, to a volcanic wasteland. It's similar in a sense to that, but it's not caused by magic. Using this to create a framework for your world means you just need to plug in the data. But it also means lots of effort. You also lose the ability to change the weather on a dime and make a perfect setting for two characters huddling in a cave during a sudden monsoon. But hey, that's what monsters and magic is for! Who needs the weather magician on friendliest when you walk into a hydrosuarus Rex territory and it takes a nap just close enough to flood your hunting grounds for a week?

Moving back towards planetary scale stuff, a big planet DOES mean lots of room to explore and make a world and politics and all that plot nonsense. But sometimes you need to think outside the box, if you wanna push, then don't shove like you want to move your dresser two inches to the right for your Feng shui, hulk that bitch and shove that dresser like you want your room on Jupiter. What I mean is, look at fantasy stories all over and absorb some ideas. Mix your science with fantasy.

For an example let's look at the long on hiatus for legal reasons Log Horizon, I truly enjoyed the open ended features of the system there, and if you go through, at one point you will notice Crafters are using a fire creature to heat up a boiler for a steam engine.

That's a wonderful mixture of magic and machine. Golems are always nice, but why can't we make a Boeing 747 using materials like the feathers of a roc, and the ability to produce air streams of magical enchantments?

Another thing never truly looked at is the ocean. I get it, fire doesn't burn under water. But what if you can make it do so? Water is hydrogen and oxygen, and fire burns hydrogen for fuel in the presence of oxygen, you make a bubble, you set a fire, boom. Suddenly exploring the Marianas trench isn't so difficult. However, the alternative is you just mcguffin it and say magic is the answer. It's a flame made of water. Effectively it's just flash boiling water in the shape of a flame. While underwater. There aren't really any water world fantasy stories. Granted shit gets scary in the ocean what with goblin sharks, angler fish, and every other bugaboo that lives well beyond the reaches of light. I mean shit, if I was that ugly I'd not want to be seen either.

Alternatives to that, and more towards the monster fueled steam engine, space, not like emerilia, I mean using hocus pocus to make a rocket. Why has no one done that? Who says elves and dwarves weren't from another planet? Why do the God's put them all on one planet? Why is there not a grander scale of magic? The possibilities of fantasy are as endless as the imagination, and it's important to remember that.

As an author knowledge is your strength, the pen is your sword, be the spell blade and enchant some readers with a whole new world they never expected to see. Just give it your all, who knows, you may enchant yourself with your newfound world. :3