Fallenreaper
Ti
Jumbus
Silly
Echotech71
Astro
Kuro
Chronic
Lildear18
pantothenicMagic_________ __ __ _ _
The Gift_________ __ __ _ _
Thunder. Arcane. Blood. Essence. Force.
Magic is a blessing of the Gods and so is called, respectfully, The Gift. Yet, it does not come from nowhere. Before any spells can be cast, no matter how trivial, all magical power must be drawn from sources of energy abundant in the world. The five great schools of magic - Thunder, Arcane, Blood, Essence, and Force, draw from the heat, light, metabolic, kinetic, potential, and electric energies of one's surroundings. Those skilled in The Gift may then convert one type of energy into another within themselves. You might draw heat from a raging fire, but that does not mean that you need to cast a fireball. If you can afford an extra few seconds, then you might decide on Arc Lightning from the Thunder school or a telekinetic shove. Spells from all five schools are made viable through the blessed act of conversion. However, there have long been rumours of other as-yet undiscovered magics that promise far greater power if used as well as far greater consequences...
Covered below are the five major schools of magic use. Their workings are explained using language that the majority of their practitioners do not even understand and would not be able to reference or explain. Following the collapse of the Avincian Empire, much of existing magical theory has been lost. The essential know-how, however, remains.
Thunder Magic
- Drawing: Thunder magic draws its energy from the polarity of atoms and molecules, using their tendencies to attract and repel each other to build powerful charges.
- Offense: While Thunder users have a reputation for being a 'slow' school and defensive counterpunchers, they are more than capable of mounting independent (and often terrifying) offense of their own. They rely on creating charges and polarizations first and then capitalizing on those. Ever watched somebody disintegrate? Ever seen a massive lightning bolt strike someone down from the heavens?
- Defense: With Thunder users, the line between offense and defense is often blurred, as they tend to be masters of subtle and sneaky techniques that cause their opponents to destroy themselves or set them up to be countered mercilessly.
- Utility: Thunderers tend not to directly favour utility spells, most of their repertoires being multifunctional. However, their ability to set up their environments, manipulate electric currents, and move charged objects using magnetism can be helpful.
Arcane Magic
- Drawing: Arcane magic uses the radiative energy of heat (thermal) and light as a power source. As a result, it has a virtually limitless (and potentially overwhelming) supply of power during the day and in warmer places and considerably less at night and in colder places.
- Casts from this school focus on using heat and light in a multitude of different ways. Partially as a result, Arcane is easily the most balanced school in terms of offensive, defensive, and utility spells, boasting impressive flexibility that enables adherents to take either subtle or aggressive approaches. This, combined with the sheer abundance and ready availability of heat and light energy makes Arcane the preferred school for mages than any other.
- Offense: In terms of offense, arcane magic users can focus the powers of heat and light to burn, melt, and blind. Intensely focused beams of light and heat can cut and burn holes in solid objects, while fire can spread rapidly and offensive draws can cause targets to freeze to death.
- Defense: Defensively, arcane magic can warp and bend the visible light spectrum to allow a user to disappear from sight and can manipulate temperatures and the surrounding environment to negate incoming attacks.
- Utility: In terms of utility, arcanists can create powerful illusions, as well as provide light and heat. Especially intense heat can cauterize wounds.
Blood Magic
- Drawing: With Blood magic, drawing involves not the repurposing of energy but the repurposing of matter by destroying it and using its potential energy. In the case of healers, known colloquially as 'Binders', this can be used to remove foreign objects from the body, treat patients, or dissolve incoming threats. However, the 'blood price' of turning matter into energy is inherently inefficient. Unless the matter in question contains a great deal of potential energy, one will often need to draw an excessive amount of it.
- Difficulty: A Blood magic user must be highly skilled in the art of drawing, so as to make the most of sources. These are highly abundant, but many are poor reservoirs and, furthermore, careless drawing can damage allies or even oneself. Binders, in particular, need to exercise the utmost caution while removing unwanted matter from a human or yasoi body.
- Offense: With Blood Magic, the mere act of drawing is a powerful attack, destroying matter from castle walls to weapons to flesh and blood. However, this is a 'slow' magic, taking more time to draw from than others and requiring great focus. Blood magic users can also repurpose matter, dissolving it in one form and place an reforming it in another. This often takes the form of simpler shapes and uniform materials. Still, a stabbing blade doesn't usually need to be that complex.
- Defense: The ability to covert matter into usable energy, and vise versa, makes Blood a massively powerful school of magic on the defensive side of the ledger. Blood practitioners can destroy enemy projectiles, heal wounds from trivial to fatal, invigorate allies, and materialize barriers (and simple weapons) for protection.
- Utility: The ability to create passages for allies and obstacles for enemies is of considerable use. One may also materialize simple, useful devices, like ramps, levers, cushions, and pulleys. Exceptionally skilled Blood magic users may even 'seal' simple spells by creating items that, when drawn from, release the necessary amount and type of energy for the spell.
Essence Magic
- Drawing: Essence magic uses the power of chemical reactions as a source. It can use smaller reactions to trigger larger reactions, amplifying the power of the initial spell exponentially and creating a power loop to draw more from. Be careful, though! These can quickly spiral out of control.
- Offense: Practitioners of Essence magic are known for their terrifying array of offensive skills, and these come in two primary varieties: External and Internal. The former focuses on manipulating and often chemically altering the environment to generate powerful reactions in the form of combustion, explosions, and corrosives, which can be further perpetuated for cataclysmic results. The latter focuses on manipulating the biochemical properties of a living target’s body to injure, incapacitate, dominate, or destroy it.
- Defense: While they are offensive powerhouses, Essence users are markedly weaker on defense, relying predominantly on their ability to keep opponents on the back foot and, at higher skill levels, to deceive and dominate them mentally.
- Utility: In terms of utility, Essence users possess a plethora of skills beneficial to both themselves and allies, from minor casts augmenting moods and abilities, to transmutation, to powerful healing and even quasi-resurrection spells.
Force Magic
- Drawing: Force Magic uses the power of kinetic energy as a source, meaning that the simple act of anything with mass in motion can power it. It also interacts with less obvious forms of motion and energy, such as sound waves and gravity.
- Offense: There are three distinct approaches to Force offense. The first seeks to manipulate motion and sound within the environment to use it against the target. The second focuses on offensive drawing and manipulating the target itself. The third approach uses the kinetic energy of the environment to turn the caster’s body into a powerful weapon.
- Defense: Defensively, Force magic’s telekinesis can allow its caster to throw objects into the path of attacks to act as shield instead of using them as offense. Additionally, the manipulation of sound is a subtle but powerful tool.
- Utility: In terms of utility, the telekinetic abilities of the Force school are front and center, though their multifunctional nature makes them potent offensive and defensive tools as well. Force spells can also augment their caster’s movements and help him to levitate, making him a very elusive target.
The Gift: A Deeper Understanding___ __ _ _
Use of The Gift is a rare phenomenon, reserved only for those most blessed by the gods. It is estimated that perhaps two in a hundred people have the ability to use magic for more than mere parlour tricks, though this has not been measured for a certainty. As befits a great boon bestowed upon man by the divine Pentad, The Gift is arcane and inscrutable in nature: far beyond mortal understanding. What little is known to learned men is recorded below for the benefit of the interested.
The Five Celestial Wheels_________ __ __ _ _
The precise reason why some people can use magic has not yet been revealed by the Gods or by man's ingenuity. Learned monks and nuns of the Stresian Order, however, have surmised that it has something to do with one's blood. They have deemed this sanguine quality 'mana'. Developed during Avincian times, the Five Wheel Method provides a straightforward measure of a person's amount of mana. Five massive wheels are set spinning and maintained at a set speed by a powerful user (or multiple users) of The Gift in order to generate a specific amount of Force energy. Each of these wheels contains precisely double the energy of the wheel previous. Upon a signal, the candidate being tested will draw from each wheel in turn, taking a moment's rest between wheels to expel all drawn energy. The number of wheels that he can successfully draw from will act as a measure of that person's capacity for drawing energy. If he is able to draw partially from a wheel but not entirely, he will be assess for a quarter, half, or three-quarter measure. While the Five Wheel Method can put a number on how much energy a person is able to safely draw from his surroundings, what it cannot do is give him an absolute measurement of something as abstract as 'power'. Other factors such as drawing range and efficiency, conversion efficiency, spell focusing techniques, environmental and multiplicative effects, and a caster's mastery of a spell all have roles to play. Having a high Five wheel number certainly doesn't hurt, though. While other factors can change, it is the only one that is more or less immutable. Let's take a bit more of a look, shall we?
The Five Wheel scale is not a linear one. It's exponential. That means that each whole number on it represents double the power of the one before. Let's say that a hypothetical person is able to complete drawing from one wheel. We'll assign him a score of one. If he is able to draw successfully from two, then he has double the power and a score of two. Nice and tidy, right? But remember that two will now double, so when he draws from the third wheel, he does not have three times the power of a First Wheel magic user, but rather four times. This diverges further as we move up the scale.
First Wheel = 1: Minor magics - 80% of magic users
Second Wheel = 2: Moderate magics - 13% of magic users
Third Wheel = 4: Fairly Strong magics - 6% of magic users
Fourth Wheel = 8: Great magics - 1% of magic users
Fifth Wheel = 16: World-warping magics - neg.% of magic users
The Process of Spellcasting:_________ __ __ _ _
Draw > Contain > Convert > Cast
The power of a magic user is based upon a number of factors, but the four steps above are the essentials of any spell, though conversion is optional for some. We've already touched on capacity and schools of magic, so let's take a closer look at exactly how using The Gift works and how one can use it more effectively.
Spell Power Determinants
- Capacity – all magic users have a capacity for energy that their body can process at a given moment. Effectively, the higher the capacity (as measured by the Five Wheels), the more energy that can be drawn in, contained, and expelled. While other skills can be learned, this one is innate. While it increases as you mature, once you are grown, your capacity is whatever the Gods have declared it to be.
- Reading – Energy exists in a number of forms in nature and artificially: force (motion and sound), thunder (magnetic), arcane (heat and light), essence, and blood (matter-based). The better that a magic user is at reading energy sources, the more ready a supply of energy for spells he will have.
- Drawing – the energy that a magic user relies upon originates in her surroundings. She must be able to sense it, grasp it, and draw it to herself in order to utilize it for casting spells. Drawing is the first active step in transferring the energy from its origin to its eventual target, using the person who draws as a temporary vessel.
- Containment - For a period either brief or long, the magic user must contain the drawn energy within herself, and containing large amounts for long periods can be dangerous. It often manifests itself as a sort of pressure that one feels inside, and a mounting headache. Energy contained for too long also tends to 'leak out' into one's surroundings and gradually dissipate.
- Conversion – Energy for use in spells can be drawn from a multitude of different sources addressed earlier. Normally, a spell simply intensifies and redirects that energy towards a preferred target. However, with training, a wizard or other magic user can store the drawn energy temporarily and expel it as a different type.
- Efficiency – energy must be pulled from surroundings, contained, (potentially converted), and then expelled (cast). Energy is not easy to control, and may escape the grasp of the magic user during any of these stages. Maximizing the amount of energy retained through each results in more powerful spells. Basically, the process is as follows: Draw Efficiency >> Containment Efficiency >> Conversion Efficiency >> Expulsion (Cast) Efficiency.
- Focus Words - This is the spoken part of any spell. It is not strictly necessary, but many magic users will use this for more complex or energy-intense spells. While having a routine of prescribed words that correspond to what one is doing can help with maintaining focus and ensuring efficiency, if these words invoke the Gods, it is also believed that they may lend the caster their assistance.
- Preservation – Drawing, containing, and casting large amounts of energy is often dangerous to the human body, so a magic user must spend a certain amount of focus and energy on protecting himself. This is usually accomplished through projection of spells away from the body, or the casting of small counterspells.
- Freecasting – Preservation when casting is often achieved through use of an object or weapon that acts as a focus point for the spell away from the body. In fact, most magic users do not know how to cast any other way. However, with the right protection in place, it is possible to cast without the use of an instrument or focus point, giving the magic user far greater flexibility.
- Multiplying – The energy released by a spell can cause secondary and tertiary effects in the environment, which skilled magicians such as witches, warlocks, and wizards should learn to anticipate and benefit from. Possessing a keen awareness of the potential for these effects and tailoring one’s spells to take advantage of them can multiply the energy output of a cast exponentially.
- Impact Focusing – When bursts of energy are diffused over too large of an area, their impact is diluted. A skilled magic user can increase their intensity by forcing all of the energy into a small focus point and maintaining that focus all of the way through spell completion.
- Impact Bursting – Drawing energy can take a considerable amount of time. While expelling energy is a faster, simpler process, there still tends to be a power curve. This effectively weakens the spell, as the total amount of energy is not used all at once. A disciplined and well-trained practitioner of magic can release all of her energy in a very short burst to ensure that it reaches its objective with maximum impact.
Effects of Overdrawing_________ __ __ _ _
As a magic user draws energy, the mana in her bloodstream fills with it, inflating in a sense, and her blood pressure increases. For reasons unknown, the more mana that there is, the less that it will be taxed when she draws energy and the less risk she runs of adverse effects. Somebody who scores higher in the Five Wheels test will inherently be able to draw more energy safely than someone who scores lower. A magic user will be considered to have reached her capacity once her mana has expanded to the point where it cannot expand any further without hurting her. This looks the following way: firstly, she will become slower at drawing and expelling energy, resulting in slower spell usage. Her mana seems to lose efficiency, resulting in temporary dips in capacity until it regenerates. In the short term, however, mana that is stressed enough and filled with enough energy will simply cause veins and arteries to burst. If this is in an essential area - like the brain - then the magic user may suffer serious injury or even die. However, there are warning signs before the worst effects take place, and these should be heeded by all mages. We'll illustrate these with a case study below:- Anna Sigmundottir is an Arcane Mage with a 5W score of 3½.
- In order to have enough energy for most of her everyday spells she will probably have to draw up to between 1½-2½. She won't need to make use of her full capacity on a regular basis.
- However, Anna likes really big explosions. She wants to cast a large fireball and draws up to about 3¼: close to her full capacity.
- When she does this, Anna will probably start to feel a weird sort of pressure as her mana inflates to very near its full capacity and her blood pressure increases as a result.
- Anna decides that she wants even more power, because you can never have too much destruction.
- She draws right up to her capacity of 3½. Her mana is at full inflation. The pressure on her arteries and veins is significant.
- Anna will likely start to develop a headache. Things will feel a bit faint and fuzzy and she might be lightheaded.
- Wisely, Anna releases the energy and casts a massive fireball, eyes sparkling with dark glee, reveling in the carnage which she hath wrought.
- However, Anna loves destruction so much that, a short while later, she starts drawing for another huge fireball and, this time, she ignores her body's warning signs and continues drawing energy past her capacity.
- As she passes it, her smallest blood vessels start to burst. At first, there is no outward sign of this.
- However, once a few within close proximity rupture, the effects start to become visible.
- The result is that Anna starts bruising in random places. She develops hematomas. Her headache and dizziness intensify as she draws close to 3⅗ and she begins to hear a ringing in her ears.
- As she passes 3⅗, Anna has burned up a significant amount of mana, which she will take a while to recover.
- At 3¾, she is in mortal danger, all for the payoff of a spicy fireball. What a maroon! She gets a nosebleed. Her eyes become bloodshot.
- All it will take at this point is a burst blood vessel in the wrong place - such as in a major artery or in her brain, and Anna could suffer a debilitating injury or even die.
- If she's lucky, she'll faint first, but that's not a guarantee. Magic users have overdrawn themselves to death.
- In the event, Anna gets lucky and faints. The energy starts leaking out of her, but not quickly enough.
- Fortunately, a wizard is there to siphon some of the excess energy from her before further damage is done.
- Anna has pushed her capabilities to their very limit, but all that she has gained from it is a splitting headache, nosebleed, and multiple bruises. She has not expanded her capacity and has, in fact, temporarily reduced it. Your 5W is your 5W and everybody knows that you can't just increase it by 'training hard'.
Mediums_________ __ __ _ _
Solids
Often very heavy due to their high density, but capable of maintaining a fully cohesive shape, solids usually require a very large amount of built up energy to be expended to move. However, since they maintain their own shape, they require no extra concentration or energy in order to hold them together.
- E.g. rocks, trees, clothes, living things
- Sometimes, an unchanging shape can be a problem, as solids cannot be manipulated as finely.
Liquids
Often somewhat heavy due to their density, but capable of maintaining only a partially cohesive shape, liquids usually require a fairly large amount of built up energy to move. Since they cannot maintain a fully cohesive shape, they also require some concentration and a lesser amount of energy in order to hold them together.
- E.g. water, blood, chemicals, drinks
- Sometimes, it is easy for a mage to lose control of a large volume of liquid
Gases
Often quite light due to their low density, but incapable of maintaining any sort of cohesive shape, gases usually require a fairly small amount of built up energy to move. However, since they cannot maintain any kind of cohesive shape, they also require considerable concentration and energy in order to hold them together.
- E.g. air, smoke, water vapour, helium
- While easy to manipulate, it is hard to do much by manipulating air alone and directly.
Plasmas
Often virtually weightless due to their extremely low density, but actively resisting any sort of cohesive shape, plasmas usually require virtually no built up energy to move. However, since they are charged and resist a cohesive shape, they also require exceptional concentration and energy in order to hold them together.
- E.g. fire, lightning, electric sparks, stars
- Impossible to control completely, and requires constant sources of energy to maintain it.
Mana Protection_________ __ __ _ _
No, You Can't Just Draw Your Opponent to Death
As they become more acquainted with the Gift, most mages will learn, either by accident or with intent, that they can draw from other living things. However, they may find it noticeably more difficult to draw from people and, in particular, to draw from other advanced magic users. It is an established fact that, since the human body both generates and contains multiple types of energy, mages can draw from other mages. However, in practice, this can prove extremely difficult. The reason why is that mana naturally wants to hold onto energy at all costs and seems to view the energy contained in its host as 'its' energy. What this means is that drawing from other people with an appreciable capacity is a tug of war: your mana (from a distance) vs their mana. If you have a higher capacity, you can pull with a magical strength and 'leverage' that you opponent simply can't, and you'll gradually gain ground, especially if you're the more skilled drawer. This is massively inefficient, however, and exacerbated by the fact that drawing isn't instant and the time that it takes increases with distance. You can probably tear away a bit of energy, but anyone with even the barest understanding of magic will notice quickly before you have the chance to do much of substance, and they'll counter you if they're able. The only times when you can smoothly draw from another magic user are if you're orders of magnitude stronger or if that other person has overdrawn and their mana is depleted.
Mana Types_________ __ __ _ _
The factors that cause The Gift to manifest within individuals are arcane and divine. While the reasons are known only to the Gods, humans, in their diligence and free will, have studied mana assiduously and noticed a number of patterns. It appears that there are actual a number of different types of mana. These are noted and described below.- Fireblood: 20/1000 magic users – Firebloods are masters of offensive magic, particularly from the arcane, essence, and blood schools. Their resistance to thunder spells covers Essence’s traditional weakness. They are resistant to hot temperatures and being burned, not having to worry about wasting energy on preservation, but their power levels are often modest, very rarely exceeding 3¼.
- Icevein: 10/1000 magic users – Iceveins are masters of defensive magic, particularly against arcane, force, and essence draws. They can draw heat out of targets and slow movement with exceptional ease. They are resistant to cold temperatures and to being frozen, however, their base power levels are often modest, very rarely exceeding 3¼.
- Bloodchild: often in children revived using blood magic, 24/1000 magic users – Bloodchildren are almost always albino, and are excellent at drawing from matter and at matter reconstitution. They possess a natural proclivity for Blood Magic, but some secretly dabble in Blood Magic. They have an alarming tendency to self-damage and to damage allies when not careful with their drawing.
- Skyborn: 36/1000 magic users – Skyborn are generally light on their feet, can self-levitate easily, take a long time to physically tire, and are excellent at evasion. However, they struggle greatly with spells that involve weight and recoil.
- Truecaster: 10/1000 magic users – Truecasters are hobbled by their inability to convert. They can only cast from the same school that they draw from, rendering them inflexible and predictable. However, they compensate by way of prodigious raw power, with capacities almost always over 4¼.
- Thunderchild: 42/1000 magic users – Thunderchildren are highly susceptible to magnetic charges and pick them up easily. This makes them extremely powerful with Thunder Magic. However, they must always be careful to maintain a balanced charge for fear of significant self-injury.
- Leadvein: 32/1000 – Leadveins are generally solid and balanced. They can safely draw and contain half again the amount of kinetic energy that their capacity would usually allow. They can impart this into physical blows and tend to be highly self-damage resistant. However, they tend to tire easily and can struggle to control their own force.
- Greengrowth: 8/1000 - When drawing, Greengrowths are naturally and purposely inefficient, imbuing their surroundings with enriched energy and stimulating rapid growth of plants and animals as well as encouraging the growth of manas and babies to be born with a higher 5W capacity.
- Devourer: 6/1000 - Devourers are notable for having generally high capacities (over 3¾ wheels) but being slow at drawing. Their manas are highly aggressive toward foreign or invasive substances, relentlessly attacking them. This is a double-edged sword, as it sometimes leads to severe and unwarranted allergic reactions. At its best, however, it renders Devourers virtually immune to all forms of poison and most forms of illness and disease.
- Mooncaster: 5/10000 (almost always from Eskand) – Mooncasters are extremely rare, and often possess heightened senses and reflexes. Their base power levels are often quite low, rarely exceeding Second-and-a-Half Wheel. However, they grow exponentially more powerful depending on the position and brightness of the five moons. Given the right position, a mediocre Second wheel magic user can multiply his power, becoming a monstrous fifth-plus wheel with a capacity ten times that of before. For reasons unknown, it is possible for a mooncaster to also possess a second mana type.
Mana Diseases
- Greyborn: 4/10000 - Greyborn are a mystery to the study of The Gift because they seem to break its established laws. These strange, doomed individuals possess the otherwise unheard-of ability to not have to draw magic from any visible source. It simply seems to come out of nowhere for them and they never have to worry about supply. However, the dark side of this is that they are often only semi-corporeal. Once they reach adolescence, Greyborn begin to phase in and out of the mortal plane, becoming ghostlike and near-invisible. To some degree, they can control this and use it to their advantage. It is near-impossible to strike a Greyborn who doesn't wish to be struck. However, while phased out, they also seem to lose the ability to cast spells of any real power. The worst part of all is that, as time goes on, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to remain corporeal. Eventually, all Greyborn fade away, and very few live to see forty.
- Tethered: 20/10000 (more common in females) - A disease known as the Tethering occasionally effects magic users, almost always making itself apparent in the later years of childhood. While this terrifying illness of the Mana comes with benefits such as a truly prodigious drawing and casting range and unusually fine control, it is ultimately a mark of the Gods' disfavour. The Tethering begins in the toes and works its way up the body, gradually robbing its victims of sensation and movement over the span of about two decades. It is a slow, cruel, and undignified death, and many choose Echeran's Mercy rather than wait for it to take them.
- Powergazer: 15/10000 (more common in males) - As much a blessing as a curse, this mana disease infects the eyes directly, rendering those with it blind in the traditional sense. Instead, their eyes change, becoming dark and porous. Unlike most mages, who gain a dull sense of agglomerations of energy, Powergazers can 'see' by sensing all of the energies around them with great clarity: size, shape, and type. They can also draw and expel energy at an extremely rapid rate using their eyes as apertures.
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