Fantasy ~Magicborne: Magic System~

[SkyGinge]

~Magicborne~
Main RP Thread ~ Magic System ~ Map and Further Lore ~ Out of Character ~ Character Application ~ Rules and Chapters

~Magic~

What is Magic, and How is it Used?​

Magic itself is a potential interwoven within the very identity of humanity, stemming from the magician's soul, the essence deep inside their chest. Magic uses the same energy you might consume during physical exercise, though on a far grander scale as it is converted into magical form. From the soul, it travels to the user's hands where it seeks release, appearing in the form of a coloured aura as above - thus, if your hands are cut off, you will find yourself unable to use magic. Using magic can either take the form of an act of creation, creating something out of nothing, or manipulating materials already present to the magician’s aid, dependent on their vein of magic.​

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Magic is a powerful and practical tool, but an incredibly dangerous one; the general rule is that extended magical exertion results in equal negative repercussion, both long and short term. The short term consequences are simpler and universal. For the average citizen, about a minute’s worth of solid magical activity is enough to leave you physically exhausted. Naturally, this makes using even basic magic incredibly difficult, so fortunately it is possible to combat this fatigue by channeling the magic exertion through the hand into an external object, which then takes the strain in the wielder’s place. For example, rings, staffs and gloves are popular choices, though their endurance is dependent on their material - a cheap ring might break after a single minute of magic, whilst a well-made glove might last a few months before eventually getting destroyed.​

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The long term consequences, however, lack a solution and are far more serious. Each vein of magic comes with its own detrimental side-affects from callous usage, either by using too powerful magic or for using it for too long. Consequently, everybody from pauper to prince is trained in how to sensibly utilise their magic by government regulation, with a state-employed tutor in every area to teach young magicians how to control their abilities properly. Similarly, magic usage exists in the wider world under strict moderation, with the average citizen only using it in sporadic support of their chosen craft - for example, an Ignal magician might become a blacksmith, using their ability to kindle and control flames with precision when needed. Of course, there are those who desire to use this power in greater quantities, and these will normally become soldiers, where they have unlicensed reign to let loose, supported by a Santigion who will bear the brunt of their exertion. Or perhaps they might become a Protector, one of the state police who keep magic usage regulated and licensed, with fierce punishment promised for any who break these laws - immediate imprisonment. Though nobody know quite where these criminals go, or what they do...

As man is born magical, everybody develops magic from an early age, with the first flourishes of magical expression possible even at around the age of four years old. Children can only use magic in very restricted quantities however, and it's not until about the age of ten that a young person becomes really capable of using their magic affectively. Children are consequently watched over carefully by a governess normally, until they reach ten when the standard magic tutor takes over. ​

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Veins of Magic
Magic comes in twelve different 'flavours', called veins. People aren't born into specific veins but rather have free choice over which vein to practice. An untutored magician finds themselves initially able to access all of the veins, albeit to minimal levels with greater exhaustion; when specialised in a certain vein, these repercussions are minimised and the magician is able to grow more adept at the cost of their freedom of choice. It is possible to change which vein you specialise in, but it requires a good month's abstinence from magic in order to reset instinctual expulsion, and then would require starting from scratch to learn whatever new vein is selected.​

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The accordion below gives a brief description of the twelve veins and the repercussions of their careless utilisation. Feel free to be creative in terms of how these veins might be implemented in trades and crafts! Most magicians, if using their abilities wisely and sparsely, won’t be massively affected by these repercussions. The general rule is that you must be touching something in order to manipulate it, but anything you're created is fully subject to you. For example, if an Acquarian creates a puddle, they can control that puddle as they like, but say they see a river, they'd need to put their hand in it in order to start to control it. However, even using in moderation means somebody in their forties would be starting to feel the mildest side-effects of their powers! The left name is the common nickname, the right the technical classification.​

Fire/Ignal

Ignal magic is the magic of fire and heat - it allows the magician to create and manipulate fire, and raise temperatures. Many become blacksmiths or similar craftsmen, though its destructiveness also makes it a favorite of many soldiers. The magician would need to touch an object in order to heat it up. However, using it carelessly and for extended of periods of time begins to char and burn the user’s flesh; gradually they begin to feel unnaturally warm, and under extreme exertion their flesh can burn away completely in places, leaving them perhaps missing limbs.

Water/Acquarian

Acquarian magic is the magic of water - it allows magicians to create and manipulate water, making many strong swimmers and allowing for the vital creation of clean water in some rural locales. Many sailors and fishermen are Acquarian, using their abilities to aid safety, travel and hauls respectively. But overusage results in sickness, a gradually weakened immune system, and under extreme exertion some have been known to simply fade away into water.

Earth/Agrirran

Aggriran magic is the magic of the earth and agriculture - it allows magicians to create and manipulate plant-life and soil. The majority of Aggrirans are farmers, and there's even a yearly competition for designer plants - this magic allows for the creation and presence of unique flowers and produce. Farms run on a rough split of natural seeding plants, and magical plants which are unable to reproduce and draining to their creator though they do offer greater freedoms. There are other uses however - it is useful in hiking for example to aide with difficult ascents. Careless manipulation slowly makes the user dependent on light, growing gradually more photosynthetic, and cases of extreme exertion have resulted in the magician turning to stone.

Wind/Aurval

Aurval magic is the magic of wind and momentum - it allows magicians to form and manipulate winds, using the momentum of air particles as a sort of force for pushing and pulling, maneuvering both objects and themselves. As Aurval magicians are technically surrounded by wind all the time, they aren't restrained by the same limits of manipulation. Many huntsmen archers have traditionally been Aurval, using subtle manipulations of the wind to increase their accuracy; it is also useful in some agricultural practices, for example. Overusage comes at the price of increased dizziness, faintness, a loss of balance, and gradual physical weakening.

Ice/Ghiaciel

Ghiaciel magic is the magic of ice and coldness - it allows magicians to create and manipulate ices, snows and cold temperatures. Food preservation is one handy application of this vein, and it also allows for bearable living in desert climates; it is also a favourite of Protectors as it allows for the apprehension of criminals without the chaos of fire. In order to cool something down, the magician would need to be touching it. But over-strenuous manipulation starts to affect the magician’s own temperature, making them unnaturally cold, and at the worse extremes can induce hyperthermia and even frostbite. One city is famous for what appears to be an ice sculpture of a man - it is actually what remains of a rogue Protector when he attempted to freeze the settlement some centuries ago.

Charmers/Ventent

Ventant magic is the magic of fortune and luck - it gives magicians the interesting and unique ability to interact directly with the fabric of magic to manipulate fortune itself, both for themselves and others. This allows charmers to grant temporary good luck, bad luck, curses, blessings and buffs to physical and magical abilities, alongside objects and weaponry, making the sale of its services as popular trade in itself, whilst allowing for subtle fruitfulness in whatever pursuit the charmer might undertake; hence many of the rising merchants and tradesmen are Ventant. In order to do this, the magician would need to be touching the person/object. The Ventant magician might also use their ability in order to affect the outcome of specific occasions, such as attempting to get a senpai guard to notice you, but this kind of specific situational manipulation is incredibly consumptive. Similarly, overusage starts to make the user themselves grow very unfortunate, and can even result in an eventual loss of ability to use magic.

Spacial/Traslocal

Traslocal magic is the magic of manouvrability and spaciality - it allows allows magicians the power of short-distance teleportation and the ability to manipulate gravity, allowing them to jump higher than usual and walk on walls and ceilings. This is incredibly disorientating for beginners, but once you get used to it, this popular magic has a plenitude of useful applications - traditionally it has been used by artists, especially dancers, and there is an amphitheater in Nortalis' capital especially dedicated to Traslocal performance. Traslocal magic normally just affects the user, though it is possible to teleport somebody else with you if you're touching them (albeit at double the strain). However, overusage strains the magician's ability to control these powers, leading to unfortunately painful random teleportations and gravitational instability. In extreme cases, people have been known to simply fall into the sky, never to return.

Prophets/Oraculae

Oraculae magic is the magic of time and prophesy - it allows magicians the ability to glimpse into the future, either in short-term foresight for combat or hunting, or through far-flung visions of events to come in years ahead; alternatively, they can also glimpse (with limitation) into the past. Like with the charmers, this makes quite a trade in and of itself, but other common occupations include detectives and historians. Oraculae magic is also the most consumptive vein, and its proponents normally must choose between multiple vague and often patchy visions (the image of a street-corner, for example) or a single precise vision unless they are especially adept - and the further into the future you try to look, the more consumptive it becomes. Oraculae magic is also a popular combat strain, used to allow magicians to sometimes predict where and how enemies will attack. Callous usage causes forgetfulness and gradual memory loss, leaving an extremely unwise Oracule mad and unable to tell whether they’re seeing past, present or future.

Sensory/Sensorae

Sensorae magic is the magic of the senses - it allows magicians the ability to temporarily heighten their senses, allowing for impeccable zooming vision, meticulous hearing, sensitive smell or even (for the indulgent) heightened taste! Whilst they can only heighten one at a time, this versatile vein has multiple uses, such as in scouting, tracking, and even (again, for the indulgent) creating several notable chefs! This vein of magic only affects the user however, and cannot be used to manipulate another's senses. However, careless usage comes at the expense of weakening and eventually losing other senses, leaving a reckless Sensorae increasingly senseless save for when they use their abilities.

Necromancers/Mortius

Mortius magic is the magic of the grave - it grants magicians the ability to interact directly with the dead, allowing them to raise and animate corpses on their behalf, and manipulate the power of shadows to create dark-energy-based attacks. These energy attacks vary in form dependent on the magician, and merely hurt/do damage without secondary effect. Whilst this vein is generally frowned upon, it is sometimes chosen by soldiers and mercenaries, especially given its power over antihumans. This dangerous magic begins to give the magician nightmares with overusage, makes them gradually intolerant to light, and eventually results in a troubled, mortified mental state.

Dreamweavers/Sognial

Sognial magic is the magic of sleep and trickery - it allows magicians to conjure up illusions and manipulate dreams. Like necromancy, this vein is generally frowned upon, though it normally provides a trade in itself, offering secure sleep and customisable dreams for a small/not-that-small fee. Generally you must be touching someone in order to manipulate their sleep, but if you're extremely powerful you can bypass this restriction. Overusage of this art comes at the price of rising hallucinations and fluctuating sleep extremes, both insomniac and comatose states.

Clerics/Sanitigion

Sanitigion magicians arguably hold the greatest power at the greatest price; this vein is the magic of healing, which is capable of reversing and reducing wounds and illnesses. However, this comes at the price of the Sanitigion’s life, as the magic process, save for when operating with minor ailments and scrapes, ages the magician drastically. Given the focus on the war, public Sanitigion magicians are immediately carted off to the battlefields where they spend most of their day healing wounds and reversing the damage done by soldiers exerting themselves for extended periods of combat. As a result, most Sanitigion magicians are old and decrepid by the age of 22. This makes choosing this vein an especially sacrificial undertaking as, unless you keep it a secret, you are effectively consigning yourself to an early grave. High level Sanitigions also have the ability to weaken others in order to temporarily strengthen themselves, but this is dangerous as it will almost certainly result in the weakening of the magician once their magic has ran out.

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Magical Anomalies​

The presence of magic inevitably had lead to some more unsavory phenomenon. It is possible to cannibalise another's soul in order to heighten and strength your own magical capabilities. This brutal barbarism is considered evil and has been outlawed, and yet there remains a few who do it anyway, called Vampyres. The process of cannibalism, in action in the above illustration, grants the Vampyre access to powerful magic without the same exhaustion faced by regular magicians. There is, however, a dire cost: once somebody has vampyrised once, they find themselves addicted to the process, driven out of torment and desperation to kill and consume again and again. Most people only know of Vampyres through the odd tale of ransacked and brutalised towns, and most don't know the specifics of what makes somebody a Vampyre. Nevertheless,Vampyres are incredibly dangerous and self-destructive creatures, the high cost of lusting for immoral power.​

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Somewhere down the line, something cracked in the fabric of magic which means the dead do not stay dead. Two days after death, a corpse will reanimate, becoming an Antihuman. These peculiarities look identical to humans, but age backwards from their time of death, growing younger and younger whilst still maintaining their adult psychology until they eventually become toddlers and start to regress. These monsters retain the memories of their former selves, but something in the process of deaths warps their minds and makes them naturally inclined to evil and destruction. As they are technically dead, they find themselves incredibly susceptible to Mortius magic. They lack souls, and hence lack the ability to use magic, but their scheming and the difficulty in distinguishing them from regular citizens means the governments take strict measures to prevent their creation by decapitating corpses as soon as possible after death, halting the transformation process. Though sometimes this process is skipped...​

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Magic’s profound effect on the world itself has lead to the presence of a number of fantasy species popping up over the weird and wonderful environments. Animals in themselves can’t use magic, but they are sometimes affected/mutated according to the veins of magic - for example, a family of rabbit-like creatures in a volcano territory which can breathe fire, or deer-things with incredible eyesight. None of these animals are intelligent to human-levels, however, and exist like the wildlife in our world. Although, there are legends which speak of a peculiar settlement in the west of Nortalis, a settlement inhabited by an intelligent something else...​

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Other Magical Details

Fortune:​

Magic itself is considered to extend invisibly across the world like a battered fabric. Years of spells, each tinged with slight corruption, has made this magical landscape a complete mess, which in turn affects the laws of the universe itself as certain blotches and areas find themselves affected by chaotic and unusual phenomenon. For example, in one city, gravity might be lower than normal, meaning that people can jump higher – in another, monsters might inconspicuously spring up. Using magic might be more exhausting in one place, less exhausting in another; in one town, all the trees might suddenly die off, in another they might grow at miraculous pace. This means the ecosystems of the two nations are dramatically varied, with perhaps a desert next to a snowy tundra, and with all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures populating them! This also means, in a sense, that luck, fortune and misfortune are very much real, not in the sense that spotting a black-furred cat curses you, but in the sense that one might find themselves getting lucky repeated (winning a lottery, narrowly avoid fatal enemy attacks) and there's a logical reason behind it – that in the chaos of the fabric of magic, you happen to be fortunate! Similarly, you might always be the one who trips over random rocks you couldn't see, or who always misplaces the dagger they swore they put there mere seconds ago. This is made even more chaotic by the fact these fortunes are often changing and switching around. Expect the unexpected!​

Mananite:​

Nothing is known to directly interact with magic - nothing that is apart from Mananite. A bluish obsidian-like ore, Mananite is incredibly useful as it is especially resistant to the strain of channeling magic, whilst also providing adequate defense from oncoming magical attacks. As might be expected, this makes it a valuable resource, such that the monarchy of Nortalis piles resources and workmen into mining and excavating Mananite ore from beneath the earth, using the majority of it for their own purposes, crafting it into gloves for magic-casting and armour for soldiers. This makes privately owning anything Mananite an expensive affair. If Mananite sources were suddenly cut, Nortalis would find their military might radically reduced…

The Soul and Shallaiman:
Long-held tradition and recent scientific study (alongside the phenomenon of Vampyrism) has held the soul to be a kind of other-worldly organ within the chest, akin to a heart or lung or bowel or whatever but located in the magical plane and hence connected to the fabric of magic. When the human dies, their soul normally disappears, into what is either presumed to be the fabric magic itself (in scientific circles) or to Solaija (in traditional Assemblant circles). However, if a magician kills themselves through overexertion, the soul remains lingering within the perpetual spell their death has caused, causing a magical phenomenon called Shallaiman. This soul will remain permanently within that spell unless it is released by a mid-high Mortius magician in a practice they can be taught. Souls in themselves can't decay because of what they are.​

Miscellaneous Information!​

A few random other bits of magic-related information! Not all magic is done simply through external action – for example, the incantations provided by the seers of the state religion require speech alongside action. Some religious minorities (specifically those who worship magic itself) also speak aloud in prayer or incantation when casting magic. It's unknown whether this actually has any effect. Additionally, people are sometimes (though rarely) born unable to use magic at all - this is considered a disability just like blindness or missing a limb, and is sometimes treated with scorn.




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