Magic

What makes someone a mage?

A mage is someone whose brain is, for whatever reason, "wired" in a way that allows him or her to shape mana fields at will (see the section on the nature of magic for more details). This inborn predisposition is called magery. Mages come in two basic levels of natural talent: the wizard and the sorcerer.

Sorcerers

The sorcerer is the more naturally powerful of the two mages. Magic is an instinctive thing to a sorcerer — he doesn't study it, he just whips up spells out of thin air whenever he wants to. However, because he discovers his talents by trial and error, he doesn't know very many spells compared to a wizard of comparable experience. Also, like a wizard (and unlike a psi), he still needs to use magical words, gestures and/or reagents to cast his spells. Sorcerers tend to use a lot of flashy, powerful spells from schools like Evocation and Abjuration. Complex spells that require intricate knowledge of the way mana interacts with nature, such as most Thaumaturgy, Alteration and Enchantment spells, are generally beyond them. Mind-effecting Enchantments, however, can sometimes be carried out by sorcerers through the magical equivalent of brute force — essentially battering down the shields around a person's mind and imposing the sorcerer's will on the subject. Whatever the spell, sorcerers are usually very powerful but lack finesse. Sorcerers are called bloods or bloodies on the Street because their magic comes from inborn talent (i.e., it's "in the blood") rather than a spellbook.

Wizards

A wizard doesn't have the same raw talent as a sorcerer, but is more disciplined. Wizards learn their magic from books, and they can learn a lot of it — even a journeyman wizard may know more than two dozen spells. However, a wizard has to prepare her spells ahead of time — in essence, locking away a portion of her mind with the spell stored inside it — if she wants to be able to cast it instantaneously later on. Because their magic is researched and executed with a scientist's precision, wizards are capable of far more subtle spells than most sorcerers; even low-powered spells can accomplish a lot through careful finesse. Like the sorcerer, the wizard depends on a combination of words, gestures and magical reagents to form the mana fields that make up her spells. On the Street wizards are called mumblers or bookworms because of their dependence on spellbooks.

Wizards have an additional advantage over sorcerers in that they can perform ritual magic more effectively. Ritual magic is slow, deliberate, and involved. It often takes minutes or even hours to perform such a spell properly, depending on the kind of spell, but it doesn't require any prior memorization — it can, in essence, be done "cookbook" fashion, following step-by-step instructions written by someone else. Wizards, who spend their lives with their noses in arcane texts, are much more comfortable with ritual magic than other people, and are less likely to screw it up. A sorcerer, on the other hand, doesn't have much of an advantage over a mundane when attempting to perform ritual magic; sorcerers just aren't familiar with the way wizards' spells are put together.

Tension between Wizards and Sorcerers

Sorcerers, for all of their natural born power, have become the second class citizens of mages. There are multiple reasons for this, outlined below.

  • Jealousy
    • Magical power comes a lot more easily to sorcerers than it does to wizards. They have bigger internal mana reservoirs and can draw more mana to themselves with relative ease. While a wizard may have to study a new spell for weeks, months or years before she truly understands its complexities and can cast it reliably, a sorcerer's powers seem to show up out of thin air, and usually when the sorcerer desperately needs them. This seems like cheating to the hard-working, studious wizard. Sorcerers have a lot more time for extracurricular pursuits, which the budding young wizard is likely to resent. They also tend to have a lot of presence or charisma, and combined with the lack of need for deep, intensive study, this means that young sorcerers get laid a lot more often than their wizard counterparts.
  • Snobbery
    • A wizard is like a pianist: his magic is a subtle, versatile tool that, after years of training, can produce a wide variety of effects suitable to many different situations. There are many different ways to use it well, and different schools of thought about how to master it. Two maestros from opposing schools of thought may not be able to reproduce each other's work, but each can respect and admire the work that the other put into their craft.
    • By contrast, a sorcerer is like the guy who shoots the cannon in the 1812 Overture. His "instrument" is powerful, dramatic, dead simple to use, and immediately grabs the attention of everyone around him — but it's basically only good at doing one thing. Maybe two or three things, if he gets really clever with the amount of powder he uses and the direction he points the cannon.
    • A good wizard can manipulate mana, matter and energy in dozens of ways, and each spell can be tuned and tweaked to suit the circumstances. A good sorcerer knows only a few spells, all of which are probably united around a central "theme" that reflects the core of the sorcerer's personality — but those few spells will pack a hell of a punch. In a magical sense, it's the difference between Bruce Lee (or maybe MacGyver) and a 7-foot tall, muscle-bound palooka with a club.
    • Also, many sorcerers are from The Street and had been unleashed illegally. Many wizards have some higher level of resources and social status, leading to any feelings of superiority to be further enhanced.
  • Perspective
    • Wizards have to learn a lot about magical theory on the way to becoming masters, and particular focus is given to understanding what can go *wrong* when magic is stirred — and how to prevent the Bad from turning into the Calamitous. Wizards also pick up a lot of the history of magic, which includes plenty of cautionary examples of how dangerous magic can be. Mystical arcane power is NOT a toy, and anybody who treats it as such gets drummed out of the wizard guilds before they can cast anything more powerful than a cantrip.
    • Sorcerers, though, don't have anybody serving as gatekeeper, limiting their access to greater power. Their limits are discovered through experimentation, trial and error. This scares the living daylights out of wizards, who know exactly how bad "error" can get when magic is involved — especially magic on the power level that sorcerers typically have access to. In a sense, wizards are right to be scared and distrustful of sorcerers, because they quite literally DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING.
    • At best, wizards tend to see sorcerers as sort of pitiable individuals, people who have been forced to carry a heavy and dangerous responsibility long before they should ever have to. They're dangerous, but it's not their fault, and they should be helped to learn how to control their power as best they can so that they don't bring harm to others. (This is essentially Kate's view.)
    • At worst, wizards see sorcerers as dangerous, cocky idiots walking around with the mystical equivalent of a live grenade in their hands. It's only a matter of time before something goes boom, and they should probably all be Leashed or locked up for their own good.
  • A Powerful Minority
    • Wizards are far more common than Sorcerers — about one in every five people has the potential to be a wizard, but only about one in twenty have what it takes to be sorcerers. Far fewer of both types have the time, energy and discipline to advance beyond apprentice status in the magic arts.

Note: it is completely possible that those individuals with the magical power resources and talent of a sorcerer can study and develop their talent to become a wizard instead. The primary example of this is Artax. These wizards tend to be highly skilled and among the most powerful wizards out there (not only do they have the raw power, they have the training to make the most use out of it).

Also, there are sorcerers who are genuinely interested in the history and theory of magic, like Ben Stansfield, but they tend to be treated with the full force of disdain from wizards, particularly those who see sorcerers as being powerful, undisciplined time bombs.1

The Nature of Magic in the Metamor City Universe

Warning: Complex, pseudo-scientific discussion of magic theory follows. If you're not interested in the nitty-gritty details of how magic works, skip to the section "What Can Magic Do?".

Over the centuries, wizards have succeeded in elevating the study of magic to nearly the level of rational, objective science. Universities offer degrees in Manology (the study of magic), and virtually all wizards are manologists as well. (To clarify, a manologist is someone who studies magic theory. A wizard is someone who has actually learned how to use magic.)

Central to understanding magic is the concept of mana. Mana is the fundamental essence of magic, just as mass is the essence of gravity and charge is the essence of electromagnetism. Magic, as many manology textbooks define it, is an effect produced in the material world as a result of mana in motion, or as a result of the transformation of mana from one state to another.

Mana is not native to the Prime Material plane; it has its origin in the Aether, a transitive plane of reality that is coterminous with all other planes (i.e., it touches every other area of reality). Little is known about the Aether, but it is assumed that its overall mana stores are so large as to be considered infinite for a mage's purposes.

Mana is drawn from the Aether and into the Prime Material plane in several ways. When something pulls mana out of the Aether and into the material world, it is said to generate mana (an old term carried over from the early days of manology, when it was thought that mana was native to the material plane). All forms of life generate mana; the healthier and more vibrant that life is, the more mana is generated. Mana is also generated by weather patterns, ocean currents, earthquakes, fires, and other climatic phenomena. Mana is even generated by death, decay, and (perhaps most importantly, from a historical standpoint) the shedding of blood.

Mana has a natural tendency to stay with the matter that generated it; if that matter moves on, so does the mana. This leads to mana conduits (sometimes called ley lines) in the natural world, as various sources of mana are joined together in life's web of interconnecting forces. When two or more conduits cross, they create a node — a place where mana "pools", slowed on its journey to wherever it was going. If a node becomes large enough and strong enough, it can form a nexus, the most powerful manological phenomenon in the material world. Nexuses come in two types: mana springs, where mana flows into the material plane in great abundance; and mana wells, where mana is drawn out of the material plane and goes someplace else. The nexus at the heart of Metamor Keep is a mana spring. The nexus at the heart of Elderwood is a mana well, with its far terminus in the Second Hell. Obviously, a mana well on one end of the channel means a mana spring on the other, and vice versa.

When mana stays in one place for a long time, its nature changes to match its environment. This produces what is called aspected mana. Just how many different types of aspects there are is still subject to debate, but the six types that everyone agrees on are the four elemental aspects — Earth, Water, Air, Fire — and the two vital aspects — Life and Death. Some theoreticians argue that there are as many as ten aspects, while others argue that these additional "aspects" are the synthesis of a combination of more fundamental aspects. Whatever the case, two things are known: Aspected mana is more potent per unit measure than generic mana, however it is more limited in its applications.

Through the force of conscious will (a process that is still not fully understood, but believed to be connected to quantum mechanics and the principle of the Influential Observer), a mage can set mana in motion in a well-defined pattern called a magic field. Depending on the type of mana used, the amount used, and the design of the pattern, a magic field can produce many different kinds of effects on matter and energy (see Types of Magic).

All magical fields decay over time. Mana can only remain in motion for a certain period of time before it loses momentum and "falls out" of the field, passing back into the Aether. The persistence of a field depends on the amount of mana originally put into it, the complexity of the field pattern, and the presence or absence of external mana sources that could continue to feed into the field.

The Mana Cycle

While the amount of mana in the Aether is assumed to be unlimited for practical purposes, there do seem to be limits on how readily it is drawn into the Prime Material Plane for the working of magic. Historical manologists have discovered that there is a periodic cycle in the accessibility of mana — and, thus, the strength of magic in general. This cycle seems to have a period of about 4,000 years: mana levels increase for 2,000 years, hit a peak, then decrease for 2,000 years until they reach a minimum value and begin to rise again. Magic reached its height in ca. -9300 CR, about 300 years before the Elvish city of Jagoduun was destroyed by black magic and a rift was opened to the "Underworld"; peak levels were reached again in ca. -5300 CR at the time of the war against the Great Darkness, and again in ca. -1300 CR. (Each of these later peaks, however, was less than the one seen in -9000 CR, because the rift to the Underworld was draining mana out of the Prima Material Plane and causing a general decline of magic that was superimposed on the 4000-year cycle.) By 699 CR, at the time of the Battle of the Three Gates, magic was at the lowest level it had ever been in the history of MK Earth; if it were not for the fact that Metamor itself was home to one of the strongest mana springs on the planet, Nasoj's infamous Curse probably would not have worked at all.

The rift to the Underworld was sealed in December 707, at the same time that the natural mana cycle began its upswing. Since that time magic has grown increasingly stronger with each passing year; by the present day, 1999 CR, magic is already the strongest it has been since at least -4000 CR, and it will continue to grow even stronger until it peaks in roughly 2700 CR. This increase in mana levels has had a number of important effects, including:

Increase in the range of the Curse of Metamor. In 700 CR, when magic was at its weakest, the Curse covered only about a 20-mile radius around Metamor Keep; it affected everyone in Metamor Valley, but not much of anything beyond that. In 1999 CR, the radius of the Curse is approximately 700 miles, reaching as far as Ellcaran in the Southern Midlands; in 2700 its range is expected to peak at approximately 1200 miles, which will encompass Elvquelin in the south, the entire Southern Midlands in the southeast, and all of Arabarb in the northwest. It is also expected that the Curse will take hold faster as mana levels increase, so the use of protective amulets to ward off the Curse will become increasingly important even for short-term visits to the affected region. Manologists are engaged in ongoing study of the expanding area of the Curse, tracking the appearance of its distinctive magical signature so that local inhabitants can obtain protection against it before it takes effect.

Increase in the number of psis being born to mundane parents. Psionic powers seem to manifest in response to high levels of life-aspected mana; since the overall increase in mana availability has led to a proportionate rise in the levels of all six aspects, regions that generate life-aspected mana now generate much more of it, which means that children born there are much more likely to have psionic powers.

Increased numbers of mages and increased ability for even non-mages to do magic. Mages comprise a much higher percentage of the population than they did in the days of Lord Thomas V, and it is also substantially easier for "mundanes" to do ritual magic than it would have been in his time. There is a downside to this, however:

Larger and more dangerous magical mishaps. Because magic itself is more powerful and mana flows more readily, things can go wrong in a much more spectacular fashion if a spell or ritual is performed improperly. Ritual magic in particular is infamous for backfiring in interesting and colorful ways if the ritualist does not perform every step with exacting care and precision. One infamous example took place on 30 October 1996 in a fraternity house at Empire University in Metamor City. Two members of the fraternity cast a ritual spell that would "fill the house with hot, sexy women" between the hours of 7:00 PM and 7:00 AM. The spell was intended to be used for a single party to celebrate Daedra'kema later that evening, and unfortunately the students specified the date when the spell was to take effect as "today" rather than "the night of 30-31 October 1996 CR". The spell had two effects that they did not anticipate. First, it transformed all the occupants of the house into beautiful, sexually aroused women at the stroke of 7:00 PM, rather than summoning women from elsewhere. (This was, in fact, the intended function of the spell, though the students did not realize it; it was sold to them by the whimsical mage Artax, who did not want to burden a flock of unsuspecting coeds with being suddenly transported into a house full of horny frat boys.) Second, because the students had designated the date of effect as "today", the spell's effect has recurred every single night since then — since, from the spell's perspective, it is always "today". (There are rumors of a similar event occurring in at least one other alternate Earth, but this is impossible for Metamor's manologists to confirm or disprove.)

Since that time the fraternity/sorority house has become a sort of tourist attraction on campus, and spending the night at the house is a frequent component of dares made between Empire U. students. Amusingly, the occupants of the frat house itself have never noticed anything out of the ordinary, because the spell clouds their memories after the fact; other than the two students who cast the spell in the first place, its effects are only apparent to those outside the house, or those who enter the house after the transformation has already occurred. Except for the two hapless ritualists, none of the transformed women remember being men prior to the spell taking effect, nor do the men recall being women after the spell ends at 7:00 AM. (Those transformed women who leave the house and remain outside after the spell lapses usually end up with their memories permanently altered, though a few of them have suddenly remembered their former identities.) Artax has repeatedly refused all requests to remove the spell, arguing that the frat boys got exactly what they asked for, and to date no other mage has succeeded in unraveling the peculiar spell.

Types of Magic

Abjuration

This is a protective magic field. Abjuration fields block the flow of other forms of magic, and the more powerful fields can be tuned to block energy or matter. Some actually negate the magic fields of other spells, while others only repel them — and still others reverse their polarity, causing the offending spell to bounce back at the caster! Shield spells, wards, and magical dispelling-spells are all examples of spells that use abjuration fields.

Alteration

Alteration fields induce physical changes in the matter they affect. Matter that is shaped by an alteration field enters an excited state (analogous to the excited state of an electron during fluorescence), and it will naturally return to its original shape when the magic field decays. This is why most changes induced by alteration spells, such as Alter Self or Enlarge, wear off after a certain period of time.

If considerably more mana is placed into the field, and the field is shaped properly, the matter it affects can be forced to stabilize in a new resting state, which negates the matter's tendency to return to its original state. This is called spell permanency, and matter altered in this way will not go back to its original shape on its own — it is permanently transformed into its new shape. Polymorph Self is the classic example of a permanent alteration spell.

Note: Any spell that requires a permanent thaumaturgy field in order to give the desired result will require significantly greater amounts of mana to produce, and the permanent field will need some sort of sustaining mana source.

Other alteration fields are present in Magical Diseases.

Conjuration

This type of magic field opens a channel through the Aether from one place to another, draws an object (or creature) through the channel, and spits it out almost instantaneously on the other side. Living creatures "summoned" in this way retain a magical conduit to their original location — a result of the mana they naturally generate — and will be snapped back like a rubber band to their original location when the conjuration field decays, usually leaving them none the worse for wear.

Teleportation

True teleportation is extremely rare, mainly because it has an incredible cost to make the teleportation permanent (see spell permanency as described in Alteration). The only example of true teleportation known of involved a huge, ancient portal site constructed on Manzona Island, and it needed a human sacrifice to fuel the spell. The mana required to make the teleportation permanent is beyond the resources of pretty much everyone, including the gods (and that was true before the Great Fall).

Even the aedra and daedra have never been able to truly teleport, even before the Great Fall. What they did, and what anyone else who’s been able to use that ability (like the Necromancer guild of old) did, was to plane shift and take advantage of time/spatial dimensions being different on some planes, to reduce the travel distance between points in the real world to where it seemed like instantaneous teleportation.

Plane Shifting

Plane shifting is the method by which beings can appear to teleport. It involves entering one of the Inner Planes (the Shadow, Dreamlands and Ethereal Plane) and taking advantage of the fact that the time/spatial dimensions are different in these planes. This makes travel much faster in relation to the Prime Material plane.

Before the Great Fall, individuals (primarily Aedra and Daedra) could then pass from the Inner Planes to the Outer Planes (the Heavens or Hells), and the time/spatial dimensions were such that travel could be so fast in relation to the Prime Material plane that it seemed (almost) instantaneous. However, in the Great Fall Merai Starchild broke the Axis, a mystical conduit that connected the Heavens and the Hells to the Dreamlands. The Axis had given the aedra and daedra tremendous control over where they reentered the Material plane. With the Axis broken and entry to the Heavens and Hells barred, they (and anyone else who could plane shift) are limited to traverse the Inner Planes, but each has its disadvantages and costs to consider.

However in a society where there is faster travel across the Earth on the Material Plane and instant communications that allow for remote collaboration with a much cheaper magical energy cost, the need for such types of travel is now reduced to emergencies only.

Divination

This is the most poorly-understood class of magic: the attempt to see beyond the barriers of space and time. Current theory suggests that divination mana fields create a "tunnel" between two points in the space-time continuum that allows a flow of information from Point B back to Point A. Depending on the type of field, it may focus on another point in space at the same time (usually called scrying), a point in the past (called augury), or a point in the future (called true divination, or simply divination). A person who specializes in this type of magic is called a seer.

Studying divination fields is extremely difficult because usually only one side of the field can be examined (i.e., the side where the seer is physically and temporally located). Most of what is known about this type of magic comes from the study of scrying, where researchers can be present at both ends of the field; it is hypothesized that augury and divination work in the same fashion, but no one has yet come up with a way to test it. It has been demonstrated, at least, that augury can be used successfully under controlled laboratory conditions; such has not been the case with true divination.

Seers make use of a wide variety of objects to focus their abilities. In the case of augury, all that is usually required is the object for which the augury is being performed; the seer "reads" the object through the use of ritual magic, seeing visions of its history. Scrying typically requires a reflecting surface of some kind, usually a crystal ball, a mirror, or a still pool of water. (The Lothanasi, however, have a system of scrying that uses a ring of concentric magic circles to focus the mind, disconnecting the caster from her body and projecting her mind to the desired destination; no scry-glass is needed.) True divination uses an amazing variety of tools and techniques, from cards to palm-reading to animal bones; every culture has developed at least one distinctive method, and often three or four. Such tools usually reveal not a single, predestined view of the future, but a set of general rules and likely possibilities. Complete visions of future events are rare, and do not seem to be under the control of the spellcaster at all.

Divination is often considered more of a calling than a vocation; most true arcane seers are sorcerers whose abilities usually work spontaneously. They study no theory to learn the use of their powers, and cannot explain how the magic works in any meaningful fashion. Augury and scrying are better understood, and most wizards learn at least a few useful spells that employ this type of magic.

In recent years it has been hypothesized that most "seers" throughout history were not mages at all, but psychics. Psis who possess powers of extra-sensory perception (ESP) are known to exist, and these espers bear a great resemblance to the seers of history. Espers can see the past, the present, and/or the future; their abilities often manifest spontaneously, with little understanding of how they work; and (most compellingly) they are hereditary, being passed down from parent to child. Psi abilities also show a strong sex-bias toward females, and historically most seers have been women; further, a male psi can pass on his abilities consistently only to his daughters, and this too seems to fit with what is known of seers of the past. Many researchers now believe that the Felikaush, the greatest line of prophets in history, were actually a line of espers — Felix of Lee had six daughters and one son, and only the son lacked his gift. It is impossible to prove, of course, since the Felikaush died out roughly 1300 years ago, but it is a compelling idea nonetheless.

Oneiromancy

This is a field that focuses on dreams, and includes some level of interaction with the Dreamlands.

A dream reading lets the mage was watch a dream happen. It is not a typical use of scrying; instead of connecting to just the space-time continuum, the magic creates a specific tunnel to the person's dreams and their location within the Dreamlands.

There's a piece of ritual magic, called the Ritual of Convergence, which allows two dreams to come together and merge. Both dreamers become full actors in the dream. It's most often used when the dreamer needs to be guided through a nightmare, or there's some other work that needs to be done in the dream world. At least one person in this pairing is an oneiromancer leading the dreams. There is also need for a warden, a person to use dream reading and watch from the outside, and dispel the ritual if needed if things get dangerous or is asked by a dreamer to dispel it.

This ritual is also used by skilled members of the Sensualists Guild (ones who are trained as relationship counselors or in other mental health fields).

Enchantment

Enchantment fields bind themselves to objects and won't let go as long as they have a continuing source of mana. Enchantment fields come in two flavors, Object-Affecting and Mind-Affecting. Object-Affecting fields serve to bind another kind of magic field permanently to an object, such as an amulet or a magic weapon. The second field might be an abjuration field (Fire Resistance), an illusion field (Hypnotic Pattern), a thaumaturgy field (Feather Weight) … many different options are possible. If a source of mana is attached to the object and the enchantment field is properly attuned to it, the spell can remain operational as long as the mana lasts.

Mind-Affecting enchantment fields serve a very different purpose, but their underlying patterns are very similar. A Mind-Affecting field binds itself to the mind of a sentient creature and induces certain patterns of thought, as determined by the caster. Most Mind-Affecting fields don't permanently alter the mind of the subject, and the effects will fade when the field decays. Some very powerful mind-affecting fields, however, can actually induce permanent changes in the structure of a subject's thought patterns, much like an alteration spell can induce permanent changes in the structure of matter. These spells are very dangerous, and their use is always highly regulated.

Examples of Enchanted/Magical items

Note- some of these items go far beyond just items links with enchantment fields.

Evocation

An evocation field draws mana from the body of the caster — or from the Aether, in the case of really talented wizards — and transforms it into energy or matter (in accordance with the First Law of Manodynamics, which states that mana and energy and matter are all different forms of the same stuff and can be transformed from one type to another). Evocation is used for creating magic missiles, fireballs, and little trinkets that a mage whips up "out of thin air". Because large atoms are much more difficult to construct out of mana than small ones, most material items formed in this way are made from the lighter, "fundamental" elements — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and the like. Pulling mana out of the Aether to create gold is too taxing for all but the strongest and trained wizards, and it would be a waste of reagents in any case. Evoking energy blasts is much easier.

Aspected mana really shows its potential in evocation spells: it is much easier to transform fire-aspected mana into a fireball than to do so with generic mana, and you also get a lot more "bang for your buck". Ditto with producing fog from water-aspected mana, or lightning bolts from air-aspected mana.

Illusion

Perhaps the easiest type of magic field, an illusion field lies over top of an object or region of space and alters the light that passes out of the field, creating an image that can be seen to outside observers. The field does not affect the matter inside it in any significant way.

While illusions are easy to do, however, they're not easy to do well. The process is made much more complicated if you're trying to replicate a specific object or person in intimate detail; this requires in-depth knowledge of the object or person's appearance, which is often difficult to come by. The best illusionists are those who are gifted with eidetic memories, either through natural talent or through the use of magic memory-aids.

Necromancy

Necromantic fields — now called vital fields by those who wish to avoid the unpleasant connotations of the traditional term — are fields that channel life- or death- aspected mana into or out of the subject. They can be used to heal, to harm, or to direct the soul of an individual from one place to another. They are very dangerous in the hands of an inexperienced magic user, and even more dangerous in the hands of a trained Necromancer with evil intent. Some governments and magery schools prohibit their use entirely, though they are legal (within certain carefully-defined limits) in Metamor City.

Necromancers of the Past

The Necromancers of the past had another purpose, in the days before the Day of the Starchild when Merai broke the Axis between the worlds and emptied the Nine Heavens and Nine Hells into the Dreamlands.

The Necromancers had a natural affinity for death-aspected mana and developed the talent to plane-shift (see Conjuration) to the Astral Plane. They could also communicate with the dead spirits while they were in the Astral Plane. Since the gods and Titans could not block this ability in the mortal Necromancers, they took the Necromancers (with a capital N) on as a kind of servants and heralds.

After the Hells were created by the daedra, aedra, and Titans, the Necromancers could travel there, still being attuned to the energies of the dead, but now they were limited in the amount of access they had to the dead by the daedra through the mechanism of the Hells. After the creation of the Hells it was easiest to contact a dead spirit if the aforementioned dead where in the First Hell belonging to Nocturna.

The knowledge and training of this ability to plane shift into the Astral was restricted by the aedra and daedra as much as possible, and these days is not known by any but a number of the Immortals and perhaps some scholar who's hiding in a corner and away from everyone's attention.

The last Necromancer known to have learned to plane shift like this is Rickkter, but his use of this ability was restricted even before the Day of the Starchild, when he was already the last known Necromancer (he was an apprentice at the time and the rest of his guild had been killed after they went to the Wastelands of Kilyarnie to uncover an ancient artifact, and uncovered an imprisoned Titan instead). It is unknown, but highly unlikely, that Rickkter would be able to planes-travel with the Axis between the planes broken. He may still be able to travel into the Astral Plane, but this Inner Plane travel may still cause unwanted attention and consequences for him.

Thaumaturgy

Also known as "miracle-working". Thaumaturgical fields surround the body of the subject and allow it to interact with the world in a way that defies the mundane laws of physics. Water Walking, Water Breathing, Feather Fall, Flight, and Teleportation are all classic examples of spells that use thaumaturgical fields.

Hemathurgy

The practice of amplifying magic using the power inherent in blood. By adding one's own Life Mana to the mana they're already utilizing for a given spell, sorcerous or wizardry, the user can square the power of the spell. Hemathurgy defines only those who use their own blood at the moment of casting. The use of others' blood, even willingly given, is identified as a Necromantic practice save only when the hemathurge is utilizing the given blood to perform Healing magic on the provider. Practiced, master Hemathurges can increase the power of their magic by a cubic factor rather than squared. There are very few schools or guilds which teach the practice, though the Triskelion Order has catalogued and studied it closely and contains the largest number of recognised Hemathurges.

Magical Affinities

Most mages, both wizards and sorcerers, have one aspect of mana that they are more attuned to than others.

However, while magical aptitude can be detected early in life, and the child fitted with a restraining band; the kind of affinity they will have cannot be reliably determined at that time or before they are unleashed. Only some young mages have an inkling of where their natural talents lie, and even there are usually surprises in how that talent develops.

Non-Traditional Magic Traditions

There are several traditions of magic (current and historical) that do not fit under the Wizard/Sorcerer stereotypical uses and approach. Some of them can be explained by being unorthodox implementations of arcane magic (like Automaton, Runic, and Shadow Magic), but some have a different power source but are not identifiable as actually being psionic (like the Lothanasi Light Abilities, effects created with fighting forms line various Martial Arts and the Sondeckis, and other unidentified traditions). The former implementations are described below, while the latter traditions have their own pages on the Technical Information index.

Automaton Magic

This is an ancient and extinct craft of creating, maintaining, and enhancing items that move and do other pre-programmed tasks using a mix of magic and technology. More information is available at MK Wiki- Automaton Magic.

At least one self-aware automaton is living within the Citadel of Metamor- Omega. Another possible automaton was bogey-man of the Giantdowns- Garashel the Terrible, an all metal griffin with claws of silver and wings of gold.2 The lutin tribes would use Garashel as a tactic to get children to behave: "Behave or Garashel will get you!"

Power of Runes

An ancient and extinct magic, it is only known through the artifacts left behind by its practitioners (some of these powerful artifacts are in the possession of the Empire). More information is at the Runic Magic page.

Shadow Magic

Ba'al discovered the Inner Plane of Shadow and taught mortals how to access it; traveling through it for rapid, stealthy transportation. He also discovered how to draw the essence of The Shadow into the material world to give weight and substance to magical illusions.

However since Ba'al is the one who developed the magic to reach the Shadow, explored it over millennia, and developed the spells using magic from the Shadow realm, a significant portion of his essence is tied up into that plane. Anyone who uses it exposes themselves to that essence, which over time isn't… healthy.

More information about Shadow Magic is available in the article about The Shadow.

Two significant notes:

  • Currently, Shadow Magic isn't illegal in Metamor City, but it's existence is a closely kept secret.
  • Only a limited number of Wizard guilds will have any information on Shadow magic or Shadow travel, and they will guard that knowledge (and any spells) very, very carefully.

What can magic do?

This question, often asked in introductory manology courses, is usually answered by wizards with a grin and the question "How much mana do you have?"

There are few mundane laws that magic cannot overcome if you have a properly designed magic field and enough mana to power it. Magic has laws that govern its behavior, as well, but these seem to be more "flexible" than the laws that govern the behavior of matter and energy.

The biggest hurdle that is faced in most spells is the Law of Conservation. This law states that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. The First Law of Manodynamics offers an "out", though, because mana can be formed into both matter and energy, and vice versa. Thus, if you want to turn a 100-kg man into a 2-kg Chihuahua, you can do it — the extra mass gets converted into mana and shunted out into the Aether. If you want to turn that Chihuahua back into a man, you draw mana out of the Aether again and convert it back into matter. This is often tricky work, though, and in general the less matter or energy that must be converted, the easier the spell is to cast and the less mana it uses.

Another problem faced in the use of magic is often called the Dragon's Dilemma. In short, a creature the size of a dragon "shouldn't" be able to fly with wings of that size — mundane physics would predict that it would be unable to generate enough lift to counteract its weight. The reason dragons can fly is because they have a thaumaturgy field around them at all times, enabling them to do what would otherwise be impossible. A wizard attempting to give a human wings, or make any other physical alteration that violates these sorts of biophysical limitations, must take this into account and include a permanent thaumaturgy field that compensates for said limitations. Any spell that requires a permanent thaumaturgy field in order to give the desired result will require significantly greater amounts of mana to produce, and the permanent field will need some sort of sustaining mana source. Usually, this mana source is an amulet or other enchanted item with a direct channel to the Aether, enabling it to function indefinitely. A very powerful wizard can create a channel to the Aether that is focused on the living individual itself, just as dragons and Elves have natural ties to the Aether.

Can I use magic without being a mage?

Yes, but your options are limited. Mages are the only folks who can do "instantaneous" magic, and most of the world's higher-level ritual spells can only be cast by wizards — either because of the mental difficulty of weaving the complicated mana-fields involved in these spells, or because the wizards who created them deliberately wrote down their instructions in code.

Most kinds of ritual magic, however, can be done by just about anybody — the texts are usually clearly written out in step-by-step fashion. However, a non-wizard (even a sorcerer) is much more likely to make some small mistake that will fizzle the spell or produce an unexpected result. Most modern magic texts recognize this fact and warn the user of any stages in the ritual where they will have to be especially careful.

Non-mages can also use potions, charms and other magic items that have been created by wizards. Even these can backfire sometimes, though, so the user is always advised to read the directions and follow them thoroughly. Those who don't often end up … changed.3

The final type of magic that is usable by non-mages is the scroll. Magic scrolls are single-use spells with instantaneous effects, like a wizard or sorcerer's spells. The spell in a scroll is released if it is read aloud in its entirety. The text may or may not have anything to do with the spell itself — it could be plain Common, a whimsical limerick, ancient Elvish, or a collection of nonsensical syllables. When the entire scroll has been read, the spell is cast and the scroll goes blank, ready for re-use. In addition to their value as emergency spells, scrolls are also used to sell the commercial spells that wizards record into their spellbooks. Once the spell has been transcribed, the scroll goes blank — copyright protection for the commercial spell industry.

Magic within the Empire of Metamor

Magic is carefully regulated, or obvious reasons of safety. Magically adept children are identified at an early age and fitted with restraining bands (called leashes on the Street) that keep their talents from manifesting. Once they are "old enough"4, they can join any of numerous mage guilds and begin learning to use their abilities, or they can choose to keep the restraint and not develop their magic.

A restrained Talent, as those with magical aptitude are called, may choose to join a guild at any time in his life, and thus be free of the restraint. Enforcement of the magic codes is conducted by the Imperial Bureau of Magic Regulation (BMR). The BMR works with the local police Magic Affairs section in much the same way that the Bureau of Illicit Substances works hand-in-hand with local Narcotics officers. A Magic Affairs section is required to remand suspects to the BMR for prosecution if a BMR agent requests it.

Some people manage to get their restraints removed — illegally — without joining a guild. These rogues are called wolves on the Street, to distinguish from dogs who are still "on the leash". Rogue mages are generally very powerful but very undisciplined (and most often are sorcerers); those that are not captured find their way into one of the numerous mage-gangs that live in the inner cities of the Empire. In these surrogate families they can receive some training in the use of the powers and become less of a danger to themselves and their friends, though the criminal nature of these gangs generally means that they end up causing a lot of damage to other people and property. Gang wars are commonplace, with members of different magical alignments staging feuds with each other — the Pyros may have a vendetta against the Mentalists, for example.

While the idea of the restraining bands makes some folk uncomfortable, it is generally viewed as a necessary sacrifice of freedom in order to protect everyone. Just as you have to be trained in the use of a handgun before you are allowed to own it, mages must be trained in the use of their power before they can be allowed to wield it. Fortunately, the wide variety of guilds available means that there are plenty of options for mages, and no one has to feel like they're forced to go along with a particular guild's way of doing things — there are probably two or three others that teach the same magic in different ways.

Magic Outside of the Metamor Empire

One type of Conjuration magic that does not appear to be practiced in Metamor is the art of summoning magical creatures to do a mage's bidding. One culture that does practice it is the Espaki5

Author Notes


Sources: MK Wiki Entry- Magic, Dreams of Change, discussion with Raven at SSDWC Summer 2010 picnic, email conversations with Raven (July 2010, August 2010), MK Wiki Entry -Shadow Magic, Runic Magic, Artax, MK Wiki- Automaton Magic.

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