fake science ahoy!
omake - spellcasting
Before we begin delving deeper into advanced spellcraft we must touch on some of the history of this noble art. The earliest examples of which belong to the Asura and Deva civilisations found on the ruins of their home world Midgard. Unusually neither race was truly human despite similarities. These early magical pioneers via long and complicated song, instinctively shaping mana flows into the desired form. As should be obvious this led to long cast times for all of their spellwork, and was highly dependant on initial conditions. This unregulated type of spellcasting also led to the destruction of their world, we will never know what the intended purpose of the spell that ended all life on Midgard, but evidence suggests a runaway mana reaction of exponential growth that folded parts of their very planet into the dimensional sea, lost for all time and space.
Al-Hazard Spellcraft is safe, sensible and sane in comparison, mana is manipulated via a focus, be that Wand, Stave or more esoteric means. Imparting the necessary Mass, Energy and Motion needed for spellcasting, often accompanied by a short chant to focus the caster on the finer internal manipulation of mana through their linker core. None of these steps in inherently unreasonable, or generally unsafe on their own, but as should be obvious, developing new spells in more a case of trial and error than anything else. Al-Hazard spellcrafters tended to stumble upon new spells more by accident than design, as described in the few surviving texts discovered.
The modern spellcasting method relies more on understanding the very fundamental nature of mana, or quantum dimensional interface rejection reaction to use the more scientific term, can be manipulated via the three forms. Mass, the act of pulling mana into a cohesive, dense whole. Energy, the act of "heating up" the mana, making it far more reactive. Motion, the actual shaping of the spell into it's purpose, this is a delicate step as the difference between spells of widely different functions can be quite similar to the untrained novice.
Each step can be broken down into mathematical formulae, allowing casters to quickly shape mana into spells, with repeatability being extremely high as each calculation only varies by a small amount.
As should be apparent, the mathmagical calculations become more complex as spell complexity increases, it takes less effort to throw balls of mana around than to perform even a localised dimensional fold. Computational devices are almost a necessity for higher tier magic, though an experienced caster may be able to cast them without a device, only a true savant will be faster without a device than with.
Dimensional Transfer and other long range movement magic...
