Magic
"Magic is painful. Magic is difficult. Magic is infuriating. Magic is unpredictable. Magic is despair. Magic is everything."
-Archmage Sofia
General Overview:
Magic is the manipulation of the forces and laws that exist in all life and things. It is not a vague feeling you push around and create a specific effect out of by simply thinking about it. There are many methodologies and cultural traditions surrounding the practice, but most will tentatively agree that there are two overarching philosophies that all studies of magic draw from. The first is "immersion" magic, the magic that one performs with a deeply-rooted connection or conception of the force they are trying to manipulate. The other is "calculative" magic, a magic that is done only by rigorous study of the mathematical and scientific formula involved in any given spell.
Immersion Magic:
Immersion magic, also known as impression magic, involves sorcerers and various cultural practices all over Orbis. Contrary to popular belief, these practitioners often require years of practice to achieve a basic mastery of their fields. While there may be some people able to produce magical effects without training, their use would be out of their control. They might use too much or too little, or their spells will simply stop working without them realizing why.
The reason why it is called immersion magic is that one must be utterly immersed in the specific magic field or concept that one is learning, mind and body. They can't just think about it and use it. They must genuinely feel it, know it, taste it, and
be it. Immersion magic is often paired with exercises or various motions akin to a martial art as a way to formalize the process, with a student impressing the magic they are learning into every technique. Training can be so stringent and difficult that it has led many hopeful students to their deaths undergoing it.
People do not require specific bloodlines to use this type of magic, but finding the fields or aspects they match well with can be difficult and also potentially dangerous. Being able to actually cast anything can take years and being simply capable can take decades, and many people leave or quit in frustration with their lack of progress and often frustrating instructors. Adding even a single other field of immersion magic might take decades or simply be impossible, as they often conflict with each other.
Calculative Magic:
Calculative magic requires both a keen mind and strong work ethic. The simplest cantrip requires precise knowledge of its exact makeup, the trajectory, the effect of the environment, how it interacts with the caster, the proper flow of mana, and much more. People have compared it to the idea of having to manually handle every process in one's body. Technically, anyone can learn to do this. Practically, only a select few can even begin to seriously approach this.
New students have to undergo very difficult introductory periods in order to train their minds to properly process the information required to cast magic in this way, treating the brain and mind as a muscle that must constantly be trained and improved. It isn't uncommon for those learning to suffer from breakdowns or other debilitating states of mind in trying to reach mastery with this. While immersion magic can certainly be dangerous if misused, calculative magic can be truly unpredictable and catastrophic if done wrong. It is a demanding field that requires more than great knowledge or a talented mind.
The one caveat is that it is a field that grows and develops over time as magicians all over the world gradually add to the great libraries of knowledge. More efficient methods, clearly defined guidelines, countless experiments, and more have been pooled together for those studying calculative magic. For all its hardships, the possibilities are almost limitless for practitioners, and the greatest geniuses that achieved supreme mastery with calculative magic have always made their mark on history.
Hybridized Methods:
The two ways of understanding magic aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, though study of their pure forms often can be. The first elven mages in fact practiced their own specialized form of magic that combined elven symbolism, religion, and culture with clear methodologies and understanding of how magic actually works. It's widely accepted from historians that it was from this that these two fields were formed to identify what the elves were doing. Common hybrid applications that are still in use today include things such as runes, glyphs, circles, and rituals. While these are indeed symbolic methods reminiscent of immersion-based magic, they have a strict and repeatable methodology akin to calculative magic.
This layering of abstraction and metaphor serves as a fundamental concept in practicing magic, but relying on it too much limits understanding and flexibility of one's capability to use these forces. The more a mage actually understands what they are trying to manipulate, the greater the potency and versatility of their spells. Many general practitioners of magic often come up their own custom repertoire of magic that includes immersion, calculative, and hybrid-based magic encompassing their understanding of magic, the world, the Currents, and themselves. Some academies even require a magician to create their own grimoire that puts together everything they've learned and their own philosophy of magic into a single text. Such are the differing views of magic that even a well written paper can be completely useless to an aspiring mage trying to learn more.
Perception/Unlock:
One of the biggest barriers to practicing magic is being able to perceive it in the first place. While it is possible to use magic without visualizing Currents or related areas, it usually still requires someone who is a skilled magician anyways. Before the modern era, this difficulty in sensing magic was usually linked to inherited or genetic traits in some manner. After millennia of discrimination and superstition around this idea, it was finally proven that virtually anyone was able to tap into magic if they dedicate the time and effort to do so with the right tutors.
Various methods exist to help novice students. It's common for many academies to first start not too differently from any other school by instilling basic concepts about the various energies, forces, and laws related to magic in a way that eventually a student will slowly develop and connect their mind to the Currents around them. When that doesn't work, exposure to various magic phenomena in an
instructive setting and manner is often tried next. Various mental tricks or even physical habits are also taught to get one in the mindset. As more research on the mind itself is performed, more and more ways to get someone to unlock their magical perception are developed.
Of course, while it technically is possible for anyone to perceive magic, there still exists a large number of people who simply cannot break that barrier even after spending years and even decades trying. Perhaps it is a difficulty in the process itself, of the disconnect from the material world being something a person's mind or body rejects. Devout adherents of various religions often have difficulty as well with this, with some theorizing that their fervor for a particular being or part of the Currents limits their perspective. Regardless, this difficult first step in an already treacherous staircase has sharply limited the number of mages in Orbis.
Science vs Magic:
The practice of magic can also be seen as painfully ironic. The rigorous nature of it and the constant need to study or improve one's understanding in turn improves everyone's general understanding of the world and various scientific fields. Through this, people invent and develop technologies that either are independent of magic or make use of the forces it manipulates in a much more efficient way. While this doesn't necessarily render mages obsolete, it has placed pressure on pure magicians as a whole to constantly improve, maintain, and adapt their skills, leading to further advancements for everyone.
What, then, separates a scientist from a mage specializing in calculation magic? The mentioned difficulty in perceiving magic is one factor, but it can't fully explain the many brilliant scientists that couldn't cast a cantrip. The answers to this question are usually blurry or skewed towards them being completely the same or entirely different. Mages have often been the driver of scientific advancement and development for much of history. Whether it be a mad wizard experimenting in his tower, a hedge witch discovering new concoctions in her forest, or a pyromancer having made some random discoveries while deepening their understanding near a volcano, users of magic have often sought new knowledge.
However, there exists many advancements as well from mundane inventors and scientists. For how many powerful and influential magicians that have existed in Orbis, they have been responsible for disproportionately fewer of the advancements that people attribute to the development of the modern era. Again, many theories are thrown about to explain why. The most common but still controversial reason are that magicians are largely concerned with the development of their own talents, abilities, and capabilities. In today's era especially, they memorize and internalize large amounts of information, formulas, and methods and focus on maintaining their skills in applying them. Normal scientists are usually the ones now coming up with new theories and concepts, and while they often make use of mage consultants, their perspective and motivation for pursuing knowledge is commonly viewed to lead to more innovation than a mage's.
Souls, Imprints, and Essence:
Most living beings have what is commonly referred to as a "soul" or spirit. The soul is what allows people to use magic, draw inspiration from faith, and accomplish physical feats beyond what the average person can do. It protects people from other magic and spiritual influences and works almost as a muscle. One doesn't need to be a mage to use aspects of one's soul for practical purposes, but it usually requires training and effort to actively use it. Many people perform certain cultural practices that provide a basic, passive defense against various spiritual threats without even realizing it.
What the soul isn't is "you". This was proven not too long after the Crusades by Archmage Sofia in her famous Experiment of the Soul where she siphoned off her own soul into a container and lived for a year without it. The body and mind don't need the energy or vitality of the soul to work. That said, it is incredibly inadvisable to tamper with the soul. It leaves one incredibly vulnerable to influences from the Currents, weakens the body, and can have any number of disastrous effects if done improperly. Soul sickness and illnesses are incredibly difficult to diagnose and treat as well. Archmage Sofia prepared a large, protected space beforehand where she could live in relative safety, along with items she carried that she could use without magic and people she trusted around her.
What is considered "someone" is still a subject of debate. Early theories after the Experiment of the Soul posit that it is a purely physical thing, but were proven wrong by the many experiments conducted to see what exactly happens when someone dies. There
is something that leaves the body when one passes into the Currents. Some tentatively call it "essence", but due to the various difficulties in studying it, little is known about this mysterious part of someone despite extensive studies dedicated towards it.
The "imprint" of someone is more understood however, and has a deeper connection with the identity of someone than the soul. It is the mark a person leaves on the Currents, influenced by the way they have lived their life, their psychology, events they have gone through, connections to other people, and everything that tells the story or biography of a particular individual. It is an observable force connected to the soul but mostly categorized as its own aspect.
Imprints are often connected to various mental functions and mindscapes, often deeply influenced by one's mental state and various metaphors connected to their life somehow. It is connected to dreams and visions, with one's imprint often being an individual's sole connection to the Currents where such influences are common. Someone with an especially influential imprint often can make their sheer presence felt in Orbis as well, giving them the ability to induce various emotions in those around them.
Other Information:
To go in-depth about magic in its entirety will take too long for this overview, so this section will contain shortened descriptions on other aspects of magic that are important but do not need to go in-depth yet.
Arcane vs Psionic Forces(tentative): Arcane force is often described as the energy and make-up of various magical elements/materials, while Psionic force is often thought up as what moves and directs this energy. Arcane has been linked conceptually to various fundamental forces, while Psionic has been linked to a sort of collective consciousness and thought. They are however not really completely separate concepts, and most mages accept that all magic is, essentially, just magic and energy in some way or form.
Material Magic vs Currents Magic(tentative): Beings from the currents often have extremely potent magic and are thought to almost use calculative magic as one would use immersion magic based on how they have been recorded to think and process information. They are often less flexible however and rarely develop novel ways of using magic, though that doesn't mean they are utterly unable to adapt or simply use their slightly less effective methods to still achieve something. Magic from material beings and mortals are often less potent or powerful, but they are often able to learn a large variety of spells and applications for their magic.
Immortality: Many mages have attempted to discover the secret to eternal life. All have failed in some way, though there have been some tentative successes and unrelated advancements magicians have made in the process of researching it. There do exist methods to extend one's life, but they are often both unable to be applied to other people or come with various debilitating side-effects. For the few mages who have undertaken this research and live to today, none can claim to not have some major scar or cost they have suffered in exchange for their prolonged lives.
Combat Magic: Despite perceptions of mages as frail and slow combatants that must be protected, most mages that train for combat are often deeply frustrating opponents that are extremely difficult to pin down and defeat. With the wide variety of options both defensively and offensively they can employ, combat mages are a force to be reckoned with. Even the basic strategy taught to all of forming barriers around one self and then launching barrages of arcane blasts from behind is something a normal combatant usually can't deal with. To defeat a skilled mage fighter, one must either catch them off guard or outlast them, as magic usually requires preparation and greatly taxes a mage both physically and mentally.
This is something I've had in my mind for a while, but never really been able to finalize. It still isn't as complete or detailed as I'd like, and there's so much I feel like I should talk about that isn't come to mind right now, but since we're about to deal with a lot of magic stuff soon, I thought it'd be best to release this as a primer beforehand. I'll add to it as time goes on. More magic stuff will be introduced next update, and I'll probably have something for magitech... way later.
