Magical Spells

Spellscribing by contrast, is exclusive to the arcane tradition of magic and represents the creation of new spells from magical concepts; these concepts are provided by the Atronach system to mages that learn them - not unlike spells themselves - and from them they can learn to create brand new, custom spells. This is explained more in the arcane magic tradition's page. Chi manipulation isn't too dissimilar, but its abilities are much more free-flowing and developed from a mixture of personal and taught combat styles; while many circles call these abilities, in the eyes of the Atronach system they're no different from spells.

Spells versus Abilities

More of a mortal distinction, spells are generally perceived to be arcanical expressions of magical power that require serious thought and effort to cast, while a magical ability is something that comes naturally to a person, requires little effort to use and generally has less of a mana cost but some kind of other cost, such as draining someone's stamina or having a frequency restriction to its usage.   As far as the Atronach system is concerned, however, spells and abilities have no distinction; spells are presented by Atronach to people just like abilities are, only abilities are harder to learn than a spell due to it having to naturally come to them - a wizard can just learn a spell from a spellbook if they have the mental faculties and skill to do so, but a cultivator seeking to learn a new kung fu attack has to master that attack and have its paired magical ability come to them naturally.

The Types of Spell

As mentioned, there's many broad types of spell to discuss when looking at spells at large, and while there's no real need to delve heavily into them all, it's worth noting that they exist. Below, you'll find a list of each type of spell, and what makes it distinctive. The list isn't exhaustive, and will be updated as more spell types are discovered.

• Arcane Spells are spells that come from the arcane tradition of magic and predominantly rely upon arcane mana to function. They're capable of ranging from the simplest of the spells to the most complicated, with the cost of mana and the chance of failure increasing appropriately - though masters and specialists can mitigate this somewhat (and specialist masters can fully mitigate it).
• Divine Spells are spells that come from the divine tradition of magic and rely upon divine and arcane mana to function; they typically align or oppose a divine source's nature and are discounted or have their price increased as appropriate.
• Faerie Spells are spells that come from the fae tradition of magic and rely wholly upon fae mana; they're very subject to the seasons and the whims of the faeries themselves, especially the leaders of each court, making them both reliable and unreliable at the same time.
• Chi Abilities are abilities that are similar to spells, but that align with cultivation and chi manipulation. They rely upon chi - or stamina - to function and are pound for pound the most powerful spells in the hands of a powerful cultivator or martial-arts master.
• Sword Spells are spells that come from the sword magic tradition, and rely upon the internal capabilities of the sacred sword to use, in tandem with the skill of their wielder. Most sword spells drain the sword's mana supply - which can be almost any kind of mana - but several require the wieler's mana too.
• Dark Magic Spells are spells that come from the dark magic tradition; these are the most... weird and hard to understand branch of spell, as they exhibit traits of almost every other type of spell, but corrupt their environment and exact a large toll to cast, with that toll varying based on the school of dark magic practiced.

The Spell Glossary

Spells are an extremely important facet of life across Atronach, and there's a LOT of them. Below, you'll find a full glossary of all spells catalogued in Atronach. Many of these will need expanding in the future, but this glossary will always be accurate.