Magic & Spellcasting

Magic in Nature

Some plants and animals have native magic, usually just one or two unique abilities, that help them survive. For example, ghost lizards are quite common in tropical rainforests and they are so named for their ability to become temporarily incorporeal. This allows them to build burrows with no entrance, escape predators by running through obstances, or silently stalk their own prey. The most important magical species is the starbell. It's a flower with a wholly mysterious lifecycle. They sprout rarely, far from any other starbells, in any climate and soil (or lack thereof), and don't produce any kind of seed, runner, or other known means of reproduction. Besides these features, the starbell's necter is a key ingredient in the Rite of Awakening, an ancient ritual that grants an individual magical power.

Magic in People

Magic in Calistaph is acquired. Gods will occassionaly bless a follower with some limited power, and there are theoretical magical phenomena that could invest an individual with some kind of magic, but by and large magic is acquired through the Rite of Awakening. There are a number of variations of the Rite, which follow from differing ethnic groups. The Rite is ancient and is believed to have been given to mortals by the Elder Gods when they left Calistaph to live in the divine realms. The original Rite was lost, but the various recreations seem to work just as well.   Magic is a very personal power, as it uses the magician's vital energy as fuel and is inherently related to the magician's personality. In the study of magic, scholars have identified an array of distinct essences, such as fire, life, and movement. Every mortal soul has an affinity for some of these essences, usually two but sometimes one or three and, in very rare cases, four or more. Because mortal personalities arise from the mortal soul, a magician's personality and essential affinities are always related. When the magician uses magic, the vital energy is invested with an essence before it is moved and put to use. The magician can only invest vital energy with essences for which he has an affinity, but doing so is an intuitive process that is very easy to learn. Moving the vital energy after investment is the hard part of magic and takes decades to master.   The amount of vital energy required for spellcasting is far less than the total energy of a spell. This is a phenomenon that continues to puzzle scholars, but it is nevertheless an irrefutable fact. Interestingly, undergoing the Rite of Awakening a second time seems to intensify this effect, effectively decreasing the "cost" in energy of the magician's spells. It's also possible that repeating the Rite will create, or perhaps reveal, additional essential affinities. However, the effects of undergoing the Rite multiple times are poorly studied as it rarely occurs that a magician will even have the opportunity, much less the wherewithall to have an observer present to document everything.

Magic in Objects

Magicians aren't the only people able to make use of magic. Magicians and non-magicians are both able to imbue an object with magic and then use that object. Just as mortal souls have essential affinities, so to do all other living things. As mentioned above, some plants and animals have magic in their nature, making their affinities fairly obvious. Even non-magical plants, animals, and people have affinities, though, and those can be used to invest objects the same way a magician invests his own vital energy. Because magic is feuled by vital energy, a magical object requires a source of it in order to function. Rudimentary items will be given vital energy via bloodletting or animal sacrifice, but these methods provide a finite amount of energy and thus produce objects which have a finite number of uses. More sophisticated items are empowered to draw vital energy from the weilder, allowing them to be used infinitely, so long as the weilder has some energy to spare. Another strategy is to empower items to pull in the vital energy that is naturally released by death. As insects, rodents, microrganisms, and so on die near such an item, it can draw the lost vitality into itself and make that energy available for magical use.   Since objects lack minds and wills to direct and shape spells the way magicians do, a key part of crafting a magical item is the construction of a rudimentary intelligence. This is why an affinity for mental essence is a necessary ingredient. Mental magicians have an easier time making magic items, and both fungi and parts of social animals can used to invest an object with a mental affinity. From there, there are multiple methods of "programming" the object so that it's mentality, feuled by vital energy, is able to propery direct vital energy and implement any other invested essences. The dwarves, for example, are known for their intricate runic system which they use to inscribe a magical item and then invest only the inscription with the mental affinity to give it operative capability. Tribes indigenous to the Saza Wilds are known to have pelts in which the skull of the animal is retained and invested, making use of the echoes of consciousness to direct the vital energy and confer benefits to the wearer ranging from enhanced senses to a full bodily transfiguration. Some Thadonians are able to make use of these methods as well, but more popular is the method of creating a psychic construct. Using ingredients with the appropriate affinities, a craftsman can adjust the material being used for the magical object to operate like a brain. Brains are, in essence, solid matter arranged in such a way that it can house and facilitate mental processes. For the simple needs of a magic item, nothing nearly as complex as a brain is required. Nevertheless, the psychic construct is a reconfiguration of an objects material parts to operate in a brain-like fashion. Then, once invested with a mental affinity, the object will have just enough capacity for thought to reliably gather, invest, shape, and direct vital energy to produce magical effects.  

Affinities & Types of Magic

As mentioned above, affinities are a concept in Calistaph's magic, and in fact it's a central concept. The list of affinities covers all "types" (for lack of better word) of things that exist in the universe. Put another way, each affinity is a unique slice of the universe. Below are the affinities and how they are manifest in Calistavian magic.   

Death

If it lives, then it will someday die. Death is as central to existence in our universe as life is, though it's beauty is often less appealing. The death affinity covers the processes of diminishing and extinguishing life, and the processes that naturally occur following the loss of life. In this, it does have overlapping influences with other affinities, such as sharing "grief" with the mental affinity. Those who specialize in death magic are called necromancers, though the term is seldom used. People who aren't well educted in magic have local terms for the rare necromancers that live among them: the Sazan bone drummers, Rodosian deadspeakers, and so on. Those who are well educated tend to find the term "necromancer" too broad. Within necromancy are several disciplines, and almost every necromancer becomes specialized in one.    The first branch is Osseomancy, magic of bones. It's most famous for being the discipline responsible for animating corpses, but it is also employed in the creation of advanced undead, combat magic, and divination. It can even be using, with great difficulty, to mend broken bones in the living.    The second branch is Sanguimancy, the magic of blood   The third branch is Pneumomancy, the magic of souls   The fourth branch is Thanatomancy, the magic death as a force   The secrets of immortality require life magic and all disciplines of death magic, and grant the magician a potentially unending lifespan. Instructions for this process are usually destroyed or kept secured by the magician after they become a lich, and consequently every lich has achieved immortality in a way that they independently discovered. Though every lich is unique because of this, there are still common elements. Every lich has a phylactery, a magical container that holds the vitality that extends the lich's lifespan. The lich must replenish the supply of vitality periodically by feeding mortal souls to the phylactery. When a lich is destroyed, its phylactery breaks and the lich returns with however much vitality was left in the phylactery. A new phylactery must then be made to ensure the lich's continued immortality. Some liches are able to create more than one phylactery, increasing the amount of vitality that they can store and allowing them to recover from destruction more than once without making new phylacteries.   Some liches cause their own body to become a phylactery, arresting it's ability to produce it's own vitality while granting it unending youth, so long as the lich can consume vitality from others. These liches are more commonly knows and vampires, as those who are unschooled in necromancy do not recognize that vampires are liches because the methodology seems so different. Non-vampiric liches kill mortals, and then take the soul before it can flee into the afterlife. Vampiric liches take the vitality of the living by consuming their blood, allowing them to keep the mortal alive to sustain the vampire over multiple feedings. Additionally, the internal phylactery prevents the vampire from returning if it is destroyed, but it also grants the vampire's body the ability to recover from the most grevious wounds and retain a life-like, youthful aspect.    Another type of lich that isn't usually recognized as such is the Haunt. They appear like a poltergeist, but retain all of their memories, personality, and magical power from before they became undead. Because they don't maintain a physical body, they're able to persist on very little vitality, but they also have to stay close to their phylacteries to be able to draw vitality from them. Some haunts use their home as a phylactery, storing their excess vitality in the infrastructure of the building. This potentially gives them a massive capacity which, paired with their more efficient use of vitality, allows them to persist without feeding for decades or even centuries. Other haunts use a more traditional phylactery, though this does expose to the risk of being captured by any being with that can withstand the lich's wrath. For all their magical power, even liches fear the wrath of certain demigods and devils. Because a haunt must stay near its phylactery, such a creature could simply steal the phylactery and the lich will be forced to follow. Any magician who has studied enough to try becoming a lich has hear the tale of Hes-itep, the Whisper. Hes-itep had ordered the construction of a grand tomb for himself before he faked his death. Turning a piece of jewelry into his phylactery and ensuring that he would be buried with it, he was able to haunt his tomb, continuing his research, for decades after. Zerus, the god of the dead, noticed eventually, and sent one of greatest devils to resolve the issue. The devil was meant to destroy the phylactery, but instead it stole it and keeps Hes-itep as a pet in Hell.