Magic of Eryndral

Aspects of Magic in Eryndral

A Divine Gift: Magic as a Boon from the Gods

Many in Eryndral view magic as a sacred gift granted directly by divine beings such as Solenara, Lunarel, and other gods of their pantheons. This magic flows from acts of faith, devotion, and divine favour, manifesting through blessings, miracles, and holy rituals. Worshippers tap into this power by cultivating their devotion, purity of purpose, and unwavering belief in their deity. Such divine magic reinforces religious authority and plays a pivotal role in maintaining social order and unity, especially within the Holy Solarian Empire.

• Common Uses: Healing, protection wards, divine judgement, sacred enchantments.
• Cultural Perception: Widely accepted as benevolent and righteous; deviation or misuse considered heretical.
• Practitioners: Clerics, paladins, priests, Templar knights, shamans, oracles , prophets etc.

Arcane Science: Magic as a Natural Force

Magic also exists as a natural force, akin to wind, water, or fire—something to be harnessed, studied, and understood through rigorous scholarship and experimentation. The Radiant Assembly of Solaria, mystics of the Circle of Shadows, and various independent mage enclaves approach magic academically, developing methods to codify its rules and limits. Such practitioners maintain elaborate libraries, laboratories, and academies devoted to magical research, crafting spells, and artifacts. However, this study is not without controversy, as the line between sanctioned magic and forbidden experimentation can blur dangerously.

• Common Practitioners: Wizards, alchemists, artificers, academic scholars.
• Impact: Advances technology, aids warfare, but frequently clashes with religious dogma, drawing suspicion from authorities like the Inquisition.

Chaos & Flux: The Unpredictable Force

At its most raw and unbound, magic manifests as chaos and flux, a volatile force capable of spontaneous creation or catastrophic destruction. Often misunderstood or feared, chaotic magic appears in wild surges, natural anomalies, or through reckless magical experiments. While occasionally harnessed deliberately by daring sorcerers or wild shamans, it frequently emerges spontaneously during times of significant upheaval—such as major celestial events, magical calamities, or rifts between planes.

• Common Manifestations: Wild magic surges, unpredictable storms, eldritch rifts.
• Practitioners: Wild sorcerers, chaos cultists, warlocks.
• Cultural Views: Feared and persecuted within the Empire, respected yet cautiously approached by the Covenant, and viewed universally as dangerous, untamable, but sometimes necessary in dire circumstances.

Sources of Magical Power

Leylines: Rivers of Magic

Leylines are invisible rivers of raw arcane energy weaving through the fabric of reality, connecting distant locations, natural landmarks, and places of great magical or spiritual significance. Practitioners who tap into leylines—such as druids, seers, and ley-mages—draw upon immense reservoirs of power, though doing so requires profound discipline and balance. Cities or temples built upon leyline crossings are often centres of magical culture, mystical tradition, or spiritual pilgrimage. Misuse or imbalance in leylines can cause catastrophic disruptions, creating areas warped by wild magic or dangerous anomalies.

Uses:

• Amplification of spellcasting and rituals
• Powerful enchantments, wards, and protective barriers
• Divination and prophecy through attunement to leyline vibrations

Divine Channeling: Power from the Gods

Divine magic comes directly from the gods or celestial beings who grant portions of their power to chosen devotees—clerics, paladins, shamans, or priests. Channeling such divine energy requires devotion, alignment with the deity’s ideals, and strict adherence to sacred rites. The Solarian Church and the Lunar Covenant both rely heavily on divine magic, though their approach differs significantly—Solarian divine magic manifests in fiery purification and healing radiance, while Lunar divine magic embraces subtlety, illusion, and cycles of renewal.

Uses:

• Healing, protection, purification, and resurrection
• Holy or unholy smiting, exorcism, and divine judgement
• Miraculous intervention, prophecies, and communion with higher entities

Elemental Forces: Tapping Nature’s Essence

Elemental magic involves directly harnessing the pure essence of fire, water, air, or earth. Elementalists, druids, shamanic traditions, and certain battlemages commune deeply with the primal forces shaping the world around them. Mastery of elemental forces requires deep attunement, understanding, and respect—attempting to dominate rather than harmonize with these forces can lead to devastating consequences.

Uses:

• Control over weather, terrain, and natural phenomena
• Elemental conjuration, shaping, and direct attacks or defences
• Environmental harmony and restoration of natural balance

Forbidden Magic: Eldritch Knowledge and Lost Arts

Forbidden magic includes ancient, obscure, and often dangerous knowledge, such as eldritch incantations, rituals drawn from forgotten civilizations, or the secretive language of the First Gods. Practitioners—warlocks, occultists, necromancers, or heretical scholars—risk insanity, corruption, and persecution. Forbidden magic often involves pacts with entities beyond mortal comprehension, such as The Nameless One, or experimentation with forces that defy natural order.

Uses:

• Manipulation of life and death (necromancy, resurrection, immortality)
• Summoning eldritch beings, contacting forbidden entities
• Manipulation of memory, identity, and reality itself, such as through the Nightmilk rituals of the Covenant
• Harnessing raw chaos or the primal madness of creation

Taboo and Forbidden Schools

1. Mnemomancy (Memory Magic)

Magic that manipulates memories, alters perception, or erases identity. Due to its power to corrupt truth and history, this practice is vehemently opposed by the Radiant Assembly and treated with deep suspicion by the Lunar Covenant.

Why Taboo:

• Seen as a violation of personal autonomy and a threat to the stability of history and divine truth.
• Feared by authorities for its potential to undermine loyalty and obedience.

2. Somatic Scrying (Sensory Possession)

A highly forbidden practice involving temporarily inhabiting another person’s senses through Nightmilk rituals. Practiced secretly within the Lunar Covenant, it’s feared for the ethical implications and mental damage it inflicts upon both caster and subject.

• Risks include death, permanent sensory loss, or madness.
• Considered sacrilege by Solarians and taboo even among Lunar adherents.

3. Void Magic (The Null Arts)

The harnessing of anti-magic, emptiness, and the deliberate unmaking of reality. Void magic, also known as the Null Arts, is feared for its destructive potential to permanently destroy magic and life itself.

Fear and Taboo Origin:

• Represents an existential threat, capable of annihilating the essence of magic itself.
• Practitioners risk losing their humanity, becoming hollowed husks.

4. Void Calling (Eldritch Summoning)

Summoning or communicating with eldritch entities from the space beyond Eryndral’s known cosmology, particularly the Elder Gods. This form of magic is banned universally because contact with these beings invites madness, corruption, and existential peril.

Why Taboo:

• Responsible for catastrophic events in the world’s ancient past.

5. Hemocraft (Blood Sorcery)

Drawing power through the sacrifice of living creatures, particularly sapient beings, to empower rituals or enchantments. Commonly attributed (rightly or wrongly) to cults of Serrathis, the Flame of Vengeance, or extremist factions within both Solarian and Lunar societies.

Reasons for Rejection:

• Considered morally abhorrent, disrupting the balance of life and death.
• Risks attracting attention of dangerous entities from other realms.

6. Chronomancy (Time Manipulation)

Rare and highly unstable, chronomancy involves manipulating temporal energies—stopping, slowing, reversing, or glimpsing timelines. It’s condemned by both the Church and the Covenant as hubris and meddling in divine providence.

Dangers and Consequences:

• Potentially catastrophic paradoxes or reality fractures.
• Forbidden due to legends of erased timelines and obliterated cities from misguided experiments.

7. Necromancy (Death and Undeath)

A dark and reviled practice involving the manipulation of life and death energy to raise or control the undead, commune with departed souls, or prolong life unnaturally. Considered an affront to natural order by nearly all factions, necromancy is particularly despised by the Church of the Radiant Flame for corrupting the cycle of life and death, and shunned by most in the Lunar Covenant for disrupting spiritual balance.

Why Taboo:

• Violates the sanctity of death, corrupting the souls of the deceased.
• Practitioners risk madness, spiritual corruption, and eternal damnation.
• Culturally associated with tyrannical wizards and fallen kingdoms, creating lasting cultural fear of its practice.