Sorcerers

The magic of the World, also known as the Arcanum, or the Music of Creation, is a vast blanketing web that touches everything, be it a still stone or a furious hurricane. This natural magic is what the likes of druids revere. The creators and shepherds of this widespread arcane weave are the Gods, which clerics and other divine casters beseech for their power. Others may tap into the arcanum through formulaic theory, experimenting with precise tethers that can invoke the magic to act in a certain way they desire. These rigorous students are wizards. Sorcerers are nothing like anyone else, because while the arcanum can bunch up within a single person or creature, those that become sorcerers are made out of the raw magic in one supernaturally large knot.   As such, those that are sorcerers have this hyperactive mystic energy coursing through their blood, bones, every last fiber of their being. Oftentimes, the overflowing of arcanum pours to fast and violently into the vessel, and the sorcerer breaks, often with disastrous consequences. Those that have the immense presence and constitution to either embrace more and more magic power pouring into them, or are able to control themselves to stem the tide, mastering themselves to master their magic. The ability of spellcasting that sorcerers have is the reaching into their inner wellspring and willing an effect into being.   How sorcerers manifest can be for a variety of reasons. Some may have a family member that was touched by a particularly powerful font of magic, and that has become a generational manifest. It can also be in very impactful event for an individual, such as being bestowed this power by a greater power, or exposure to supernatural cosmic forces. However it happens, one cannot go out and become a sorcerer, the power itself chooses the sorcerer. Whether or not it is fated is up to debate.   There are countless variations of sorcerer as there are countless forms that magic can take. The bloodlines that manifest with the most stability and room for growth are as follows:   Aberrant Mind. Whatever touched your bloodline to bestow you these capabilities was not of this World. It is alien, anathema to the fabrics of reality that everything is built upon, and as such cannot be remotely comprehended. You are a mild manifestation of this thing's physiology; one still tethered to the physics of the World. However, it has warped your mind into something that skims into the uncanny, with strange psychic abilities manifesting as the arcanum bends around you as if you were a strange gravitational well for it. This gives the Aberrant Mind sorcerer unparalleled control over the minds of others, allowing such magics as telepathy, mind reading, creating brain blasting horror, and more. These sorcerers, due to the exceeding rarity of contact with the thing that morphed them, are substantially rarer than most other sorcerers, and it is a case-by-case basis on how they will act, either using their strange powers for the better, or bending it upon everyone else in their own self-serving goals.   Clockwork Soul. The Material World was constructed by the Gods as a realm of perfect balance between all the primordial forces, a balance that has been long and hard fought for. In order to facilitate this, a concept known as the Divine Order was created, and the World is built upon this predetermination. This can be seen in the preciseness of the movement of the moons and stars, of the turning of the seasons, all in one grand design that chugs along like precise clockwork. It is from this supernatural Divine Order that your power comes from, wrought as a catalyst to maintain this harmony. Some Clockwork Souls can also be made by an extended exposure to the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, the outer plane of fundamental lawfulness. There is a greater calling to those that are born of the Divine Order, manifested on the World to maintain its status quo, and work against the forces of chaos that would disrupt the laws of reality.   Draconic Bloodline. Dragons are made of the raw elements of the World, having been here long before the World took its modern shape. It is unquestionable that dragons are the greatest and most powerful of all the creatures, and the suffusion of the arcanum within their bodies is perhaps the tightest packed of any creature. As such, those that emulate, or grasp a tiny fragment of a dragon's true power are still immensely powerful. How this comes to be can be an infusion of draconic blood, pacts with the wyrms, or even a dragon as an ancestor. This can manifest with no physical alterations, or with mutations such as scales, horns, and other features that blur the humanoid and dragon. Centrally, all draconic sorcerers and their tether to their bloodline manifests in unparalleled control over the element that infuses them, such as a black sorcerer infused with acid, a blue one with lightning in their veins. This is the bloodline that is most sought out to be artificially undergone. The most famous draconic sorcerer is Nyvorlas, the only known Snow Elf, and a White Dragonblood.   Divine Soul. These sorcerers are known often as Favored Souls, or Chosen Ones. They are tied inextricably with a particular god or other divine force, either chosen, or related by blood. Often these individuals are tied with a prophesy, either for the betterment of the World if their tie is from the Upper Planes, or the furthering of ruin if an evil God bestows the World with their foul offspring. A sorcerer of this variety are the heralds of change, placed upon this World by greater powers as movers and shakers. Religious orders can have a variety of reactions to a Favored Soul of their deity arriving, as it can be an omen of their god's displeasure, or a portent of a coming calamity that will require a living saint to defeat. Far too often, religious orders see these Favored Souls as a threat to their organization or the power of the heads of the church, threatening to reform or even dismantle the religious order. Chosen Ones of evil gods are often more accepted as the cults that revere their dark masters as small and fanatic. These people are avatars of destruction, a direct hand reaching into the mortal world to wreak as much havoc as possible.   [Needs Update] Lunar Sorcery. There are four Elemental Moons in the sky; Char, the Plane of Fire, Tethys, the Plane of Earth, Merida, the Plane of Water, and Aeronia, the Plane of Water. Reverence of the moons is common in every culture across the World, their movements, phases, and eclipses. The Convergence is a celestial event when all of the moons meet in the sky, and all four elements combine together into one massive moon, with utterly devastating consequences. As such, those that are bound by the arcane power emanating from the moons are particularly sensitive to their phases and their elemental potency. This can manifest by a moon being under an eclipse during the sorcerer's birth, or another alignment of particular import, such as only one moon being full while the rest are new.
Importantly, this connection can manifest in different ways, either with a Lunar Sorcerer connected to the phases of the moon, or to the elements they are. Some particularly powerful Lunar Sorcerers can draw from each moon's element, shifting between all four. Most, however, favor one over all other. Alternatively, there are phase-based sorcerers, pulling from common traits that are culturally significant to a certain phase. For example, New Moons are associated with darkness and the wicked creatures that go bump in the night, and sorcerers pulling from a New Moon conjure that dread power. Full Moons, associated with brightness and clarity, are protective and illuminating.
Of note, there is a cabal of wizards and sorcerers and other scholars, known as the Mages of High Sorcery, delineated by the colors of their robes, red, white, blue, and grey. Predominantly wizards, but also populated by sorcerers, these four orders combine to a group of mages known as the Conclave.   Shadow Magic. A bleak creature, sorcerers of shadow are tied to despair and loss. Also known as Shades, the inky black of the darkness they wield is pulled from either the Dark Dream, one of the extraplanar realms such as the Grey Wastes, or tied to the thin veil they walk between the living and the dead. Shadow Sorcerers are not undead however, though some of these sorcerers draw from the well of negative energy that suffuses the undead, and even bear some vaguely similar traits. Evil is not a requirement, but often these sorcerers find themselves within that role, acting as emissaries of ill omen, actively bringing doom where they walk. In the cracks between where the light of the world shines, one can find the machinations of the Shades bent to dim it.   Storm Sorcery. Avatars of elemental air, and the natural weather of the World, Storm Sorcerers are powerful for their control of destructive magics. Wind, rain, thunder and lightning are their essence as much as breathing and eating. A hurricane balled up into a single individual, oftentimes this raw elemental force washes out of them like a billowing gale. The natural world reacts to their presence, often making the weather worsen where they walk, giving such people a cloudy reputation. However, with training and discipline, a Storm Sorcerer can learn to bend the natural world to their overwhelming will. Elements such as the electrical power of a lightning bolt, or the freezing wind of a blizzard can be passed through such sorcerers, with the most powerful not even impacted when struck by lightning. Additionally, the weather itself can be changed by their desires, such as stopping the rain from falling, or cause the wind to pick up into a powerful gale. These individuals are often hired for ships, to ensure fair weather and a wind in their sails.   Wild Magic. Sorcerers often discover their latent power in a great catastrophic moment. Tales are told of young people who are humble peasants until one day their temper erupts in a roaring fireball, or those able to manipulate objects with their mind. These individuals are wrought of the rawest of Arcanum, a bundled knot of magic power that at some point matures into a geyser of uncontrollable chaos. Even the most experienced Wild Magic sorcerers are incapable of fully controlling the power they hold within themselves, boiling up in unpredictable ways. Notable traits of these people is their uncanny ability to tap into the forces of change, warping reality into a favorable path for themselves. Theories of how these sorcerers come to pass is a rebellion of the natural world against the Divine Order, with its opposite in the force of Chaos bubbling out. Fortunately for most people, these sorcerers do not live long enough to formulate plans of dismantling civilization, as they are preoccupied with destroying themselves.