Magic

Not Good nor Evil

In the beginning of the universe, The Three Creators designed a system of magic and each poured their essence into their work, creating their own style of magic. Many mortals associate The Creators and their magic systems with a moral alignment, but it is much more complicated than that. All styles can be used as a tool to modify, heal, or kill in various degrees of effectiveness. All styles allow their users to teleport and manipulate elements. The Upper Creator created Blue Magic, The Middle Creator created Green Magic, and The Lower Creator created Red Magic. Some people consider them to be positive, neutral, and negative magic, respectively, because of their interaction with magical charge. Similarly to how an electron carries a negative electrical charge, a phrenion carries a negative magical charge. This does not mean that it is inherently evil, nor are any of The Creators. Their goals are much more complicated than any mortal could comprehend or put a label on. All morality blurs and is interpreted differently by others, and all styles are capable of good and evil.  

Training and Casting

Normally, a person can only learn how to manipulate magic from one style. It takes some time to learn how to build up the ability to cast. Imagine a bucket of water. You can slowly fill it with hot water, but if you start adding cold water, then you have neither hot nor cold water. Magic acts similarly, and a person must build up a rechargeable reserve of another particle called a hemitron within their bodies. Similarly to how a person starts learning math with addition and works their way up to calculus, people come in various levels of skill and generally learn by copying others. Magic is very much the same way. More powerful spells require more energy, and often a material component.  

Magic Levels

Magic has some very hard rules, preventing people from doing whatever they please when tapping into its potential. Each style is divided into three branches, which are divided further into three abilities, once again divided into three tiers. A caster must first improve their ability within a specific branch, reaching milestones as they gain more power, allowing them to access new abilities and tiers along the way. It is important to note, however, that a person may not always know how to access the abilities they have the potential to use, and require training to focus on those areas, which further develops their capacity of that specific branch. With the exception of some very rare exceptions, a caster may only obtain power in one style. To learn a different style, one must slowly unlearn, then re-learn the new style.  

Particles

Different materials carry different combinations and amounts of hemitrons, which affect the magical nature of the object. A caster uses thehemitrons built up in their body to channel phrenions, which affects how they interact with the objects, and cast spells. A positive caster will absorb phrenions and store them within their body, while a negative user takes their stored hemitrons and pours them into the object. A neutral caster simply rearranges what is already in the object, but that does not mean they can cast indefinitely. The hemitrons stored in a caster’s body are aligned in a specific way. A positive caster recharges by expelling the phrenions from their bodies, and a negative user by slowly absorbing them. Neutral users, while they don’t gain or lose any, require their bodily arrangement to be in a specific shape, and this changes each time they cast. It slowly repairs itself over time, similar to how the mind regains energy when it sleeps.  

Casting Requirements

When a caster performs magic, they often require a physical movement, mental concentration, a specific material, or an anchor. An anchor focuses Magic in a certain way, and is required for certain types of magic, such as teleportation, conjuring, and summoning. Anchors often come in the form of a transmutation circle, obelisk, or powerful trinket.  

The Standard Branches

Each style of magic has three main branches. Blue magic includes Healing, Conjuring, and Imbuing. Green magic includes Preservation, Transformation, and Communication. Red magic includes Bewitchment, Disfigurement, and Displacement. By manipulating phrenions, a caster can channel magic from any style they have access to. Many of these have overlaps, such as Healing, Preservation, and Bewitchment having the ability to heal, Conjuring, Transformation, and Disfigurement allowing elemental control, and Conjuring, Transformation, and Displacement allowing teleportation in very different ways from each other. In most languages, branches of the same style share the same ending. Each standard branch will be discussed in more detail later.  

Culture and Races

Some creatures such as demons are made from red energy, and as a result can only ever utilize the red style in their life, and are born or created with innate abilities. Normally, a human or an elf can choose whatever style they like. Different cultures may view magic differently than others. The Holy State of Lyfteard, for example, focuses on blue magic, which they refer to as positive magic, and shuns anyone that uses negative or neutral magic. Some giants of Zul Rautu build their cities with nihilumbrite, a magic dampening metal. They use armour and weapons made of this, so that they can stand a chance against an army of casters, and may even give them the upper hand. It’s understandable that cultures like these may shun all magic. The Demon-bloods of Kivikara, on the other hand, welcome all magic, but prefer negative magic to give them convenience in everyday life, as their race is born with an inherent reserve of red style hemitron. Their doors don’t even have handles or locks, because they have telekinetic abilities that allow them to lock, unlock, and open doors with their minds. The elves of Coedeffin are known for their political system involving a triumvirate. Three rulers are chosen by different means. One chosen by the gods, one chosen by the people, and one chosen by the planet. The one chosen by the planet is believed to have one Dhuesar mark from each of the three styles.  

Invention

While spells seem to have a specific pattern, it’s important to remember that even a lock, which can be easily unlocked with a key, could be broken or picked. Casters often find different ways of casting. Casters sometimes find out new tricks, and keep it to themselves if they’re not generous enough to share with the class. Magic was once much more prevalent than it was today on Inciparia. There was a large war between four factions and eight countries, who drafted the most powerful mages to fight each other. Anyone who refused was slaughtered as an enemy of the state. Only a handful of mages escaped the war, and only Mafalana is known to have survived hundreds of years since those days. The mages, sent to fight each other, caused a massive explosion that not only killed them all, but caused an enormous section of land in the east to become a dead zone for magic many hundred years later. An aurora of reds, blues, and greens dance over the blackened battlefield to this day — a scar on the world as a reminder of the dangers of unchecked magic and picking the wrong fights. Many secrets and casting methods were lost to this war, but new techniques still emerge to this day.  

Overcharging

Electrons orbit a molecule in “layers”. For example, at a certain level, a ring is complete and stable with eight electrons. It’s a similar story with phrenions. A positive user casts by absorbing phrenions and storing them around the hemitrons in their bodies. More hemitrons means more phrenions, but there’s also the option of digging deep and allowing those hemitrons to store more than they can in a stable manner. To recharge, the positive caster expels the phrenions from their body, layer by layer. It may stabilize at three layers, but meditation will allow you to get rid of extra phrenions, giving you extra room to cast during the day. Similarly, when you’ve hit five layers, you can continue to cast, filling the sixth layer, at extra strain on yourself. Unstable molecules tend to do harm to the body and take much longer to recover from. Pushing your abilities to the seventh layer is possible, however, it’s very likely that one will never recover from that. The hemitrons may simply forever change, rendering you less powerful overall, or they may burst, setting off a chain reaction and killing the caster immediately.  

Teleportation, Conjuring, and Summoning

Often times when a person moves themselves or another thing from one place to another, they still hold an imprint of where they went. Similarly, when a portal is opened, a master of their craft may be able to open a similar portal to follow the previous portal to the same destination. Teleportation is the act of moving something from one place to another on the same plane of existence. Summoning permanently moves something from one plane to a different place, and conjuring moves something to a different plane only temporarily. A conjured creature normally disappears back to where they came from after a week of service, unless a similar spell that conjured them is cast again, or other magic is applied. Using Dhuesar synergies, master mages can sever the ties that bind them to their previous home through a process called expulsion. To expel a creature is to erase the imprint of their previous location. To banish or dismiss a creature is to send them back to their previous location, which is much harder to accomplish when neutral or negative magic is used. Dismissing returns a conjured creature, while banishing returns a summoned creature. Using powerful anchors, it is possible to even bind a previous location to an object or person, which may allow them free access to a location, or disrupt their access to another location. Being forced through the The Blue Shroud by the act of conjuring or summoning results in the loss of memory. The only way for a person to regain this memory is to return to the place where they lost them, and they lose the ability to regain these memories after being parted from the memories for six months.