The Static
Can you feel that? It's Like White Noise...
The Ins and Outs of Static
The static is overwhelming, especially in one's first moments of going loud. The practitioner is unlikely to realize it until they quiet down. Once they return to normal, they will come to sense the static in everything. Everything that exists has static. Every particle radiates static, even light. Sound also has a static, but living beings tend to have slightly more, and even more if they are a practitioner of The Prestige.
The static is all in your head, and to sense it efficiently, it must be trained like a muscle. As one learns, it becomes easier to sense the contrast between a potential target and the background noise. One can easily tell if someone has the prestige, if someone is human, and even gauge intent with the static.
Being able to use spells is another matter entirely. When learning to cast a spell, practitioners must first learn how to harness the static. They start by focusing on where the sensation is within one's body, which will be the most noticeable case of the static they perceive. The static will then resonate, as if knowing it is being focused on. After this, the practitioner visualizes the spell, and the effect occurs.
A Fickle Art
Regardless of the genres a practitioner can use, each manifestation has the potential to hone their craft. It's essential to learn as many as you can, though due to the way The Prestige works, it's never certain if you can even use a specific manifestation over another. One caster may be accomplished with spheres, but no matter how they try, will never learn traps or vice versa.
Another interesting thing to know is The Static can come on many forms. Some don't feel the static, but can hear the static, view the static, and even smell or taste the static. The Static can be just as varied and personal as The Prestige.
Foci
A focus is used to do exactly what you'd expect. It's designed to focus power to a given point, usually on an object. This does many things, and it is almost vital to have a focus, though it depends on the genre a practitioner uses.
Usually, melee weapons are the most common form of foci. Foci must be attached to the caster and act as an extension of the caster. A focus will increase effective range, strength, and the stability of spells cast through it, as well as have various enchantments that allow it other unique traits. A focus can also protect the user as it can withstand stress the user cannot.
A fine example of this is a simple spell that projects a burst of force. One could wind up for a punch, project the spell to their hand (essentially using their hand as a focus), and hit many times harder than ever before. This is a terrible idea. Never forget: the prestige has some grounding rules in reality. It can hurt to punch a brick wall and now you've punched it with enough force to shatter the wall. What do you think this will do to your hand?
Usually, melee weapons are the most common form of foci. Foci must be attached to the caster and act as an extension of the caster. A focus will increase effective range, strength, and the stability of spells cast through it, as well as have various enchantments that allow it other unique traits. A focus can also protect the user as it can withstand stress the user cannot.
A fine example of this is a simple spell that projects a burst of force. One could wind up for a punch, project the spell to their hand (essentially using their hand as a focus), and hit many times harder than ever before. This is a terrible idea. Never forget: the prestige has some grounding rules in reality. It can hurt to punch a brick wall and now you've punched it with enough force to shatter the wall. What do you think this will do to your hand?
Catalysts
A catalyst is like a focus, but with a key difference. The focus is like the barrel of a gun, where the mind is a trigger. A catalyst is both the trigger and the barrel.
A catalyst has some element of variance to it, some way of having multiple states or outcomes inherent to its design. Catalysts are rarely used, most often found in Arcana Discordia where every spell can be "flipped" and the opposite effect occurs.
Coins, dice, playing cards, bullets in a gun, and even a book, can all be used as a catalyst. The catalyst is a trigger that must be activated for a spell to cast. It requires little focus from the caster and requires less though, though the variables of a spell still need to be considered. A caster can prepare up to 52 distinct arcane effects when they use a standard deck of playing cards, even more with a tarot deck, but the randomness tends to discourage others who want more control over their casts.
Sources
You cannot create something from nothing. A spell that builds kinetic energy is one thing, but what about the creation of a pillar of flame? What about a sphere of water or a bolt of lightning? These spells would require a source.
A source is a resource pool that the caster can use to harvest essential elements of a spell. A simple ball of fire won't merely appear. You need the fire first, which can be harvested, shaped, forced to grow larger or smaller. The spell won't work without the fire, which is why many practitioners capable of pyromancy carry a lighter or a battery with them. The batter even provides electrical current for the bolt of lightning described earlier.
Sources vary from caster to caster. It all depends on what a practitioner is capable of and what spells they prefer to use. Any item that can contain the needed resource is sufficient, and some are innovative. Those who can use water can pluck it front the moisture in the air. Some ca. use heat in their environment to spark flames or push the heat away to generate condensation or ice.
Effects of Static
Without The Static, casters would find it nearly impossible to cast their spells with any level of efficiency. The static offers many benefits to those who have it.- Detection: By focusing on the surrounding static, you can detect the arcane as well as metaphysical energy in your environment. This could be an enchanted weapon, another caster, or simply another living being.
- Homing:By detecting what is around you, you can focus on the static of a target, and the spells you cast will not only target the static you're focusing on, but will move if the target moves. If a spell is successfully cast, it will usually hit its target.
- Spacial Awareness: The Static reacts differently when focused on in different situations. Practitioners call this "resonance" and it circumvents the need to calculate things like distance when casting spells. The Static will resonate if a given spell has the range and power to hit a target or if a target is in a given area of effect.
- Linked Veins Those who practice Arcana Sanguis will notice that The Static must be used differently to use certain spells. They have to link veins, a process where they connect to the static in the blood of their target. Both the caster and their target's heart rate will synchronize, and in some cases, what happens to one will have an effect on the other.
- Going Dark:In Arcana Discordia, casters do something unique with The Static. Discordians can internalize the static, allowing them to harvest luck. Doing this also makes them undetectable to others who use the static. While internalizing the static, it disappears and enemies will not be able to focus on the discordian.
Fun fact: The Loophole of foci
If you take a club and use it as a focus, projecting the same spell of force to the club, it will hit hard without shattering your fist, but there is another way to bypass the potential damage, whether it's applied to your hand or to the club.
Some have found ways to take the equal and opposite force that acts on a focus, take 99% of it, and project it back onto the target of the spell. This causes a rapid diffusion over the near infinite set of exchanges in kinetic force that occurs in the moment of contact you make with your focus and the targeted surface.
When this is done, you're not hitting the target once. You're hitting them countless times during the moment of contact, and your focus will experience nothing at all. Not only is this brutal, it's alarmingly effective, and a sign of an accomplished practitioner.
The Arcane Manifestations
By focusing on your own static, you accomplish two things: you learn how harness and control the static, allowing you to cast a spell in different ways, and you learn the first Arcane Manifestation: The Manifestation of Self
The manifestations are a guide used to standardize, categorize, and format spells. Each manifestation is a method of projecting the static to a target in a specific way to achieve different results. What is described above represents the manifestation of self, used to cast a spell on oneself as opposed to an external target.
The first use of manifestations dates back to the time of true magic, long before the prestige came about. It functions in the same way, leading many to believe the static is a relic of this bygone era that remained unchanged when true magic was lost to the world. The manifestations are listed below, each with its own methods of use and restrictions.
the Manifestation of Self
The manifestation of self, often referred to as manipulation or control, is the first thing anyone learns about the arcane. The concept of this manifestation is to learn how to channel The Static internally and use it to affect the self. This usually involves applying benefits or resistances as well as increasing one's own ability to do any combination of tasks.
by Randy Jacob
by John Moore
The Manifestation of Shields
The Manifestation of Shields is the subsequent manifestation learned after the manifestation of self. The practitioner can now learn one of the most important things they will ever learn: defense. The manifestation of Shields shows how to project The Static into a shield, either surrounding the outline of the caster or by shaping it to form a barrier separate from the body. They then learn to construct barriers and shields around allies or around a larger area.
The Manifestation of Hands
Once a student has mastered shields, the next process of learning will be the manifestation of hands, often referred to as a manifestation of touch. This is the first manifestation that seeks to teach students how to apply effects in an offensive form. The manifestation is meant to teach how to affect things through touching them, hence the name.
by JR Korpa
The Manifestation of form
The manifestation of form is often called the manifestation of shapes, since it marks the first time a caster can produce a form, as well as shape and manipulate that form. This manifestation is critical in summoning, as it would not be possible to summon anything without it. Mages learn how to shape and form the energy they channel externally. They learn how to harvest from a source, manipulate the harvested resource and how to shape it into a spell.
The Manifestation of Walls
The manifestation of walls has always been used as a tool for strengthening practitioners, increasing their endurance as considerable amounts of energy are needed to fully cast a spell. The spells taught are usually focused on creating basic stationary structures. Walls are the most common, hence the name, but domes, pits and many more are included. This is like the manifestation of shields, though protection isn't the goal. The focus is stability and proper structure.
by Drew Beamer
The Manifestation of Spheres
The manifestation of spheres is focused on shaping a spell into a sphere or spike and hurling it at a target. The practitioner is taught how to focus on the desired target, through The Static and how to project The Static, the main reason spells seem to follow a target as they move.
The Manifestation of Cones
The manifestation of cones, often called channeling, is a means of casting a spell that targets opponents who are closer but not close enough to touch. A channeled spell usually involves the focusing of Static on an area of effect as opposed to a target. The spell is shaped, and then projected in a 15 to 25 ft long cone from the spell's point of origin. The cone expands and spreads horizontally the further it is projected. The density of the effect, however, is diminished further the target is in the cone.
The Manifestation of Cubes
The manifestation of cubes teaches mages how to target an area with the static at a larger distance, usually in what visually can resemble a cube. It involves targeting an area with The Static, and then casting the spell, creating an arcane effect in that area.
The Manifestation of Storms
The manifestation of storms is the hardest to master, but by far the most effective. To cast it, one targets a wide area with Static and putting everything they have into the spell. It can be exhausting, but the result is a mass of arcane effects that prime, charge, and trigger one another repeatedly until the spell wears out. Put simply, if you take all the spells you know in a genre, a storm casts many of those spells simultaneously over a given area.
The Manifestation of Pillars
The manifestation of pillars is a manifestation that deals with creating resource pools to harvest from as well as defensive structures that can damage those near the pillar that forms. The concept is essentially a combination of the manifestation of walls and manifestation of storms. The effects are more controlled, and can be controlled by the caster.
The manifestation of auras
The manifestation of auras is a concept that focuses on giving The Static its own set of arcane effects that can be radiated from the caster or an area the caster targets. Auras come in two forms:
- External Auras: spells that allow one to radiate magical energy into their environment, either from themselves, another, or from a fixed point. This allows one to assist allies and attack foes in a more passive way while they focus on other spells.
- Internal Auras: which use the static passively, casting it like a blanket over the caster's environment to reveal what may be hidden, including secret rooms (where the manifestation originated), emotions in others, and even to track a quarry.
by Ana Flavia
The Manifestation of Voice
The manifestation of voice is a concept that features the caster's voice as the carrier of arcane effects. The manifestation is rarely used on its own, and gets itself coupled with other manifestations more often than not. This is done by adding an incantation to a spell, which for some practitioners of The Prestige, adds to the spell's effect. Some practitioners are capable of learning Arcana Vox, the only genre that uses a single manifestation. Arcana Vox uses the manifestation of voice and only voice, utilizing incantations alone to produce arcane effects, which forgoes using Static.
The Manifestation of Traps
The manifestation of traps came around shortly after it was discovered that Alchemy and Enchantment can be used by anyone, even if they have yet to take the rite. This led to in depth study of what makes these genres tick. It was discovered if a sigil, rune, or even a complex set of formulas can be committed to memory with perfect accuracy, a caster can project the image onto a single space and create a form of "temporary enchantment" that functions the same way as the original enchantment would. Further study led to creating a series of highly efficient traps that are designed to be triggered by various conditions with equally varied results. The practitioner can alter that perfect image, swap pieces of the formula with pieces of another, and create a more suitable trap for a given situation.
by Phil Hearing
Really a great article! I really love this magic system :D Things that I particularly like are:
Thanks so much! I'll fix that typo! I'll definitely clarify the loopholes. In this case, the kinetic energy is built up, as if the magical energy is converted into kinetic energy. The easiest way is by creating this force and isolating into the smallest surface area possible. An elephant stepping on your foot hurts much less than a woman in stilettos, for example. This build up makes one able to hit harder than normally possible. It hits the wall, but the equal and opposing force is the main issue. The club is made more durable through magic, but the key is that not diffuses that energy, and spares the wielders hand. The energy is absorbed entirely by the club. I hope I got that right and it helps XD thanks so much!
Ah I think that explanation did help me see it, thanks :D