The Laws of Magic, Part 1

The art of sorcery and magic has been present on Az since the dawn of sapience itself, heavily influencing all facets of the various cultures throughout the ages. From quelling maelstroms, to rapid healing of disease and sickness, the capabilities of magic may seem infinite to those unversed in its mechanics, but as any mage worth their keep will say, like any natural process one's ability to perform such acts requires a fuel to ignite the spark of power within, and no flame can burn indefinitely once the fuel is depleted.  

Soul-force, The Fuel of Magic

  This brings us to the aforementioned fuel which all beings must use in order to make magic: the supposed "Soul-force" as it came to be known as, though many other names exist for it. There is no agreed upon explanation for how this soul-force distributes itself amongst different life-forms, as it was discovered that all sapient beings contain at least traces of this power, and many animals also exhibit the possibility of having it, commonly in birds and other intelligent mammals. Hence the most reasoned deduction is that soul-force is more likely to arise as the intellect of the organism increases, backed up by the fact that creatures like insects and most fish have never been recorded utilizing any sort of reality bending abilities.   That being said, even though all humans, vull'jorg and giants express a certain quantity, the sheer disparity between the amount of soul-force gifted to certain individuals over others poses one of the greatest mysteries faced by researchers since the nature of this force was discovered. As magic requires fuel, it is imperative that a larger stockpile of soul-force be needed to perform acts of great change, such as telekinesis or manipulation of energy. Thus, those individuals who only contain traces of this power are utterly incapable of using their meager stock to have any meaningful impact on their surroundings, often not even being able to visibly enact any change whatsoever.  

Mage Classifications

  This observation has lead to a system of classification being used to group beings depending on the quantity of soul-force they express, of which there are five 'standard' classes, and two 'rare' classes. This system was first put forward by the conglomerate of mages who followed the mighty mage-scholar White-raven and his companions on the Isle of the Sages, and is sorted as follows; the standard classes are first headed by The Common-folk, those with mere traces of soul-force and no way to physically manifest magic, followed by The Dregs, those with small reserves who can at the very least generate sparks from their hands or ease minor pains and illness but not much else, often colloquially known as half-witches/sorcerers. This precedes the Sorcerers, people who at last can work more substantial acts of arcane might, with reasonable reservoirs of soul-force enabling the hurling of fireballs, illusions and in more advanced cases even sustained levitation. These pale in comparison to the power of the next class, The Exemplars, who are capable of all the previous sorceries but to far greater extents, calling down great firestorms and harnessing lightning. This leaves the final standard class, though their capabilities are anything but, The Divine-Eyed Mages. What helps distinguish these god-like figures from other mages aside from their immense pools of soul-force is the ever-present glow their eyes give off as a side effect of their over-flowing power, visible even to the common-folk.   At any one time, the entire sapient population of Az is roughly composed of 90% common-folk, of which maybe a further 8% is made up of Dregs during auspicious time-periods. This leaves the last 2 to 1%, mainly Sorcerers with less than 1% of the global population being considered Exemplars, and Divine-eyed mages being such a rare occurrence that all of Az can go for over a hundred years and not one could be born.   This leaves the two 'rare classes', named due to the fact that they are more theoretical in nature, with few examples in history of such individuals. The first is the more explicable, classed as Living Deities. Such beings are thought to have ascended past the capabilities of even Divine-eyed mages, with the power to alter reality on a macro-scale, changing the layout of countries and even able to untether their souls from their bodies completely without dying. Of all the candidates of Az's mages, Mado Yua is the only widely known being who could fit this classification, despite a few arguing against it as he derives a considerable quantity of soul-force from the collective worship he receives from his subjects.   The other rare class is a far more unconventional matter, with little evidence to suggest if it exists at all. Termed as 'Voided' or 'Void-souls', these theoretical individuals would have the opposite of a soul-force so to speak, instead having a void which dissipates any and all magic which comes into contact with it. As they would lack any ability to cast magic, Voided would have no super-human qualities which to speak, aside from the fact that they would be completely free from the influence of mages of all classes. The reasoning for such a classification to exist without any hard evidence is purely based on the existence of Void-steel, the magic-negating effect it induces prompting the idea of a possible Void-soul.  

Development of Mages

  Of course all this begs the question of whether or not an individual is stuck at the level of soul-force they are born with, the answer being a resounding no, as all beings exhibit the capability to increase their stock of soul-force. The real question rather, is what determines the growth of soul-force in an individual. Many theories point towards the concept of one's soul-force being akin to a muscle group, with regular practice and exertion being associated with a growth in the maximum quantity of magical reserves. However this phenomenon appears to vary wildly between cases, with some instances of mere Dregs amassing enough power to rival Exemplars in the span of a few years, though this is certainly not commonplace. Instead, the average rate of growth for most is quite slow, even for those born with high levels of soul-force.   As a final note for this section, how these conventions of soul-force are measured is through a medium only visible to those experienced in gazing into it, the Arcane Current. This is the residual flow of soul-force given off by all beings, which is largely invisible to those with a low soul-force, and is the main factor for occurrences such as the formation of manifestations or influencing events based on common cultural beliefs. As a person's soul-force increases, their displacement on the Arcane Current increases, with larger auras describing a larger soul-force, which is what mage-scholars use to gauge the class of another.   On the topic of how magic is performed and the effects it can induce, refer to The Laws of Magic, Part 2.