Magical Abilities

Intro

In addition to regular magic, there exist magical abilities that manifest independently. It is not necessary to possess a magical element to be born with a magical ability, and having a magical ability does not guarantee proficiency in regular magic.
Though some magical abilities are more uncommon than others, they are all quite rare.

It is possible to have more than one of these magical abilites, however, they are so rare, that having two would be absolutely legendary.

Snap

All those capable of one of these abilities have this capacity from birth. Some of them gain access immediately, such as changelings. Most of the others unlock their abilities during what is called a snap. A moment in their life when they either think they are going to die, or something else traumatic happens to them, and as a reflex, they use their ability for the first time.

Psychic Arts

There are two psychic arts, which are thought to stem from the same basic ability. This is because it is not uncommon to find both abilities in the same person. Still, not everyone with one of these abilities can learn the other.

Telepathy

Telepathy is the ability to communicate with the minds of others. It has three main types of spells, although they are not necessarily limited by these. These are Listening, Sharing, and Invasion.

Listening allows the caster to tune in to the thoughts of others from a distance, although this is an easy and weak spell. If you're not careful, you might be noticed, and it is also not uncommon to receive false information from this method.

Sharing, on the other hand, allows you to share your thoughts with others and even set up mental links between multiple people over longer distances for easy communication. This requires great mana maintenance, though. Some telepaths use it to confuse and even incapacitate enemies by transmitting loud and high-pitched noises into their minds, but this is not a simple feat.

Invasion is the most advanced method of the three. It is the ability to enter another person's mind, which is a very difficult and dangerous method. It can easily backfire if the invaded person has a strong enough will or if the invader's ability proves to be lacking. This allows the invader to search for memories and even insert them. It can also be used to temporarily mind control an enemy, although this is extremely difficult.
Failed invasion attempts can turn on the telepath instead, or leave the target with a fractured or damaged mind.

Telekinesis

Telekinesis is simply the ability to move matter with your mind. It should, however, be noted that the heavier the object, the more of a strain this will put on your mind, and it is possible to hurt yourself by accident if pushing too hard.
Overexertion can cause bruising, bursting blood vessels, bloody noses, and even a stroke or heart attack.
Experienced Telekinetics build up a resistance to the negative effects over time.

Shapeshifting

The shapeshifter is a rare sight because even if someone possesses this ability, it is unlikely they will tell you about it. The shapeshifting ability comes in many forms, and each of these forms is unique and mutually exclusive.

Clay Men: can change their physical appearance slightly, to appear as a different person, it is still hard to appear as a specific already existing person tho, since these shapeshifters are still limited by their own body type, and they can only alter their skin and bone structure so much before it exhausts them, they will also always revert back to their original form after a while.

Skinsmiths: Have the ability to transform into an animal. Usually, these types of shapeshifters only have one or two animal forms that they can take whenever they want for as long as they want. These animal forms will just be another version of them, and if they can turn into a dog, for example, they will turn into the same dog each time, with the same markings and the same coat.
These forms are obtained later in life, and often relate to animals that the skinsmith was particularly close to, adopting a form simular to theirs to be closer to them.

Changelings: They inherit their ability from one or both of their parents. They will only have one alternate form, and it will be an animal of the same type as their parents about 75% of the time. In the other 25% of births, the changeling will be born with the form of a different animal, often an unrelated one. Sadly, these types of shapeshifter communities are quite elitist and often abandon children who are born with the wrong form.

Divination

The ability to see the past, present, and future. People with this ability are more commonly called seers.
Their abilities may manifest in one or multiple of the three possible ways to see.

Prophecy: These are completely involuntary. A person will enter a trance and speak about the future. These prophecies are often true, but misleading, being easily misinterpreted, or containing partial truths.

Vision: A person, either in a trance, a regular daydream, in a shadow, or while staring into the flames, might see a glimpse of the past, present, or future. These types of visions may be long or short, but they are mostly accurate.

Dream: During their slumber, a seer might receive a most lucid dream, almost always from the perspective of another person. This dream might be of events that have already happened. In this case, the dream might shed light on previously ambiguous knowledge of said events. But they can also be of current events, unfolding while the seer is asleep. These types of dreams often serve to reveal secretive events, allowing the subjects to be found, aided, or punished, depending on what it was about.

When dreaming of the future, it is possible to dream from your perspective, and a skilled seer will learn to tell the difference.
With all information from the future, it is important to remember that the future is not predetermined, and therefore visions of the things yet to come are rarely completely accurate and are often up for interpretation, and it is important not to act rashly with the revelation of dire visions.

Listening

The ability to listen to the world, this is an ability that allows for communication with the animals, and even the tree. Usually, a listener will only be able to speak to one of those two, though.

Animal Speech: The ability to get animals to scout areas for you is most useful, but it isn't as simple as one might think, as animals do not speak the same as us, they communicate in feelings, emotions and instincts, they do not know words or language the way we do, Listeners who can speak to animals, learn this craft, and master it.
They form bonds with animals, teaching them how to explore areas for them and even fight.

Tree Whispering: Talking to the trees is a completely different art because Trees don't talk, not to you anyway. They speak to each other, and they are exceptional gossipers. They will tell each other of all that happens to them, and this information will spread through the forest with the wind. Trees especially enjoy talking about rare sights, such as humans doing sneaky things, or orcs robbing elves. A listener can simply eavesdrop on these conversations, not that the trees mind, they find it quite amusing.
Listeners can ask the trees for tales of past events, but this requires an intimate connection with the particular tree, as they often don't care to speak to people.

The Sixth Sense

Users of this ability are called sniffers, because have ability to sense death. And they can do so in several ways.

Death Sense: To them, death emits a foul stench that gets worse as you get closer to it. It is so strong that it can be detected from many kilometres away.
It originates from all places where people have died. They can also smell the deaths of animals, and even plants, but these have a distinctly different, and much less awful scent.
Over time, these scents weaken, but it takes a while for them to truly disappear.

Approaching Death: Experienced sniffers can even smell imminent death, or those who are about to die. It has a smell much more faint, and difficult to track than deaths that have already happened, making it a tricky skill to master.

Killer Sense: They can also smell death on a person, specifically, how many people a person has killed, approximately. or how recent it was.
This is one of their most useful abilities. All of them have this skill, but differentiating between the number of people and time passed takes a lot of experience, perhaps even more so than approaching death, at least to do it accurately. Still, the ability to sense if someone is a killer at all has its uses.

Occupation

Sniffers are often employed in law enforcement, as their abilities are rather useful in this field. They often work with non-lethal protectors, as having killers around them sometimes throws off their senses.

The Sight

The Ability to look into the spectral world, allowing them to see ghosts, wraiths, and even reapers, as well as anything else that might be lurking around in there.
The ability to see what others can't is looked on with suspicion, and this ability is ostracized even more than the others for this reason.

Because beings in the spectral realm can always observe the physical one, these people are able to interact with ghosts and such, these interactions are limited only by the consciousness of the ghost, which are usually lacking in awareness, making conversations with them repetitive and often quite dull.
Wraiths are another matter entirely, as they are often very angry, and they yell and scream a lot, which can frighten individuals who do not understand their abilities, causing them to think they have gone mad, and it is still unsettling to those who are aware of what they are looking at.