Magic

Magic comes in five basic types, divisible into diverse sub-classes.

Physiology

Those with the ability to work magic possess a secondary nervous system (mage net) that links the magic centers (shaukras) together and runs from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads.

While the mage-nets possess a remarkable ability to repair and replenish itself, they can be permanently severed or destroyed resulting in a condition called mage-blindness. Most mages, and others, who go mage-blind, tend to display several, but not all, symptoms that include: premature aging, depression, suicidal tendencies, withering that ends in madness and death, chronic severe pain, and a susceptibility to illness. There are believed to be other symptoms, but studies have not yet proven a direct connection.

Classifications

Five basic classifications of magic exist: enchantary, the magic of the gods and yuwenghau; majios, the general magic of mages; presybys-artus, or priest-craft, which is magic obtained through the fullness of faith in and favor of a deity; ritual magic where power is gained through rites, such as those of the sa'necari; and psi craft.

Enchantary

The magic of the gods and demi-gods (yuwenghau) is the strongest and longest lasting. For instance, Dynanna placed a shield spell over the Badree Nym village that will not allow anything evil through it. Even should she die in battle with the hellgods, the shield would remain.

Majios

It is based on affinities, concentrations of power in certain shaukras over others. It falls into seven basic types: earth, fire, air, water, spirit, life, and death. Affinities can become highly specialized, such as a minor earth mage with just enough power and affinity to influence rope and vines. Affinities can be mixed, just like people with multiple talents, such as a highly talented writer with a minor gift for painting: a primarily earth affinity mage might have some small gifts in air or life.

A few basic sub-classes.

The menders. They have an extremely minor life gift that allows them to repair wounds and injuries by growing the severed flesh, bone, and so forth, back together.

The spell-breakers. They have a multitude of minor affinities and no major ones. Their specialties are removing curses lodged in someone's body from runed blades. However, their methods and talents are so crude that they leave a lot of permanently crippled survivors in their wake.

The spiritworkers. They see, speak to, and comfort ghosts. They can banish ghosts from haunted buildings, ruins, and other places. They also possess an attack capacity called "throwing their soul to the winds" in which they can rip the soul from undead and cast it onto the psychic winds blowing between the worlds.

Polymancers, also called pan-elementalists. The rarest of the rare, they have strong affinities in at least four of the seven classes and a few, such as Josiah Abelard and Isranon Dawnhand, have nearly all of them.

Presybys-Artus or Priest-Craft

The arts of the priests are related to their type of worship. The green-seers of Willodarus and Davera can sense impending natural disasters and send companies of freerangers to those areas ahead of it so that the impacted villages and towns have assistance. Some of the strongest priests have been able to Kiss-the-Winds, which would bring a primordial life form that served their gods to possess them and destroy their enemies, but the process is always fatal for the priest because the energies are too much to be contained.

Ritual Magic

A form of magic that does not require any mage talents to work. It is predicated upon the manipulation of known forces, such as demonic or angelic energies residing in a place, through patterns and sacrifices to lesser beings. Frequently, however, it is combined with the use of other magics by mages and priests. The best-known forms of this are among the sa'necari who transform themselves using the rites to steal the propensities of the undead.

Psi-Craft

Arguably the most common form of magic. It ranges from the skills of the Readers, who can see into a body's genetic patterns, to minor levitation and prognostication.

Post Note

There are almost limitless possibilities for variation and combination of talents and abilities, just as there is for commonplace talents such as cooking, sewing, carpentry, and such.

GODWAR CENTRAL