Magic
This is all VERY much a work in progress. Absolutely anything here is subject to change, and more may be added!
Magic, sometimes called conjuration or miracles, is considered by the religious as a blessing by the All God to a select few, called mystics. The majority of people in the world have no such control over the essences of the universe.
Magic itself seems to go by a mystic’s emotions, which can often lead to disaster, but with practice, better control can be achieved, and “accidents” become more rare.
It’s believed that mystics are born with their abilities, but most don’t show signs of their gift until they’re a child or teenager. The younger they reveal their powers, the more powerful they’re to be. Some can have even have abysmally weak control, only revealed finally in early adulthood.
Mystics who show signs in infancy are likely to be extremely powerful, and are called godlings. They are at highest risk of causing harm to their guardians or themselves until they gain enough awareness to control their gift.
Godlings rarely remain in Brenen, as when word gets around about them, a mysterious group called the Fold inevitably show up to swoop in and take the person away to places unknown, but it’s likely to Eden: a continent supposedly full of god-like mystics and people of blessed bloodlines. This place is impossible to see into, much less set foot on. For whatever reason, the Edenians seem determined to deny the people of Brenen mystics of extreme power, but that’s not to say they’re always successful.
They are also said to whisk away godling necromancers, but it’s believed that necromancers aren’t allowed to set foot in Eden, so it’s assumed they are taken to be executed or to have their magic permanently sealed, lest they risk an exceedingly powerful necromancer causing chaos in the world.
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The Four Essences
“Essences” are the different types of energies that make up reality… and beyond. These forces are unseen to the average person, and even mystics must concentrate to witness their luminance. What one has influence over is what determines what type of mystic they are.
Life essence
The essence of all living things. It keeps a heart beating and flowers blooming, without it, there is only stillness and nothingness. Yet, while every person, and thus every mystic, has life essence, only some are able to actually manipulate it.
Elemental essence
Forces of change. Water, air, fire, and earth are a part of life and thus intertwined with it’s essence, yet this energy was put into it’s own category. Fire can even be connected to both life and death.
Death essence
The essence of death overtakes and transforms the life essence. While often taking the form of simple fatigue and rot, once it has made it’s ultimate claim, the life can only succumb, and perhaps await being recreated anew from death, in time. Considered an evil essence by many, yet, it remains apart of the workings of the universe. Sometimes referred to insultingly as “putrescence”.
Spirit essence AKA Quintessence
The mysterious essence of the soul and spacetime. This energy is one with everything in the universe, yet also exists as something entirely separate. It even connects to all other essences, so it’s believed by many to be the lifeblood of God itself.
An individual’s makeup of essence, made up of life, elements, and spirit (and in the case of necromancers, death), is referred to as an aura. At the center of it lies the soul spark. When a person is claimed by death, the soul seemingly vanishes to places unknown, making revival impossible.
Through scrying, the spirit essence is often tapped into to try and get hints about the past, present, and future, or perhaps messages from spirits or entities from beyond, but it’s most often used for telepathic communication, advanced magic rituals, and sealing or enhancing someone’s magic. No matter how powerful a mystic’s primary magic is, their level of control over the quintessence tends to vary.
Some believe that even magicless people can lightly tap into the spirit essence through scrying and seances since they also have a soul and aura, but simply have far more questionable results.
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Types of Mystics
Zoemancers (Life mystics)
Those of creation and renewal, with influence over all living things, and the most beloved mystics in the world. They can not only heal and cleanse living bodies (including their own), but can manipulate nature itself, causing it to grow and shift.
While generally known to be benign healers and magical gardeners, animancers have the potential to cause harm with their powers over the living body. So while they can mend flesh and cleanse blood, they can also can tear flesh open and cause blood vessels to burst, and more. Most life mystics stick to helping others and avoid such attacks as much as possible though, because they tend to mentally and physically feel the results of their brutality. In spite of this, a life mystic that’s still learning can cause serious, unexpected harm by accident.
Powerful life mystics even have the potential to control an entire living body, even moreso if they have a direct link to the victim on hand (like their blood or hair). However, it’s harder for a life mystic to control a living body compared to a death mystic controlling a corpse, because there’s a soul involved. This soul is attached to the life essence, creating resistance via a strong, etheric will. Nonetheless, it remains a possibility for them.
In spite of being mystics of life, even they are not known to be able to resurrect the dead. Though they themselves tend to live much longer than the average person, and some believe that godling life mystics could achieve immortality.
Aura color: Magenta
Psionics:
Both life and death mystics can sense when a person, animal, or even a plant is weak or dying, albeit for different reasons. Death mystics feel the death, life mystics feel the life essence diminished. Life mystics can also sense distruptions of the blood and flesh, so wounds and illness.
Life mystics may be associated with healing and nature, but they have a strong sensitivity to even the most subtle shifts in the life around them, picking up even on the emotions of individuals or the sudden activity of a small, nearby animal, or worst of all, feeling the pain of others.
Side effects:
Due to their heightened sensitivity, life mystics can be extra sensitive to touch, and their mental state switches between complete bliss and absolute torment on a dime from the mixed up feelings and sensations they’re forced to endure. While death mystics are known to deal with numbness of the body and mind, life mystics deal with the opposite, and can easily suffer a breakdown due to the constant sensory overload.
Even the potential bliss they can feel from their powers can be too much for them, sending them into a sort of mania, or a euphoric stupor that’s hard to shake them from. Training to focus on themselves or certain things is essential to keep their sanity and avoid hurting others.
Necromancers (Death mystics)
Those of death and destruction. They have influence not only over the dead, but they can use their magic to corrupt the energy of the living, and bring decay to organic matter, such as flesh or plantlife. Usually, they cannot go beyond bringing rot to anything outside of the organic (living or dead), but some believe a powerful godling necromancer could bring destruction and corrosion to even the inanimate and the elements, such as stone and metal, or perhaps even turn the air into a strangling miasma or make water stagnated and toxic.
Necromancers are the most rare type of mystic for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, many who discover they have power over death simply choose not to put it into practice, rather than let the magic stain their eyes chartreuse green and mark them for scrutiny forever. These are usually necromancers with limited death essence attached to them, so it’s easier for them not to tap into. Some decide to pursue it anyway, if they don’t care what the public thinks and are interested enough in a career as a mortician, taxidermist, or butcher. For more powerful necromancers, however, simply not using their powers is easier said than done, as is true for any mystic.
Some speculate they are in fact life mystics that were somehow tainted by death at birth, for the destructive essence clings to their auras, but somehow does not claim them. A person born with too much death essence and no balance of life control…simply die. A stillborn, or at least a person doomed to an early death.
Their life essence keeps the death at bay, and with correct training, the death just remains another part of them, but a necromancer dying due to poor control or careless practice has happened many times, and just adds to the reasons for their sparse numbers in the world.
Necromancers can only exist with some balance of both life and death, and so they have limited, tainted control over life essence. This limited control can allow them to “pull” at life energy, and it gives them the potential to heal themselves, though these tasks take much more effort than simple corruption of life does. Healing others is also too dangerous for them, as even if they were to succeed in closing a wound, it would likely reopen and become infected, or worse, a while later. Their own aura is already tainted with death, so such a backfire doesn’t happen when healing their own bodies.
Aura color: Chartreuse green
Psionics:
Necromancers can sense dead people or animals so long as they’re relatively near, and can even tell whether it was a violent or natural death. They can also feel when someone is in moribund; the dying state, the point of no return, or if someone is so weak that they’re edging dangerously close to the moribund state (Devere sensed this about Knell in chapter 1). They can also feel when a part of nature, like grass or a tree, is blighted or slowly dying, though the feeling they get from that is far more subtle than a person or animal’s death would be and may require more focus.
Side effects:
The effects of practicing death magic can be devastating for the practitioner, and of course, potentially deadly. The more powerful they are, the more they are forced to deal with, especially until they learn some control over their magic. They are physically not very strong, don’t handle illness well, and they suffer from abnormal skin conditions like blisters and boils all over their body (especially when they reach puberty). Their bodies seem to forever remain between thin and outright skeletal, no matter how much they eat, so eating a decent amount is vital for them to remain healthy.
Necromancers also deal with bodily numbness, which may prove advantageous against pain in battle, but can be quite unnerving for the individual. This numbness affects the mind as well, going so far as to impair empathy and reasoning.
Seizures are also very common, especially for amateurs as their physical forms suffer the consequences of the two states of being battling against each other, leading to disruptions in the brain and body. They range in severity from brief stupors or spasms, to full body tremors and catalepsy.
Hypersomnia can also occur. Necromancers can literally sleep like the dead, and poorly controlled magic use can lead them to have coma-like sleeps that last for some time. Getting enough sleep is also important for them to avoid recurrence of debilitating exhaustion or the other side effects.
Since death essence seems to have such dangerous effects on the brain and nervous system, it’s not unheard of for necromancers to end up catatonic, or physically or mentally disabled, temporarily or permanently, if their power is not properly controlled.
More powerful necromancers, when using their magic nonstop, are said to become akin to undead themselves, even showing signs of decomposition on their bodies, as if they themselves are dead. Their heart must always keep beating, keeping them tethered to life, but it can be allowed to slow to an absolute crawl. This state has advantages such as making them impervious to pain and giving them the chance to close up wounds easier while their body is akin to corpse, and they can always eventually return their former, fully living state… hopefully. Even if they succeed, the shift back is a painful shock.
Elementalists
Mystics that can control the elements of air, fire, water, and earth. The most common type of mystic, and the ones with the most varied powers.
While elementalists can often control at least two types of elements, life and death mystics don’t seem able to go beyond their base essences (though necromancers are a partial exception with their ties to life, see above). Interestingly, growth and manipulation of nature is for the wielders of the life essence, so earth elementalists mainly control rocks and minerals, as well as seismic activity.
While elementalists are born with a strong affinity for one particular element, they all seem to have the potential to learn to wield at least one other, albeit with less strong control. While the second element can be anything, most of the time it seems to correspond with their main affinity. The most common combos are fire + earth and water + air. Though depending on the individual’s ability to control a second element, or perhaps just by personal choice, some may simply stick to one element. Those who stick to one are more likely to advance that element. For example, a water mystic may learn to create ice, and a fire mystic may learn to make their fire even hotter, creating explosions or blowtorch-like flames.
The four types of elementalists…
Aeromancers (Air mystics)
Ride the wind! Air mystics can send you flying, send themselves flying, or they can even crush someone with extreme air pressure. Also, if allowed to get up close and personal, they could pull the air from your lungs.
They have influence over weather as well, and can conjure up something like a tornado in a desperate situation.
Aura color: Light purple
Psionics:
Can sense a change in atmosphere and potential shifts in the wind. They are known to go running down the street screaming about incoming tornadoes or hurricanes (just in case they can’t do much to stop it themselves).
Side effects:
Air mystics probably deal with the least amount of side effects, but nonethless they’re known to be…in a rush. They can be hyperactive and fidgety, which in excess can lead to lightheadedness. Being excessively dried out is also common, which can be uncomfortable or even dangerous if they need to sweat.
Probably their most dangerous potential side effect is accidentally pulling the air from their own lungs, or poisoning themselves with too much oxygen.
Geomancers (Earth mystics)
While life mystics are the ones who grow and influence living organic material, earth mystics are the ones able to control and shift the rocks and minerals found in the planet. Earth mystics can cause small earthquakes and send boulders flying at you, but they are also most fond of warping things like metal to suit their needs. For example, they can shift the size of protective armor or shields, make blades fly or change in length, or even tweak the direction of a flying arrow or bullet.
Aura color: Amber
Psionics:
Can sense changes in the earth and plates beneath them, as well as impending rockfalls. They can also be especially good trackers since they can sense recent disruptions and abnormalities in the soil or rocks on the ground.
Side effects:
Earth mystics can be as rigid as the rocks they control…mentally and physically. They sometimes deal with joint pain and their muscles stiffening up to debilitating degrees. Headaches that range in severity are also common, as is a shift in mood to hard and cold as stone after excessive magic use.
Pyromancers (Fire mystics)
Walking infernos. While they can provide useful services like creating warmth during cold days and providing enchanted potions for rapidly heating up a bath, many still fear their destructive power enough to view them in the same light as necromancers.
A heat clings to them at all times, allowing them to conjure high temperatures and fire seemingly from nothing. An expert fire mystic can even become so one with their fire that they don’t receive a single burn, even as it surrounds them or touches their skin.
Aura color: Orange/red (basically a flame color)
Psionics:
Fire mystics can sense a nearby potential fire, spreading fire, or scorched land, as well as recent or impending shifts in temperature. They can also sense others’ heat, both physically (like if they’re sick and have a high temperature) and emotionally (they can sense another’s anger or…firey passions).
Side effects:
Fire mystics are rarely cold and would be content to live in an arctic environment. They generally range from warm to outright burning up on a bad day, and must keep regularly hydrated as a result, especially if they’re using their magic quite a bit. They risk potential heat exhaustion or heatstroke at almost all times, and being too hot for too long can also cause mental consequences like mood swings and even delirium.
Accidentally burning themselves or others is not uncommon, especially if they’re still learning or not keeping their emotions in check. Even spontaneous combustion, with their own body or someone else’s, is a possibility for a fire mystic that’s not properly controlling the heat that follows them.
Hydromancers (Water mystics)
Need to hose down some people? Call your local water mystic. The opposite of fire mystics in that a cool and saturated atmosphere is at their bidding. Magicless people tend to appreciate them since they can provide ways to cool people off during heatwaves and can even conjure water vapor in the air, leading to fog or rain, which makes them handy during a drought. Expert water mystics can even cool the air to freezing temperatures to create ice.
Aura color: Caribbean blue
Psionics:
Like air mystics, they can sense changes in weather, but they’re also walking dowsing rods in that they can easily pinpoint water beneath the ground. If they’re near an ocean or large river, they can also sense when a devastating wave might be about to show itself.
Side effects:
A water mystic’s aura leaves them with persistently cool bodies, and so they usually feel just fine in warmer climates. However, they can easily drown in their own moisture, especially with careless magic use. They even have to watch overdrinking water themselves so they don’t make their condition worse.
They can fall ill from being chilled or wet, become overhydrated, suffer from hypothermia, and water can even fill up in their lungs for no obvious reason.
As for mental side effects, water mystics are known to deal with unexplained apathy (perhaps because they’re too chill XD) and brain fog. At their worst moments, they can become confused and disoriented due to brain swelling.
Combined Elements
Whether elementalists wield one element or two, they tend to work in groups since their powers compliment each other so well. For example, an air mystic, fire mystic, and water mystic could make a devastating storm, perhaps with the added bonus of fire tornadoes.
Godling Elementalists
While likely only in Eden, it’s possible that the most powerful godling elementalists would be able to control all of the elements, and thus have the ability to shift their environment to heaven or hell on earth at a whim.
Animancers (Spirit mystics)
A type of mystic… that may not exist.
While there are spirit godlings in mythology, it’s unknown whether there are any mystics that have solely spirit power currently in existence, but if there are, they are likely within Eden. The seers of myth are said to have been able to see the past, present, future, control time and gravity, and could even manipulate the soul and the fabric of reality itself. Their celestial reach may have been so great that they could communicate directly with God and his servants.
Aura color:
Stories tell of their eyes being iridescent white or black.
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Other Magic Notes
Rite: A magic spell or ritual to achieve a more specific effect. More advanced, elaborate rites may require conduits like circles (made of blood, salt, chalk, or other material), synergetic items, or an incantation or chant to further push intent.
Enchantment: To enhance an item, weapon, or a liquid (so a potion or salve) with magic to create a specific effect. Also known as “blessing” something. Potions and salves are extremely popular and used more than even a mystic’s direct intervention, and are often given away for very cheap or even for free. An enchantment’s potency does tend to fade over time, so obtaining something enchanted to store for a long period isn’t practical. Things like magic weaponry need to regularly re-enchanted.
Tome: A spell book. Can be a personal grimoire, or they can be an old treatise written by erudite mystics that sought to teach about wielding magic, as well as rites they knew of or discovered themselves. Such books are in circulation at libraries or mystic shops for any conjurer out to learn, but there are likely rare ones seen by few, kept by the Seminary of Miracles, the Fold, or in Eden itself.
Aevum: Mystics can focus with their glowing eyes to see the light that lies all around them, which is a menagerie of spirit, life, elemental, and death essence, and though it is intertwined with reality, it’s considered a realm all it’s own. They’re also able to see the aura that each individual has, as well as their white soul spark at the center of it. Magicless people tend to have auras that all look relatively similar, while mystics hold more colors and vibrancy. Depending on the observing mystic’s affinity, they can also notice certain things about a person by their aura.
Telepathy: Sending out thoughts through the aevum. A mystic can mentally “speak” to anyone this way, even magicless people and animals. However, magicless people can’t answer back, and animals can’t either until they go through a ritual to make them a familiar that allows them to “speak” back in their own way. Two mystics can hold entire conversations through telepathy, but it does require effort, so such conversations don’t generally last very long.
Voice: While speaking words isn’t necessary to conjure most things, they are common to achieve certain effects or for more complex rites (which are spells/rituals, see note above about rites). While there are rites written down in books to make things easier for mystics, it often doesn’t matter what is said, as long as the intent is clear. Words, or sounds, can also be used to enhance magic for a stronger result. A good scream can make for a more dramatic fireball or earthquake, and a song can even cause disruptions in another’s aura, weakening their magic and leaving them disoriented.
Emotions: A common saying among mystics is, “Magic follows the whims of your heart”, and this fact makes a mystic, especially a still-learning one, a walking powder keg on a bad day. Magic will often go out of control during a moment of extreme anxiety, anger, or worse, and they must either isolate themselves or quickly calm down, lest an accident occur. However, enhanced emotions can also be useful, if directed with proper focus. More happy and blissful emotions can also lead to more pleasant effects, like a life mystic giving everyone some happy feels (intentionally or not) or causing things around them to bloom.
Sealing: An enchanted object, like shackles, to keep another mystic’s magic from being used. This involves spirit magic. The spirit essence is one with all other essences, so sealing creates a disruption within the mystic’s very aura, making it impossible to wield their magic. There is also a ritual that is more permanent, denying them their magic forever. Only some templar mystics know how to perform this, and it’s only done to mystics who’ve repeatedly used their magic for criminal acts (presumably).
Enhancing: While a mystic’s power can be sealed, it can also be pushed in the opposite direction. A group of mystics can empower one another through the spirit essence, leading to extra powerful magic. This is why it’s common for mystics to form groups, called communions or coteries.
Familiars
Human mystics aren’t the only ones who can have ties to the essences. While lacking powers of their own, some animals feel a strange draw to certain mystics, meaning they have the potential to have their aura connected to said mystic through a simple bonding ritual, which turns them into their familiar.
Almost any animal or insect can be drawn to any type of mystic, though they often match up with the type of mystic they are (though not always). Reptiles and amphibians may be drawn to water mystics, more peaceful animals, like birds and deer, are drawn to life mystics, while scavengers and predators seem drawn to death and fire mystics.
Becoming a familiar enhances their entire being, making them more intelligent, and even giving them emotions and understanding that wasn’t possible for them before. Even insects can become enhanced.
Familiars understand their master’s words, and they themselves can “speak” back through telepathy, but they don’t talk in the traditional sense, and only seem to get across their messages with emphasized intent or feelings that their mystic picks up on as “answers”. Familiars can also communicate the same way with other mystics, making them popular for delivering messages.
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Magic crime & sealing
Not all people who conjure use their powers with moral consideration. Mystics using their powers to cause destruction, attack others, or commit crime is a relatively common occurrence.
The worst criminal threat in Brenen, especially to isolated communities, are raider groups full of multiple mystics. They have been known to take entire towns, often committing mass murder to do so. Even towns that make necessary preparations for magic raids don’t always succeed in fending off their attackers.
Firearms progressed quickly in this world because of the dire need for proper weapons against rogue mystics, but jails and prisons also have magic circles and restraints used to disrupt their powers. Some very small villages, however, may not have such luxuries.
Depending on the severity of their crime, mystics may have their ability to conjure blocked for a long time, or even forever, through an agonizing sealing ritual. This leaves them not only powerless but more mentally aloof, almost like they were drugged or lobotomized. Those permanently stripped of their power are called “the Fallen” or “Forsaken”. The absolute worst offenders face execution, but some believe having their aura altered in such a way is a far worse fate.