Post by Pip Mystral on Jun 24, 2015 3:49:57 GMT -5
Magic.
It is the power that once destroyed our culture, our civilization, and our world.
It has the power to create, and to destroy. To preserve, and to change. It is a fact of life so powerful it cannot be unwritten or ignored, and it is also mutable, in such a constant state of chaos that it is nearly impossible to describe.
Magic is.
But what is it? What is this power that permeates our world, that poured out of the Gate at the beginning of this Era and rewrote the foundations of Temra? It is different things to different people. Some have a talent with it, that they can use to create and destroy and preserve and change, and others do not. Some people have a broad talent, capable of many things, while others' talents are specific, only common to one thing. Magic is varied, and appears in as many ways as there are mages.
Still, there are constants.
Magic is a thing that you are either born with the power to manipulate, or you are not. The talent for magic can manifest in two ways - at birth, or during adolescence, usually by the age of sixteen. Both are equally common. Those who have this talent are called 'mages', usually, though other names exist for them. 'Sorcerers', 'wizards', 'witches', 'warlocks'. Generally these words refer to the type of magic practiced by the mage.
Talents come in two broad categories - 'general' talents, who can use their magic to do a large number of different things, but must train diligently in order to do any one thing well, usually at the expense of the others, and 'specific' talents, those who come by a skill almost supernaturally quickly, but are only capable of doing one or two things at all. The traditional wizard, for example, is a general talent, though he usually specializes in some field of study. He can read the stars and the future, call gouts of fire, turn people into toads, create barriers, but he is not very efficient or strong or good at any of these things unless he has focused his talent on them. A wizard needs time to reach their full potential, as well - a young wizard can perform a variety of cantrips, perhaps, but the great spells will elude him for many years yet. They are also usually weaker as far as power goes than specific talents, requiring the aid of foci and other things to perfect their spells.
On the other hand, the elemental mage is feared for his mastery of one thing, but he is a specific talent. His element is the only magic he will ever be able to grasp, and while he is extremely good at what he does and with seemingly little effort, his lack of variety is telling... and the fact that once he masters his power, once he has hit his peak, most likely, that's it. Powers grow over time, for specific talents, but he will never have the versatility of the general talent.
Elemental talents are by far the most common of the specific talents - those whose powers are over fire or water or wind or earth or weather or ice - but others exist as well. Magic in Temra is vast and varied.
General talents are generally grouped by strength and by method. A witch, for example, is a person who uses nature and the inherent magic in plants and herbs to aid their spells, and usually they are only moderately powerful at best, while a wizard is someone who uses formulae, who studies magic as if it were a science and learns their powers from books. General talents may also specialize themselves in an effort to gain power, and can be referred to by the form of magic they study, such as a wizard who studies death being a necromancer, or someone who specializes in scrying being called a divinator.
It is the power that once destroyed our culture, our civilization, and our world.
It has the power to create, and to destroy. To preserve, and to change. It is a fact of life so powerful it cannot be unwritten or ignored, and it is also mutable, in such a constant state of chaos that it is nearly impossible to describe.
Magic is.
But what is it? What is this power that permeates our world, that poured out of the Gate at the beginning of this Era and rewrote the foundations of Temra? It is different things to different people. Some have a talent with it, that they can use to create and destroy and preserve and change, and others do not. Some people have a broad talent, capable of many things, while others' talents are specific, only common to one thing. Magic is varied, and appears in as many ways as there are mages.
Still, there are constants.
Magic is a thing that you are either born with the power to manipulate, or you are not. The talent for magic can manifest in two ways - at birth, or during adolescence, usually by the age of sixteen. Both are equally common. Those who have this talent are called 'mages', usually, though other names exist for them. 'Sorcerers', 'wizards', 'witches', 'warlocks'. Generally these words refer to the type of magic practiced by the mage.
Talents come in two broad categories - 'general' talents, who can use their magic to do a large number of different things, but must train diligently in order to do any one thing well, usually at the expense of the others, and 'specific' talents, those who come by a skill almost supernaturally quickly, but are only capable of doing one or two things at all. The traditional wizard, for example, is a general talent, though he usually specializes in some field of study. He can read the stars and the future, call gouts of fire, turn people into toads, create barriers, but he is not very efficient or strong or good at any of these things unless he has focused his talent on them. A wizard needs time to reach their full potential, as well - a young wizard can perform a variety of cantrips, perhaps, but the great spells will elude him for many years yet. They are also usually weaker as far as power goes than specific talents, requiring the aid of foci and other things to perfect their spells.
On the other hand, the elemental mage is feared for his mastery of one thing, but he is a specific talent. His element is the only magic he will ever be able to grasp, and while he is extremely good at what he does and with seemingly little effort, his lack of variety is telling... and the fact that once he masters his power, once he has hit his peak, most likely, that's it. Powers grow over time, for specific talents, but he will never have the versatility of the general talent.
Elemental talents are by far the most common of the specific talents - those whose powers are over fire or water or wind or earth or weather or ice - but others exist as well. Magic in Temra is vast and varied.
General talents are generally grouped by strength and by method. A witch, for example, is a person who uses nature and the inherent magic in plants and herbs to aid their spells, and usually they are only moderately powerful at best, while a wizard is someone who uses formulae, who studies magic as if it were a science and learns their powers from books. General talents may also specialize themselves in an effort to gain power, and can be referred to by the form of magic they study, such as a wizard who studies death being a necromancer, or someone who specializes in scrying being called a divinator.