Attunement

Can you feel that? Is that the world turning?

Those who practice the arcane would never admit to it, but in the end, even they don't know what attunement really is. It is such an abstract concept Arcanists find it difficult to believe their lives of concrete facts and logic rely on it. What is attunement? Attunement is the process of "tuning" oneself to an external anchor. This can be an object, a person, a targeted area, or even some external force that exists either inside the physical reality, between it, or beyond it.

Attunement is a skill anyone can learn if they can understand it. The process involves an easily reached meditative state, Arcana Meditari for arcanists and Synchronize for bards, just to name a few.

This state allows the mind to settle, and once achieved, the practitioner can feel for momentary indications of what it is they are attuning to. Practitioners bind themselves to their environment, allowing them to manipulate it by changing the "frequency" or flow of metaphysical energies in their environment. They feel for what can be described as a pulse, or heartbeat in their environment. Every practitioner has his or her own way of perceiving it.

Purpose

Attunement is the only way to perform magic, regardless of how one does so. Bards , Druids, and mages alike use the skill. Even cultists and members of the clergy must attune before they can use the many miracles they have at their disposal. It is a fundamental rule of reality. To shape the universe, you must become one with it.

For our modern minds, imagine the practitioner as a radio receiver, and the source of their power is a frequency they must find to "receive the broadcast" and cast their spells. Druids take it a step further, closing themselves off to the metaphysical and listening only for the frequency of the natural and physical world they find themselves in.

Attunement is the only way Arcane power can be obtained. Even when using artifacts and legendary weapons that contain great power, one must attune to the objects to unlock that power. If not, weapons like our legendary Excalibur would be just another sword.

A matter of distinction

There are only two ways to properly utilize magic, causal and compelled magic. Causal magic is often referred to as Arcanism, and is defined by the fact that the user is actively using metaphysical energy as a medium to affect the world. Compelled magic is referred to as mediumship, and is defined by the caster being the medium through which the energies work through to affect the world. Both forms have their own advantages and disadvantages. Mediums often lack the agency that arcanists have over their power, but arcanists often have to exert excessive amounts of energy to cast a spell. On top of this a medium can find themselves in the prime position for extremely powerful outbursts of magic with little to no fatigue.

Mages may have to expend more energy, but they do not have to wait for the proper moment the cast catastrophic spells that can lay waste to entire battlefields. Furthermore, an arcanist can pick and choose what to attune too at any given point in time, whereas a medium only has access to what arcane energy is present in their current environment. In other words an arcanist can attune to the energies of death and speak with the dead directly, even picking which deceased person to speak to. A medium does not have this luxury and can only speak to the dead if the dead are present in their surrounding environment.

It costs more energy to do so, but being an arcanist can often be considered a more advantageous position. However, there have been many occasions where medium's have exhibited far more power with far less effort.

by Sergey-Lesiuk on Deviantart