Magic

Magic, the mystical ability of creatures to change the world around them. Governed by the Goddess Meral, the system at the foundations of the world, set first by the Existance itself, far exeeded the expectations of its manager. It evelved over time, giving rise to various methods of using power both inside and outside onself. At the basis of all magical abilities is the world and the way it was made - the Weave, metaphorical representation of all things and interactions between them. It is important to state, that the Weave doesn't exist as an entity. It's the world and all in it, just called differently in the context of magic for convenience.

History and types

When a God uses their power to change the world, they are ordering the Weave to become, what they wish it to be. The authority, Divine Domain given to Gods by the Existance, makes all their orders within the Domain absolute. The Weave does not change, there are no distortions. Instead, it simply becomes something else, its new self, that satisfies their divine will. This is not magic, more so, it's like creating part of the world anew.

When a priest prays to a specific God for a spell, the God doesn't acually use their authority. It would be far too much for a mortal. The holy magic spell is a true piece of magic, that foces the Weave to change. As it is done by the God, it requires no effort on the part of the priest. That, however, would be quite unfair, so some sort of compensation is taken by the God. Usually, it's mana.

Mana is a form of energy given to mortals by Meral. It is the ability to change the Weave, to force it to obey. Mana is distributed by the Divine System to all living creatures through the Well. Its an integral part of the soul connected to the divine. Creatures that have a large amount of mana can use it in a variety of ways.

The simplest is called inherent magic. Whether one can use it is completely determined by once race. It is commonly asociated with strong races, such as dragons, but actually all magical effects produced by creatures without inteligence can be attributed to inherent magic. It is the strongest out of all types of mortal magic in terms of the direct ability to change the Weave. However, it's scope is limited by the race, as one cannot do with it more, then one has defined in their body.

Inherent magic uses mana to establish something called a domain. It's a part of the Weave that belongs to the creature. For a dragon it may be the inside of its throat, but for a vampire, the domain can extend even to other creatures. The Weave inside a domain behaves similarly to how holy magic is done - the Weave shifts into a required form. It's quick and relatively easy. What's more, a creature possessing both inteligence and a significant amount of mana can use the same principle consciously. Establishing their domain manually, then forcing the Weave to follow their orders, a freer form of magic can be used. It is celled sorcery.

This is the way Meral wanted her magic to be used. She assisted creatures establishing their domains, created the system for handeling prayers and oversaw the Weave to make sure it won't get damaged, as it would damage the concept of the world itself. Ev put a special force, called the Natural Order, to return the Weave to normal oudside of someones domain. Yet she didn't expect the weak creatures with small amounts of mana to accomplish much by themselves.

What became arcane magic started as an attempt to manipulate the Weave outside ones own domain. Creating a small domain and in it pulling on the strings of the Weave, trying to guide it in the outer world. Yet the Natural Order quickly returned and all changes disappeared. Great sorcerers deemed it a futile endeavour. Those unable to perform the miracles of high power sorcery tried again and again. And after a long time, their efforts were rewarded. If magic was used to manifest a physical phenomenon, once the magic was disperced by the Natural Order, the phenomenon remained. It could be then further enhanced as something that already exists. Whet is more, the strongest found themselves unable to control thier vast amounts of mana in the way required for arcane magic. Becouse of that, it's discovery served as a sort of equilizer, but did not get developed for a long amount of time.

When Meral saw arcane magic, defying the Natural Order, her first instinct was to limit it, make it unusable. But after giving it some thougth she started to like the idea of it. Weak creatures, through hard work and long studies, capable of magic. Not as much as the strong ones of course, but it could be left alone and not cause any problems.

That however gave Meral an idea. She created a special system of glyphs to describe the workings of arcane magic and gave them power previously reserved for the living. The ability to interact with the Weave through the use of mana. That way Runic Enchantment was born. As to not disturb the current cultures the runes were made unlike any earthly writins system.

Finally, the Godsdoom came. And with it, divine power over Ferdlan was greatly diminished. Meral's support in the creation of domains was weakened, and in the same way, the Natural Order was too. Meral, assuming that inteligent creatures will find their way, shifted some of the support from sorcery to inherent magic. As she predicted, intelligent species quickly overcame their problems by using now empowered arcane magic. Even so, the overall strength of magical abilities in Ferdlan diminished considerably.

Primordial magic

Before the Divine Age, the world still had it's vast energy and potential for change, even when it wasn't called mana. Those powers manifested themselves as elemental storms and disasters. Only the lucky few could, through force of will alone, manipulate those cataclysmic forces to either quell them, or use them for oneself. Their number was incomparably smaller then today's spellcasters, but in raw power they rivaled current archmages. With the arrival of Gods and subsequent formalization of the rules of magic, primordial magic got replaced with far easier and safer sorcery. 

Current meta

Inherent magic

If one was lucky enough to be born as a magial species, they know very well what is their main strength, though it can induce tunnel vision and make one disregard options beside their inborn set of spells. For the rest, inherent magic is also something to familiarize oneselve with, as it's very common among various monsters and magical beasts. Understanding what abilities and limitations a species has will prove indispensable in a fight.

Sorcery

Sorcery still stands as the most free of all types, with only limitation being the user's power. Unfortunatly, this factor alone makes it extremely hard. Establishing one's domain, or in other words stealing the right to a part of the world, without any major help from Meral consumes Amounts of mana rearly available to an average magic user. Learning arcane magic is also a viable option for some of these strong enough to use sorcery, as possesing large stores of mana still helps majorly with casting arcane spells. That doesn't mean that sorcery is useless, far from that. It is still the surest way to create a barrier, as in ones domain, all attacks can be neutralized with will alone. That and an appropriate amount of mana of course. It's also far faster and can be activated at ant moment, not requiring any specific movement or materials.

The most common tactic for a sorcerer is to hide their abilities an normaly use arcane magic, but when an ocasion arises, quickly beat a suprised oponent with sorcery. This applies only to races with medium to high mana capacity, as lower ranked ones are incapable of using it at all and those with absurd amounts of mana, such as dragons or Vampire Lords, can easily bend reality to their whim. Additional benefit of sorcery is the perfect awareness of all phenomena happening inside one's domain. That however would be overwhelming to any mortal mind and instead it is simplified to something like a three dimensional view of the domain.

Holy magic

Priests are regarded as cheaters inside of the magical community and not without a reason. No magic is technically done by a priest. As such, the miracles of holy magic should not cost them anything. The Gods however dislike such an obvious imbalance and in exchange demand compensation. It's usually related to the amount of mana one posseses. This makes all creatures equal before the Gods. Additional factors may include the depth of faith, amount of knowlage about a god, rituals, or Blessings. Sometimes other ablities of the priest are also taken into account - one who knows how to woodwork, cook, as well as swortsmanship, will have smaller compensations - the Gods help those, who help themselves.

Holy magic is inflexible but powerful. It's used when other forms fail, mostly becouse of lack of understanding. When arcane magic requires its user to know exactly how body regeneration works, how to speed it up, all expressed in terms of the fluctuations of the Weave, the priest simply prays. It can also be a major drawback for some people - not knowing what their magic is doing and leaving all decisions to a God that may or may not do what you want.

Arcane magic

The most common type of magic, requiring extensive knowledge of the Natural Order to bypass it. Arcane magic users are divided into two ranks - magicians and wizards. The first one is merely a person who was taught to perform specific instructions in order to activate a spell. Wizards are those, whose life was dedicated to the study. They are capable of freely manipulating the laws of nature they understand (mostly) and are the ones creating spells for magicians to use. And while wizards are considerably more powerful, armies utilize platoons of magicians with predefined spells.

When one uses arcane magic they do not create a domain per se. Instead, they try to feel the Weave with their mana. It serves as an additional sense similar to sorcerers perception of their domain, but without any interpretation and posible to be decived. Then, arcane magic user tries to 'pull' on a particular thread they want to change. Rather the creating, it's a manipulation of things that already exist and may require preparations (material components).

A wizard may try to magnify the fire from a torch, change its shape and give it velocity. They may feel out another magic user's attack and try to change it's direction mid air. Changing or enchancing is far more mana efficient then creating or destroying. Still, sometimes nullification of phenomena can prove to be the best option. Simple levitation is just constant nullification of gravity. Same goes with air resistance.

Mana

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Naming conventions of magic users

Due to a large amount of different types of magic, as well as divisions within them, a special list of terms have been created. It is rarely adhered to in ordinary conversation, but professionals and official documents use it for greater clarity.

Mage - general term for magic users
Sorcerer - user of sorcery
Priest - a holy magic user

• Cleric - a priest associated with a large religious organisation, usually follows the gods of life and prosperity
• Druid - a priest associated with gods of nature
• Bard - a priest associated with gods of entertainment, stories and music; instead of typical prayer songs are often utilised

Arcanist - an arcane magic user

• Magician - arcanist that uses only prepared spells; isn't necessary weaker then a wizard in terms of magic power
• Wizard - arcanist capable of coming up with spells on the fly based on the circumstances they are in; isn't necessary strongerthen a magician in terms of magic power, but surpasses one in versatility and creativity

Types of mystical abilities, explained in dialogue

Divine Domain

Iga, demigoddess of fire: Make this burn!
Weave: Yes ma'am!
Iga, demigoddess of fire: Ok, now that thing, I want it encased in ice!
Weave: No ma'am!

Holy magic

Priest: Oh great Iga, please! Grant me thy flame!
Voicemail: Voicemail, you called the Goddess of fire, Iga. Request: a flame. Weave, shift this part to Pattern 3.
Weave: Implementing.
Voicemail: Voicemail, Requesting compensation. Please wait, appropriate price will be collected automatically.

Inherent magic/Sorcery

Dragon: Weave around, listen to me!
Weave: Aaaa, ok, please don't break me.
Dragon: Now, this burns!
Weave: No, it doesn't...
Dragon: THIS BURNS!
Weave: Ok, ok, flames, hot, it burns, ok!!!

Arcane magic

Mage: Ok, see this piece of sulfur? Stable, is't it? I poke it a little.
Weave: It starts decomposing.
Mage: Yeah, fire. You see this part? It's the size. Put power into it, as much a you can.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane