Magic: Overview

What Is Magic?

Magic is a catch-all term for the amorphous supernatural energy that flows throughout the Sea of Trees, thought to radiate outward from the Center and lowering in density until one reaches the Coastline. Throughout recorded history people of the Territories have sought to master the magic arts, but magic itself is the main obstacle preventing mass emigration to the Sea. Only a select population is capable of developing resistance to the debilitating effects of magic, and even fewer can actually wield and shape it. The rest risk potentially fatal exposure when crossing the boundary of the Coastline, developing a recognizable suite of symptoms collectively known as Magic Sickness.
Magic is difficult to quantify using the modern scientific approach: it can create, destroy, or alter matter; it can lighten or darken an environment, modify weather patterns, part rivers, and carve canyons into a landscape; it can draw knowledge from thin air and even transport whole entities or locations through time and space to a predetermined destination. The only limitation to what can be accomplished using magic is the capacity of a human frame to hold it, and the degree to which an individual has trained and developed their Spirit Vessels.

Storyteller's note: Magic in the Sea of Trees takes the place of Essence in Exalted and follows the same rules laid out in the corebook.

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Spirit Vessels

So named for their similarity to the cardiovascular systems of vertebrates, spirit vessels are metaphysical pathways which allow the respiration and concentration of magical energy. The former is instrumental in preventing tissue damage from the buildup of magic - as well as replenishing magic stores in the body - and the latter used to manipulate magic.

Like the cardiovascular system, spirit vessels can be trained for enhanced strength and endurance and have a multiplicative effect on more mundane pursuits: people gifted with magic can become (physically) stronger, learn faster, and live longer than those outside the Sea. While the average life expectancy of individuals in the Coast rivals that of modern Earth, despite pre-Industrial levels of technology, ambient magic is known to have harmful effects on human fertility, leading to universally depressed birth rates in the Coast.
All humans born in the Sea have a fully functional network of spirit vessels. It is rare for people from the Territories to have spirit vessels at all, and those who do must have them "awakened" whether through gradual exposure or an instantaneous dose of magical power. Initiates to the Coast must be vigilant about where they travel and for how long,
Research teams in Althea have determined that there is an upward limit on how much a person's spirit vessels can be developed. This attribute varies widely between individuals and seems to be randomly determined at birth.

Storyteller's note: By default, player characters are assumed to have no upper limit to their advancement. For grittier campaigns, storytellers may opt to enforce a limit to how many motes a character can spend per turn depending on their Essence score. For example, Essence 1 characters might only be able to spend 15 motes per turn; Essence 2 characters 30 motes per turn, etc.

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Magic Sickness

Anyone who exceeds their ability to resist the negative effects of magic suffers an escalating series of recognizable symptoms collectively referred to as Magic Sickness. Each culture has its own terminology and theories for why magic sickness occurs, but the observable symptoms and general progression have been thoroughly studied thanks to the constant influx of new immigrants to the Coast. Magic primarily affects the blood, soft tissues, and nervous system, with toxic concentrations resulting from either an absence of spirit vessels (i.e., the magic cannot be circulated so it pools within the body) or from exceeding the spirit vessels' circulatory capacity.

Early onset symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite. Continued exposure results in sharp deterioration of overall health with fatigue, weakness, redness of the skin, and shock all common symptoms that eventually result in death. Individuals displaying the above symptoms who are promptly moved to an area with lower concentrations of magic or no magic have a fair chance of surviving. Recovering from the experience can take weeks or months.

Long term exposure and rapid high-dosage exposure (for example, accidentally stepping into a Deep Zone) both result in guaranteed fatalities. In the case of the former, discoloration, blistering, and hemorrhaging of the skin precedes ataxia, convulsions, and rapid dehydration. The latter more extreme example generally results in immediate and non-survivable destruction of the body: records of early expeditions contain grisly accounts of travel companions suffering gory and surreal deaths, such as having all structures of their body (skin, muscle, blood vessels, organs, bones, etc.) ripped apart in an instant and suspended in midair as if put on display.

Storyteller's note: In Exalted Third Edition, Magic Sickness is a Virulence 5, Morbidity 5 Disease with a variable Interval determined by the storyteller. Player characters other than heroic mortals should be considered immune to its effects unless they cross the Threshold or enter a Deep Zone in which case the storyteller assigns an Interval with a minimum of three days.

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Wisps

Wisps are invisible, incorporeal figments; specters of concepts that exist in the Sea. Imagine someone having a thought, then strip away the human and the sentient mind responsible for its creation. What's remains is essentially a wisp: data that exists nowhere; connected to nothing; that cannot be measured, counted, or quantified. Ephemeral and without purpose on its own, if assembled with streams of other data and fed through the correct channels it may yet produce something worthwhile. Being nothing but data, wisps are naturally drawn toward things that generate data - like the human brain, for instance.

Wisps are the foundation of creation in the Sea of Trees, having intertwined with one another and met with magic in countless complex ways to form the array of lands, flora, and fauna that appears there. Though humans are not immediately conscious of the existence of wisps (how could they know or understand something which cannot be perceived?), they have found a way to harness their power using only their own naturally-occurring thoughts to create xinshen.

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Additional Info

Magic: Overview
Magic: Power Levels
Magic: Deep Zones
Magic: Spirits, Gods, and Deicite
Magic: Wisps, Demons, and Djinn