Book Excerpt: The Tides of Change

Written by bananafire

The final page in this section on the stranger and less academic features of the magic you now study is on the Tides of Change, the world rending waves you no doubt have experienced one or two of. When one particular desire for change builds up for too long without being released as spirits, a tide of change can erupt after its inevitable release. These can vary in size from effecting a a hundred feat or so to sweeping across continents. These tides produce some change spread evenly across their entire area, and can range from leaving forests as charred wastelands, to turning a mountainside to iron. The large concentration of intelligent life found in settlements give something of a barrier against these waves, but smaller villages can often find themselves caught up in the storm. Everyone has heard tales of villages simply disappearing from the map after a particularly violent wave. No one knows how such buildups can happen without being released as spirits first, but everyone knows to be prepared for their effects. They are a particularly fascinating subject of research, and I would implore any aspiring mage to look into that field of study.

Note: This phenomenon is also known as a Wild Surge.