Overview of Magic

Learning Magic

Only individuals that are Manablooded can perform spells, though any individual can learn them as each is a logically understood process. Most magicians learn magic through direct tutelage and apprenticeships, though some cultures manage enough magicians to form small colleges or societies of like-minded spellcasters willing to share their knowledge. Some of the most gifted individuals can also teach themselves.

Performing Magic

Performing magic is a predominantly physical activity, with most magicians using a mixture of movements and quiet incantations to create magical effects. These movements are noticeable to an observer, but are a far cry from throwing hands in the air, dancing, and shouting arcane epithets.

Most magicians taught magic through formal education — particularly in modern times — are taught to always use a wand. Magicians taught this way can't use magic without one until they've learned. This is typically to ensure magicians are more easily tracked and disarmed. Otherwise, magicians often use items called Conduits to aid their magic — wands, staves, and sceptres are the most common, but almost any object so enchanted can work as a conduit for magic.

Some magicians learn to use spells without verbal or physical components. This is exceptionally difficult, but it is doable — even magicians taught to do this will prefer to use verbal or physical components when viable as a result.

Magicians in the World

Manabloodedness can occur in anyone, and the majority of magicians are those who lack the opportunity, interest, or ability to excel or study further. Civilian magicians make up specialty parts of most workforces, performing their comparatively common spells to bolster otherwise mundane work — and earning a greater stipend and payment as such.

Most magicians are only capable of performing spells from one or two disciplines, marking them as aspected magicians. Generalist magicians are far more uncommon — making up 1% or less of known spellcasters. Generalist magicians are highly sought after by most communities and societies either as subjects of magical study or simply as students of wider ranges of magic.

Resonance

Performing magic requires utilizing magical phenomena known as echoes and resonance. Spellcasters using magic regularly will quickly begin to perceive a type of feedback — should this grow too severe, using magic goes from safe, to prone to minor nuisance, all the way to dangerous or even fatal should it be left unchecked.

Magicians have developed 'Centring Rituals' that make the spellcaster's own mana match that in their environment. This takes approximately one hour to perform, and dramatically reduces their own resonance — in exchange for temporarily making themselves immensely more susceptible to it for up to eight to twelve hours. As such, most magicians only perform this ritual once before going to bed, a period when they know they will not likely use magic. Centring multiple times causes even worse effects for longer, so few magicians risk it.

Disciplines

Magic is divided into a collection of Disciplines, reflecting the large, fundamental forces and concepts that magic can influence, control, manipulate, or observe. These disciplines are closely tied to real-life phenomena, and it is across the categories of disciplines that most magicians find themselves limited, as the majority of manablooded individuals can only access one or two disciplines.