Notes on Diverse Magicka
by
Legatus Pax Sytan Fiac
Author's note:
This is a series dedicated to informing those with limited or non-extant abilities in arcana on the various forms of magic and their uses. This is not intended as an in depth study, nor does it go into all details. For many, the usage of leylines or nodes will never manifest, nor will the finesse to guide the blood magicka explicitly.
This discourse will cover the concepts of similarities and differences among the branches, and peel back some of the mysteries.
The first section will cover my specialties of hematurgy and necromancy.
The second will cover natural magicka.
The third will touch on the psionic talents.
The fourth will delve into the divine controversy.
The fifth will touch upon the delicate and complex question of void.
It is to be hoped that the interested student will find the more technical treatises on the above topics more readily accessible for this humble offering. Any errors or elisions in this work must be attributed to the difficulty of enumerating in plain language what becomes a nearly reflexive, intuitive impulse for the grand adept.
It is important to note that hematurgical works operate in the same fashions that mechanical and magical systems - thus, energy input has a related energy output. Such input creates a sympathy with the source and target, such as fire will make a pot of water hot and boil regardless of mechanical or magical input.
What can be controlled in this situation is intensity, or intention, and duration, or connection. It is these that hematurgy works upon. As with the fire, if your work is to melt the metal, your intention will require a hot fire and your connection will require it be fired for an appropriate length or time.
Because of the nature of the work, your emotional state will have a huge bearing on the working. Creating a resonance between objects or people will tend to increase the desire for closeness or sexual intimacy.
Performing a healing will tend to be similar, though will only last during the casting and between castee and caster, unlike resonance which will linger and affect an entire room.
Performing a detrimental casting, such as to weaken or injure, can have similar effects on the caster to the point of creating the same injury. This is, of course, dependent on emotional state and feeling towards the person; a target you have never met before will be unlikely to have any connection or resonance to you, where a hated enemy has a connection and resonance.
Once resonance is established, the pathways of power are built in both people, and it is just as easy to strike a caster by the means in which the working was done.
Thus, it is in the best interest of a hematurge to cast only on willing and trusted targets.
For these reasons, hematurgy is an unpopular path, as those desiring power create resonance in simply wishing to take it from others, and those wishing good deeds create resonance in wishing to help others.
This can be contrasted with a necromancer by the simple expedient that most castings are on the dead or undead, which can have no resonance not enforced upon it, and therefore the path of the necromantic arts is potentially safer, were the desire for power and destroying one's enemies not so popular.
Hematurgy is not a restricted path, per say, and is not regulated by any organization. This is in part due to the multitude of ways it can be expressed and taught, as well as the many uses it can be put to. The healers collegia, Mage corps, heavy arms specialists, and scout corps all have a use for it, keeping it from being effectively shoehorned as so many other focuses have been.
The majority of hermaturges are not naturally inclined towards the path, as intention and connection are heavy factors in a casting. As such, the strongest users tend to be empaths, and whatever segment of a society is taught to be more tuned with emotional states; in Teir'Dal societies before the Age of Sky this would be men, while Koada'Dal tend to train empathy out of both genders, and human cultures vary heavily depending on region, for examples.
The heavy arms corps tend to host the weakest users, both because empathy tends to be detrimental to them, as well as a focus on more physical means.
Scout corps tend to host strong users, as much of what their profession calls for is intuition and "reading" their targets - a form of empathy that is vital to their work.
Interestingly enough, typical Mage academies tend to not host many hematurges, opting instead to train them as necromancers. While both branches do respond to ritual forms of practice, the lethal competition, as stated prior, discourages the hematurge's empathic nature.
Healing collegia handle the hematurge in a separate way entirely - given a typical situation, there is plenty of pain and blood magic to work in a house of healing. However, in times of duress, a hematurge can make a similar injury to them self as their target bears to create empathy and extra energy for the casting. Unintended side effects can include creating a strong emotional resonance, either in caster to castee, or castee to power source.
In some situations, the caster might instead employ necrotic healing, such as in tending a corpse familiar. This is a crude form at best, and will tend to buy time for a true healer or provide a brief second wind in duress. The flesh will be weaker and prone to failing again if put to moderate use.
As stated previously, both necromancy and hematurgy respond to ritual forms. Use will lessen the need for overt ritual only in hematurgy, as the mind will hold the ritual and intention will move the power. Necromancy is then limited by comparison as it will require full ritual for a working, though implements are interchangeable for 'close enough'. However, most necromancers will not risk the trial and error to find like items or phrases.
Curiosity is discouraged by both competition and familiars that may turn on a master too weak to banish or fight it.
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