Selections from: Notes on Diverse Magicka - Kenetica

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.

---

Natural magicka can be broken down into the two base components that are very much related to blood magicka. In the previous section we gave our attention to the so-called pure Elementalist, and in this we shall discuss the most common expression of the kenetic type: conjuration.

Conjuration is, as previously stated and all other writings on the subject indicate, related to necromancy most closely. It relies on ritual and animation to direct and guide an action.

However, conjuration itself is a misnomer for most. It captures everything from making giant golems to the journeyman kineticist working the shuttles on industrial looms. All conjurors gain the skill necessary to do the smallest of the works - simple animation, and only those, again, who can work the leylines and nodes can accomplish the larger scale works.

It is worth noting: where the elementalist by definition must be able to See and Feel the magic they work with (although they may not be interested or capable of putting that experience to formal analysis) the keneticist has no such limitation and in fact, they are unlikely to miss the ability at all. They work directly upon existing manifestations of both pure and mixed elements, and with similarly physical creatures thereof.

These two extremes show how differently the paths branch - one is most significantly military, and the other most significantly civil. No matter the background or civilisation lived in, there will always be pressure to find what is the most that can be done in the full exploitation of any skill. The kenetic collegia have often been referred to as the Wellspring of Industry, and that designation is as pragmatic as it is poetic.

This does lead to some error in understanding the skill base, as a conjuror that can make a golem could run more than half of a city’s industrial equipment alone, and unaided. Similarly, the current industrial kineticist could be utilized for launching small, numerous, destructive projectiles with a corps or archers. The fact that Industry and the various militaries do not organize in that manner is as much a factor of custom as of suspicion and greed.

Those conjuror-kenetics who can subjugate a Greater magical creature - or animate a vast mass with artificial sentience under the direction of the caster's will - rightly terrify both the lords and dependants of Industry. Accordingly, the various collegia are united in ensuring that those with such potential are herded to the battlefields along with the Master and Adept class elementalists.

It is more comfortable for the untrained masses to honor their fallen Arcanists as Great Heros, than to learn to school their fear of such power moving too closely among them. What mundane mortal could gainsay the demands of such a person, should it occur to them that they are, in fact, in a position to make those demands? No reader of this work can be unaware of the tyranny that may arise among the mundane, and it may perhaps too easily be imagined what terrors might manifest under a mageborn regime.

I digress.

Because of the difference in power and the personal energies being so varied, it is not feasible for even a large group of kineticists to summon a golem for longer than a few minutes. As soon as one is out of their personal reserve, the bit under their control would fail. Accordingly, the kenetica rarely work cooperatively, or upon any of the permanent magics.

The rare exception is the Grand Adept of the Kinetic Arts, who through intuitive or ritual harnessing of node-bound mana is capable of crafting immensely ingenious automata - many of which may continue to function long after the death of the caster. Properly tuned and maintained, these Permanent Kinetic Magics can be tended by a specially trained cadre of lesser kinetics even though they could never recreate them once destroyed.

There is not as much competition among conjurors as there is among necromancers, but among the Masters and Adepts there still tend to be intrigues. These skew towards matters of military, rather than magical interest, and therefore is of little relevance for the casual student.

There is not as much to say about the functional details of this line that has not been discussed and compared in other works. The only remaining crucial point is this: where a kineticist is unlikely to be capable of manipulating greater magical forces by Sight and Feel, the usual course of extensive memorization and precise ritual may be entirely circumvented if they have the luck, talent, or ruthlessness to acquire a True Familiar.

Not all magical, elemental-bound creatures have the capacity to serve as a True Familiar, though they may aid a mage's work by increasing their base affinity with that element merely through proximity. Those that do have the potential to become True Familiars, could well be classed as mages themselves. Through their alliance with - or control over - those creatures, a Kinetic may well amass and deploy such immense power that they can - and do - challenge the greatest of Grand Adepts.

The reader by now must be well able to imagine what consequence such association or exploitation this practice may have on the sanity and ethical capacities of both Mage and Familiar, and no doubt is aware that many of the great mage-battles of the past have involved at least one such pairing on any given side.

Therefore, we close this lecture early, and move to the next general concern, which has personal significance for even the most unMagickal of persons.

Selections from: Notes on Diverse Magicka - Elemental Arcana

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.

---

Whatever the degree, a Mage has a personal well to draw from in some finite means. The inclination of each Mage will determine how it can be used. For example, some incline towards creating fire through the manipulation of thermal energies, and others to the formation and direction of ice through the same means. Others develop towards what may be broadly defined as kineticism, which mechanisms have been of vital importance to the stability of Industry and numerous mechamagical developments.

Elemental magicka can be broken down into the two base components that are very much related to blood magicka. The first we shall discuss is considered by most academia to be “pure elementalism”, or working only the elements and not adding a layer of compulsion or animation.

As such, elemental mages tend to work like a hematurge, casting by intuition and intent rather than full ritual as they advance and age. Many of the same principles apply, especially the possibility for an elementalist to work some magics generally considered beyond their reach through cooperative or ritualistic forms. The biggest main difference, however, is incredibly stark: there are no Grand Adepts among Hematurges, howsoever much blood may be spilled for their art.

An elemental mage may not necessarily became as powerful in their art. Some are born with the predisposition towards working with leylines and nodes, as in the case of the previously discussed Master and Adept rank mages, and some are not. The issue cannot be forced without serious and usually deadly consequences: cooperative Workings which would touch one of the Greater Nodes must place one arcanist of Grand Adept potential - even if they are untrained - in the central working position, or the Node will consume the entirety of the circle that dared to attempt the harnessing. Similarly, a ritualized Working meant to mimic the praxis of a higher-level magus has an exponentially increasing chance to consume the working Mage as part of its power source as the demands of the Work also increase.

The so-called “weaker” elementalists tend to be called hedge wizards, though it would be folly to assume that someone working the lines and nodes would always represent a more formidable power, whatever the formal designation for them.

This main division causes interesting effects, as a hedge wizard is able to refine their arts gain a vast understanding of what they can and cannot do. Masters and adepts, for all they handle more power, tend more towards be a channeler of energies and act as a funnel. They tend to miss many of the finer details of spellcraft as so much is transpiring during a casting, and to direct such vast power toward anything requiring finesse invites disaster. It would be as well to chain a greater fire-drake to light a single candle. Additionally, there tends to be a higher cost to the castings they make and are too exhausted to immediately set themselves to examining how their spell worked and “felt”.

These classifications are vital to understand as the training either branch will get is vastly different from the other, and again vastly different within their division to further narrow a particular specialty.
Not all people can do all things, and not all mages can cast all spells or work with all elements.

Regardless of form, elementalism can be broken down into intention and connection, and kineticism can be broken down into subjugation and animation. The first style tends to be elemental in nature, such as calling forth Fire or Water, or manipulating the properties of Wind, Wood, or Stone. That is not to say a personal affinity or talent for any one element precludes a kenetic's working upon them: it is more a question of whether the mage works with potential or actual manifestations of their chosen element.

The pure elementalist may seem to create physical manifestations of their magic from nothingness, but in practice they are manipulating the latent potential in a given medium, supplemented by what proverbially "raw" mana is available to them.

The kineticist frequently seems to work in a more accessible fashion, for example, by directing where existing mundane water should go to, and in what form. The reader may rest assured the matter is more complex and wonderful than it may first appear, and do well to remember that nothing whatever prevents the emergence of a Grand Adept among the kinetica.

Intention gives shape to the elemental spell. From a simple fireball to a complex ice wall, the elementalist guides the form of the casting, and again it can be done almost intuitively. Most mages undergo extensive training in the focus and refinement of their will, for a vague intention predictably creates a vague result, but it is entirely common - especially among the shorter-lived races - to encounter a particular innate talent for such focus which requires very little help to manifest exactly what the mage desires.

The major difference comes in connection. Rather than a sympathetic connection to a target, an elementalist relies on an innate understanding and connection with the element of the spell. This, of course, is the reason why pure elementalists are often surrounded by - and work with - creatures of elemental magical nature, even though the nature of their talents frequently preclude any possibility of actually ordering them to assist or carry a Working. The greater the connection, the more strongly the mage may channel, manifest, and manipulate that element.

From that point, the target will find harmony with the spell, or it will not. Elementalist training frequently focuses on internalizing the properties of every possible material relative to the element or elements which the student has the strongest talent for. For example: a fire spell used on water will find harmony if it is shaped to manifest in diverse mage-fed particles throughout the water, exciting and infusing the water with immense heat for an explosive result, even at a great distance from the fuel source. A fire spell which asks the water itself to burn, however, will pull immense power only to fizzle in disharmony as the spell seeks and fails to find sufficient potential Fire in the water itself.

Selections from: Notes on Diverse Magicka - Natural Arcana

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.

---

Natural magicka contains many similar properties depending on what things answer to who, and what the power source is. As with all branches, the first inclination is to use self as the power source - blood is not called for in natural magicka, and instead the accumulation of 'mana' serves.

The current thought on how this occurs is by a form of osmosis, at latent background levels deep into all things all the time, with areas around nodes having a higher concentration. The practiced mage can draw from loose, pooled, or flowing mana to greater or lesser degrees according to both talent and training, although the modulation and direction of this power must be drawn directly from the mage's own vital energy.

It may be helpful to think of these mages above the rank of master as drawing this mana as one would draw water from a spring-fed well. The size of one's bucket, and efficiency of one's winch and pulley will have a marked impact on the upwards limit of how much water may be harnessed, but the final arbiter of what is possible will always be dictated by the strength and endurance of the operator. Foci and ritual may be likened to manual pump systems, with all the implied exponential increases in throughput that suggests, even though the maximum harnessable vitality of the operator remains the same.

To stretch the metaphor slightly further, one can only begin to picture the sheer power represented by the rare grand adept by considering that they are a living embodiment of several things at once.

Like the mechamagical mana batteries which power an automatic hydro pump, their base vital capacity is at once far greater than our proverbial winch-and-pump operator, and like those batteries, may be refilled to some degree by the very act of their proper use. Like the well operator, they can draw from still pools, and like the diversion pumps, they can also draw off moving streams of mana and redirect them with minimal filtration. The grand adept also operates like the great reservoirs and their pressure turbines - as well as the reservoir itself - able to at once open the proverbial sluice-gates of natural and created mana reservoirs for direct use, and to contain and channel some amount of that power into forms that so-called lesser Adepts and Master-grade mages can then tap.

Unlike all of these devices, the grand Adept as a living creature is highly mobile, as they can adapt themselves and their physical environments at will, and are further able to "tune" the varied sources of mana, manipulating the very composition and alignment of these mana networks. The reach of a Grand Adept is finite, but the upper limit has never been finally determined, nor is it likely to be: like every other endeavor, the practice of Arcana builds on all that has come before, and thus climbs to ever more precipitous heights.

The reader may well ask how, with such power, a Grand Adept can ever be defeated. Unfathomable though it may seem from a mundane perspective, Grand Adepts do have variations of ability within and between themselves. Consider that the oceans are several orders of magnitude more vast and powerful than any inland sea, lake, or even pond, and one may begin to grasp the nature of the distinctions in this field of magicka - and also where the limitations and weaknesses of these rarified beings might begin.

As the Oceans are both beautiful and terrible, so it is with Grand Adepts. They are but mortal creatures, and many potential Grand Adepts are themselves destroyed by the raw power that they work upon and within. Isolating one from the network of mana sources is an enormous task, but entirely possible, and in the same way that a Grand Adept may tune the local network for their ease, it may also be made discordant and poisonous to them. The reader might do well to consider the extravagant loss of life, and utter decimation of organized magicka following the Great Rending: it was not until the Era of Discovery that true Grand Adepts began to emerge again.

There are those who will always assert the increased contact with draco nobilius was the cause and support of this development: the reader may rest assured the reason is far less dramatic. Final Death and the imperfect vagaries of the Restorative Arts destroyed forever many of the greatest mage-gifted bloodlines during the Age of Turmoil. The survivors were hardly in a position to organize anything like a formal breeding program to strengthen and fix the remaining talents, even had they access to the relatively stable and vibrant mana network we use today.

Selections from: Notes on Diverse Magicka - Necromancy

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.

---

In part one, we compared and contrasted hematurgy and necromancy. Part two focused on hematurgy. Part three, therefore, is on the necromantic arts.

Necromancy relies on subjugation and animation for its workings, which is precisely what conjuring an elemental requires. The difference lies in the power source. The necromancer relies on the power of pain and blood, as they are calling dead flesh to move again, and like calls to like - blood responds to blood.

As contrast, an elemental conjurer calls on their own power, or the power of lay lines and nodes. Nearly all other elements are shared.

Dead flesh has no motivator force to give it direction. Subjugation, or the forcing of will upon a thing, is the key first step. With no will to maintain movement, all energies fed to an undead thrall soon dissipate.

There is always some challenge at this, as the original inhabitant of the body can still influence how the flesh responds - or in most cases doesn't - especially if the inhabitant is a ghost. If the working is vital, going out of the proximity of the ghost can assist matters, as can banishing or appeasing it.

In certain rare cases, ghost and body can be brought back together and instill life once again, though this is so rare as to have no known causal factors.

What is known, however, is that ghosts do not hold well to flesh that was not their own very easily, and any stresses can break a binding.

Animation, or kineticism, is the other end of the necromantic working. Many mages are capable of such, and again the difference is power source.

Even with a will, undead flesh still does not wish to move. It will need direction at every point. Some necromancers will link this to their thought, and others will 'teach' certain movements and convey special instructions from there.

Which ever way direction is given, animation is thus bestowed, completing the familiar.

In parts one and two, ritual was mentioned. Because the natural order of magic and motion is broken in working with the dead, a full ritual is not just necessary, but required. The power needs explicit direction and shape that intention cannot bestow.

The symbols and representations guide the shaping even as much as a Druid or shaman's magic might. Without, the least you get is wasted time, and the worst is a thrall that tries to kill you. Rare cases exist where the unattached thrall is docile and accepts no commands, though one can guess the majority of these are unreported.

Selections from: Notes on Diverse Magicka - Hematurgy

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.

---

In part one, hematurgy and necromancy were compared and contrasted as far as styles. In part two, we will cover hematurgy in regards to ritual, intention, and connection, all interacting with spell casting.

As discussed, ritual is not entire necessary to cast in hematurgical works. Ritual therefore is a way to set the mind on the intention and connection. It engages a target to hold certain properties, such remembering flesh that is whole, or flesh that has been cut. Even if such casting does not yield visible results, your target believing they have no way to close their hand, or have experienced death, will be affected.

The full effect of the spell will be enhanced by how connected the caster is - as such, even correctly imagining who the target is will cause connection and empathy. A close friend or lover will respond accordingly - and I have mentioned enemies as well. It takes knowing and identifying your enemy to have such a strong opinion of them.

"Othering", of course, makes the working not have as big an effect, but the affected target has less connection to respond with some spell of their own. As stated, heavy arms specialists tend to be weak caster, and this is precisely why.

Because hematurgical works respond to such varying stimuli, most mages are frustrated by attempting it, as their own natural powers are more predictable.

Setting the limitations aside, hematurgical healing is quite dramatic and can be quite refined. It can, under the best circumstances, rebuild pelvic bones. The process is slow and never perfect, yet has far more refinement than divine castings.

Selections from: Notes on Diverse Magicka - Necromancy and Hematurgy

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.