Magic
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In the Lands of Exile, every supernatural force is simply called magic: the small eye enchantments of a carnival magician, spells that shake the world to its core, prayers that keep fear at bay and rituals that raise fallen champions from their graves alike.1
Scholars have argued for a long time over what magic is, questioning its source, its effects and its consequences, because knowledge itself is a kind of power. To understand all magic, it is held, one must understand three things: Aether, Eidar and Miracles.1
Aether
Aether is an essential element of the universe that runs through everyone and envelops everything. Some beings are highly sensitive to it and can turn this fundamental energy into magic by various methods. Chants, arcane focuses, ingredients and hand gestures are only ways of focusing the Aether; they are not the source of magic.1
Under normal circumstances Aether is the only source of magic that mortal sorcerers can reach and use, and it is used only by those who wield arcane magic. The goddess of magic, Zeolet, wove and processed the Aether by working the more potent but uncontrollable force of Eidar.1
Eidar
Eidar predates the gods. It was born when The Dark One created the first thing other than himself, and it lies in the void between realms and waits within everything. Shamans, seers and druids draw on it; it is the source of nature, elemental and time magic, and of the power of many inherently magical creatures. It is potent and transformative, but hard for a mortal to bend, so its users work through ancient traditions and customs rather than research and artistry.2
It is said that a wizard or sorcerer chooses Aether and specialises in that path, while Eidar chooses the shaman or druid who will wield it.2
Miracles
Miracles are not magic, at least not as scholars understand it. So-called divine magic draws its power neither from this realm nor from any force connected to it, but from the upper planes, flowing through worthy mortals able to wield it.2
Other powers
The inborn magical abilities of certain creatures, the supernatural powers that people such as monks acquire, and psionic abilities have one thing in common: their users neither shape the Aether nor use Eidar in the way spellcasters do. How these abilities relate to either source is still debated.2
Rarity and its marks
Teneris is a realm where magic and miracles are exceptionally rare.3 The effect of any spell or miracle, short or long, eventually fades and disappears; binding it to an object or a place so that it lasts indefinitely is a tremendous achievement.4
Spellcasters are known to bear lasting marks of their art, such as eyes that change colour, whitening hair, a sulphur-like smell rising from the skin, or lights shining beneath their eyelids as they sleep. What decides how strongly a being is bound to the Aether is still a mystery.1
The wizards of old
Before the will of the gods restricted the ability of mortals to work magic, there were wizards whose magic shook the world. Most of them came from long-lived and wise races, and their rituals shaped Teneris, for better and for far worse.5
Notlar
Kaynaklar
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İlgili maddeler
ÖrgütArchon AcademyThe largest and most powerful school of magic in the realm, set on a floating island above the Great Western Sea, which every mage in the Empire must attend and which serves as both university and prison.
EserGrand HourglassOne of the most mysterious objects in creation, the hourglass in which all the time in the universe gathers, entrusted by imperial doctrine to Arcaneus and bound up with the Hourglass Conspiracy of 261 AVD.KavramAetherThe essential element that runs through everyone and everything in Teneris, woven by the goddess Zeolet out of raw Eidar, and the only usable source of arcane magic for mortal wizards.KavramEidarThe raw magical force born with the first thing the Dark One created, older than the gods; the untamable source of nature, elemental and time magic wielded by shamans, seers and druids.KavramThesis on Magic and the ElementsThe disputed second thesis that Castor defended for his mastery at the Archon in the Mürekkep ve Çelik campaign, arguing that all magic is the handling of matter and its elements rather than the shaping of energy.
EserBloodstoneAn extremely rare, mineral-like material of unpredictable power that mages prize for strengthening their magic, and that sometimes grows inside living beings as the dreaded Bloodstone Plague.EserApparatus ImaginariumA wizard-made puzzle device, usually a puzzle box, that traps fey beings inside a demiplane shaped by its maker's imagination and can only be opened by solving its puzzle and final riddle.EserComponent of Absolute CertaintyA crystal transformed by years of daily divination into a magical tool of foresight, usually bought from a magical institute or the black market, and used to drain the chaotic magic of captured fey.KavramGalevan LawThe law discovered by Professor Maverick Galevan of the Coalition of Enlightenment and set out in his book Temporal Deteriorations of Spells, named after him.KavramGunpowderA relatively new invention whose production in the Lands of Exile needs the joint work of Archon Academy wizards and imperial alchemists, and whose supply is ordered by the First Priority Act.