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[kdanger]

I discovered that one of my favorite webcomic authors wrote a thing on what really makes a Mary Sue/Gary Stu, or not (rather than just the traits they tend to have). Good read. http://thepunchlinei...om/archives/589

(I'll be linking this in the index also.)

[Phoenix]

Return of the Emblem: MAGIC
Reader Notes:
-This is Version Three of magic canon and only contains overviews, mechanics, technique descriptions, and other useful information for people developing mage characters, magic knowledgeable characters, or just establishing abilities and limitations.
-Any historical data from Version Two will be restored in the Timeline post. Also, there's not much separation between IC explanations and OoC explanations, so if you're not sure whether certain characters should know exactly how something works (or be able to explain it to someone else), just ask me. I really can't be bothered to format this into IC and OoC knoweldge sections, so those questions I don't much mind. I also don't recommend reading this all at once unless you're into that sort of thing. This is only meant as a reference point for canon.
-If you see '(number)' right next to a listed technique or category, that's the minimum tier a character should be if they know this technique. Otherwise, they just shouldn't know the technique. If you see a '(*)', that means that category of magic must also be their primary one(first learned/most used/most proficient) for them to be able to learn that technique, while '(**)' means that this technique can only be learned if that category of magic is the only one they have trained in(or the only one they can now effectively use). Anima categories are all separate, so two stars '(**)' means the technique is only available to mages who only use that particular element of anima (fire, wind, thunder, etc). Categories that cannot be restricted by tier are given an '(S)' for 'Special' cases. These are handled by GM discretion. Abbreviations in parenthesis (Synthesis=Syn/Organic Arcana=OA/Tendril Magic=TM) are any other prerequisites to learning a technique.
-If reading from start to finish, please read Magic Seals and Alchemy after everything else, as that was the intended order. These two were moved up for the sole purpose of allowing all of V3 to be in as preferable an order as possible and still fit into just two posts.

Spoiler - Source of Magic

Three of the four major gods are accredited with granting magic to the world, Mercy, Nature, and Truth. The exact means by which they do this isn't clear. The term 'magic' is ancient and comes from early human societies who were unable to harness or understand it. It has carried over into all human languages, but the original term for magic, recorded and preserved by the avians, was a word meaning 'manipulation' or 'control'. It should also be noted that the terms 'units' and 'energy' refer to individual psychic, light, dark, or anima particles, and masses of them respectively. These forces are not pure energy in their normal states.

Light, dark, and anima units exist almost everywhere; traces of them exist throughout the atmosphere, all falling toward the ground like a constant snow. Dispersed units like these are very difficult to observe, but they are always present, and they slowly enter the crust of the earth, usually binding to various ores within. Magical energy is acquired for tomes and stones(staves) by extracting them from these ores. For more on this, see the RotE Timeline.

Spoiler - Magic Seals

Magic Seals are small 'rocks' or devices that absorb vast amounts of free flowing magical energy in a very short period of time. This effect creates a magical 'dead zone' where no spells can be created. Magic Seals are very expensive to produce and very small given their effects. These are created and used in one of two ways, by using the original ore molding method to produce the uniform 'texture' that causes the sealing effect(requiring dark magic), or by using one of the ancient dial runes. Normal seals come in various types, the complete list of which is below.
Light Seal: A magic seal tailored to absorbing light units specifically. Other magical energies are unaffected.
Dark Seal: A magic seal tailored to dark units. They are the only kinds affected by dark seals.
Force Seal: Anima absorbing seals. Light and dark units are completely unhindered by these.
Light Saver: These types of seals absorb dark and anima units while leaving light units alone.
Dark Savior: This type of seal spares only dark units. All others are absorbed, and rapidly.
Force Bearer: Force bearers allow anima units to roam freely while absorbing light and dark units.
Magic Seal: These target all forms of magic indiscriminately.

Light saver seals are the most popular seals in history due to their ability to shut down all but light based magic. In warfare, this would force enemies to rely on their often less potent light mages. While in effect, light healings were still possible, and so normal fighters were given a great boon in combat. Dark and anima mages would have to retreat altogether or fall back on secondary weapons such as staves and projectile weapons. The other seal types provide their own variations while full-fledged magic seals suppress magical abilities indiscriminately. Seals have a universal property that makes them extremely dangerous. Once they obtain more energy than they can effectively hold down, most of the energy is released in a spectacular explosion. The resulting explosion differs by seal type, however.
Light seals produce white colored orb shaped explosions.
Dark seals collapse into rogue dark stars ripping apart their surroundings and leaving not even the seal itself behind or intact.
Force seals create a blend of colors in their explosions and are serious fire hazards compared to some others.
Light savers unleash violent violet colored explosions.
Dark saviors unleash white and teal colored explosions.
Force Bearers create intensely bright violet colored explosions.
Magic seal explosions vary depending on what kinds of power they've absorbed but an even spread of magic will produce an enormous white blast.
-A seal's effective range or 'draw radius' is approximately five feet for every 100 grams of the seal material.
-When a seal detonates, depending on the type of seal and/or explosion, the seal will lose some of its mass as well as draw strength. Some seals, such as dark seals, are one use seals that are completely destroyed upon detonation.
-A magic seal is unable to absorb magical energy that is infused or contained in an object or tome. This does not mean that with a tome one can cast near a magic seal, however. Once removed from a safe haven, magical energy will be pulled into the magic seal immediately.
-There is no attraction limit for magic seals. All effected magic within its range will converge on it immediately. Seals do have an absorption rate, however, and this causes surface bulges that make the seal glow brightly whenever an enormous amount of magic is pulled in all at once. The glow fades once the energy is fully absorbed, however.
-Magic seals at their internal absorption limit will also glow, but the glow is semi-permanent. Once this happens, a seal is very close to detonation.
-Before a seal detonates, a long and slow sound similar to a fuze burning can be heard. The pitch begins to heighten until the seal explodes. This usually takes as little as fifteen seconds but has happened in as much as one minute, and as little as three seconds. As a general precaution, when the sound is heard, the area should be cleared out with all abandon, or the seal immediately contained or disposed of.
-Seals that survive their detonations relatively in tact begin to immediately draw in energy again, but for those durable enough to continue, there is always reduced mass and draw strength. Seals will eventually reach the super host standard and no longer be a detonation risk.
-Magic seals are created with dark magic using synthesis, but all but dark savior, light seals, and anima seals will absorb any dark magic present when successfully forged. This makes most seal forging attempts 'one shot'. If the final product isn't up to standard, it must be melted down and forgers must begin from scratch.

Spoiler - Alchemy

Alchemy was a revolutionary tool that allowed for incredible feats without the need of extensive magical knowledge. It is an art form originally founded and inevitably preserved by the worshippers of the minor goddess Nyx, and is used to perform precise 'complex conversions' of available materials and forge new materials and objects out of them. Alchemy requires four basic things to function; a control surface, the materials, a trigger, and the alchemist performing the conversion.

Control Surface:
The control surface is crucial to a successful conversion and is the reason alchemy doesn't require a full-fledged magician to be present. It does require a great deal of alchemic knowledge, however. Control surfaces require numerous engravings, either on a spot chosen in advance, or on an object large enough to function as a control surface that the alchemist takes with them for convenience. These engravings guide the energy that flows during a conversion and allows an alchemist to achieve feats far beyond synthesis by effectively automating most of the work involved.
-Control surfaces are usually outlined with a circle, but some variations exist, oval outlines for example are used for creating very long objects that wouldn't fit in a conventional circle, or square outlines for objects that are perfectly squared off in design. Inside of the controlling outline are more precise guidelines that direct dark energy where it must go to properly shape the object that is to be created through conversion.
-Control outlines prevent the escape of dark energy and mark the boundary of the conversion. Any applicable elements (that the alchemist intends to utilize) inside the outline will be broken down for use during the conversion process. The radius of influence functions in three dimensions, specifically the range of influence on the vertical plane is the same as on the horizontal. In the case of oval outlines or other varying horizontal outlines, the vertical range matches the shortest horizontal range of the outline.
-Control surfaces represent an ancient code introduced by Nyx and each one is able to influence and guide dark energy passing through it without any enchantments whatsoever. They are essentially massive and complex runes with natural energy interfacing ability. Attempts to design and utilize new codes have always ended in failure, and so the preservation of Nyx's code designs was crucial for early alchemists. Nyx provided dozens of control surface designs.

Materials:
Alchemy requires suitable materials for conversion and doesn't work otherwise. Trying to begin a conversion without the proper materials is relatively harmless, but will not produce the desired results in any case. In general alchemists will gather materials in excess, as pound for pound measurements tend to get tedious and excessive; conversions with excess materials will see that material left out of the final product as a lacing of dust and so is considered harmless in whole products (conversions that don't produce hollow products).
-When alchemy was first introduced, alchemists adhered to the law of natural providence, but it was later partially subverted through the advanced conversions. These were sometimes referred to as 'super alchemy' and allowed the conversion of matter down to the atomic scale. Organic materials can be converted into inorganic materials and vice versa through these advanced techniques, but require advanced control surfaces, triggers, and intimate knowledge of the elements at work. Alchemy still requires basic adherence to the 'states of matter', however. Certain liquids, specifically water, cannot be turned into solids or vice versa because they rely on temperatures and atmospheric pressure, not arrangement.
-In order for living materials to be successfully converted in alchemy, they must have their life force stripped away first, or the changes will slowly reverse. In live and whole subjects, the change back to normal from a complex conversion is too slow and can often cripple or kill them depending on the nature of the conversion.

Trigger:
Alchemic triggers are devices that both kick start an alchemic conversion and power the whole process. These triggers are usually constructed by the alchemists themselves, a magician they are on good terms with, or passed down from their predecessors. A trigger is a device that contains enough dark energy to fuel numerous conversions and is placed at the edge of the control surface with its 'nozzle' in contact with the control outline. Once it and the materials are in place, all that remains is the alchemist.
-A trigger's nozzle is similar to a funnel in purpose, but not necessarily appearance. The nozzle releases controlled amounts of dark energy when activated. The dark energy released is initially confined to the control surface's guidelines and travels through them at high speed in preparation for the conversion. Once enough dark energy is released to fill the entire control surface's outlines, the trigger's nozzle is closed off.
-The trigger's main body is the host for the dark energy contained inside of it and must eventually be reinfused. Alchemic triggers contain enough dark energy to double as dark tomes and can generally last for a couple of dozen conversions.
-Triggers have varying activation means, everything from a single large button atop its surface, to requiring stabbing motions for those that are shaped similarly to funnels. It all depends on the alchemist.

Conversion:
The conversion process itself requires guidance from the alchemist. Once the guidelines are filled, the alchemist must carefully envision their intended product, from the inside out. This is made easier by possessing knowledge gathered from tendril feelings of similar or exact materials, but for those not versed in tendril magic, the knowledge must be given to them through mind magic. Nyx initially did this by granting the first alchemists an extensive understanding of the elements and the composition of products of interest. When the alchemist is ready, they begin to envision the final product, focusing on every detail possible. Once this begins, the dark energy within the control surface begins to ravage the elements and materials within the control surface's range of influence. When the materials are finished being broken down, the images in the alchemist's mind begin to take shape using those materials. The dark energy is actually guided by the alchemist's own psychic energy. Regardless of their experience with magic, the control surface, Nyx's code, allows nearly unlimited control of the dark energy contained within it. Once the conversion is complete, the control surface dies down and the dark energy settles wherever it falls.
-During a conversion, the dark energy involved will become red in color. This lasts until the materials within the control surface are broken down. The dark energy becomes violet and blue in color as the reconstruction process begins. When the conversion ends, the dark energy's glow fades.
-Conversion only lasts several seconds, but can take longer if the object being converted and created is particularly large.
-Converted objects carry a dark taint, but are otherwise completely normal if made successfully.
-Alchemy can cause significant strain on the alchemist if they try to convert an object they have particularly inaccurate or incomplete understanding of. In cases of strain, the final product can be flawed in random ways and to varying degrees. Trying to create an object one has no understanding of will fail and leave the alchemist in a completely fatigued state, with migraine level headaches, and some may even lose consciousness.
-There is no known limit to what can be converted, but when alchemists coordinate a conversion and work together, generally more can be converted and more complex products can be produced. This was particularly useful when creating objects that lacked uniform materials or had multiple components to them.

Spoiler - PSYCHIC POWER

Psychic power is the 'interface' responsible for manipulating light, dark, and anima. In short, it controls all magical spells cast by sentients. Psychic units have very large range of influence and assert direct control over the movements and phases of local magic. Psychic units also make up a magician's control field, and these control fields are usually no smaller than the radius of the magician's aura. Spells are always created inside of the control field, even if it has to be stretched to a certain location or distance. Psychic units also reflect the magician's understanding in various ways.
-A control field is the range of influence held by the magician's psychic units. Beyond this range, they have no effect.
-Psychic units can only target light/dark/anima units on the edges of or inside of the magician's control field. Psychic units can target any kind of magic even if the magician is not well versed in it yet, but the range of control is extremely limited until training progresses. The control field can be manipulated, stretched, skewed, and so on to alter the range of control when needed because it is simply the magician's collective psychic power. The amount of psychic units doesn't increase, so control field shifting has to be done with this being considered. Stretching a field too thin in favor of range sacrifices the fine control required for powerful spells while condensed fields allow for the most advanced and complex casting, but at the cost of range.
-Psychic influence does not happen on a 1:1 ratio. Instead psychic units influence all applicable units within a certain radius.
-Instances of strain magicians feel when trying to perform a spell beyond their capabilities or during fatigue are caused by psychic units failing to perform a task. When pushed beyond their (and the magician's current limits), psychic units create a positive feedback loop(strengthen the mind to strengthen themselves). This loop is cumulative and increases magic potential, but can induce intense headaches and render a magician unconscious very quickly. Fortunately the intense pain caused by higher levels of strain will often break a magician's concentration and end the spell before any lasting damage is done. In extreme cases, magicians can cast overwhelmingly powerful spells, overcoming the headaches to do so, but put themselves into comas or even die as a result. Despite the dangers, positive feedback loops are essential to magical development, in the same way muscle strain is essential to muscle growth in exercise. Positive feedback loops cause a permanent, though extremely small increase to casting potential each time they occur. This is how magicians become more powerful, through carefully pushing their limits.
-While there are limits to how far a magician can send pyshic units in order to stretch and skew their control fields, the psychic units will always return, phasing through all matter and energy in order to do so. Once a psychic unit winds up beyond the magician's range of control, it returns to the control field at tremendous speed.
-Psychic energy can give active guidance to spells or give a complete instruction depending on the magician’s level of expertise. There are advantages to both. The latter allows a magician to create a spell that will ‘continue’ outside of their control field for a very limited amount of time. This gives many siege spells more effectiveness. The former allows for ‘on the fly’ course correction, and spell inflation. The spell must remain within the magician’s control field for this method to work, however.
-Magicians cannot directly perceive their own psychic power. They can only infer its presence through psychic/magical interaction. Psychic units can also affect magic from a bit of a distance which means the exact location of these invisible and completely intangible units and their exact number are unknowable.

It's important to note that the psychic power of humans differs greatly from nonhumans. Born natural hosts (nonhumans) have a very limited range of control when compared to humans. The biggest example being that nonhumans have rarely been known to use tomes or staves or draw out power the way humans can. They have, however, been known to encase and infuse magical power in objects. Another example of the differences is experience. Nonhumans seem to be able to make use of their psych power from early childhood, but humans who do not become attuned to theirs will always have completely inert psychic power. With experience, psychic abilities become stronger as a whole, and more powerful abilities become available to both humans and nonhumans as a esult. Psychic energy has one other notable trait; once in contact with psychic energy, a sort of countdown begins, and at some point, any magical energy that has been influenced directly by psychic energy breaks down into natural forms of energy or simply disappears. During some stages of this decay, psychic energy cannot influence these units at all. Unsurprisingly this severely limits the recycling of some types of magic.

Psyhic Theory:
-Psychic units are supposedly never lost or replaced, are intangible, can move at great speeds through space, and only receive guidance from the mind of a magician. Because of this, psychic units are thought to be the 'arms and legs' or simply 'limbs' of the spirit, capable of controlling magic, energies of divine origin.
-The Unrestrained Unit Theory states that with enough training, an individual could control spells with a 1:1 psychic unit to spell ratio. That would allow a mage to cast a basic spell using less than one percent of their total estimated casting ability. While it's been deemed utterly impossible, it is still an interesting theory that has kept interested parties aiming for something relatively 'close'.
-Psychic units are thought to have some effect on the environment(natural energies, not matter), but the effect is far too small to ever be practical. Even magicians working in tandem have not been able to do much more than control the shape of a candle's flame, and so psychic units remain a control interface. Still, what is seen of divine entities suggests that psychic units can have a profound effect on not only energy but matter as well, and on levels comparable to anima. How these beings achieve this is unknown, but it lends a small bit of credit to the Unrestrained Unit Theory.
-Some believe that the purpose of magical decay is to prevent an overflow of power throughout the world. It wouldn't be something to be concerned about at any point in history so far, but after another ten thousand years with no intervention at all, it's believed that the amount of magical 'build up' could create conditions that would make the world unlivable. For this reason, the use of magic is greatly encouraged by some, even in frivolous activities.

Spoiler - LIGHT

Light magic is imparted to the world through the Goddess of Mercy. Light is a peculiar magic type because it not only able to destroy materials, but also restore organic ones to an earlier arrangement or 'state'. This has significant limitations, however. Light units are the least tangible of the three types. This limits light magic's overall combat potential to diversionary and heat based attacks. Light units 'break down' after psychic energy ceases interacting with them, converting mostly into heat energy. This happens immediately though the glow of the final energy emissions can sometimes linger for several seconds.

Combat:
Light magic's only viable uses in combat are diversionary and heat based attacks, the former being more of a preparation tactic for the latter. High concentrations of light magic create tremendous heat, rarely on par with fire magic but still lethal. The advantage held over fire (natural and unnatural) is that light magic can generate heat directly inside of unprotected targets. This is known as the ‘Purge’ and is one of the more advanced light magic arts.
-Light units can pass through physical material, organic or inorganic with ease, but cannot pass through a barrier easily. Intangible light units, or 'phased light units' can bypass barriers, but unphasing in the middle of an enemy's aura and control field creates interference that prevents combat grade spells from forming properly. It takes precision and timing to use phased light units to set off a spell inside of the target without any interference getting in the way.
-Light units are the fastest moving units in the magic triangle and can even outpace modern projectiles. At their maximum normal phase, light units travel at five hundred meters(one thousand six hundred forty feet) per second. In their intangible phase, they seem able to move to any location instantly, but are believed to only be able to travel at the speed of natural light (a speed still in question).
-All light techniques can be 'cast on the move'(while walking or running), which is a big advantage in combat, but this takes some practice, and concentration improves while idle.
-Light units can be infused.
-The range of normal light spells is twenty meters. Longer range attacks are forty meters, and siege range attacks can reach as far as sixty meters. Beyond these distances, accuracy begins to suffer greatly.
[Techniques]
Shine(1):Dense concentrations of light units create an intense light that overwhelms the human eye at close range, but works as an efficient light source otherwise. Despite not causing much in the way of damage, it is popular on the battlefield for its short term effect, blindness. Even several minutes after a shine spell has been cast, many still suffer from impaired vision. While this is a popular technique in night operatives from all countries and Ursian frontline divisions, it is only used at critical times to avoid predictability. A particularly well placed and well-timed shine attack can cause true blindness.
Thani(1): By converging enough light units into one point, a magician can create an intensely bright, superheated pocket of plasma which can be controlled remotely. This is one of light magic's 'heavy attack spells' which are used to kill unprotected and unarmored targets. While light units are individually weak, a mass of them used in this way assume quite a bit of thermal power and can sometimes burn holes clean through thin or weak targets.
Purge(2): This is a technique that causes direct damage to a target by igniting at/in/on a specific point, even if that point is inside of a target. The Purge has also been used to quickly disarm combatants by converging light magic inside their weapons (usually melee). This corrodes, ruins, or outright destroys some weapons, but there are many exceptions, and targeting weapons is not as easy as targeting a person.
Luce(2-Thani): This technique is numerous miniature thani spells created all at once and showered over a target. The attack can be overwhelming if sustained and quickly whittles away the barriers of protected targets while burning unprotected targets.
Aureola(3*Thani): One of the most feared techniques in all of light magic is Aureola, a heat ray of unknown potential. Aureola is another form of thani and starts by creating an enormous version of that spell. The larger the spell, the longer it will last. Next, the magician begins funneling the contents into a target at high speed. This technique rarely fails to burn holes clean through even the toughest armor after a few seconds. Aureola overwhelms normal defenses where fire fails because light units slow down as they begin to pass through solid material, rarely coming out of the other side until resistance is removed, causing a rapid buildup of heat. The combination of internal and external superheating can destroy almost anything because the collective forces produce temperatures slightly over ten thousand degrees (Fahrenheit) at their peak.
Burst(3**): This is the ultimate defensive light technique, supposedly developed by the avians, and repels or destroys projectiles on approach. To use it, a magician phases enough light units to create a thani spell, and waits for an attack. Accuracy and timing are critical. When a magician knows an attack is on the way, they work out what path the projectile will take and then unphase the light units along that flight path. This creates a shift in the atmosphere strong enough to displace an incoming object or stop it cold depending on various factors. Burst is easier to use with larger spells due to covering a larger area, but experts can use burst spells as small as the objects they aim to repel. The advantage of this is that it makes the technique extremely difficult to identify, which leaves most enemies guessing.

Healing:
In healing, light magic heals wounds by working organic material back into a whole or normal state. It requires a bit of imagination, as the light units react to the instructive 'images' given them. While it is severely limited overall, light healing trivializes most mortal wounds and gives well-coordinated strike teams incredible staying power in a fight.
-Light magic contains traces of life energy or 'life force' directly from the Goddess of Mercy. These 'complete' a healing by reinitializing cellular metabolic processes where they're lacking. This allows for the revival of recently dead tissues, but little beyond that.
-For healing to begin, magicians must 'attune' the energy that is to be used. This step is barely understood by either the church or the magical community, but it has been observed that light magic applied to a wound will ordinarily do nothing if not cause harm. Nonhumans versed in light healing were needed to teach 'attunement', but the effect was only ever produced successfully in healing staves. These stones are incapable of being used offensively, however. Humans rarely learn how to attune this energy and so rely exclusively on staves or healing stones as a whole.
-The experience of the healer determines the speed at which an injury can be healed. The more experienced the healer, the faster the healing, and the more that can be healed in a single attempt. Light healings take approximately fifteen seconds(deep cuts that would otherwise require stitches or an elixir), while minor wounds only take half as long.
-Healing is not a physically taxing task for a human, but it is a mentally taxing one, and like most other spells, done too many times all at once will exhaust a magician. Average number of healings before strain sets in per tier: T1=5-8/T2=9-12/T3=13-16.
-Light magic heals by approximately restoring the positions of living elements and operates primarily on a cellular level.
-Light healing can ease the symptoms of various ailments but not cure diseases or 'naturally occurring' chemical imbalances in the body.
-Foreign materials cannot be removed through light healing, and so infection and other risks remain afterward. The latter can only be treated with a restore staff or natural remedies.
-Mild to moderate aches usually persist even after a subject is healed. This is temporary and shorter lived than natural recovery pain.
-Bones must be properly aligned before healing occurs; light magic is not tangible enough to force 'weighty' materials into place and will lead to an improper healing, most of which become semi-permanent deformities that can only be corrected through gruesome means.
-Reattaching limbs is possible, but takes time and careful alignment. Improperly aligning a limb can have the same consequences as improperly aligning a bone and the steps needed to correct this type of problem are just as gruesome if not more so. Minor reattachment issues are severe stiffness and inflexibility. This can persist for months or years.
-Blood can be restored if it is inside the subject's body or right on the surface of the wound. Blood beyond these areas is lost.
-Dead material can be restored, but it must occur before decomposition begins to set in (while life force can still sustain it).
-Long dead and decaying material cannot be restored or sustained.
-Hair cannot be restored by light magic; it is technically not alive.
-Severe burn wounds (or any wound that sees materials physically lost to molecular separation and dispersal) are impossible to fully heal, but overall functionality can be saved provided third and fourth degree burns (or similar forms of destruction) are kept to an bare minimum. Exterior burns often leave terrible scarring, but interior ones can still see most of the material recovered during the healing process.
-Self healing is more difficult for a magician to perform, especially in the heat of battle. Healing in general is an easy process to 'interrupt', but that is primarily due to outward stimuli. During a self-healing attempt, the slightest change in focus can potentially disrupt the healing attempt. During a battle, even a slowing or quickening heart rate can cause this. While not fully understood, there is much work underway to try and automate the healing process through staves so that self-healing is more viable, but as a whole, healers carry vulneraries with them, or rely on other healers, especially in combat. Out of combat, it is possible, but still difficult for those with little experience.
-Restore staves were created to handle nearly every task ordinary staves could not. They can enhance basic mental functions which dramatically speeds up internal recovery rates, and slightly bolsters the immune system. The effects allow the subject to shrug off stunning blows and recover from light poisonings or minor infections. Subjects can often fight with more persistence than a crippling ailment would otherwise allow. These special staves are also light based and so will impart life force, which can hasten recovery from petrification spells and treat LFD (life force dependency). They are most frequently employed by hospitals to speed up recovery from painful injuries and to treat infections, and by the military in tandem with healing staves to keep soldiers in the fight and stave off losses from attrition.
-Revival is a skill that takes on varying forms, but it works primarily by imparting the life force inherent in light units to the subject. In circumstances where a victim still hasn't suffered enough blood loss to render healing useless, imparting life force can provide a burst of energy throughout the body, strong enough even to bring someone back to consciousness. It can also delay the deaths of individuals who are dying from natural causes by revitalizing the body. Unconsciousness induced by minor to moderate blood loss can also be reversed.

Lighting:
Light magic has been used for improvised or backup lighting, but because it must be sustained at all times, it cannot be left unattended normally. It must be sustained by plunging more light units into each other while natural flames can burn fuel to sustain themselves. There is a somewhat simple workaround of containing a large quantity of light units into a very small item, but this light is insufficient. Increasing the scale does little to help overall. There have been numerous magic based lights, but they have proven difficult to utilize throughout the populace. They require runes to work, are frustratingly difficult to produce, and expensive, but on the bright side, they are usually portable devices. These devices generally work by introducing a finite amount of light units into a confined space at a fixed rate. Once it runs out of light magic to feed to the convergence, the light goes out. The most effective source of lighting currently known is the shining rune (see Runes and Imbued Items).

Warp:
The Light Warp is a remarkable ability of light magic. The process works by deconstructing an individual and reassembling them elsewhere, particle by particle. This 'atomized warp' is the church's strongest evidence of the Goddess of Mercy aiding magicians directly. To this day the magical community is unable to easily refute the goddess' involvement in the light warp; their own rules of casting nearly forbid it. It is widely accepted that because conventional spells must be actively controlled by the mind to function, a mind that has been disassembled is not capable of finishing the warp instruction and therefore cannot control the rest of the warp. The only possible way would be if a complete instruction could be given in advance. In short, anyone who attempts a light warp should normally be left as an unsorted collection of particles; dead. Instead, the body is painlessly disassembled in one location and quickly reassembled at another location. While this would have easily pointed to instruction hidden within runes, it did not explain the staff-less light warps of nonhumans. Again, the only remotely feasible explanation that excludes the Goddess of Mercy is a completed instruction given prior to the warp.

The actual mechanics are as follows: Light units attach to every particle in the human body and enter a fully intangible phase, bringing the attached particle with them into that phase. This phase and transport happens out of sync which causes every part of the subject's body to stop interacting with all of the others without causing physical damage. The light units race off with their own piece of the subject and exit the intangible phase in the exact positions relative to each other that they left in.
-A light warp generally requires a warp staff, a device that carries both a rune and a power source. The latter provides the light energy necessary for the warp while the former allows for automatic addition of second, third, and even more individuals in the warp.
-Glyphs are runes that determine a staff's control radius, meaning that anyone inside the glyph's projection radius will be pulled into the warp. For more details see 'Runes and Imbued Items'.
-A light warp need not take place on even terrain but it is generally safer. Warping to uneven terrain is also possible; however this can easily lead to injuries in certain circumstances. It is not possible to exit a light warp in internal contact with a structure, object, or person. Those who have attempted this have found themselves reconstructed in different positions than they left in in a compensatory manner.
-The average warp will carry the magician and their companions two to three miles in one attempt, though more experienced magicians have gone farther. It is currently not possible to warp beyond five miles in one attempt, however.
-A magician is only taxed a little during a light warp which is one reason it is the most popular warping method. Every additional passenger will only increase whatever toll is already present by about ten percent (additively).
-Warping alone, it is possible to travel up to forty-two miles in total (and warping frequently) before one must rest and recover. Most will only be able to travel thirty miles before requiring rest, however. Recovery times are on average from one to four hours for both humans and nonhumans. That’s assuming they exhausted themselves. Otherwise only fifteen minutes or so is required.

Light Theory:
-Light magic is considered one of the best candidates for use in cloaking magic, as it has the ability to cause individual particles to become intangible. Rather than making the magician in question intangible which would prove fatal due to gravity, the light cloaking theory suggests causing light that strikes the cloaking field to be shifted as it comes in and shifted back as it comes out. This keeps light from reflecting no matter the angle of origin, however, the military is more concerned with causing entire projectiles to be shifted as they come into contact with the field, and so more attention has been paid to that. Unfortunately no practical results have yet appeared in either cloaking or projectile shifting.
-'Breaching' is a theoretical application of light magic that capitalizes on the intangibility phase. The goal is to allow subjects to pass through walls by phasing the particles within the wall. In theory this could be done with a simple warping staff, but this hasn’t worked yet because warp staves require a destination point. Some suspect this can never work due to the supposed involvement of the Goddess of Mercy in the light warping process, and how that too would be impossible without her involvement.
-'Filtration' is a primarily non-combat application of light magic in which wavelengths of natural light are shifted, interrupted or otherwise manipulated. This changes the perceived color(s) of almost anything envoloped by the filtration units.
-Some legends say that vasili of light could create new life. Light magic is also considered a very important component of creating artificial humans. While dark magic can transfer life force from one entity to another, because light magic contains life energy from the goddess, it could potentially grant life to an artificially created shell at no real cost.

Spoiler - DARK

Dark magic is imparted to the world through the God of Consolidation, Lord Truth. It is an incredibly versatile type of magic that has been used in all sorts of ways throughout time. Dark magic has the strongest micro-displacement potential of all magic. That is to say that it is the most capable in altering the very structure of matter. Dark magic is also slightly intangible--able to pass through solid material at a slower pace than the open air--in its normal state. This makes its macro-displacing power very weak compared to Anima, but stronger compared to light. Dark magic also has a unique property among magic that gives it most of its versatility. This is the dark control field. Every individual unit of dark energy has a control field, and each field has three active states or phases in which it can enter, known as the in-phase, out-phase, and lock-phase. These phases grant dark magic all of its various abilities, as the in-phase pulls matter and energy in, the out-phase creates a repulsion effect that pushes matter and energy away, and the lock-phase causes the control field to immobilize or at least restrict the movement of everything within its radius. Dark units interact with each other directly and can't phase through each other, but their control fields have somewhat negligible effects on other dark units, and absolutely no effect on psychic units. While in the inactive phase, dark units have very little effect on the environment, but can move more freely.

Dark units also decay or rather disappear, but the process takes a very long time, long after they have broken contact with the magician who wielded them. Because of this, traces of dark magic can be observed in various places. The 'dark taint' is what it is sometimes called, but it is simply a lingering mass of dark units and it tends to cling to physical objects. A person killed by a powerful dark magic attack will often have traces of dark energy coating their body, with the highest concentrations around their wounds. Dark units left alone for long enough(one month or so) cease to interact with psychic energy and can no longer be controlled directly (though in the case of tendrils, they can still be used to an extent). After that, the dark units remain until they eventually disappear, which happens within the space of six months.

Combat:
Making use of the various phases of dark units is the key to executing dark magic attacks. Dark magic is a dreaded form of attack because it seems to subvert healing magic, even at its best. Because dark magic's primary form of attack is oscillating to force materials apart on a cellular or even sub-cellular level for those more experienced, materials needed to repair an injury can and often do go missing (literally). This prevents full and proper healings for attacks that use the oscillation method. This is similar to severe burn wounds which healing magic also has difficulty addressing. While dark magic attacks can be healed, scarring, on the surface or interior, is often unavoidable. One drawback of all dark magic techniques however is immobility, that is, a magician cannot move while casting any of these spells until very well learned, and even then, anything beyond the pace of walking will create variations in concentration strong enough to destabilize or disperse the spell. Several spells can never be cast 'on the move' by humans, however, including singularity, dark star, destruction sphere, or any stasis spell.
-Dark units can 'penetrate' matter, but not nearly as easily as light units can due in part to their large control fields, and so most dark magic attacks rely on inflicting horrendous superficial damage. They are less effective against armored targets than light magic, but a magician can compensate by simply aiming for exposed areas.
-Dark units are the slowest moving units in the magic triangle, and can only cross thirty meters (ninety-eight and a half feet) per second. This is negligible in close quarters combat, but requires careful consideration at siege distances.
-Dark units can disintegrate objects over time by rapidly shifting between the in and out phases. While in this state, anything they come into contact with aside from other energies is pushed and pulled apart at the cellular level. More experienced magicians can cause this to work on the molecular level, although it has been shown that the smaller the scale, the less pain there is as a result. Depending on the speed of disintegration, heat may or may not build up to dangerous levels from the friction involved.
-Dark units can be infused.
-The range of normal dark spells is ten meters. Longer range attacks are twenty meters, and siege range attacks can reach as far as thirty meters.
[Techniques]
Dark Sphere(1): This is the most common defensive technique in dark magic. It is a converged mass of dark units kept in the out-phase to maximize their displacing power. If hurled at a target, said target can easily be knocked down, but this is not an effective method of killing in normal circumstances. The closer to a dark sphere one gets, the stronger the repulsion, but this repulsion force is still quite limited, in fact, it is the combined force of the out-phase at such a short distance and momentum that knocks someone down. Alone, neither is sufficient to do anything but force an unprepared person off balance.
Luna(1, Dark Sphere): This spell is simply multiple dark spheres slammed into enemies from numerous angles. Certain hit combinations can snap limbs and inflict grievous injuries quite easily which makes luna an offensive technique rather than a defensive one. A magician can only create a certain number of dark spheres depending on their overall experience (T1=3, T2=6, T3=9).
Death Sphere(1): This is made by combining oscillation and compaction. Dark units on the inside of the sphere are pressed together tightly enough to make their united control field bulge, and are kept in the in-phase while the dark units that make up the outer layers are put into in/out oscillations. When this projectile is thrown, the results are surprisingly potent and deadly, as the oscillating layer destroys anything it comes into contact with while the inner layer draws the sphere and everything around it closer together, ensuring adequate pressure is applied to the surface of the sphere (increasing overall damage). There are few cases of targets having holes burned clean through them, but in for many, the chest cavity is somewhat ‘hollowed out’ with organs in that region having been reduced to a pulpy mess.
Nosferatu(1*) Known as 'nusumujutsu' to the kigenese, this technique ensnares and takes away a target's life force in limited amounts. An already weakened target can be completely incapacitated by this ( see 'Life Force').
Dark Thunder(2*): This technique capitalizes on natural forces in order to inflict damage, and can more readily penetrate natural and unnatural defenses. It works by creating a charge separation that is then weaponized. A powerful charge separation is created by gathering in-phased and out-phased dark units into a small and desired space, and then reversing those phases repeatedly in rapid succession. An electric field quickly forms as electrons are dragged to the center of the sphere in mass and the air around the sphere begins to ionize. Once properly learned, this can be done in just a few seconds. The magician can then quickly force this surrounding air toward a target using lock-phased units, and once it makes contact, the charge can be released(it can also be released beforehand to automate the strike as long as the magician shields their body with out-phased units), resulting in a painful electric shock. Because these electric bursts are 'tainted' with dark energy, their colors range from blue to red (violet being the middle of the spectrum) depending on the overall state of the dark units within. This technique while complex is relatively easy to do and magicians can even continue creating charge separation to electrocute a target continuously for a short period of time.
Dark Shot(2*): This technique is used to penetrate strong barriers and inflict deeper wounds than are normally possible with such low powered attacks. The magician must create an elongated projectile with special properties and then send it to the target at high speed. To make this projectile, the magician must create a central mass of oscillating units(these are what make the trip to the target to cause physical damage), wrap it in in-phased units, and then complete the projectile by forming a dense tip right on the front made out of out-phased units. If thrown properly and at a high enough velocity, the out-phased portion will repel elements of the target's barrier into the in-phased units, which will effectively pull them out of the way and allow the shot to pass through the barrier more easily. When the shot collides with something more physically resistant, the projectile falls apart, but the interior reaches its target at the highest speed possible with very little resistance up to that point. Dark shots tend to penetrate as far into the body as actual gunshots but deal more damage over time. Dark shots are complex in design and each must be tailored to the type of barrier and opponent one is facing, as an improperly forged one is almost useless. A well forged shot takes about three seconds to create and experienced magicians can create several in preparation for follow up attacks.
Stasis(3*): This is a series of techniques that use either lock-phased or out-phased units to immobilize targets or cause isolated pressure based damage. Lock-phased units only cause moderate resistance to movement but can be maintained for far longer (twice as long usually), and with enough power invested, can completely immobilize a target. Out-phased units work the same way when engulfing a target, but can actually create enough pressure to strangle a man or break bones: this does require that no barrier of any kind is present. Stasis style attacks are usually done to tip the scales during duels or suppress noncombatant mobs and are less reliable in actual battle.
Singularity(3**): This is a result of hyper compaction and creates a type of singularity that send the control field of all the dark units involved out of control. They can bulge to millions of times their normal size and are kept in the in-phase to draw in everything in the surrounding environment. Anything that reaches the 'event horizon' of the dark singularity is spaghettified and eventually drawn in and essentially destroyed. They cannot affect psychic energy and so dark singularities can still be held aloft or even thrown at targets to devastating and irrevocable effect. When the in-phase ends, the singularities will react in one of three ways depending on how much mass it has accumulated. With low mass, it will simply dissipate. With moderate mass (a wagon's worth), it will rebound and send back all of the material in an atomized state, which results in a powerful shockwave. With high mass (an entire ship or more), it will explode with enough force to disintegrate anything within six meters and incinerate anything within twelve. Everything beyond that is threatened by a shockwave that travels out to a quarter of a hits with just enough force to shatter wood like glass. Protected targets can survive these shockwaves, but unprotected targets are almost always killed. The third case only results from super singularities.
Dark Star(3**): This is another kind of singularity technique, but the units are all kept in the out-phase to create a powerful repulsion effect. If created in just the right place and at just the right moment, a dark star can explode objects, vehicles, and even combatants from the inside. This is the most powerful displacing spell in dark magic and is most commonly used by shadow dragons. All dark star dispersals create shockwaves, but they have more range than a regular singularity’s.
Destruction Sphere(3**): This is a technique of the Ursian military that was developed to provide infantry with an overwhelming advantage during the opening seconds of an advance or the first few minutes of a defensive operation. It combines Dark Thunder with the singularity. While dark units on the inside converge to an extreme powerful enough to create a bloated in-phase control field, dark units in the outermost layers perform the dark thunder charge separation building pattern (see dark thunder for details). While some of the charge is absorbed by the singularity, the rest is trapped on the surface of the destruction sphere, creating a blanket of electricity, usually red in color due to redshift caused by the prevalence of in-phase units. This spell generally only lasts for ten to twenty seconds, but during that time, targets are both drawn toward the singularity, and electrocuted continuously by the building charges, and no amount of discharges can quench a proper destruction sphere.

Warp:
The Dark Warp is method of traveling quickly from one location to another. It has been postulated that dark warping is a direct contrast to light warping; the latter relying on the Goddess of Mercy altering the magician to bring them to their location, and the former relying on the God of Truth altering the world to bring them to their location. This is because dark magicians warp themselves by forging spatial gateways between where they are and where they wish to go. They can cross incredible distances in the blink of an eye.
The spatial gateway or 'wormhole' is forged by first creating a singularity. The magician converges the dark units while they are in the out-phase. Out-phase is used to prevent the magician and anything else from immediately falling into the singularity. Next, upon creating the out-phased singularity is a spatial pierce. This act is similar to threading a needle (but easier for some) and works by sending a long line of dark units (enough to make a second singularity) directly into the singularity; they enter the singularity traveling in the direction the magician wishes to travel in or 'toward their destination'. This opens a path for the dark energy to follow through dark space. As the magician envisions the location they would like to warp to, the dark energy travels to the corresponding location within dark space and forge another singularity. Within dark space, singularities are inverted which is what allows the wormhole to form. To actually pass through the wormhole, the out-phased units at the entry point are switched to their in-phase, and the magician is pulled through instantly. The magician's entire body appears to stretch in surreal ways to fit inside though they don't seem to notice or recall this 'stretching' and so it may not be something directly experienced but rather observed from the outside. As soon as the mind enters the wormhole, the singularities and the wormhole they sustain begin a swift collapse. A needlessly sustained wormhole can and usually will draw in dangerous amounts of foreign material which are violently ejected as the wormhole closes (from the exiting end). The speed at which this collapse and warp takes place keeps foreign material to a minimum and protects the magician (ejected matter can be forced out at velocities that dwarf all modern projectile velocities). A successful dark warp, from singularity piercing to exit, is only a half second in duration on average.
-A Dark Warp staff is generally required for humans to warp via dark magic. It carries a rune and a power source. The latter provides the dark energy necessary for the warp while the former allows for automatic addition of second, third, and even more individuals in the warp. For those who do not know the singularity spell, a dark warping rune is also present, a rune that greatly aids in forging singularities.
-Glyphs are runes that determine a staff's control radius, meaning that anyone inside the glyph's projection radius will be pulled into the warp. For more details see 'Runes and Imbued Items'.
-Dark space is a type of subspace that is required for warping with dark magic. It has many titles, including 'The Elder Domain', 'The Abyss', and 'True Space', a derivative of 'Truth's Space', a realm thought to be ruled by the God of Consolidation himself.
-It is possible to warp to a location in mid-air but not in internal contact with another structure, object, or person. This still presents certain dangers, however, as one could begin exiting a wormhole in an extremely confined space and be killed with crushing force.
-Warping makes no sound of and by itself but shifts in the air can be heard and while the visible wormholes themselves are simply black, anything drawn into them appears reddish in color.
-The average warp will carry the magician and their companions one to one and a half miles in one attempt, though more experienced magicians have gone farther. It is currently not possible to warp beyond three and a half miles in one attempt.
-A magician is taxed heavily during a dark warp which is one reason it is not the most common warping method. It only increases in difficulty with extra companions (by one hundred percent per person).
-Warping by one's self, it is possible to travel up to twenty-five miles in total (and warping frequently) before one must rest and recover. Most will only be able to travel roughly eighteen miles before requiring rest. Recovery times are on average from two to eight hours for both humans and nonhumans, assuming they have exhausted themselves, otherwise only a half hour or so is required.

Tendril Magic:
Tendril magic is more of a prerequisite for other forms of magic than anything else. It is a tool that aids magicians in performing more complicated feats in magic. Tendrils are made of complex weaves of in/out/lock-phased dark units woven into long tendril shapes with a repeating pattern. The two primary patterns are the mental pattern, used for mind magic, and the texture pattern, used for synthesis and organic arcana. The mental pattern combines all three phases to mimic a series of neural links and form a bridge between minds. The texture pattern is similar, but works more like a human arm, 'feeling' through objects for variations. The mind can interpret a texture tendril's feedback and this allows magicians to determine the composition of materials without breaking them open. Clever use of the latter allows magicians to replicate or improve various materials. Clever use of the former has allowed for some of the greatest subterfuge in history.

Tendrils are very difficult to make for one learning how to do so, but once mastered, it is as easy as knitting (it is however just as monotonous). Forging tendrils during battle is never a good idea and can be quite difficult. A learned tendril user can create anywhere from twenty-five to a hundred tendrils; they vary in width but always start off thinner than the thinnest hairs. They also take a very long time to forge, ten seconds per inch. Masters on the other hand can forge two to three inches of tendril every ten seconds, and form almost four times as many if they can manage doubling up on forge rates (doing multiple tendrils at once), however this extends the six inches per minute per tendril ratio cumulatively (two tendrils at once leads to making one inch of tendril each every twenty seconds). Most in modern times have tried to keep pre-made tendrils on hand to get around this, but they are easily dispersed by other magic and easy to lose track of.
-Tendrils are a rare form of magic known as persistent spells, and won't dissipate when focus is taken off of them. The problem is that once focus is taken off of them, they are difficult to locate again due to their miniscule size. Magicians can usually find a stray tendril by flaring them. Tendrils are just barely visible when flared and appear as fine violet lines. Forging thick tendrils also makes them easier to keep track of, but they are still invisible to the naked eye until flared (see ‘Auras’ for details on flaring).
-As previously noted, tendrils can be kept inside the body, safe from foreign influences. Synthesizers establish tendrils, streaming them from their spines, down through their arms and to the surface of their fingertips and keep them there. This is extremely useful because they can feel through objects with their fingertips and let the tendrils extend down into the item. It is the method used by virtually all synthesizers.
-Tendrils operate on the three scale-grades of material alteration, single digit micrometers, known as grade one or scale one; double digit nanometers, known as scale two or grade two; and triple digit picometers, known as scale three or grade three. Texture tendrils configured for a specific scale will react more readily to inconsistencies on that scale. This allows magicians to better interpret a compound without responding to the wrong feedback. The smaller the reaction scale, however, the more difficult it is to produce that particular type of tendril. Scale three tendrils are often made hours or days in advance.
-Tendrils become unalterable after about a month of inactivity (absence of psychic energy). After that, they become less and less responsive until the dark units composing them fade away.

Material Alteration:
Material alteration is a field of magic used to create or copy things by using available materials, and is divided into two categories, synthesis, and organic arcana. Synthesis is any type of alteration magic that involves inorganic material. Organic arcana is just the opposite and covers organic alterations.

Synthesis(*):
Synthesis works on not one but several scales divided into four grades, grade 1(single digit micrometers), grade 2(double digit nanometers), grade 3(triple digit picometers). There is also a grade 4 for things even smaller, but such crafting feats have never been performed by mere mortals. Synthesis is used to perform tasks too complex or delicate for a forge, but in modern times has become more of an early and final part of forging various weapons and products, as it can be used to purify metals more fully and can make fine adjustments to otherwise completed works. There is a balance between dark unit quantity and work quality. Using more dark units speeds up work times but decreases overall quality, while using fewer dark units provides much better quality but at the cost of time. A good example is the perfected katana of a high ranking kigenese officer. Such a sword may be carefully treated using synthesis. In the extreme case of using lots of dark energy, the refining process would be only half to standard but only take several hours, while using very few dark units would surpass the standard altogether, but take several fully committed days of work. Results are carefully reviewed with tendril magic.
For centuries it was unknown just how thoroughly dark magic could alter various compounds. The only issue seemed to be developing a genuine understanding of the process first, and that was where limitations came in. Even the most powerful magicians couldn't fix a broken glass without understanding how to 'harmonize' grade 2 and grade 2.5 elements. Removal of contaminants was also required. This was possible with the help of texture tendrils, but earlier on, light and anima magic was also utilized in tandem with dark magic(light for phasing out impurities, and anima for better displacing power and in some cases, fusion itself). Dark magic can now be used exclusively for synthesis, but requires one very well trained synthesizer or several. Some synthesizers focus on just one or two techniques and pay their way by providing services catering to each. A magician can synthesize for as long as they are physically able; this field uses dark units in a very 'minute' fashion. In short, it is simply a matter of one's own staying power.
[Techniques]
Building(*): New materials can be created from existing materials. Grade 2 and grade 3 texture tendrils are used to determine the composition of the desired compound as well as the ones currently at the magician's disposal. Dark units are then employed in mass to begin changing the shape of current compounds through a process called 'unification'. The magician focuses on the desired 'texture' gathered by the tendrils, and dark units move to convert all exposed substances into that texture. The process is incredibly slow and something as small as a fingernail can take hours to build. Spell inflation is used at times to speed up the process but sparingly because it is a clumsy method and never yields perfect results. Inflate forged areas must always be revisited later.
Purification(*): This field focuses on removing impurities from materials that need to be pure or uncontaminated. Texture tendrils are used to find undesirable variations, and then those variations are corrected through reshaping, similar to building, but in a much smaller area and very isolated. Purifying is used to remove impurities from tools and weapons that otherwise wouldn't be possible without reforging.
Fusion(*): Fusion addresses the 'broken glass' scenario mentioned earlier. If a broken item is placed together again, it won't fix itself. Fusion addresses this by removing the inevitably present contaminants within the broken region using purification, and reattaches the broken halves through reshaping the new surfaces to match the uniform state of the interior. When the process is finished, the breach no longer exists.
Bonding(*): Bonding reinforces any structure by weaving dark units throughout it in a formation favoring its structural integrity. Typically the outermost layers of the object will have out-phased units present. This makes an object more resistant to damage. The inside will be almost completely saturated in lock-phased units. Depending on how well this is done, the durability of an object can be tripled or even quadrupled. Bonded items used to be advertised as unbreakable until it became illegal to do so. Bonding is also only temporary, as dark units left in these states will fade away eventually and the object will return to its normal durability, with or without anyone noticing. Bonding is a very popular trade and those who know how to bond materials are sought after almost everywhere. Bonding times vary depending on the object in question, but the following are some common examples (these averages assume a seasoned bonder): Bullets take five to ten minutes. Arrowheads take ten to fifteen minutes. Knives and daggers range from fifteen to twenty minutes. Swords, short and long range from half an hour to an hour. Axe heads take half an hour to forty-five minutes. Entire lances and spears will generally require an hour of work. Objects larger or heavier than these will take at least an hour and a half with large scutum style shields and the like taking two to three hours to bond.

Organic Arcana(*):
Organic Arcana works on four scales, scale 1(triple digit micrometers), scale 2(double digit nanometers), scale 3(single digit nanometers), and scale 4(double digit picometers). This field works to do to organic materials what synthesis does to inorganic materials but is far more difficult due to the more delicate makeup of organic material. By humans, organic arcana is used to address somewhat minor difficulties, like blindness, scarring, other various complexion issues, and prosthetics. An overwhelming amount of abuse has left most forms of organic arcana banned. Prosthesis has proven far too useful to become outright illegal, and the Neviskotian Empire in particular is quite open to the practice, though with scrutinous oversight.
The Fallen Empire on the other hand embraces organic arcana completely, or at least the architects do. In that country it is used to correct superficial issues, augment bodies, create demons, and many other things. The various forms of organic arcana are listed below, but all rely on a 'reference and replicate' methodology. That is, a material is examined on multiple scales with tendril magic, and other materials are made to match through unification, the same process used in synthesis, in which dark units rearrange structures and compounds to match others. In organic arcana, matching textures is critical, as even a slight flaw can produce a flawed material.
[Techniques]
Touching(**): Touching is a very minor process akin to small scale building. Magicians who perform touching are simply making small usually superficial adjustments, legal or otherwise. Some common adjustments include removing imperfections in the skin (scrutinous oversight), changing eye or natural hair color (illegal), scar dimming or removal, realignment (largest procedure recognized as 'touching' and very illegal if done to the face).
Prosthesis(**): Prosthetics are a very real innovation of dark magic, one that the Fallen Empire has seemingly mastered over the centuries. The Neviskotian empire has only recently begun to catch up, and are the only human nation that has more fully legalized the use of prosthesis. Prosthesis combines organic material together and then has it reshaped to match a limb that is to be replaced. Because some elements must be exact, and others preferably inexact, it is a very complicated and lengthy process. While prosthetists typically work alone, groups of them coming together for difficult and profitable procedures can accomplish inhuman feats.
Neo-Generation(**): This is a relatively new method (in the human world) of creating artificial limbs. Neo-generation is a process that creates much larger prosthetics than normally possible by making them in stages. Ordinarily a part is made whole and all at once. Neo-generation mimics the growing processes of living creatures by starting with something as small as a bump on the skin. A little is done each time but no matter how much progress is made, the limb is left in a contained state (the prosthetic is completely sealed and generally looks like a deformity until it is completed. It also has a blood supply to keep the material alive and intact). In theory entire arms can be made this way, but for most of the process they would look like hideous growths. Still, magicians adept in neo-generation are much sought after.
Birthcraft(**): This technique or series thereof is only in use by the Fallen Empire, who use it to make their demons, and the various groups throughout history responsible for the creation of artificial humans. While in demons, memories of demonic design and the like are passed down from generation to generation and improved upon each time, artificial humans are created by copying another human down to their most basic components, and then making various improvements. In demons, multiple beasts are spliced together with fine adjustments made to both the junction points, and the mind to facilitate a lethal front line unit. Immune systems are suppressed or destroyed in order to prevent all forms of organ and limb rejection, and their digestive systems are bolstered mightily to compensate.
Healing(**): Organic Arcana by its very nature has healing potential, but much like the dark warp relative to the light warp, there is no outside assistance to speak of, and unification must be used carefully to treat a wound. The limitation is that this procedure is much slower than a light healing and can take anywhere from a half hour to forty-five minutes for the average wound, and so is very unreliable. It can however be used to follow up on light healings by removing scars or other imperfections, though this is the realm of 'touching', not necessarily true healing.
Organic Bonding(*): This is similar to the bonding technique in synthesis. Bonding organic material is extremely useful but leads to various health troubles if not supplemented with life force. Organic bonding holds organic material together but prevents the shedding of dead cells. Left unchecked this can cause a slew of problems. Organic bonding is typically only done by the fallen and usually just to the bones. If done to areas like the skin, life force is needed to prolong the life of cells and prevent an excess of dead material gathering, however this is still not recommended for a great length of time as new cells are not kept at bay, either. Organic bonded materials have the same benefits as inorganic bonded materials.

Mind Magic(*):
This form of magic is one of the most feared in the entire dark domain, but it is virtually impossible to make use of in most situations. One requires a willing, completely restrained, or unconscious target to even have a chance of establishing the necessary connections to make use of this form. Assuming one has, however, the use of tendrils allows a magician to access the mind of another and directly reference their memories. The magician imposes their own memories on the subject through the tendrils (thoughts amplified and sent to the target) to invoke closely related memories. This is called 'pricking', a form of neural persuasion very similar to dark avian interrogation techniques. Dark avians would acquire information by interpreting outgoing thought waves, which the feather folk are naturally attuned to. As long as their target controlled their thoughts, they could safeguard their information, but dark avian interrogators would get around this by invoking the thoughts they wanted through sudden and surprising stimuli of varying kinds. Pricking works by invoking long term memory through short term cues, but uses a separate mind for the process. Tendrils form the bridge and conduct the signals being exchanged, but they have other uses, as well.
-Memories can be 'lifted' from a target, that is, remembered by the magician, but then forgotten by the target. Disrupting neural patterns that correspond to a specific memory will erode it almost completely, but this does nothing for the sense of deja vu that frequently arises with people affected by this type of magic. Magicians disrupt neural patterns by imposing their own thoughts on them, usually in the form of a solid and blank backdrop with no discernible sounds, sensations, or emotions. This essentially creates a blank spot in the target's memory. Of course, rarely, magicians have left 'signatures' in people's memories in various forms instead of leaving no trace of the deed.
-Memories can be 'copied' from a target naturally or unnaturally. Simply experiencing another person's memories has the potential for retention, but they can also be directly stored by repeating them over and over again. This is done several hundred times as well as impressing other related memories in order to help make sense of the information. Impressing a current thought on one's own mind is redundant but has actually proven useful with preventing memory loss and automatically turns short term memories into long term ones.
-Memories can also be suppressed (rather than erased). This is one of the greater oddities in the magical domain, as suppressed memories are actually maintained by the targets themselves. A memory is suppressed by using dark units to block neural patterns without disrupting them. They remain intact, but eventually dark units would disappear and the target's memories would return if not for this; the mind seems to safeguard itself to the point that psychic energy in the target's own mind prevent the dark units from moving (which prevents them from eroding) (a defense mechanism that ordinarily protects the mind from magic), and this preserves the suppression effect indefinitely. The psychic units are strongest when the target is conscious, however. While unconscious, a mind offers little resistance to tampering.
-Imposing memory for either pricking or disruption works by recalling a thought or concept and sending that signal to the target over and over again. Hundreds of repetitions are required to create a lasting memory with enough 'relevance' (occurrences in the mind) to be easily recalled, and it can often prove a daunting task, especially when targeting a specific memory for swapping. Imposing memory also requires a very strong and focused individual to prevent dilution and contamination(intended memories or concepts mixed with unintended memories or concepts).
-Swapping is when a magician replaces one memory with another. A memory is disrupted by the new memory being imposed. This is done hundreds of times until the old memory is completely eroded and the new one now stands in its place.
-Mind magicians usually do a lot of meditating in order to learn to control their thoughts and tune out distractions, as these stimuli can be transferred to a target along with the memory of it if they aren't discarded immediately. Mind magicians who don't will rarely do good work in this field.
-Mind magic is very taxing, both mentally and physically (modern techniques require a surprising amount of stamina in the arms) and depending on the task at hand, can take hours of dedicated work. Rarely will any single item task other than finding a memory take fewer than ten minutes.
-There are dangers with mind magic. The retention of foreign memories can erode a magician's mind if done in excess, or the condition isn't reversed with the help of another magician. In the past, mind magic was horribly abused, and magicians taking on so many memories proved to be their undoing, as very few escaped mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder).

Post note: Regardless of the true nature of the mind, the RotE universe assumes memories are stored in and through neural networks as 'read only' patterns. This won't change even if we find out more about the mind later on down the road (unless it fits and works better than the current description), as something needs to be established for the sake of mind magic canon.
Basically, I had to pick a 'reality' based on the method, and this was it.

Dark Theory:
-Warp Tracers are researchers who study dark warping. Their aim is to confirm the following theory: Dark warps work by punching holes from one point in space and time to another and allowing a person to pass harmlessly between them. Something so incredibly powerful must leave its 'mark' on space itself. Warp tracers aim to see if dark warps leave any kind of 'trail' or 'footprint' that can tell a mage if and where a warp has taken place. Being able to track warp trails would theoretically allow for safe warping networks one day, a series of left over warp trails that individuals could travel through to reach a specific destinations without any magical experience or training. The warp tracing field is not new, but has made virtually no progress.
-One theory for the fate of dark units is that they eventually cross over into dark space and become a different form of energy in doing so, the same 'energy' that expels foreign matter out of dark space. The theory gained some popularity during early research into dark warping, and has been considered by many because it provides a vaguely plausible answer and origin to the powerful force that exists throughout dark space.
-Warp Cannon: This is a theoretical dark space cannon proposed by both Hammer Industries and supposedly Neviskotia's Guardian Corp. This concept weaponizes wormholes, capitalizing on their collapse effect. Foreign objects within a wormhole are violently ejected as it collapses at speeds that put modern firearms to shame. In theory they could reach speeds that create unimaginable impact force. No such weapon has ever been deployed, but both Ursium and Neviskotia have had both ideas reach the public's ears in both the past and recent years preceding the current war, 4998-4999 A.R..

Edited by Phoenix, 07 April 2013 - 03:19 AM.

[Phoenix]

Spoiler - ANIMA

Anima magic is imparted to the world through the Goddess of Nature. Unlike light and dark magic, anima has seven different forms or 'phases' that can be taken; fire, wind, thunder, ice, water, earth, and neutral (the natural state of anima units). The former six each have the ability to attune to or create forces strong enough for use in battle. Anima is also the most tangible of all magic and capable of exerting incredible force on the environment. Anima units steadily transform into various forms of energy and this is one of the ways they exert their power.

Fire:
The Fire state is the first and one of the iconic forms of anima. When anima units enter the fire state, they allow heat based techniques to be used. As fire units move closer together and/or heat up, they are converted partially into an unnatural heat that still moves and flows against natural forces as psychic power demands.
-Fire units are indiscriminate and can even harm the magician wielding them if allowed to transfer too much energy to them. As such, fire magicians most often form spells in front, to the side, or directly above themselves. Since even unnatural heat tends to rise in the atmosphere the same as normal heat does, overhead is usually the safest place to cast from. Flamethrowers are almost always cast from the front or side, however.
-Fire units can be infused.
Combat:
In combat, fire units must be gathered closely together for most spells whether or not they are converted into flame. Completely separate, they are ineffective. More advanced spells like forblaze use clumping to allow a greater fire spread without losing effectiveness.
-Once fire units are converted, they will only respond to the magician for a limited amount of time, ten seconds on average, fifteen at most. After that, individual units begin to disperse as natural heat.
-Tier one fire spells can be cast on the move(running), while tier two spells require a slower pace(walking) and tier three spells prohibit movement.
-The range of normal fire spells is nine meters. Longer range attacks are eighteen meters, and siege range attacks can reach as far as twenty-seven meters.
[Techniques]
Blast(1): The most basic technique, but quite deadly in the right hands. Fire units are pressed together to produce incredible amounts of heat and create a simple blazing fireball that can be controlled remotely. For quicker blast spells, the fire units are sometimes converted right away. These are generally hurled at enemies where they burst and occasionally set the target ablaze. The less control (of direction) exerted over a fireball, the faster it can move. This means that in order to strike quickly, steering must be sacrificed, and for accurate attacks, speed must be sacrificed. Blasts can be miniaturized to make room for more than one.
Meteor(1): A siege technique that uses an oversized blast ball as the projectile. Meteors also have one added element, sheer velocity. Meteor spells are formed and then sent off high into the air to gain distance before being brought back down on targets traveling seventy meters per second (one hundred fifty-six miles per hour). The resulting explosion is lethal and the impact area can remain bathed in staggering heat for up to half an hour.
Breath of Fire(1): Also called 'flamethrower', This technique starts off as a contained blast, but the compression and fire units involved are both greater. When the magician is satisfied with the pressure build up, a small pocket is opened up to allow the heat and flames to escape in just one direction. This creates a release of flames resembling a volcanic eruption that overwhelms enemies and fries almost anything in range. Flamethrowing lasts as long as the magician keeps the compaction pressure proportionally matched to the energy remaining, but both range and power quickly decline, with the average flamethrower only lasting three to five seconds.
Forblaze(2): This technique works by gathering a huge amount of fire units and flash converting most of them. This creates a fire cloud that can be moved about remotely. Magicians can use these clouds in various ways, but they are usually forced over enemies to cook them alive and in mass.
Combustion(2*) This technique creates explosions in specific places by sending out a thin stream of fire units, gathering them at one point, and then completely converting them to energy all at once. The size and strength of the explosion depends on the number of fire units used but typically rivals a military grade grenade in destructive power. They don't easily penetrate barriers, but unprotected targets are easily killed.
Pyroclysm(3*): A very dangerous and powerful fire magic technique. Fire units are compressed in huge quantities until they reach a critical point, and then they are released, generating a spectacular explosion, more powerful than anything produced by modern tech-only bombs. The explosion radius varies by the magician but fire radius tends to range from ten to thirty meters while the shockwaves can extend out to sixty or more. It is an incredibly dangerous technique to deploy at anything but siege distance.
Super Pyroclysm(3**): A stronger version of pyroclysm and generally too dangerous for normal combat. Just short of casting nova, the magician simultaneously converts and unleashes the fire units creating an enormous explosion. Super pyroclysms have varying sizes but are the largest known explosions in the magic domain and are extremely difficult to take shelter from.
Cymbeline(3**): Also known to the Neviskotians as 'Nova', is the most powerful fire magic technique. It begins in a pre-pryoclysmic state, but the compressed fire units are not released at the critical point. Instead the critical point is passed as even more fire units are plunged into the collection, and then a fire core (something akin to a man-made star) is produced. These spells create irresistible heat and can be moved about remotely. They only lasts as long as a magician can handle the strain. In order to disperse a nova safely, it must be moved away and slowly released, otherwise the sudden loss of stability can result in a horrific explosion. For as long as it is active, Cymbeline is a mobile inferno capable of overwhelming any known material. They are almost impossible to control for more than ten seconds and magicians who have tried have usually lost consciousness, releasing the pressure holding a fire core together all at once and then being consumed by the resulting 'super pyroclysm'.

Wind:
The Wind state is the second and one of the iconic forms of anima. When anima units enter the wind state, they each gain very large control fields that can restrain the atmosphere itself (gases). These control fields can be grouped together and changed into certain shapes to produce various effects. As the shaped fields are moved, they capture and hold onto air, resisting the intense buildup of pressure and creating somewhat solid shapes out of the ever compressing air.
-Wind unit control fields are incredibly versatile compared to others, but only seem to affect the air itself. They can expand or shrink to precisely accommodate the shape of a spell and increase their holding power to make a forged weapon even more durable.
-Wind units themselves move without experiencing wind resistance, and this allows their control fields to gather air almost completely unhindered. They can also resist the retention of new gases which can be used to shield the wind magician from certain forces.
-Wind magic requires careful timing because bringing a wind spell to speed consumes the wind units powering that motion. Once the wind shape loses speed, it can't get back up to speed again without more wind units being consumed and it takes a lot of them just to create a spell shape.
-Wind units can be infused.
Combat:
As mentioned before, pressure buildup can turn these shapes into single use weapons. That is the basis of wind magic and the various shapes that magicians can create form most underlying techniques.
-Tier one and two wind spells can be cast on the move (running) while tier three spells required slower movement (walking).
-The range of normal wind spells is eighteen meters. Longer range attacks are thirty-eight meters, and siege range attacks can reach as far as forty-eight meters.
[Techniques]
Gust(1): A wind magician can create powerful gusts by swinging certain types of wind shapes through the air. If they are large enough and used swiftly enough, the winds created can send combatants to the ground in droves. This technique is not normally lethal, but when used tactically, it can kill quite a few enemies at once.
Slam(1): This technique is the primary wind magic attack. It works on the same principle as the push technique, but carries enough force to tip over an empty wagon or send an enemy combatant through a wall. The slam works by creating a wall shape and thrusting it forward. The bigger the wall, the more taxing the technique and so wind magicians generally only target individuals with the attack, which allows them to create smaller and much more powerful walls. While the slam is usually not fatal of and by itself, used tactically it can be very deadly. Against a strong barrier, slam is still strong enough to knock a target to the ground, but it loses much of its true stopping power.
Wind Blade(1): The wind blade is one of wind magic's purely offensive techniques. The shape produced is a blade (the style of which is up to the preference of the magician). Wind Blades can be forged in pairs, trios, or even sets of four or five with enough skill, but the blades must be kept in motion to be effective. Forging a single blade has one notorious advantage, however, granting enough concentration for very experienced magicians to forge a monomolecular blade. This is a wind blade so precisely shaped and so sharp, that the blade's edge can only be measured in nanometers. With enough force applied, monomolecular wind blades can cut through any known material.
Wind Spear(1): Wind spears work the same way as wind blades, but take on a shape meant to pierce rather than cut. They usually take the shape of arrows, bolts, flechettes or even actual spears depending on the preference of the magician. Wind spears are inherently lethal and against most targets; they can inflict mortal wounds with ease. They are also able to penetrate barriers far more easily than any other type of magic attack, and so they are relied on heavily by wind mages in various militaries. Multiple wind spears can be forged, up to five or so, but forging just one allocates more concentration for refining the attack, and monomolecular spearheads can be forged, allowing a wind spear to pierce virtually anything.
Excalibur(2*): This technique is very difficult to execute, as it combines slam and wind blades to assault a target on multiple fronts. The slam portion is used in stages to force an enemy onto defense while hammering away at their barriers. The variations in barrier strength provide a 'window' for wind blades to pierce more fully through it and the target. The attack is spectacular in appearance and is often the last move used in any duel, as either the target has been defeated, or taken advantage of the opening excalibur users cause when executing this dangerous technique.
Hammer(2): A popular technique against knights and other heavily armored targets. The hammer is not strictly a hammer shape, but any bludgeon that can seriously injure or even kill an armored target. This is a relatively easy alternative to wind spears and can be used frequently enough for multiple or consecutive strikes. Hammers are also quite strong, strong enough to break down a wall or smash a dragon's skull.
Tornado(3*): This technique is similar to gust but works by creating an artificial tornado. It is one of the most powerful wind magic techniques due to the numerous ways the resulting spell can kill. The wind shapes are spun together repeatedly until the tornado forms and is sustained and steered by the magician. Tornados pick up and throw various objects and people randomly and so are only used in the midst of enemies. Some tornadoes have deadly wind shapes held together within them that can potentially decapitate foes, as well. Tornadoes are very difficult to sustain and simply casting one will immobilize a magician for its duration. It is arguably the most powerful wind magic technique when done properly. Tornadoes can be miniaturized and even created at angles or horizontally but their effectiveness wavers with more complex variations.
Snare(3**): This technique is extremely dangerous and works by engulfing a target in wind units and locking in the air. As the target moves, the air pressure around them continues to build. Eventually breathing and movement become difficult, and new air is inaccessible to the target. If held long enough, the snare is usually fatal, because targets will either suffocate, or succumb to the intense air pressure. Those with strong barriers are somewhat immune, and the technique is difficult to manage for more than one minute, but against a noncombatant, it is an absolute terror to behold.
Deflect(2*): This is a defensive technique that softens or prevents blows altogether by using wind shapes defensively. Popular shapes are derived from slam walls and wind blades to deflect incoming attacks, and are somewhat reliable against projectiles provided the magician is skilled enough to hit those.

Thunder:
The thunder state is the third and one of the iconic forms of anima. When anima units enter the thunder state, they gain the ability to create immense electrical charges in very short periods of time as well as quickly ionize the air within their control fields.
-Tiny arcs will sometimes appear even as thunder spells are being charged due to fine particles in the air reaching the ionized portions. This is the easily recognizable ‘sparking’that is seen when a large thunder spell is about to be cast. Magicians have to be careful not to form spells too close to their bodies or a current can hit them as well. Using uncharged thunder units as protective layers can prevent a shock to a degree, allowing them to cast at closer distances, but makes a basic spell more taxing.
-Thunder units fade over the course of thunder spells to become electrical and heat energy.
-Thunder units can be infused.
Combat:
In combat, thunder magic is able to unleash incredible amounts of energy onto very small spaces which gives it precise lethality compared to other forms of magic. Heat distribution is pinpoint compared to fire magic and expert thunder magicians can strike an enemy's eye from siege distances, which make them the preferred 'magic-snipers' in many military units.
-Thunder spells rely heavily on 'pathing' (creating a medium for spells to travel through beyond the magician’s control field; ionized air). Pathing speed over distance never exceeds thirty-five feet per second, and so preparations for attacks must be swift or well thought out for longer range engagements. Pathing isn't necessary for all thunder spells (some can move freely within the magician’s control field) but allows for practically instantaneous contact between the spell and the target.
-A rebound in thunder magic is a thunder spell that strikes the user instead of the intended target. This happens when pathing is done improperly or the charge is released with no suitable pathway available. The force of the released charge forges its own pathway to the nearest discharge point, either the ground, or the magician. Strike poles are used for training thunder mages as these will invariably absorb a misfired charge and keep magicians from injuring themselves. Rebounds only occur when the charge in question is powerful enough to form the basic thunder spell, and so a thunder spell not fully charged won't rebound. Magicians sometimes take advantage of this by charging the spell and pathing at the same time, aiming to complete both simultaneously. -Tier one thunder spells restrict fast movement(running) while tier two and three spells prohibit movement.
-The range of normal thunder spells is fifteen meters. Longer range attacks are thirty meters, and siege range attacks can reach as far as forty-five meters.
[Techniques]
Thunder(1): A basic but powerful technique. The magician gathers enough thunder units together to create a charge powerful enough to strike down an enemy and then begins to build it up. As the thunder units charge up, the air around them rapidly ionizes. The magician then targets an enemy to unleash the charge on. There are two ways to do this, one by stretching the control field to meet the target and then unleashing the charge, or by pathing to them. Until either is complete, releasing the charge will not cause them any harm, and instead will only disintegrate every last particle in the air before dissipating, though depending on the strength of the spell, it could also rebound.
Lightning(1): This technique begins as a thunder spell but instead of pathing to the target in order to deliver the charge, the whole thing is sent flying toward the target as an arcing electrified mass; a lightning ball. It is very imprecise for thunder magic, but causes much more superficial damage and has a better chance of electrifying the heart depending on where it hits. These spells are only effective at close to mid-range.
Bolting(1): A long range thunder spell. It is essentially a stronger 'thunder' spell with a pathing done over a much greater distance than normal. Because the distance is greater, it is easier to dodge the attack if the target is ready for it, but a target that is struck is often incapacitated (or in many cases, killed).
Rexbolt(2*): One of thunder magic's few area attacks, and one that requires a great deal of time(fifteen to twenty-five seconds) to prepare unless the magician takes a risk by consuming all of the thunder units in his aura to speed up the process. This weakens or removes barriers, for a time. Once the charge is ready, it is rained down over a target area in multiple arcs. Each of the arcs is steadily merged into one and the ending strike is stronger and wider than all of the others combined. The attack is lethal but usually easy to dodge and so requires careful planning to execute. Under the right conditions, though, an entire squad can be killed off in one overwhelming attack.
Thoron(3**): The most powerful offensive thunder magic spell. The charge used for it surpasses all others by far, but only takes as long as a normal Rexbolt charge to prepare if a magician takes a risk by charging all of the units within their control field. The units must immediately be moved into position (leaving the magician with no protection against magic for a time), or the magician can be shocked, releasing the spell prematurely and being fried to an unrecognizable crisp by the rebounding spell. When the spell is ready, either a path is forged to the target and the spell released into it, or the entire mass is forced onto a target directly. Either way, the damage surpasses natural lightning strikes and can reduce an entire body to pulp and bone. Thoron can also cause significant explosions if directed to a single point.
Rising Shield(2*): A defensive technique developed by the dragons and named by the kigenese. The rising shield technique generates an incredibly powerful field of thunder units that disrupt anything traveling near them. Debris and particles striking the field are dragged up along a rising current and sent off into the air once they reach the top or deflected, while high speed projectiles are bounced off at barely predictable angles. Melee strikes against a rising shield can cause mild electrical shock depending on conductivity. Objects moving more parallel to the current will essentially 'ride it' until they reach the top or fly off prematurely while objects moving against it will be violently repelled. Magicians using the rising shield cannot move while it is active.
ArcShot(3**): This is a defensive technique of masters that sends arcs through their control field powerful enough to instantly instill a powerful charge and repel various objects. These objects become electrified and will release their charge at the earliest opportunity which either goes into the ground or into a victim. This only works on smaller objects such as projectiles and lighter melee weapons. The technique allows magicians to snipe incoming threats and stun opponents to protect themselves or allies.

Ice:
The fourth form of anima, Ice magic is just as hazardous and as swift as wind magic. Ice units are capable of converting heat into other forms of energy and can do this very quickly. Even their own heat energy can be converted into power and used to impel the air and particles around them. It is used in many places since it has great potential in many areas.
-Ice unit control fields are the largest in the magical domain, macroscopic in radius and able to more easily affect elements beyond the magician's true control field. This gives Ice magic the most efficient operating time and distance.
-Ice units can convert heat into propulsive energy, which can be split up into various tasks throughout the control field.
-Ice units cannot easily utilize other anima units (such as converted fire or charged thunder units) when turning heat into power. Only when they outnumber other units can they fully siphon their power, in this case, when the ice magician overpowers an enemy.
-Once they cease interacting with psychic energy, ice units fade away.
-Ice units can be infused.
Combat:
In combat, ice magic siphons away heat energy and converts it into propulsive energy. This snap freezes particles and objects, and chills the air to sub-zero temperatures in a matter of seconds while providing extra power for the remainder of the spell. The more heat available, the quicker power can be gathered and the stronger the resulting spells become.
-While ice magic converts heat to 'motion', it is a relatively weak motion and a great deal of it is needed to be practical in combat. Projectiles have to be pushed or pulled toward their targets with immense force, or 'flown' there with a constant supply of propulsion.
-Tier one and two ice spells can be cast on the move (running), while tier three spells require a slower pace(walking).
-The range of normal ice spells is thirteen meters. Longer range attacks are twenty-six meters, and siege range attacks can reach as far as thirty-nine meters.
[Techniques]
Hail(1): This technique requires a source such as water or vapor. The magician acquires any energy within an area that they can, and then use some of that energy to shape the icy particles into the desired shape before using the rest to hurl them at the enemy at blinding speeds. While it is a physical attack, its effectiveness depends on the strength of the target's barrier; hail relies on constant propulsion rather than launch force (which is noticeably inaccurate). A strong barrier can break up this propulsion and weaken the resulting attack. Hails come in varying sizes but are always accompanied by a strong gust whose wind chill can easily overwhelm targets, making their normal defenses a non-issue. Hail stones that strike the target at full force can leave painful welts or if specially shaped, pierce the skin. Hail 'bolts' can penetrate deeper and cause more serious injuries.
Glacier(1): This is a variation of hail large enough to be recognized as a separate technique. Glacier forms a projectile dozens of times larger (on average) than hail projectiles and hurls it at targets with force only surpassed by earth magic. While a significant amount of energy is needed to propel the object, it does not necessarily have to be made out of liquid. In fact, glaciers can be made from nearly anything weighing more than a few pounds, but not so heavy that they can't be lifted at all. Glacier projectiles are ideally between twenty and two hundred eighty pounds in weight. Aerodynamic objects are preferred, as these are more accurate when thrown and can be propelled much faster (between forty and eighty meters per second). Glacier is also accompanied by a strong gust, one capable of quickly overwhelming a target's defenses. Glacier is very effective because frozen liquids or objects will either remain intact, bludgeoning or impaling the target, or shatter, ravaging the target with icy shrapnel.
Frost(1): It is sometimes referred to as 'frostbite'. This is a close range attack that aims to cripple opponents by snap freezing limbs. An unprotected target is quite susceptible to this attack while a protected target must be worn down first, as an active barrier will interfere with ice units at work. Unhindered, however, ice units can siphon heat directly from the surface of the skin. This is both painful and debilitating when joints are affected and completely frozen limbs often cannot be saved by light magic alone.
Blizzard(2*): Blizzard is a technique that combines all of ice magic's iconic traits, heat absorption, icy projectiles, and inexplicable gale force winds. An area is chosen by the magician, and then they siphon off as much heat as they can in preparation for the next step. Once they have enough, they scatter their ice units over a target area and begin to circulate them at high speeds, releasing their stored energy into the wind. This creates a powerful localized storm. The magician can stop here or use this pseudo ice factory to produce numerous projectiles of varying shapes and sizes to pummel their target with. The blizzard is very difficult to master requiring some mastery of ‘complete instruction’ in order to work efficiently, but once mastered, it is an invaluable offensive and defensive tool for dispatching foes.
Blitz(2): This technique is used to finish off weakened or unsuspecting opponents. Once the necessary energy is gathered, the ice units involved are compressed together similar to some fire spells. When they reach the critical point (the point where releasing them will trigger an explosion rather than a rapid spread), their energy is released. The pressure this generates causes a cryogenic explosion that can snap freeze unprotected targets to the bone and send protected targets to the ground with varying degrees of 'cold damage'. It is not a difficult technique to learn, but it is a difficult technique to excel at in practice, as battlefield conditions shift constantly and blitz spells must be positioned very close to targets to have the desired effect. One common result of failed blitz blasts however is blindness; targets not close enough to be killed by the blast are often still looking toward it as the super cooled air rushes past them, and the eyes are often instantly iced over by this attack. The same applies to the tongue, teeth, and nasal passages (any place moist enough to freeze easily) of unprotected targets. It is more commonly referred to as the 'ice bomb'.
Void(3**): The strongest and most difficult ice technique. The magician creates an inhospitable dead zone by absorbing every last trace of heat energy, leaving temperatures over one hundred degrees below zero, and follows up with a crushing wind that strikes the target from all directions. This is a direct contrast to blitz but is more difficult to evade. The wind chill can quickly freeze any unprotected target, killing them almost immediately while protected targets are most often weakened significantly or incapacitated. When at an advantage, even the target's own energy is partially used to power the attack (targets will often be entering the early stages of hypothermia even as the void is prepared if energy from their body is used). For the magician to cast this spell, they must be outside of the void zone, and for a deep freeze to be guaranteed, the target must be weakly protected or not at all, and the void zone must be at least ten meters in radius.
Icesheet(2*): This a defensive technique that deflects incoming attacks and projectiles by unleashing gathered heat energy as a powerful gust. Ice units unleash their power as they're pulled in mass around the magician like a sheet. They can easily displace blunt and sharp objects, but timing is crucial and time can't be spent gathering energy for this technique once an attack has already started. Most often, ice magicians will fall back to the icesheet when they have failed to beat an enemy to the next attack and don't want to be struck down for it.

Water:
The water state is a state that allows for both power and versatility. Once in the water state, anima units can merge with liquids and alter their material state and motion to an extreme not found anywhere else in magic. With its capabilities in agriculture and warfare, it is used in every known country.
-Water units merge with liquids and spread throughout low viscous liquids fairly quickly. Highly viscous liquids on the other take far too long to be practical in battle. Once they merge with the liquid, the magician can remotely control it as long as it remains relatively close to their control field.
-Water units cannot be infused themselves, but normal anima units can be put into the water state after being lifted from infusion.
Combat:
In combat, water magic is used by experts to quickly incapacitate one target after another, and can keep opponents guessing with alternating spells and tactics.
-A target's bodily fluids cannot be manipulated under combat conditions because the water units must first merge with them. Even when this is accomplished, the effects are isolated. Eg: Merging water units with external fluids would only allow manipulation of said external fluids (sweat, saliva, tears, etc.). Internal fluids like blood remain unaffected. However, it is possible to merge with internal fluids if there is a path to them such as a gaping wound and no active barrier causing interference and preventing interaction. This is more useful for preventing a person from bleeding out than killing them, however, and only blood is effected, not fluids outside of the veins.
-Water units merged with liquids can only be influenced for a short period of time. After this, more must be added, or the magician loses control of them. First tiers can sustain control for ten seconds per merger. Second tiers can sustain it for fifteen seconds per merger. Third tiers can sustain it for twenty seconds per merger. The longer control is kept, the more water units consumed by the process, which eventually leads to unit scarcity, fatigue and eventually strain.
-Water magicians can handle a great deal of water based on their level of training and experience. Going beyond one's capabilities induces heavy strain that if ignored for too long can leave them unconscious. Lvl 1-3=300gal, Lvl 4-6=600gal, Lvl 7-9=900gal, Lvl 10-12=1200gal, Lvl 13-15=1500gal.
-There is a trick or 'method' of controlling quantities of water beyond one's current limitations, but only works with techniques such as torrent or maelstrom. The method is to spread the water units out further in these waters. Natural and unnatural water are held together and flow together, allowing water the manipulation of far more water than is otherwise possible. This method will not work with techniques like impel, hold, shift, polarize, or hydrogrenade.
-Tier one and two water spells can be cast on the move (running), while tier three spells require a slower pace(walking).
-The range of normal water spells is nine meters. Longer range attacks are eighteen meters, and siege attacks can reach as far as twenty-seven meters.
[Techniques]
Impel(1): This is basic hydrokinesis and deals with lifting, pushing, pulling, and projecting liquids. It requires a source, but large quantities of water can be manipulated by even novice magicians. Lifting and projecting liquids requires careful control as liquid masses that aren't grounded tend to tumble unpredictably while airborne. Water magic can only remain airborne while grounded or in motion, and so liquids must be kept flowing (in circles if necessary) to prevent them from falling if they are being suspended in the air with no support. Most impel spells take the shape serpents or loops flowing around the magician due to this.
Hold(1): This technique prevents the movement of liquids under the magician's influence causing a 'hardening' effect that can be used for a short time. This allows for various types of offensive and defensive maneuvers, such as hardening a mass of water to launch or block an attack. Hardened liquids must be used quickly, be grounded somehow, or be held in the magician's hand because while in this state, the mass of liquid will not remain airborne of and by itself. Magicians holding liquids for too long in general, grounded or not will quickly experience strain.
Shift(2): Shift changes the temperature of liquids. The most common uses for shifting are creating extremely hot liquids, igniting flammables such as oils, and freezing them. The latter is extremely useful in battle as it can be used to temporarily incapacitate or stun enemies or outright kill them if they are thoroughly doused in water merged units(specifically if a sufficient amount has entered the body). Temperature shift takes place at a rate of one second for every six gallons for every one hundred degrees in increase or decrease. Eg: It will only take three seconds to shift the temperature of eighteen gallons of water by one hundred degrees. Shifting can be done in stages as well, rather than all at once. This allows more efficient results. Eg: Freezing water at someone's feet to hold them long enough for the extra layers to be added on and prevent their escape.
Polarize(3*): This technique changes the properties of water or liquids to give them either stronger alkaline or acidic properties. In combat, the latter is generally preferred. Changing the properties of liquids isn't instantaneous and requires a bit of preparation time, one second per gallon. Once polarized, liquids can then be shifted, held, or impelled for various combinations and effects.
Hydrogrenade(2): This is a heavy attack technique that creates an explosion by superheating held water and then unleashing it near a target. The hotter the water, the stronger the blast and it is potentially dangerous as an actual grenade. Hydrogrenades are held masses and so will not float on their own. They must be thrown at targets by hand, preferably gloved hands. Once thrown, depending on the magician's preference, the hyrdogrenade will either delay for several seconds before detonating, or explode on contact. It is taxing to perform, but multiple grenades can be used at one time. Hydrogrenades can also be shifted to create acid explosions which are very effective at neutralizing foes.
Torrent(3*): Torrents are used to overwhelm multiple opponents by hitting them with large amounts of liquid all at once. This liquid can be shifted or polarized in advance for varying effects. Torrents can also be held as they come down to brutally crush, smash, or decapitate enemies. The technique is extremely taxing on the magician and so consecutive uses in battle are highly discouraged.
Maelstrom(3**): Only usable in relatively large bodies of water, the maelstrom is used for both offense and defense and creates whirlpools that send enemies helplessly going around in circles. While maelstroms can be augmented with shifting, polarizing, and even holding, the effects aren't universal or evenly spread due to natural and unnatural waters mixing unevenly. The largest maelstroms cast by humans can hold a single sloop captive, while those cast by dragons can trap a very small fleet of several ships or so. Numerous water mages working in tandem however can duplicate the latter scale, but also have the same augmenting problems.
Cloak(3**): This is an advanced water magic technique used by masters to completely shield themselves from attacks. They cover their entire bodies in water or some other usable liquid and continually merge water units with the liquid to maintain control over it. While covered in this liquid, it can be hardened to shield against incoming attacks, or augment one’s own melee attacks. Cloaks also act as a constant source of liquid in emergencies. One other ironic use of cloak is to keep warm or cool in extremely hostile climates. In extreme cold, cloaks can be shifted to keep the magician warm, while in hot climates, they can be kept cool.

Earth:
The earth state allows for unparalleled displacing power. Earth units have control fields large enough to allow very heavy objects to be moved about, but do not handle liquids or soft materials as well. Objects under the influence of earth units can be impelled in various ways.
-Earth unit control fields can affect other earth units.
-Earth units fade in one of two ways. The first is natural fading where the units simply disappear shortly after being influenced by psychic energy. The second is called solidification. This occurs when earth units fade within an object. When this happens, earth units seal objects, closing gaps and fractures within and throughout it. This is what makes the deadly fracture technique possible.
-Earth units cannot be infused, but normal anima units can be put into the earth state after being lifted from infusion.
Combat:
Earth magic is deadly in combat because almost anything that isn't bound in place or protected by a barrier can be used as a weapon. Earth magicians are still hindered by speed limitations, the weight of the objects in question, and the time required when manipulating them.
-Earth mages can handle extremely heavy objects based on their level of training and experience. Trying to lift beyond one's capabilities induces a heavy strain that if ignored for too long can render a magician unconscious. Earth magic's impelling abilities vary by method used, but the following are the heaviest weights earth magicians can handle in battle. Out of combat (normal lifting) is fifty percent more than any weight listed. Lvl 1-3=100lbs, Lvl 4-6=400lbs, Lvl 7-9=900lbs, Lvl 10-12=1600lbs, Lvl 13-15=2500lbs. Multiple objects can be manipulated at once, but cannot exceed the listed 'total weights'.
-The maximum horizontal speed attainable based on projectile weight (assuming projectiles are all spherical) are as follows (in pounds=meters per second): <100lbs=36mps, <400lbs=25mps, <900lbs=16mps, <1600lbs=9mps, <2500lbs=4mps and so on. Extremely heavy objects can be moved 'down' toward a target to increase their speed using gravity.
-Earth units have control fields that can push away, pull in, or hold, surrounding material in place, and like wind units, these control fields can be used to hold masses together or pull them apart. Complex use of these control fields allows magicians to perform more advanced techniques.
-Tier one earth spells prohibit fast movement (running). Tier two and three spells require a slower pace (walking).
-The range of normal earth spells is ten meters. Longer range attacks are twenty meters, and siege range attacks can reach as far as thirty meters.
[Techniques]
Impel(1): This is a basic and iconic technique in the earth domain and deals with lifting, pushing, pulling, and throwing objects or enemies. Anything with an active barrier is somewhat immune to being directly manipulated by earth magic, but virtually no objects within the environment have such barriers, and so these can be hurled with deadly force and used to kill targets. The lighter the object, the faster it can be moved, but extremely light objects tend to lack lethality.
Crush(2*): By surrounding a target in repulsive earth units and pressing them down around the target, that target can often be crushed under thousands of pounds of pressure from all directions. Barrier interference is a constant, however, and as soon as earth units enter an enemy's control field, they begin to weaken. Only an unprotected target is truly vulnerable to this technique. Crush also has other forms similar to the dark technique, stasis, such as complete immobilization and strangulation.
Burst Hit(3): This technique unleashes an incredible amount of force on a single point. This has two specific uses in combat, the first is to augment an impel spell by hitting an object and sending it forward at tremendous speeds. This is known as 'thrusting' and only works on objects strong enough to withstand the hit. The angle of the hit must also be precise or it can cause the object in question to completely miss its target. The second use is to 'pierce' targets. This is similar to the haze technique but much larger in scale. A tremendous amount of pressure is applied to a single point and can cause gunshot like injuries in unprotected targets, while leaving severe welts on protected targets. A sonic boom can be heard when a burst hit is used, and a second smaller ‘impact’ noise is heard when the burst hit strikes its target.
Fracture(3*): This technique relies heavily on earth magic’s solidification properties. It ruptures larger structures by forcing them apart and putting them into new positions. This applies mainly to the ground and walls. Earth units burrow into the objects and then manipulate them to throw enemies off balance, create new projectiles to use, or reform these structures into environmental hazards using solidify. It is the most feared technique in the earth domain for its wide variety of uses and unpredictability. Fracturing takes time and isn't always practical in battle, however. Reshaping something as small as part of a wall only takes a few seconds after earth units are released onto it, but anything larger can force the magician to seek cover in the meantime, and material composition is also a factor. While firm and rigid materials are preferred, they are also the most difficult to reform.
Aegis(2*): This is a defensive technique and acts as a ward to lightweight and/or slow incoming objects. Earth unit control fields are set to push away anything that comes into contact with them, increasing the strength of the magician's barrier several times over, but immobilizing them in the process. This can dissuade high speed projectiles, but some of these can still be lethal if they hit the barrier head on. It can only be maintained for several exchanges or longer if the magician uses an inner layer of earth units in a holding state to protect them from the pressure exerted by aegis(which is omni-directional and indiscriminate), otherwise they can be injured while using this technique. 'Pocket Aeges' can be used to get around this (an Aegis that doesn't completely encase the magician, protecting from only one or two directions), but still demand a fair bit of focus.
Burst Field(3**): Also known as the ‘repulse’, is a more advanced form of Aegis that protects the magician from the tremendous forces at work and the most powerful earth magic technique. The field is the result of several layers of earth units working together, the innermost layer protecting the magician from the effects of all the others by cancelling them out with holding fields. The middle layers use attracting fields to keep the outer layers bound closely to them, creating tremendous pressure throughout the field. The outermost layers use repulsive fields that are strengthened by proximity. Together, they create a compounded repulsive effect so powerful, that almost nothing can penetrate the field. It can only be sustained for several seconds, but if used in a confined space, it can unleash unfathomable force, repelling or destroying anything within its radius. The average radius of a Burst Field is two meters.

Neutral:
This is the state of anima in the atmosphere and when it is contained naturally. This is a relatively inactive state with modest potential. Despite this, it makes an excellent barrier component.
-Neutral anima units are one of several types that can pass through matter, though this is not a seamless phase. These have little overall combat potential.
-Neutral units can be infused, but this is only useful for creating ‘one type fits all’ tomes.
-Anima units in general can only penetrate matter by force or by entering a particular elemental state that would allow for it. Because of this, some anima states can be infused, and others can't.
-Anima units in general can travel up to fifty-two meters (one hundred seventy feet) per second.
Combat:
Neutral units can be used in battle, but their applications are extremely limited.
-Neutral units cannot form any type of elemental spell. Even those resembling earth magic lack the same potential. Converging and phasing techniques do not produce useful effects.
-Neutral spells can all be cast on the move.
-The range of normal neutral spells is five meters. Longer range attacks are fifteen meters, and siege range attacks can reach as far as twenty-five meters.
[Techniques]
Push(1): The most basic of all anima techniques, and also the least effectual in battle. Anima units are gathered together in mass and thrust at the target. The effect is actually potent enough to knock person off balance and to the ground, but this only applies to a person standing normally. Only experts can force a person to the ground from any stance.
Pull(2): The opposite of pushing but more difficult to pull off, as it consists of two phases, the first phase being placement, and the second being retraction. The magician must send out the neutral units and position them behind their target before pulling those units back and potentially bringing the target along as well. Unless the magician is only trying to push someone from a different direction and not get them off of the ground for a moment or two, this technique can be quite difficult to execute.
Augment(1): This technique is more commonly used by magicians compensating for low strength or to add even more power to a melee attack. By sending anima units against or along a limb (depending on the type of attack used), the force transferred during a hit can be doubled or even tripled.
Haze(3*): This is the most dangerous neutral technique in anima and works by sending clumped units through a target. This is akin to being shot with hundreds of thousands of extremely tiny bullets and is quite painful. Forcing clumped units through a person's body is by no means easy, and a target protected by a barrier is usually immune, but with enough force put into the attack (or an unmovable/trapped target), a person can have hundreds of thousands of tiny holes punched through their body causing innumerable blood vessel ruptures and hideous bruising. This can cause internal bleeding throughout the body and eventually lead to death if not treated. Haze injuries can be difficult to heal when they are used against the entire body (people can die of internal bleeding before every injury is treated).
Platforming(3): This is not solely a neutral technique, rather it is a series of positioning techniques that exist throughout anima. Each has a specific way of accomplishing it and for various purposes, and a magician will only be able to fully master one of the elemental techniques depending on their specialty.
Fire(3*): platforming in fire is more commonly referred to as 'launching' and requires total mastery of fire in order to prevent injurying oneself. The magician shapes fire units into flamethrower like funnels tasking different groups within the shapes with different jobs. Those forming the outer shape of the funnels redirect and trap heat energy on the inside while those on the inside generate new heat of their own. Normally enormous fire spells are funneled out at high speed to create a propulsive effect that can last for up to a several seconds and can be used to jump greater distances, break falls, or if stable enough, deliver a precise and overwhelming burn to a target.
Wind(3*): Platforming in wind is less about making platforms and more about turning hard falls into soft ones or gliding. Just like wind shapes can be created for attack, they can also be created around the magician's body to form parachutes and various other fall control devices. More popular designs among master wind magicians are 'Windwings'. Windwings actually do have potential for limited flight, but are generally used for short range gliding to avoid strain. Wind magicians can also launch themselves into the air with a strong enough slam, but this isn't very common or safe.
Thunder(3*): Platforming in thunder is used in two ways, to create a sliding effect, and to slow or break falls. In the former, thunder units are gathered in mass at the feet or whatever qualifies and begin to generate the same repulsive field seen in the rising shield. The effect is much weaker but if the object is light enough, or enough thunder units are applied, friction between the magician and surface is nullified. In falls, the effect is magnified and directed downward to force the magician off of the ground or slow/break their fall.
Ice(3*): platforming in ice is more commonly referred to as 'launching'. When the necessary amount of energy is gathered, it is projected from the feet or other stable part of the body to launch the magician into the air or toward a target. Masterful launching control allows ice magicians to traverse the battlefield at incredible speeds. Launching can also be used to slow or break falls safely.
Water(3*): Platforming in water and earth is what gave 'platforming' its name in the first place. The hold technique allows magicians to traverse bodies of water on foot if they have excellent pacing and balance. Water running is only possible for short periods of time, as water units are quickly used up by the process (anywhere from ten to twenty seconds). Water magicians can also break their falls if they have enough liquid under their influence and directed it downward. As they approach the ground, the liquids should be crushed together to form a cushion and then slowly hardened as the magician lands on it. This absorbs the impact harmlessly but requires exact timing at greater fall speeds(falls from greater heights).
Earth(3*): Platforming in earth and water is what gave 'platforming' its name in the first place. Earth magicians use the objects in the environment as platforms to support their weight. This is a roundabout method of levitation. It can be learned with adept concentration and mastery of earth magic.
Neutral(3): Platforming with 'raw anima' as it is sometimes called, is the easiest, but least useful form of platforming. Directing units along the limbs, particularly the legs, can augment a jump or soften a fall that would otherwise break bones. The faster the fall, the more power needed to soften the landing.

Agriculture:
(Pending)

Construction:
(Pending)

Anima Theory:
-Ironically called 'friendly fire' by many, the fire that doesn't harm the magician casting it or their allies is a very real and very plausible concept. In modern times, magicians are at least partially protected from their fire spells by excess fire units that resist the transfer of heat instead of helping it propagate and gather around the limbs to form a heat shield. It is believed that if fire units inside of a fire spell can be made to coordinate to completely stop heat transfer when in contact with the magician or their allies, this 'friendly' fire spell could be achieved. This would require the heat to take another form, however, which is why it is not believed that fire units alone could accomplish the feat, at least not until they are better understood.
Note: (More are pending)

Spoiler - RESISTANCE

Resistance is one of only three defenses against magic, the others being agility and heavy obstacles. 'Barriers', are resistance at work and protect magicians by interfering with incoming spells, reducing their effectiveness, or cancelling them out altogether. This happens in various ways depending on several factors. Barriers are not automatic in the beginning; users have to be trained, maintaining them constantly until it becomes as natural as breathing and as autonomous as a heartbeat. Adequate barriers have to be built up through focus training (meditation) and experience (being attacked). The actual barrier is a result of psychic units pulling in elements of a magician's aura within the control field, and 'personally ‘interfering' with any foreign energies that enter said control field. With aura elements being moved closer together, the chances of spell collisions increases, and the amount of interference also increases. A magician's psychic units will cancel out the 'orders' of foreign psychic units while condensing aura elements, which weakens a spell as soon as it comes into the magician's control field. In close quarters where the control fields of opposing magicians overlap, their spells are collectively weakened. Whenever magicians work closely in tandem, their overlapping control fields result in significantly increased spell power.

For the inexperienced or the more physically inclined, barrier weapons and equipment were produced to increase the available aura elements for psychic units to control, effectively increasing resistance during condensing. Even in ordinary people, there is some magical cancellation caused by psychic interference, specifically when the victim of an attack is fully aware of the attack and hoping to avoid it. The 'natural barrier' is too weak for practical use but is still measurable and lends to physical fighters being able to achieve 'mage level barriers' with some formal training and commitment. Resistance can build up naturally in defense minded fighters, but only reaches potency with actual training.

The Magic Triangle:
The magic triangle is a representation of the effectiveness of one type of magic pitted against another and is represented as a literal triangle with anima at the top, light to the bottom right, and dark to the bottom left. The picture explains magical effectiveness when moving from one point to the next in a clockwise manner. Anima is effective against light. Light is effective against darkness. Darkness is effective against anima. Like magic does not have increases or decreases in effectiveness when pitted against each other. The reason some magic is more effective or less effective against others is due to how they interact with each other during high speed collisions.

Anima vs Light: Anima units are very large compared to light units and at high speeds, they can blast through almost anything. Light units are not able to hinder their movement of and are forced aside or dragged along thanks to their slight tangibility.
Anima vs Dark: Anima units are more easily hindered by dark units, which will literally 'stick to them', piling on extremely quickly as the anima units move through a dark barrier. This can form a very thick wall between anima units and their target as well as slow them down.

Light vs Dark: Light units at high speed will punch through groups of dark units with relative ease, losing little momentum with each strike or pass. Dark units do not easily assume heat under these conditions and so most of it can be transferred to the dark magician's body if the light units reach them in force.
Light vs Anima: Light units even at high speed lack the power to penetrate anima groups without quickly losing momentum. Heat from Light's offensive spells is also quickly cancelled out by the motion resistant anima units, protecting the magician.

Dark vs Anima: Dark units at high speeds will flow together like a torrent, reinforcing each other and providing a current for all the others to follow. This allows them to flow around the much larger anima units despite their size.
Dark vs Light: When pitted against light groups, head on collisions happen too frequently. These types of collisions can stop dark units, cold, which can create clusters of stalled dark units and interrupt the flow. When this effect propagates throughout the entire spell, the attack is effectively absorbed.

In actual battle, barriers can protect from more than just other magic. Certain types of barriers can protect from extremes of temperature and lightweight objects. These sorts of barriers tend to require more tangibility than most, and so physical barriers are almost always anima based.

In Nature:
A few oddities exist where resistance is concerned, specifically in certain animals. Pegasi for example have strong light based resistance, granting their riders a slight boon in combat. Other animals include a particular breed of sea wyvern and the aquatic wyrms used by dragoons. These creatures have strong anima based resistance. With pegasi, it's a common belief that they are blessed creatures of the Goddess of Mercy and so have natural resistance based on light. The sea wyverns and wyrms are assumed to be blessed by the Goddess of Nature in the same way, though some believe the Sea King, Leviathan, is the one who bestows this blessing.

Spoiler - Auras

The Aura:
The aura is a collection of psychic and magical 'units' that surrounds all magic users, from novices to masters. In humans, it is the direct result of the mental equivalent of muscle memory. Psychic power acts on magical forces even while a magician is at rest, unaware, or unfocused and holds down applicable roaming units, confining them to the magician's control field.
-Psychic energy holds down magical units, but exerts very little force on them, preventing magical break down from beginning immediately. It still happens within a certain amount of time, which is why auras never become extremely thick on their own. Auras are replenished via free roaming magic.
-The control field regularly goes through the basic motions of creating the most common spells the magician knows. This is called 'phantom casting' and is normally a beneficial aspect of the psyche, allowing magicians to eventually cast more advanced spells with ease. The amount of energy within an aura is relatively small, too little to cast a powerful spell, but thick enough to allow for one or two basic spells. Phantom casting goes through the motions of casting spells, but does not exert enough force to actually cast.
-Auras increase in size and 'thickness' as magicians become stronger and so often act as a reflection of a magician's overall power. The aura only truly corresponds to their gathering ability, and their barrier control, known collectively as the 'maturity' of their psychic powers.
-Auras can be 'flared', causing the aura to become visible to the naked eye. This visible light created by flaring isn't the magic within the aura, but very high concentrations of aura emissions caused by increased psychic/magic interaction (more on emissions in 'Detection'). Flaring also occurs during spells a magician is highly vested in. Many spells that would otherwise be invisible are made visible by the increased 'stress' between psychic and magic units. The color of a flare depends on the magic in use. Light magic creates white and yellow flares. Dark magic creates violet flares. Anima creates many different colors depending on the composition of the magician's aura, but some common ones are red, orange, turquoise, and green.

In nonhumans, auras are created by the A.E.(Abner Effect), a natural event that causes local applicable energy to contain itself within and around nonhumans. This energy like in humans never strays beyond the control field. Nonhumans can become natural hosts to any magic they learn to control and that magic will gravitate toward them, with early magic containing itself within the nonhuman, and late magic roaming through their control field. Because nonhumans are naturally poor at extracting infused energy, they must rely on containing objects to practice and learn new magic types. Only once they have the ability to control a new type of magic will the A.E. begin to slowly take hold. This had effectively restricted most nonhumans to their 'born element' throughout their lives for a long time.

Detection:
All auras emit a special energy, and quite a bit of it. The energy released from auras is a byproduct of all forms of control exerted over magic. That includes the very passive control that creates auras in the first place. In short, any psychic interaction with magic, whether passive or intentful, emit this energy. It goes out in all directions, slowly fading with distance, and passes through matter. This energy is unique to all others in that it reflects the magician causing it. With enough training, individuals can be identified by these emissions alone. Their 'signature' determined by the quantity and quality of the psychic/magical interactions which is unique to every magician, human and nonhuman. The emissions of each magician change as their abilities improve or decline, but to those familiar with the changes, emissions can still act as a type of signature. Magicians must train to detect this energy, relying on what can only be called 'psychic interpretation'. It's called this because only psychic units can detect this energy.
-Aura emissions fade over distance. The distance is thought to be approximately seventy miles. Beyond this, detection is simply impossible.

Detection grades determine the detection abilities of magicians. Grade one is the lowest detection grade, but still takes time and training to reach. Detection abilities are unique in magic because as magicians gain experience, their detection range extends in somewhat 'ever increasing intervals'. Detection ranges become enormous after a time but have notable discerning limitations. There are seven official grades and both humans and nonhumans can reach them all. It is impossible, however, to reach the suspected higher grades. These higher grades are 'suspected' because grade seven has a detection range a little under eight miles. That is around ten percent of detection's potential.
-No one training in detection for less than a year has ever achieved grade one or higher without divine intervention of some kind. Reaching grade two can take anywhere from three to five years from grade one. Grade three can be reached from grade two within three to five years. Grade four can be reached in five to eight years. Grade five can be reached in eight years to a decade. Grade six can be reached in eight to twelve years. Grade seven can be reached in eight to twelve years. The '(S)' is for divine intervention. Characters in these situations can be at the desired detection grade regardless of level.
-Detection Grades cannot be 'skipped' in training. They are milestones, not actual techniques.
-There is no exact measurement for each grade, only a relative distance associated with each. This means that each magician's detection range is unique to them but does not stray far from the listed distances per grade. Higher grades have broader detection but even the highest grade variations (specifically at grade 7) do not exceed one thousand meters.
-Magicians may actually fail to notice emissions even if they are within their detection range. This is called 'detection oversight' and is somewhat common in magicians with large detection range who purposely ignore insignificant detections. The difference between oversight and ignoring a detection is that in oversight, the magician completely misses the detection consciously and would not be able to recall ever having detected the 'overseen' at all. Oversight virtually never happens when a strong aura is detected, or when one is particularly close by.
-Magicians can also have false alarms or 'false detections'. These are less common than detection oversights but still happen from time to time. They are merely phantom detections based mainly in memory and typically come from lots of experience. False detections are quickly identified because they fade in seconds whereas real presences don't.
-Detection potential doesn't diminish much with age, but actual detection ability can become plagued with detection oversight or false detection as the mind withers.
[Detection Grades]
Grade One(1): Emissions can be detected from one hundred meters away (three hundred twenty-eight feet) and closer. Nothing else can be interpreted, but detection oversight is extremely rare at grade one.
Grade Two(2/S): Emissions can be detected from three hundred meters away (nine hundred eighty-four feet) and closer. Magic types can be discerned, but only up to one hundred meters. Magic subtypes can also be detected but only up to thirty three meters (one hundred eight feet).
Grade Three(2/S): Emissions can be detected from seven hundred meters away (two thousand two hundred ninety-seven feet) and closer. Magic types can be discerned, but only up to three hundred meters. Magic subtypes can also be detected but only up to one hundred meters.
Grade Four(3/S): Emissions can be detected from one thousand five hundred meters away (four thousand nine hundred twenty-one feet) and closer. Magic types can be discerned, but only up to seven hundred meters. Magic subtypes can be discerned up to three hundred meters. Anything one hundred meters or closer is easily identified. Oversight is common. False detection is uncommon.
Grade Five(3/S): Emissions can be detected from three thousand one hundred meters away (ten thousand one hundred seventy-one feet) and closer. Magic types can be discerned up to one thousand five hundred meters while subtypes must be within seven hundred meters. Anything three hundred meters or closer is easily identified. Oversight is common. False detection is common.
Grade Six(3/S): Emissions can be detected from six thousand three hundred meters away (twenty-one thousand feet) and closer. Magic types are discernible from three thousand one hundred meters away, and subtypes from one thousand five hundred meters away. Seven hundred meters and below is an easy identification radius, but both oversight and false identification are very common.
Grade Seven(3/S): Emissions can be detected from twelve thousand seven hundred meters away(forty-two thousand feet) and closer. Magic types can be discerned from six thousand three hundred meters away while subtypes can at most be three thousand one hundred meters away. At one thousand five hundred meters and below, identification is relatively easy, but oversight and false detection can become problematic if tracking multiple targets at long range.

Concealment:
Being able to detect auras is a powerful skill that enables magicians to find friends and foes in almost any situation. Naturally concealment has become an even more valuable skill, but it is extraordinarily difficult for mages to achieve. There are several ways to conceal an aura, or more specifically, evade detection by other magicians.
Repression: Repression is the most difficult single form of concealment to learn. Repression attunes psychic energy to the emission energies which oddly enough can also be influenced by psychic energy (so long as it is geared to do so). Emissions can then be trapped within the control field. Trapped emissions can be dealt with in several ways but must be dealt with one way or another, otherwise the continued build up increases the temperature inside the magician's control field until it becomes either unbearable, or the discomfort disrupts the magician's concentration and releases the energy. The best way to deal with emissions is to direct them straight into the ground where they will travel down into the earth, completely undetected by other magicians. This technique is very difficult to pick up, but it can be done in as little as a year with absolute and unwavering dedication to the practice.
Stalling: Stalling is difficult, but immediately solves the problem of being detected at long range. It does this by ceasing all interaction between psychic energy and magical energy within the magician's control field. No new emissions are created, but this removes barriers and in order to remain hidden, the magician cannot cast and must remain in constant conscious control of their minds. The technique requires true day in and day out training and dedication to learn but can be picked up in as little as a year.
Repressed Stalling: This is a combination of the previous two techniques and many never attempt this, but it is the most beneficial technique of all once mastered. Emissions that were made at the start are trapped and funneled away elsewhere while the psychic interaction with magic within the control field ceases altogether, preventing the creation of new emissions. This completely and effectively disguises a magician. This combination technique normally takes two to three years to fully master, however magicians with no focus on combat can decrease that time to a year or so.
Ejection: Ejection is a less difficult and less effective technique, but very useful in a pinch and very deceptive in an obscured battlefield. The magician purges their aura, blasting away all applicable magic and then moving to another location. The new emissions created are so miniscule that ejected auras overshadow them momentarily. Reemerging auras almost always unnoticed or mistaken for a magician that is much farther away than they actually are. This technique can be learned and mastered in a year or less.

Aura Theory:
-The emissions created by psychic interactions with magic are believed to contribute to magical decay in some way.
-The Human Abner Effect, is a state in which humans become natural hosts to their chosen form of magic. This is a very rare phenomenon whose most notable trait is allowing humans to cast without tomes or other items. Without divine intervention, only the elderly achieve the H.A.E. standard, but it is believed that even more potential lies beyond the H.A.E.. Feats nearly on par with the vasili are cited as the true potential of magicians.
-Grade Ten, is a sensing range proposed for vasili, one hundred two thousand three hundred meters, or sixty-three miles. This theory came about when it was inferred that aura emissions faded completely seventy miles out. 'Grade Ten' is the suspected relative range and though unproven remains a common teaching and nickname for talented sensors.

Spoiler - Life Force

Life force is an energy source that exists in all living things in varying degrees. It does not directly sustain life, however. In fact, some believe it is a byproduct of some kind, despite that being somewhat counterintuitive in nature. Life force is only observable via its effect on living things in large quantities. It is also responsible for the Twisting Effect, an event that occurs in living beings when rapid molecular change takes place. The twisting effect steadily reverses these effects and seems to preserve natural life.
-Large amounts of life force can sustain organic material for a short period of time. In recently dead tissue, this reinitializes metabolic processes. In dying tissue, this keeps the metabolic process from ceasing and allows cells to function, starved or damaged. In healthy tissue, this revitalizes cells and accelerates and fuels most beneficial processes.
-Over-exposure to life force quickly creates widespread dependency. Total withdrawals from life force infusions while in this state lead to cell death throughout the body and eventually the death of the subject. To overcome dependency, subjects have to be slowly brought off of life force infusions while their food and liquid intake is increased to compensate. Withdrawal sickness and moderate to severe symptoms still occurs in virtually all cases and are characterized by fatigue, rapid fat and muscle loss, intermittent fainting, and even comas.

In Light Magic:
Unique to light magic is inherent life force. Put simply, light units each house a little bit of it that can be applied to the user or individuals. In such small amounts, life force is simply an organic motivator, or energizer. It provides brief sustenance to any living material it is applied to, but in higher concentrations can empower or enhance it. The latter produces results like slowed aging and other delayed degenerative effects. Too much life force will cause dependency and can prove fatal after withdrawal due to the body shutting down natural processes in favor of life force infusion. A 'cold turkey' withdrawal will kill a dependent person in days. Life force can only be imparted by light units; it cannot be taken back or transferred by them. When a light unit is converted into natural energy, the life force inside seems to be 'lost' in the process, neither being transferred to some other carrier nor bestowed to the nearest life form.

In Dark Magic:
Unique to dark magic is the ability to capture and transfer life force. Utilizing the in and lock phases, dark units can capture a limited amount of life energy from a living target. The most powerful technique for transferring life force was first seen in Kigen and was called 'nusumujutsu' by those who knew of or taught it. In the northern countries, it is known as 'nosferatu'. This technique is performed by saturating a target in in-phased dark units. It is not as easy as it sounds, especially in battle where active barriers can easily prevent nosferatu from even making contact, let alone siphoning a target. With a target completely saturated in in-phased units, life force begins to be drawn out by their respective control fields. When the magician feels they have procured enough, the dark units are put into a lock-phase, which prevents the life force from escaping, and called back. As they are pulled away, the lock-phased units attempt to pull away material with them. This causes both superficial and minor to severe internal damage to a target. Granting the life force acquired to a new target(even oneself) is as simple as reversing the process and using the out-phase. The magician surrounds either himself or someone of interest, and saturates them in the dark units before putting them all into the out-phase. This transfers the life force to them directly and it mixes with what is already there, but not before passing through every part of the body and revitalizing it. This also accelerates healing significantly. The technique is highly addictive and a person who receives such energy too often can become dependent on it, something that proves deadly when ceasing abruptly. Normal bodily processes often fail to adapt in time and the person will die within days without a course correction. This technique can only be done a few times before a magician exhausts themself, while masters or well learned nosferatu users can persist for longer, however this is assuming the target being reaved is a full sized adult. Children and smaller animals (dogs, cats, goats, etc) have been killed in mass and sometimes many at once with this technique. Particularly small animals can be killed by the dozens with negligible side effects and rarely does it lead to early dependency issues.

Spoiler - The Advanced Arts

Spell Inflation:
Spell inflation empowers a spell by increasing its effects. It is the act of adding more energy into a spell than necessary, but is done at specific times during a spell's formation to get the desired effect. Examples include pouring more energy into a fire spell to increase its size and energy output, or introducing excess energy to the center of a basic dark spell during its oscillation phases to create a bloating effect. This has been used and seen limited success in synthesis, but only with larger scale alterations. Inflation is scale dependent and more commonly used in offensive magic.
-Inflations require careful timing, something very difficult in combat, but when done correctly can increase the size, range, or power of a spell. This can cause great increases in accuracy, speed, and lethality without any extra strain involved.

Snap Conversion:
'Snap conversion' is the term for any magical event that rapidly transforms elements around them into something 'uniform'. In many cases it is a chain reaction fueled by pent up magical energies. This is different from alchemic conversions which are more complex and create more than just a similarly shaped uniform mass. Snap conversions change elements into different ones while maintaining (to the best of the new material's ability) the original shape. The most well-known examples of this are the fabled 'petrification' spells which turn victims to 'stone'. In truth, many petrification spells are merely stasis inducing spells, but some actually convert victims at least partially into stone or a similar rock hard substance.
-The twisting effect, the result of the presence of life energy, steadily reverses snap conversions and alterations made by organic arcana. However, if life force is removed, alterations become permanent after several hours. This means that not only will new life force not act against the alterations in the future, but will actually treat them as a restore point against future alterations as if they were natural. This allows altered materials to be healed by light magic.
-Without the Twisting effect, petrification spells would be permanent.
-Snap conversions of inanimate materials can be undone by applying life force to them, oddly enough, but this is only possible within a few hours after the initial conversion takes place.
-Some snap conversions are caused by extremely powerful runes and are typically the most effective kind.

Advanced Techniques:
The advanced arts are legendary feats of innovation seen at various times throughout history. While the details can be viewed in RotE Timeline, the list of known feats is listed here.
Sound Casting(3): Duplicating or transfering sounds so that they seem to originate from a different source. This is only known to succeed with wind magic. It works by forging invisible wind tunnels for sound to travel through to different locations. These sounds can only be perceived from the wind tunnel's exit point, and seem to originate there. The other method is to produce the actual sound at that location, but these require even more advanced and precise sound creating techniques.
Distortion(3): Altering or duplicating sound waves to give them a different sound. This is only feasible with wind magic.
Aura Sight(S**): A technique that allows a magician to see through their control field using psychic energy and dark or anima magic. Both Shin Yokai and William Delaine, achieved this after arduous and tedious effort. Complete mastery of a dark or anima based control field allows a magician to perceive any objects within their control field, which effectively replaces sight, but this only works at very short range and only allows one to read engravings or text marked by magic.
Aura Sound(S**): A technique that allows a magician to hear through their control field using psychic energy and wind magic. Harrison Mach lost his hearing due to a grievous attack from his apprentice, Clyde Aegis, and developed the technique over many years. The technique uses the control field in place of the ears and the magician must learn to distinguish sounds through vibrations within the control field, but once they learn to distinguish each vibration that comes their way, sounds can be more easily interpreted.
Stone(3**Syn/OA): This is a technique that was developed by dark avians and perfected by the fallen. The magician creates a composite spell made up of several parts, mainly a main body that serves to guide new dark units introduced by the magician into the target's body at a later point. Other parts include a bridge, an incredibly long stream of dark units originating from the magician. This guideline allows the magician to send in an endless supply of new dark units to fuel the spell as it progresses. The most important component of the spell is the conversion matrix, a spell that produces conversion spells semi-autonomously. These conversion spells indiscriminately 'harden' materials they come into contact with. The conversion matrix creates and rapidly spews out hundreds of these conversion spells as the magician floods the stone spell's main body with dark units. As the conversion spells spread through the target's body, they quickly petrify it. Stone is the most complex dark magic spell and few humans have ever mastered it. Nearly all effort and focus must be put into a stone spell to properly cast and maintain it.
-A target will die if petrified for more than a few minutes, even if restored to normal. It is believed that the spirit abandons the body at this point.
-While physical durability increases when petrified, targets are shatter prone and fractures become 'cuts' when the twist reverts a person to normal which can lead to grievous injuries.
-Fluids are not converted and instead trapped within the body during petrification.
Sleep(*TM): This is a set of hands on techniques that use tendril magic to put a subject in an unconscious state. The first is a medical technique developed by the kigenese. It is used for surgeries and not only puts a willing subject to sleep, but maintains this sleep as long as the tendrils are kept at work interfering with activity at the base of the spine. The exact methods used in this technique are understood only by the magicians using them but can be learned through trial and error or passed down in memories. The other method uses tendrils to interfere with blood flow and cause moderate to severe cerebral hypoxia. The latter method can easily kill a person.
Forge(2*): A technique that combines wind magic with other anima elements and magic types to create single to several time use weapons. The most common techniques are the lightning whip, a combination of a wind whip and an electrical current, and the fire blade, a wind blade bathed in flames that can set fire to targets in addition to cutting them. These techniques can sometimes elude the magic triangle but isn't always the case.
BlackFire(3/3): A rare mingling of dark magic and fire magic used for combined effects. The combination spell normally produces one of four color variations to anima based flames, blue, violet, red, or actual black if the concentration is thick enough. This technique also eludes the magical triangle.
Notes:
Other variations exist, ‘Black___’, but won’t be noted until canonized.

Spoiler - Runes and Imbued Items

The Ancient Runes:
The runes were markings of power that had the ability to influence magical energies in the same manner that psychic power did. Some even considered them to be 'divine mandates', instructions written out by the gods themselves. These runes were presented to humanity by the vasili and covered numerous areas of magic. Each rune was a unique design that could be copied or remembered and engraved somewhere else to cause a localized spell if the magical energy was present there. Applicable free flowing magic that finds itself near an ancient rune will immediately carry out whatever spell corresponds to that particular rune if able to do so, which made these artifacts incredibly powerful. It is believed that the runes were made unnatural and counterintuitive in appearance to avoid being inadvertently created in art or nature, a phenomenon that would cause random inexplicable magical events.
-The ranges of runes or rather their range of influenced varied drastically per rune.
-A notable oddity regarding runes and magic, and something that had profound implications, was that while magic does react in a specific way to runes while near them, they will only do this when an adequate amount of magical energy is present, specifically enough to complete whatever task corresponds to that rune. It suggests that magical energy not only has a degree of awareness, but also inherent knowledge of any given spell and its requirements. Runes designed to cycle energy such as barrier runes were somewhat unique because they would work with very little energy, but excess energy would still respond to them, and they would become quite powerful over time, not seeming to have a clear limit to the amount of magic they will use for a barrier. Also unique to barrier runes was their ability to use multiple types of magic to create tri-barriers that had no susceptibility to the magic triangle.
-Opposing runes never 'compete' with each other to achieve a particular effect and instead will divide all applicable magic evenly among them which sometimes prevents any spells from being formed. Like runes will augment a given task if there isn't enough energy for two spells.
-The size of a rune directly corresponded to the size and/or power of the spell it would create, and with an increase in size and/or power came an increase in required magical energy. Without the right amount to complete the exact task the rune 'marks', nothing happens. This made runes of all sizes quite valuable.
-Because runes have energy requirements, and don't indiscriminately attempt spells haphazardly, they were extremely efficient and easy to use. Magic could be introduced to a rune whenever someone was ready to produce their desired effect. Runes and magic worked together flawlessly and indefinitely.
-Runes also had an edge over sentient casters because they were never known to trigger magical breakdown. Barrier runes that cycled magical energy could function indefinitely, having any energy lost to bypassing attempts replaced by roaming energy in the atmosphere. Such barriers were very useful because they would only require a little energy to begin erecting barriers, and would add more as time went on to become nigh impregnable, and they were used to seal off other artifacts of great importance.
-Unknown ancient runes are priceless artifacts. Known ancient runes are guarded fiercely by any powers that possess them. Memories of ancient runes are also of incredible value to those who can make use of them. Thousands of them existed but most were obscure until modern times.
-Ancient runes are extremely difficult to come by because they were almost never engraved on the surface of an artifact. Instead they were created on the inside. Tendril magic is usually a better option for identifying rune artifacts, though this can be incredibly tedious.
-An inherent limitation of runes is that they cannot be altered much to adhere to a particular surface; skewering, stretching, or wrapping a rune too far will make it useless. A collective 'bend' or 'curve' of up to thirty degrees is all that is permissible before a rune ceases functioning. They can only be stretched a tenth of their overall length or width and they cannot be skewered at all and maintain any kind of functionality. The only ways to compensate for these limitations are to produce the rune somewhere inside of the weapon to avoid the 'surface' problem, or decrease the rune's 'written size'.

The Modern Runes:
As previously explained, runes were originally divine codes, or markings of power. They were able to influence magic by their presence alone. This had unsettling implications about the nature of magical energy but allowed for incredible feats of engineering. They originated with the vasili and after the end of the Legendary Rebellion, were carefully guarded by the first emerging powers in the new world. The name 'rune' passed down to the man-made devices that serve the same purpose. Modern runes rely on the incomplete 'strokes' of ancient runes to influence magic and combine these with enchanted channels to compensate and create practical spells.
-Incomplete strokes are essentially a component of a complete rune's instruction, but they are complete enough in and of themselves to influence magic even without the rest of the rune being present. These strokes are still very complex and difficult to build off of, as even the slightest variation renders a written rune powerless, but they have allowed for the creation of most modern innovations.
-Glyphs are another type of rune and are critical to staff based warping magic and certain types of barrier magic. Inside of a warp staff is a glyph, a rune that automates some of the warping process by providing an energy boundary and a range of influence that allows a magician to add companions to the warp without directly focusing on them. The actual glyph that appears on the ground during a warp is merely a projection of the rune itself, created by either light or dark units and only serves to visually represent the warp's range of influence. Glyph projections are massive, but because of their size, they don't normally create even larger projections of themselves or cause cascading effects (though they would be able to attempt this in an area filled with applicable magical energy).
[Notable Runes]
Fire Rune:Also called a 'Flame Ward', fire runes are designed primarily for ships and have a dual function. They repel magical flames with a warding rune and repel physical flames with a triggered wind magic release that is sensitive to high temperature. Fire runes only cover about a ten meters and so must be placed all over a ship's surface to work properly, and regular infusions are needed to ensure they continue to repel natural flames properly, as this isn't possible without a working heat trigger and adequate wind magic.
Barrier Rune: These come in several varieties, everything from force barriers, barriers that use anima energy to block open passages, to dark reinforcers, barriers that reinforce walls, doorways, and ship hulls with dark magic. There are also tri-barriers that utilize all three magic types to nullify the magic triangle. Most barriers use directional runes engraved in a complex arrangement along with other intricate bits to produce cycles that allow these barriers to function. The oldest barriers use complete runes, but are almost impossible to duplicate because the engravings have yet to be found.
Shining Rune: This is a simple rune that causes all nearby light magic to converge on its surface, creating a small but intensely bright light. These runes can light up even the darkest corridors and are used for that purpose.
Iron Rune: This was an obscure rune that created complete triangle based pulse barriers at impact points, and each iron rune had to be tailored to the size of the person it was used by to be completely effective, though this special scaling is often ignored leading to less than perfect results per user. This rune is near legendary due to its simple yet powerful function, which not only relied on magic being present, but also incoming objects. Whenever the wielder was about to be struck, all forms of magic around the user's body would converge on the impact point, creating a 'tri-pulse' and severely limiting the damage achievable by the impact. Iron runes are now more common but require surefooted wielders in order to avoid being knocked down by the strength of the tri-pulse.
[Legendary Runes]
Cloak Rune: This rune is so obscure it's thought to not even exist at all. It was a rune pattern that would use light magic to phase and unphase natural light from all angles rendering anything within the rune's area of effect invisible to the naked eye.
Warp Rune: The warp rune is legendary, but also demonstrated on a daily basis by the fallen. The sanctums they use to house and summon their demons into battle are merely oversized warp runes. There are two kinds of warp runes. One type warps one to their desired location while remaining behind, creating a one way spatial jump, while the other enters the wormhole along with the user.
Mirage: This rune is not one, but a countless number of runes that created illusions. They are the only one known runes to cause 'tricks of the light' and use light magic to phase and reflect light. This obscured the object the rune was attached to and caused those looking at it to perceive something different. The object seen was entirely dependent on the rune's design, and only the gods and the vasili can interpret and create these types or runes.
Stasis Rune: This rune would restrain and hold down the first object to enter its radius. These used either dark or anima magic, or both, and were so powerful that only vasili or magic seals could disable them. If a magician entered its radius and tried to cast using the applicable magic, producing enough of it would cause the rune to activate and bind them instantly, making this rune a legendary trap field.
Destruction Rune: One of the most powerful runes ever known. With enough magic present, the rune would rapidly disintegrate anything within its radius using all three types of magic. It is essentially a super weapon, said to be taboo even by the vasili. It is also believed that they have worked to suppress all knowledge of this rune, its strokes, and its devastating power.

Imbued Items:
'Imbued' is a general term for any object that has magical energy inside of it. Containment is the state of magic simply floating around inside of an object while infusion is the state of magic being closely bound to the object. Imbued items include everything from enchanted trinkets and devices to tomes and magical weapons. Containing and infusion are both difficult tasks because once psychic energy begins to interact with magic directly, it begins to break down. To avoid this, specialists must contain items by indirectly working with magic, using their own, they slowly 'push' magical energy into objects. Infusion is harder and takes longer, hours longer, mainly because forcing magic units to bind to something without manipulating them directly requires cluster by cluster work. Tomes can take multiple days to infuse. The results ensure that only psychic power extracts that bound power. Infused magic will repel any other magic infused into an object with the magic triangle deciding which energy is removed the most. Infusion of all three types of magic into a single item at once will cause a neutral clash that will destroy the object entirely within a few minutes. Miniscule amounts of magic infused into items will eventually resolve the conflict, leaving only one magic type remaining. Containing items on the other hand can house all three types of magic without conflict arising, which makes containment very useful for storage purposes.

Hosts: The atmosphere is filled with magical energy, but in amounts so small that their effect on the environment on the surface is negligible and difficult to prove. They fall to the soil from the heavens and slowly enter the ground. Eventually they adhere to and contain themselves inside of various ores. These ores are called natural hosts, and they are the only efficient means of gathering magical energy. Storage hosts are objects designed to contain magic until it can be appropriated.

Enchanted Items: There are two kinds of enchanted items, containing items, and infused items. Contained magic is in a malleable state overall, but magic that is contained is not noticeably effected by passive influences such as runes or magic seals. Infused magic won't respond to passive influences either, but can only be removed through psychic interaction.

Tomes: Tomes are instruction manuals infused with an astronomical amount of power. These books come in varying sizes but the size of an object does correspond to how much magical energy it can be infused with. The type of magic being infused also corresponds to how much magic can be infused. As such, light tomes have the longest infusion-span of any magic, while anima tomes have the shortest. Dark tomes rest between light and anima but also have very long infusion-span. The actual ratio is about 5:4:1. Despite the short infusion-span of anima, anima based tomes still last a considerably long time due to how effective 'simple books' have proven to be for infusion. While smaller and varying items can be infused and used in the same way tomes can, they cannot hold nearly as much energy and unlike anima tomes must be reinfused weekly, or even daily in the case of frequent combat, rather than monthly or bi-monthly as is the case with most anima tomes. Larger objects can also be infused for the same purpose, but practicality fades with scale one way or the other and infusion specialists often take advantage of uncommon infusion orders.

Magic Weapons: These weapons usually have rune devices built into them. They also have the applicable magical energy contained or infused into them. This allows their wielders to cast magic without necessarily having any knowledge of what they're doing. This works by hitting a trigger designed and placed somewhere on the weapon that unleashes enough magical energy to form a spell. The energy responds to the rune present within the weapon and carries out the spell automatically. The inherent limitation to rune based weapons is that each is only capable of one spell, unique or otherwise. Some weapons are designed for more complex spells, like nosferatu. This is seen in rune blades, which use the obscure life force siphoning rune to steal energy from enemies and effectively cast nosferatu for their wielder. Some magic weapons use complete ancient runes and triggers alone, while more modern designs use incomplete runes along with enchanted tubes and triggers. only the ancient runes can create life force siphoning spells, but modern designs also produced formidable weapons, such as elemental swords, weapons capable of adding elemental power to their attacks, and branded blades, weapons that can strike physically and magically.

Edited by Phoenix, 27 April 2013 - 10:13 PM.

[kdanger]

LoAF magic system

TISME itself
Not much to say here. It's organized for the most part like a university. The current headmistress is one Bridget Athenais, a stern old woman with a good sense of how to run a school. There is a small council of the highest faculty, mostly department heads, that advises her. Below those are various professors and other teaching staff. Professors sometimes take older students as teaching assistants, or as primary instructors for the lowest circles. The previous headmistress, Mana, has resigned due to mental unsoundness, but is still welcome in the school; she can occasionally be seen around, but for the immediate moment is away.

There are programs available in light magic, the three types of anima, and dark magic, though the anima program is the largest by far and the dark program is barely even funded. A mage knight program was canceled after a disastrous end, but may be restarted in years to come if the current leadership allows it.

Officially, the school is apolitical, but if its home city of Ilyphina is attacked it will rise to the defense.

The nature of magic

Human mages differentiate magic into the categories of light, fire, wind, thunder, and dark. The following should serve as a primer on both how mages currently understand magic to work in the time of LoAF, and how it actually works.

Sources of magic: divine and mundane

Magic comes from two preliminary sources.

Divine magic is caused by favors granted by either the Goddess or, less commonly, the Lord of Azure Flame. The only laws it follows are the whims of its patron deities, though they are fairly consistent in how they manifest magic. The purifying light used by clergy to attack is granted by the Goddess, as is a portion of the magic that goes into healing, and the ability to warp from place to place. The Lord will rarely grant abilities such as mind control or the ability to drain the energy of a foe.

Mundane magic stems from a wellspring of magic known as a mana network. Every sufficiently advanced system has its own mana network, namely every living thing, every ecosystem, and the planet itself. Mages access mundane magic by jumpstarting a reaction with energy from their own mana network, usually focusing it through means such as a spell phrase or a magical array, and then drawing further power from the planet's own network-- moving magical energy from mana networks and into other forms within the environment, such as heat. Such magic could theoretically be used to move energy from the environment into a mana network, but presently nobody knows how to do this. The mana networks of living things naturally replenish from energy from nutrients, while the larger networks can replenish from sources such as the sun. Anima magic is strictly mundane, and some types of magic classified as dark are mundane.

The functional categories of magic: light, anima, and dark

Light magic is used by clerics, troubadours, priests, and some of the nomadic holy orders (functionally equivalent to the listed classes.) It is granted only to those who devote themselves to some aspect of the Goddess (including indirect devotion, as in the case of the nomads.) Light magic falls into two categories. It can be used for offense, working especially well against demonic forces. It can also be used to heal. Healing magic has two components: the favor of the Goddess, and the mundane energy boost given to the body in order to aid healing. Currently most healers rely on the Goddess, lacking much other understanding of healing's other component, which taxes the Goddess fairly heavily while Helenos is sapping her power. It is generally less efficient to heal through mundane means, but possible; people just go for the easier option.

Anima magic is primarily used offensively by mages, potentially by mage knights, and some of the nomadic holy orders, though has obvious noncombat uses. Anima divides into wind, fire, and thunder magic.

--Wind magic turns magical energy into kinetic energy: it raises winds, usually at cuttingly high speeds. It can even be used to cause tornadoes or fly, though such exploits have only been documented as being achieved by masters. Theoretically such magic could be used to move other matter, or reduce movement, but such techniques have yet to be discovered.

--Fire magic turns magical energy into heat, usually with an alchemic element in order to sustain the flames. Theoretically such magic could be used to take away heat as well, but such techniques have yet to be discovered.

--Thunder magic harnesses the power of lightning, enabling the wielder to strike with lightning at will. It can also create a sort of force field effect, though this will eventually drain the user. Theoretically, the creative application of thunder magic could enable the user to hover, though this is also draining, and nobody has managed to think of it yet. Other potential uses include any kind of electrical device, most of which have yet to be discovered (so far we have a primitive lightbulb and that’s about it.)

Dark magic is generally regarded as at best dangerously unstable and at worst evil, and is the domain of shamans. This is because it is. Various bits of magic fall under the umbrella of dark. Offensive dark magic is usually just mundane magic of a less filtered form than anima: energy used to destroy, without much guidance. The mundane component of dark is not evil, but still dangerous, as it can be unpredictable and is always destructive. Other dark magic falls into the category of divine magic, as favors granted by the Lord of Azure Flame or occasionally lesser demons. Such magic can give the user the ability to control or warp another’s mind, or to take energy, up to and including life itself, from an unwilling target.

Miscellany: It is a generally accepted practice for anima mages to store energy in certain types of stone. Opals work particularly well, for whatever reason-- fire opals for storing fire magic, black opals for storing thunder magic, and milk opals for wind magic. Other stones or other materials can hold magic, but are not as effective-- they have less capacity, and tend not to hold it for very long. Mundane-type dark magic could potentially be stored in stones in a similar manner, but in practice is too powerful for all but the highest quality black opals. If too much energy is stored in a stone, it becomes unstable, and may explode with energy upon a hard impact (this was used in the recent battle to take over Zaftra, with fire stones playing a key part in the fight.) Stored energy can also be returned to a mage if they need a powerup, though taking on more than their mana network can handle is also dangerous for similar reasons. It is also possible to share energy between mana networks of willing participants; a more powerful mage may deign to give a friend a small energy boost if they are tired, for example. Any mage can do this, but it is most well-known as a technique among anima mages. Energy cannot be taken from an unwilling person through normal means. Nonmages can also serve as energy sources if they are willing, but the mage taking the energy must be careful to not take too much, or they might accidentally stop their friend’s heart.

Unexplained things: Some types of magic don’t fit into any particular category, and are thus far unexplained. This includes things like the connections that allow spirit dolls to work, and basically anything that dragons do ever. It may be that dragons just have their own, lesser brand of divine magic to work with.

Scientific and magical understanding as of the time of LoAF
So far, mages have a somewhat limited understanding of how things work. They have an idea of what energy is, but not how exactly it relates to magic; they know of the mana networks in living things, but not of the great network of the planet. They have begun to grasp the nature of matter; the existence of the atom has been hypothesized, but not yet proven. They are in the process of working out the laws of mechanics and thermodynamics. Calculus has been invented, but only just. As a better understanding of the laws of physics and magic is achieved and the lines between anima disciplines are blurred, the possibilities for spells and technology are endless.

Edited by kdanger, 12 March 2012 - 12:15 AM.

[kdanger]

LoAF Nonhumans

Overview

There are four sentient species in the setting of Lord of Azure Flame: Humans, dragons, spirits, and demons. The first two were a joint creation by the Goddess and the Lord, while spirits were created solely by the Lady, and demons by the Lord.

Spirits

Created by the Goddess to watch over humanity, spirits are at worst neutral, usually good, and all have an antipathy towards the demonic. There are two overall types of spirit, light and elemental, with the latter type being divided into air, water, fire, earth, and combinations thereof. For example, a volcanic spirit combines fire and earth elementals.

Spirits all have at least some degree of shapeshifting ability, with a true form corresponding to their type that may seem monstrous or alien, a near-human form for interacting with humans, and various in-between states. They do not age past a certain point and will live forever if undisturbed, but can be killed. As the servants of a creator, spirits are capable of reproduction, but largely lack the impulse for it, so their population remains low. At different points in history certain spirits have seen fit to add their powers to human bloodlines, though, so hybrids, while rare, are not unheard of.

All spirits are possessed of great magical power. While in the case of elementals their power may superficially resemble anima, all spirit magic operates under the largely unknown rules of divine magic. Hybrids with humans will have an affinity towards magic, but often are far better at anima, with a few residual quirks of divine left over from their ancestry that set them apart from pure humans.

Dragons

The Lord and Lady's first attempt at creating a sentient race, the dragons were created with a strong connection to magic, and instilled with a wonder at creation. Humans were later created because neither deity had really planned on their pets deciding to just sit around basking in their sense of their surroundings, or else just pondering how everything worked all day. Most dragons are incredibly stubborn and resistant to change, as befits the extremely long-lived. They also usually like being left alone. This leads to them sometimes being perceived as stodgy and irritable. Dragons are just as capable of great good or great evil as humans, but on the whole tend to invariably be more insufferable.

Dragons have limited shapeshifting powers, allowing them an enormous reptilian form and a humanoid form. They are not immortal, but very tough and long-lived. They bear young infrequently, and while they can interbreed with humans while in humanoid form, they have next to no interest in doing so. Dragon ancestry, while possible, is rarer than spirit ancestry.

Dragons can use either anima or divine magic; many dragons have some sort of elemental connection, but they do not have as much control as a spirit would. There are no natural light or dark dragons, though shenanigans can happen involving spirits or demons, as was the case with Helenos, an earth dragon who was corrupted to rot and undeath via a pact with the Lord.

Demons

The Lord's counterpart to the spirits, created for conquest. For the most part demons are unambiguously evil, though a few range into neutral territory. Similarly to spirits, demons may be elemental, or simply dark.

Demons may take many monstrous forms, but the strongest tend to be humanoid, at least as a default. Some demons have shapeshifting abilities, allowing for several forms or freeform transformation, but the majority do not. Most demons do not age at all, and all demons will live forever if undisturbed. Obviously, though, they can be killed. As creatures created by a destroyer for the purpose of destruction, demons cannot reproduce. A few have summoning abilities, and are able to call lesser demons into being as backup, but such summons are not offspring as such, and disappear on dismissal or death of the summoner. Since demons cannot reproduce through traditional means, hybrids with humans are impossible. Similarly to spirits, demons may use magic that looks like anima, but is divine in nature.

Edited by kdanger, 12 December 2012 - 10:46 PM.

[Furetchen]

Selarian Culture

Overview
The 'Selarian' race comprises the people centred around the continent of Selaria, generally a tall, broad-shouldered stock (however, individual sub-races tend towards different figures; generally speaking, though, 'short' for a Selarian is still at least average by anyone else's standards.

Selaria is technically five (later, six) distinct nations, but generally will put aside all differences to unite into one massive empire and beat up on other nations. Selaria is a sleeping giant; don't wake it up and it'll mostly just be internally squabbling and skirmishing. But if you prod it, you'd best get ready for the Legions to make landfall.

History:
The Selarians were originally a race enslaved to a mighty civilisation, as were the Khalonics in the northeastern islands. However, the empire overextended itself, and the Selarians revolted and overthrew their captors. Despite being seen as primitive, they fought with savagery and courage. One thousand, six hundred years later, and Selaria is almost on the cutting edge of technology, an innovative people who aren't averse to smacking a few nations down.

Granted, their fractious nature has lead to a few problems over the centuries. Immediately after securing their own freedom, the heroes had their personal differences out with each other and founded their own seperate nations. Since then, they've mostly been fighting each other.

But Furetchen, women are unrealistic!
To the Selarians, the warrior's call takes precedence over any concept of gender role. If anything, the women are somewhat privileged in that they aren't drafted, or scorned for remaining at home in times of war, but are still free to join the war if they desire. However, certain avenues may still be biased against them - particularly that of nobility, as women of the court generally exist to pump out children and to woo at least one powerful political ally.

Children
Children are expected to learn to fight at least at a cursory level. Brawling with other children is considered a playful and useful learning experience.

For the poor, children are not usually taught to read, although the merchant classes can usually afford to and often will buy tutelage for one of their children. Families are getting smaller of late due to the Blight, and usually families will settle for two or three children.

For the rich, an educated assessment is made of the child's character at the age of eight, and it is decided whether they are destined for the court or for knighthood. Generally, this can be rigged to have a nobly-trained firstborn, a backup who vaguely knows what they're doing in social situations, someone skilled with numbers, as many wives of the court as possible and at least one knight to gain glory for the family. Noble families tend to be large, as they can for the most part withstand the famine.

Clothing:
Loose and inexpensive. For men and women both, loose shirts, pants and tough leather boots are favoured, with a longer, thicker undershirt and/or a cloak in colder climates, with sturdy leather gloves. Women may also wear skirts, but full dresses are generally restricted for the court. Dark, muted tones are generally favoured. Underclothing consists of white linen.

Court fashion is, as it always has and always will be, patently ridiculous. However, in Selaria there can usually be found a modicum of sense, and doublets and leggings for men and long elegant dresses for women are favoured. Knights, however, dress much like common mercenaries, no matter how noble their birth, and generally carry their swords wherever they go. If one is destined for battle, it is seen as best to show it.

Warfare
Dear god, do Selarians love a good war. Selaria itself is a concept tied entirely to war; while individual nations may squabble and war against each other, when any of them are threatened from the outside a ceasefire is called and the legions of all Selaria are mustered. As for inner squabbling, generally speaking the republics of Dracia and Bernicia tend to side with each other, and everything else can turn on a dime. Borders within Selaria are... not exactly fixed, by any measure. Selaria is not averse to expansion, when it is sufficiently focused in a certain direction; Bahar immediately allied with them as soon as war became a possibility, and fighting Bahar's enemies can prove an exotic and thrilling experience in times of boredom.
The structure of the Selarian legions will be outlined in the following post.

Religion
To the pagan Selarians, every star is a god or goddess. This results in a pretty damn massive pantheon. The major gods, which tend to be either planets mistaken for stars or just generally really big stars (Selarians don't take much stock in astronomy) are in charge of broad aspects, such as the Red Lady, the goddess of death. Smaller ones include some remarkably situational deities, such as Cirrith, Master of the Doorway, a sacred tenet linked to ownership and welcoming. City temples are lavish and rural ones clean and well-kept; the gods are respected, and generally thought to give a kind eye to those who favour them, but in general it's not thought that they care all too much about human affairs beyond direct pleas for help from their followers. The temple guardians are called Paladins, and their duty is to fight as a sort of holy warrior and protect the common folk of their city or town.

That said, Selarians tend to be superstitious, and most tend to favour a specific god to watch over them and keep a pendant in their name with them as often as possible, generally taking the form of a beautiful stone on a loop around their neck. Prayer generally takes the form of a muttered oath or two; actual sacrifice, however, is all but unheard of. After all, who would waste good meat on the incorporeal?

Folklore
Generally, folklore involves heroic acts of bravery and daring extolling the core values such as fidelity and valour. There are few instances of the out-and-out supernatural in such tales; they tend towards being somewhat more colourful retellings of history; 'fought off three guys' can so easily became 'held back the tides of those wretches seeking to bring about the empire's doom'...

Language
Selarians share a common tongue, the closest Earth approximation of which would be German. Their language is markedly different from that of the Baharese and native Cirisites, but similar enough to nearby Khalon. Most Selarians don't bother with other languages, and prefer to just grow powerful enough as an empire to force others to learn theirs.

Questions?
Please feel free to ask; I'm not making (much) of this up on the spot, and should be in good stead to answer most queries and add them to the post.

[Furetchen]

SUMMARY
Selaria is a highly militaristic nation that prides itself on its ability to beat up on their neighbours and swiftly turn them into a jelly with a national flag. Their aggressive nature is backed by a massive, highly oiled military machine that makes up in valour and leadership what it lacks in actual discipline.

THE DRAFT vs. THE STANDING ARMY
Selarian nations keep a standing army, but are not restricted to this; they can institute a draft in which one in ten men is drafted and the other nine pay for the cost of his equipment. In times of extreme stress, this can be extended to one in five men and one in ten women. Selaria sees no reason to keep women from the army; their general response to anyone who doesn't accept them is "Why do you hate having the numerical advantage?"

The standing army is exclusively volunteers, well-paid and with a promise of a small grant of land for twenty-five years of service. They fight for their own interests, and those interests are in the hands of their generals, leading to a strong sense of (largely selfish) loyalty. Regulars tend to look down on levies, seeing them as glorified meatshields, and this contempt has proven to be immensely useful as the legionaries barely flinch when the militia break and run all around them.

LEADERSHIP
The legions are kept in line by strength, not discipline. Every regiment is held in line by a number of respected sergeants, elected by the men themselves, and from the sergeants are drawn the captains. Captains, by the very nature of their election, are tough, respected men with experience, capable of getting the lads together even if it takes bashing a few heads together.
The captains answer to the commanders (usually five in a medium to large army), who lead sections of the army (First line, second line, third line, cavalry and archers/artillery). The commanders, in turn, answer to a general. The commanders and general are usually of noble birth in the monarchies, although trusted common commanders are still not uncommon, and usually drawn from iron knights in the republics, or promoted from captaincy (making commander is an automatic status upgrade to iron knight, so the military tends to attract the ambitious). Either way, generals are expected to fight when called upon and act generally as equals to the rank-and-file; all status is forgotten as soon as arrows start flying.

STRATEGY
The legions have a flexible army by its very nature, counting skilled longbowmen and heavy infantry and cavalry amongst its ranks. Their regiments are drilled to switch in and out of the front at the blow of a horn. Generally, unless something directly goes wrong, the legion archers fire off a few volleys of clothyard shafts to soften up the enemy, and unless the shootout doesn't favour them, will generally keep doing so until the enemy approaches to charging range. The heavy infantry of the legion precede their charges with two volleys of handaxes before drawing their massive axes and slamming into the enemy lines, aiming to break up their formation and close into individual one-to-one combat, where they fare best.

Cavalry are generally used to utterly crush a flank, and the concept of 'light cavalry' or even really 'subtlety' is lost to them.

IDENTIFICATION
Generally, identification is quite easy; pike militia, warriors and halberdiers bear towering standards and wear surcoats, and in the case of warriors, shields, with the colour of their nation on them and the individual insignia of their city emblazoned on top of it. Crossbow militia wear short surcoats, archers have hauberks in the appropriate colour and usually have undershirts in the colour of their city. Rural militia tend to wear capes or scarves. And every soldier is daubed in thick warpaint, applied by a priestess of the Goddess of War before the battle. Identification is... really, never a problem. At all.

MILITIA
Militia are generally drafted from the common people using the doctrine that one man in every ten is press-ganged, and the rest pay for his equipment. Volunteering to be the one in the fight is accepted, provided that the requisite amount of men are taken. Militia come in three standard variations of equipment;

Pikemen
Equipment: Pikemen are given a shorter surcoat, a leather breastplate, sturdy leather gauntlets and boots, and a cheap iron morion.
Formation: Tightly-packed, with as much discipline as can be managed. New but promising captains usually find themselves assigned to Pike Militia, as getting the fractious and ill-disciplined pikemen into shape can prove a struggle.
Position: Usually assigned to fill in the first line.
Combat role: They are effective against cavalry and, if they manage to stand and fight, reasonably effective in defence. Generally speaking, not particularly effective, but men are men.

Crossbowmen
Equipment: Leather armour under a short surcoat, a light crossbow, whatever melee weapon the man brings.
Formation: Tightly-packed, making use of firing by rank. In melee, generally they just run for it.
Position: Just behind the first line.
Combat role: Most of the urban militia end up as crossbowmen, it being the simplest role to understand ("Just point and shoot"). In times of war, the merchants and about half of the working-class become crossbowmen.

Rural Militia
Equipment: Varies, but generally light armour, a buckler and a shortsword, with a cape or some indication of colour. Usually some sort of light ranged weapon, a shortbow, crossbow or javelins.
Formation: Loose skirmishing formation.
Position: On the flanks or in heavy cover, such as a wood.
Combat role: Unlike the urban militia, the rural militia are actually somewhat specialised, and serve as the only real light infantry in the legions. They skirmish through rough ground, strike at vulnerable enemies, and can pepper their enemies with ranged volleys. Versatile.

SOLDIERS
The legionaries proper are assigned based either off of volunteering or off personal strengths; stocky people with better (aka, merely 'poor') discipline tend to be selected as warriors, taller people with better (aka, merely 'impetuous') control over personal bloodlust tend to become archers.

Warriors
Equipment: A battleaxe, a kite shield, a surcoat, cheap chainmail. Leather boots and gauntlets. Plated cops, kneeguards, helmet and a greave on the forward leg. Two hatchets. It is rare, but not unknown, for an individual regiment of warriors to bear swords or another one-handed weapon due to tradition: the 17th Chenoworth Heavy Foot favour hammers after the legendary last stand of one of their captains who dual-wielded them.
Formation: Moderately tight, able to form a shield-wall when needed. Tends to break up and splinter off in close combat. Each regiment is sixty men lead by a captain, who is a hard-as-nails motherfucker promoted from the warriors himself, two sergeants and a standard bearer. These leaders generally succeed in keeping leadership tight and the generally ill-disciplined men barely in line.
Position: The first and second ranks. The senior legionaries take up positions in the second rank.
Combat role: The warriors pride themselves as the iron fist of the legions. Each man is a brave, violent bruiser who will tenderise foes that come at him, and a culture of warrior code and intense pressure not to cede ground leads to cowardice being rare; and if a warrior does falter he need only look to his banner for courage.

Archers
Equipment: A yew longbow, a mallet (the soldier may bring his own melee weapon should he desire), a ringmail hauberk.
Formation: Loose line. Sometimes they put stakes ahead of their line, but usually not unless they can find some good terrain to hold.
Position: Between the first and second ranks, or holding key, complementary terrain such as hills.
Combat role: The longbowmen of the legion are skilled marksmen disciplined in one skill only; firing massive longbows equally massive distances and inflicting massive casualties. They fire off as many rounds over the first rank until the first shows any sign of breaking; the captains of archers must be extremely perceptive to changes in the flow of the battle, or he and his regiment will quickly end up crushed under the shieldwall of the enemy.

ELITES
Experienced warriors generally become halberdiers after fifteen to twenty years of service. Archers make the same transition into marksmen. Cavalry ... really just need to know what saddles are. These soldiers are expensive to equip and maintain, so taking up the halberd is a significant show of trust in your ability by your captains.

Halberdiers
Equipment: A halberd, a surcoat, leather boots and gauntlets. Half-plate and a sallet. Two hatchets.
Formation: Tight and disciplined, trained to fight in a slightly looser formation when it suits them. Each regiment is thirty men lead plus officers; a captain, a sergeant and a standard. The bodyguards of generals and commanders are either cavalry or double-strength regiments of halberdiers.
Position: The third rank, except for the command bodyguard of the first and second rank.
Combat role: Veteran warriors who pride themselves on their skill at holding a line, they mix the honour and brutality of the warriors with iron discipline and determination. The halberdiers are sent in at the most crucial time in the battle, to break the enemy lines and hold their own.

Marksmen
Equipment: A yew greatbow, a maul or flail, light chainmail, a light helmet with a feather.
Formation: Loose line behind stakes.
Position: Between the second and third ranks.
Combat role: Elite longbowmen selected for their strength and discipline; they fire faster and stronger and longer than the other archers. They follow the role you'd expect them to, firing volley after volley right into the foe.

Cavalry
Equipment: Precise nature varies on the wealth of the regiment. For poorer regiments, chainmail or even ringmail, with round wooden shields and leather barding. For the richer ones, particularly ones made up of knights, the riders wear plate, and the wolves wear ringmail-and-cloth barding. Those in plate usually don't need shields, and favour longaxes and falchions; those with shields tend towards bastard swords. Wolves can't match the charge of a horse, so lances are practically unknown.
Formation: Generally a loose rabble; there's a reason the infantry refer to them derisively as 'packs'. Lead by captains or First Knights, depending on the regiment's status, and always having a bannerman.
Position: Varies, but generally on the flanks.
Combat role: Shock cavalry to break lines; the hammer to the legionaries' anvil. If one were to compare them to a mediaeval knight, these men would be just as impetuous but lack the lances and crushing charges of the age of chivalry. In response to that, though, the mounts are almost as tough as the riders. That said, the cavalry is not the strength of the legions; they rely on their infantry and their longbowmen to hold out and win battles.

LEADERS

Sergeants and Standard-bearers
Equipment: Sergeants and the standard bearer get a platemail cuirass, heater shields and a more impressive helmet with a single plume.

Captains
Equipment: Captains wear partial platemail and bear a morningstar as a symbol of their authority, and a lighter heater shield. They also get a three-plumed helmet.

QUESTIONS
This is largely drawn from resources I have in the background, not made up on the spot; therefore, I should be able to expand on this if you have anything you'd like... expanded upon.

[Phoenix]

RotE TIMELINE
This is just a little something I decided to do for fun, but it's a group project. Relevant dates and events prior(and later during) to the rp will be added here and marked for the season and year they took place in. It needs to be noted that the new year begins in spring in RotE, not winter. Most rper specific entries will be in the Return of the Emblem Era since it covers one hundred years but there will be historical entries all over the place. This thing will be updated pretty much whenever there's a new entry to add.

Note: Most eras won't have entries for awhile, but check back every so often. Eras with a '*' in them are currently empty so ignore those. They're just there because I don't want to have to put them in place later.

Spoiler - *Rebellion Era: 4970-5000

Spoiler - Restoration Era: 1-1000 A.R.

0001
[Spring]
-Lilith shatters the Fire Emblem; most of the fragments go missing. The largest part of the emblem vanishes completely. She is then defeated by The God of Wrath and her body is later sealed away within the Purgatory by the God of Consolidation.
[Winter]
-Ursium is founded by several unnamed vasili and many survivors of the 'Great Rebellion'.
0692
[spring]
-Balthazar Abner is born.
0734
[Fall]
-Balthazar Abner reveals his theories and beliefs about the nature of magic and the visual representation of the gods to the world. He notes specifically that it was the God of Wrath who held his hand while the other gods gave magic to the world and empowered the avians and dragons in the process. Wrath's depiction as a human was said to be undeniably relevant and closely related to the inability of humans to wield magic.
[Winter]
-Balthazar Abner gains support for research into magic. His personal endeavor, dubbed Project 'Genesis' gains government support and funding and serves as an attempt to grant the ability to use magic to humans. The project had a limited budget per quarter but no deadline. Balthazar soon begins Project Genesis and moves forward with his plans to find a way around the current human condition.
0735
[Summer]
-Balthazar Abner and his research teams, confident that the key to unlocking magic abilities for humans required emulating the conditions present in races that could already do so, begin trying to infuse humans with magical power.
-Further research into the conditions of nonhumans reveals that they are natural hosts for magic. Abner names this the 'Abner Effect', in which magical energy in the atmosphere adheres to certain nonhumans depending on their race, element, and specialty. These varying factors demanded even more research. Despite numerous failed attempts to emulate this condition in humans thus far, Abner gains faith in something he soon names the 'Human Abner Effect', a state in which magic adheres to humans naturally just as it does to nonhumans.
0739
[Winter]
-Balthazar Abner and his research teams fail to emulate the 'natural host' state for the final time, and attempt to find external sources of power to draw on instead for the time being. In the meantime, Abner also hones in on another important facet of magic, the actual wielding of it. Being a natural host had been a valid explanation until this period of time, but Abner, unsatisfied with it--due in no small part to the threat it posed to Project Genesis if it was indeed fact--sought another explanation.
0741
[Summer]
-Project Genesis moves to new trials in order to create external sources of power for humans to use. This coincides with Abner's completion of the Psychic Power Theory. Trials reveal that the human mind is able to influence free flowing magic to a limited degree.
-A fire dragon volunteers to assist Abner and his research teams on Project Genesis. Abner believed that with help from more nonhumans, Project Genesis would be realized that much sooner. This was not a popular idea at the time despite the results.
[Fall]
-Trial and error produces a sword, imbued with the power of a fire dragon. The sword glows when focused on intently by Abner, but many others are unable to replicate this, even the fire dragon himself.
[Winter]
-Balthazar Abner successfully draws out the power of the enchanted sword in an attempt to cast a fire spell. He grievously injures himself in the process and Project Genesis comes to a halt until he recovers.
-During Balthazar Abner's recovery, the fire dragon on the Genesis Project instructs him in the ways of fire magic.
0742
[Spring]
-Balthazar Abner acquires enough knowledge of fire magic to attempt to use the enchanted sword once again. He is successful and becomes the first recorded case of a human casting magic of any variety.
[Summer]
-In order to ensure that magic does not become a game of haphazard guesswork, Abner begins to write out detailed teachings about the nature of fire magic. He and his research teams seek out nonhumans by the thousands to help in establishing valid teachings and getting them written down.
0751
[Summer]
-While thousands of text are being written for the current and coming generations, Balthazar Abner endeavors to find a way to produce enchanted items without the assistance of nonhumans. Looking into various rumors and legends, he finds that there may already be enchanted items in nature itself, particularly some of the ores found deep within the earth. He pursues this lead above all others and dubs these ores 'natural hosts', the same as nonhumans.
-The Ursian government follows up on Abner's natural host research on their own and confirms his beliefs.
[Winter]
-The Ursian government begins laying out the groundwork for a host creation industry, aiming to industrialize the creation of enchanted weapons and items.
0755
[Spring]
-With the majority of the expected work completed, Project Genesis moves onto more advanced stages and more complicated forms of magic.
-Balthazar Abner beings to imbue the very tomes he wrote with the power the magic they teach. This along with some of Abner's other beliefs and practices are not supported by the Ursian government and restrictions on the use of magic among humans are swiftly put into place. The distribution of tomes, both those that were imbued and those that weren't, is restricted to the church and noble houses.
0760
[Summer]
-Ursium begins a rapid magic-fueled expansion in an attempt to conquer several developing nations. With the advantage of magic on its side, Ursium gains an overwhelming advantage against the surrounding nations. The booming host industry also begins to provide an enormous boost to the young nation's economy and provides a seemingly endless supply of magic to fuel the war.
0788
[Winter]
-Balthazar Abner dies of natural causes.

Spoiler - *Ursium/Kigen War Era: 1001-1008 A.R.

Spoiler - *The Calm Era: 1009-1987 A.R.

Spoiler - *Magic Rising Era: 1988-2591 A.R.

Spoiler - *Kigen/Corvian War Era: 2592-2796 A.R.

Spoiler - Rune Era: 2797-2997 A.R.

2986:
[Winter]
-Architect Fury is born.

Spoiler - *Resurgence Era: 2998-3001 A.R.

Spoiler - Reformation Era: 3002-3465 A.R.

3439
[Winter]
-Ragna Sanjana is born.

Spoiler - Slayer Era: 3466-3496 A.R.

Spoiler - Emerging Nations Era: 3497-3950 A.R.

3511:
[Spring]
-The Neviskotian Empire is founded.
3720:
-Ragna Sanjana becomes Architect Fervor, inheriting the title from her predecessor.
3880:
[Fall]
-Regios Devlinos is born.
3988
[Spring]
-Fyodor is born.
3990:
[Spring]
-Leto (surname unknown) is born.

Spoiler - Warring Powers Era: 3951-4899 A.R.

4183:
[Spring]
-Vulcan Devlinos is born to Regios and Leto Devlinos.
4199:
[Winter]
-Sif Ebonian is born.
[Fall]
-Pallas (surname unknown) is born.
4454:
[Winter]
-Leandros Devlinos is born to Vulcan and Pallas Devlinos.
4488:
[Winter]
-Elamnus Ebonian is born to Architect Enceladus and Sif Ebonian.
4519:
[Spring]
-Urd Ixion is born.
4670:
[Summer]
-Helga Finnian is born.
4731:
[Fall]
-Elamnus marries Helga Finnian and joins clan Finnian.
4810:
[Winter]
-Elamnus and Helga Finnian undergo the Rite of Leadership. Elamnus is victorious and becomes the head of clan Finnian.
4811:
[Spring]
-Clans Finnian and Ebonian create a new alliance in preparation for civil war.

Spoiler - Return of the Emblem Era: 4900-5000 A.R.

4917:
[Summer]
-Brynhildr Finnian is born to Elamnus and Helga Finnian.
4918:
[Summer]
-Svanhildr Finnian is born to Elamnus and Helga Finnian.
4926:
[Winter]
-Gabriel is created.
4931:
[Fall]
-Valdimarr Devlinos is born to Leandros and Urd Devlinos.
4936:
[Summer]
-Steinn Devlinos is born to Leandros and Urd Devlinos.
4950:
[Spring]
-Brynhildr Finnian earns the title 'White Devil'.
[Winter]
-Seth Weyland is born.
4963:
[Fall]
-Jethro Valcyn is born.
4965:
[Spring]
-Caterina Blanco is born.

4970:

[Summer]

-Elrey Abrams is born.

4975:
[Summer]
-Prince Athrun Shastak is born to King Nathon Shastak and Queen Tiphaney Shastak.
4976:
[Spring]
-Grant Brayden is born.
4977:
[Spring]
-Katrina Curik is born.
[Winter]
-Princess Athena Shastak is born to King Nathon Shastak and Queen Tiphaney Shastak.
4978:
[Fall]
-Valter Morph is born.
[Winter]
-Blake Frode is born.
4979:
[Spring]
-Synthia Azubah is born to Marcello and Alissa Azubah.
4980:
[Winter]
-Reign Abrams is born.
4981:
[Summer]
-Raquel Valcyn is born to Jethro and Caterina Valcyn.
-Amon Zeev is born.
4986:
[Fall]
-Norn Devlinos is born to Leandros and Urd Devlinos.
4987:
[Fall]
-Siv Finnian is born to Elamnus and Helga Finnian.
4989:
[Summer]
-Reina Valcyn is born to Jethro and Caterina Valcyn.
4998:
[Summer]
-A mercenary known as Axel begins employment at Weyland Enterprises.
[Winter]
-Raquel Valcyn discovers a fragment of the Fire Emblem.
4999:
[Spring]
-Sardis launches an attack at Sergio Port. Most of his men are lost to fighting, but he successfully abducts Raquel Valcyn's father, Jethro Valcyn.
-Raquel Valcyn and her companions (Emblem Brigade) attempt to track down Sardis. They are forced to contend with bandits at an abandoned fort instead. Following the confrontation, they discover a list of contacts left by Jethro Valcyn and move on.

The Four Orders
The Four Orders are a religious conglomerate in Ursium that has attempted to rectify the philosophical differences between each order and coexist as for distinct yet cohesive religions. Despite disputes dating all the way back to its founding, the Four Orders have met with relative success and share a grand cathedral in Europa, Ursium, as well as a divine representative who serves as a single avatar for all four major gods.

Each religion shares a common theme of sorts, the Exemplars. Exemplars are individuals of saintly character who strive to live their lives as exemplars of their chosen god. Being an Exemplar of more than one god while not impossible has always proven to be extremely difficult. From a mortal standpoint, becoming an Exemplar is a kind of salvation, at least for those hoping to avoid the uncertainty of the Gate. While every other mortal that passes is lost to the Gate, the Exemplars were instead brought to the domain of the gods to stay at their sides. Becoming an Exemplar and being recognized by the gods as such promises eventual immortality and a new life in the realm of the gods after death.

Spoiler - The Order of Wrath

The Order of Wrath is a religion formed to guide followers of the God of Wrath and help them become his Exemplars. The order seeks to bring true justice to the world, primarily through direct conflict. Wrathites, followers of Wrath, are taught to oppose lawlessness and tyranny, and in adhering closely to these teachings, many become warriors. Others are warriors from the outset due to the ease in adopting this religion while living that lifestyle.

To Wrathites, the God of Wrath is a god of divine justice and not wrath incarnate. He is also said to carry a divine sword capable of destroying anything pitted against it. The God of Wrath is mostly apathetic toward the Gate and the ultimate fate of mortals who do not become Exemplars, but he is said to be diametrically opposed to 'man made' conflicts. Because of this, Ursian wars have generally been described by some historians as divinely mandated conflicts, and sheer hypocrisy by others. Lord Wrath, as he is most often referred to, is depicted as a human and so humans are seen as his natural Exemplars, or rather those most suited to pursuing Exemplartude in his name.

(Pending ...)

Spoiler - The Order of Mercy

The Order of Mercy is a religion formed to guide the followers of the Goddess of Mercy on the road to becoming her Exemplars. There are two distinct denominations of the Order of Mercy, the one followed by the avians, and the one followed by the humans. The latter's central focus is on creating lasting peace through empathy on a familial level and beyond. The former focuses on creating lasting peace through self sacrifice on an individual level.

The Goddess Mercy herself is said to desire all intelligent mortal beings to become Exemplars, even if not her own, as she is not as tolerant of natural death as the other gods are. It has even been stated that no living being can ever die in the Goddess' presence, regardless of physical condition, age, injury, or the capabilities of their attacker. She is depicted as an avian woman of both unusual height and wingspan. Specifically she is said to be taller than most mortal men and have wings larger than any avian that has ever or will ever live.

(Pending ...)

Spoiler - The Order of Nature

The Order of Nature is a religious group dedicated to the preservation of life and the stability of the world. Doing so makes them Exemplars of the Goddess of Nature. Followers of Nature must develop a strong distinction between right and wrong practices and philosophies due to the often controversial leanings of the order.

The Goddess herself is said to be the ultimate caretaker of the Earth, and the guardian of all life, from humans, down to the smallest of creatures and plants. She tolerates ethically just and natural death, but not extinction. Because dragons are her mortal representatives to most--due to her depiction as a dragon--they are seen as guardians of the natural world. It is said that she alone restored the Earth to its proper form at the end of the Legendary Rebellion. She is believed to possess unimaginable destructive and restorative power.

(Pending ...)

Spoiler - The Order of Truth

The Order of Truth is a religion formed to guide the followers of Truth on the path to becoming his Exemplars. This order focuses primarily on the accruement of philosophical, historical, and even miscellaneous truths. Since 'Lord Truth's' true divine title is 'God of Consolidation', the order not only pursues new knowledge, but strengthens and protects what they already have. They strive to not only confirm new truths but adapt to and live their lives by them as well. The Order of Truth has had numerous differing titles throughout history, with the aforementioned being the most recent. Previous names were 'Order of Strength', 'Order of Knowledge/Wisdom', and even 'Order of Consolidation'.

The God of Consolidation himself is said to be an incredibly wise yet secluded god, accruing knowledge until the day he knows everything. His followers don't know what to expect when that day comes, but they follow him in seeking new knowledge and wisdom while conserving the old throughout their lives. It is unknown what the God's abilities are, but as the creator of dark magic, many assume he is 'the ultimate' dark magician. He is also believed to have the greatest omnispectivity of all the major gods. Followers of Truth are often certain that he knows of their triumphs, trials, and tribulations at all times. Truth is depicted most often as a wisp with enormous crystalline protrusions in the shape of wings.

(Pending ...)

Other Religions
Pending ...

Edited by Phoenix, 04 May 2013 - 08:32 PM.