Talents simply are an innate connection to a plane of magic. Whether it is Elemental, Spiritual, or Metaphysical, these three are the broadest categories. The term "Talent" is mostly referred to in a broad, unspecific sense. Someone who has a Talent isn't necessarily talented in that magic. They only have access to it, with much more ease than someone who doesn't. Then again, there are some with no Talent at all.
Magic in this world can come from two places, the mind or the soul. A reflection on a possibility, a choice made with either. Walk softly, Child. Magic is a wild thing, heedless of your choice to use it. You merely act as a conduit, a vessel; you are unimportant to that force. Your will, your intent on its direction, defines what is possible. Your intent and will defines what you can do, so will it and it shall be.
Lesser Talents
Magic is a ubiquitous force; it is everything, and it is nothing. The light before the dawn, the clarity of night. The sway of the grass in the breeze, the fires of distant wildfires. It is the id and the odd, the spirit and the body. It is a grand thing as much as it is humbling.
Lesser Talents are possessed by nearly everyone who walks the Branches of the Tree, though there are a very select few who can manage only a meager amount of power and are considered Talentless. To hold this level of clarity, this amount of talent is to see the world as it is. A place of vast and thoughtful processes, a world filled to the brim with things one would never hope to understand. One may exist in this place, but one who could never control. While control is often not the point for the vast majority of those in the Tree, influence is. Those who hold this amount of power are capable of manipulating forces to a slight degree, moving the flame of a candle to point or another. Healing very minor wounds, affecting gravity to a small degree. Shackled to the forces of this world, rather than the one holding the chain.
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Lesser talents typically learn stereotypical "spells". Point intervals with immediate cause and effects. Spells like Candle Shot, Hold, Shatter.
Greater Talent
From horizon to horizon, the wind blows through the skies, the eddying cycles hidden behind layers of truth. Understanding the difference between time and space, the distance between here and now. The path less traveled, to taste the darkness and the light, empty and full. Magic is a subtle force when left alone.
While not as many souls can hold this much power, it is still a large portion of the population. A greater effect than a lesser comes with a greater understanding of the forces around you. While you may watch the wind blow across the planes, you may smell the smoke on the breeze, and your eyes see more. You see the currents through this ocean of air, you see the sparks in the heat, you see the change from form to form. Every aspect of magic is of a greater magnitude, where one can move flame from place to place. One can condense the air to ignite what is wished. A whisper heard from miles away, a stone to carve itself. A deeper understanding of the mechanisms this world follows.
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The Greater talent of Air in this example has the ability to influence a wide variety of properties pertaining to Air, Air movement, Weather, pressure, temperature of all gases, and humidity. This can be seen in the story of Becoming one of the Few, where Sage Emily was gifted a brief access to the Domain of Air during The Battle of Hurion. She was able to pull the clouds and the ambient humidity of the air to create (a disputed number) a few million icy spears to land on the enemy army.
Domains
Peer deeper into the pool, see the vortexes between hot and cold. To look skyward and watch the slow turn of the planet below your feet, the distant rumble of landslides half a world away. With a whisper, halt the heavens above, with a word, still the seas, with a shout, time responds to you. You see the source of the fire, you understand the push and pull of the wind, you feel the song in this world.
Domains are, for all intents and purposes, rare, near godlike abilities. While someone of a Greater talent may command the fire, you speak its name. While someone with a lesser talent may make everyday life easier for themselves, you are the one to cause the harvest. Domains are overlapping, integrated levels of power. The lessers than this level of power may hold sway over one element, one concept, while Domains cross barriers. Fire is but heat, energy. So too energy flows from water, to earth, to air, and back to fire. Time ceases for nothing, but what that piece of this reality is, is but a motion that can be paused. Domains cross boundaries and affect the very concepts of their control; lesser magic cannot. The Domain level of talent has many blurred lines of tangential realms of magic; as such, those with a Domain are rare in the general population.
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Domains offer the user an absurd amount of access to their plane of magic. One example that is seen inside many of the God's Eye's of the Wayfare Guild, is that of the Domain of Air. Many are more specialized in the aspect that they are unable to fully utilize the plane of magic to the degree that they can.
Classifications of Planes of Magic
There are generally thought to be three separate distinctions of magic and their sources. Though, it should be noted that during much research, the closer one looks for true differences between these "categories," there is very little to actually differentiate them. As noted by The Sage of Huron: Emily Von Eule in her hunt for information on the Archon Stones, her and her old master Old Sage: Atrimir Schafer, found a peculiar facet to magic that they did not notice until far into their careers as Casters. That being that there is a genuine lag time between casting and actual manifestation. Almost as if there is a conversation between intent and magic itself. This has led to the idea that all magic comes from something rather than being a true ambient energy as once thought of. They made the metaphor that it is very similar to waiting for a prayer being answered, a request, a hope, a wish is made, and whoever or whatever is listening, answers. However, functionally, an individual is born with a specific tendency toward a single type of magic. The only outliers to this general statement are those who possess Domains or have learned very different magic than what many learn. Wayfare Magic does not follow these rules. The new Age of magic called Artifice also does not follow these rules. Both these examples transcend these rigid and tiered structures of magic. Relying on different vectors of influence.Divine Magic:
Is typically considered elemental in nature, though has an extremely wide subset. As such, four main elements have been identified along with a few associated subsets, though as stated before, the closer one looks, the blurrier the lines become. True Divine is absolute, without pause, usually instant casting. This is also why it took Emily and Atrimir so long to realize it, though it is only known as divine magic to those living in The Elsewhere, to those living on the Branches of the Tree, it is simply Elemental magic. Examples of these aspects are not limited to these examples.Air: Dominance over the concept of air.
Subsets: Tonal, Resonance, Frequency, Vibration. Atmosphere. Oneiromancy.
Water: Dominance over the concept of water.
Subsets: Blood, ice, oil, fluids (in general), Atmosphere, nuclear properties. Healing.
Earth: Dominance over the concept of Earth.
Subsets: Metals, Gravity, Probability, Logic, Temperature, Necromancy, Healing.
Fire: Dominance over the concept of Fire.
Subsets: Temperature, Gravity, Light, Dark, Atmosphere.
Shadow magic:
These agents of change are incapable of creating anything new under their own power, and thus warp and metamorphose the things they're already familiar with. A more brutal form, weighty, less ability for precise control. Those of the Elsewhere are extremely familiar with this brand of magic, as they fought it for eons during the War of the Shadows. A corrupting force that has slowly leeched into every facet of existence. This magic in modern times, by those living on the Branches of the Tree is generally considered ordinary elemental magic, with a few twists.
Shadow magic is capable of all the same abilities as Divine magic, only that its source is slower to respond, but more powerful, less controlled. As well with it's name, not many understand why sometimes their magic is far more potent than otherwise, it is not widely understood by the masses, both Scholarly and mundane, as to why this is. Though this is made simple when one realizes that the Shadows were never built to actually handle magic, but were forced to do so when the only surviving source of Divine magic fled to the Elsewhere and cut herself off from the Branches of the Tree. As a consequence, the Shadows were forced to learn and continue to keep up the illusion that magic is omnipresent, utilizing the Song's Afterglow. A remnant of Divine magic left in this world.
Where their magic differs is that they are masters over Illusion, Healing, Interconnection, and Entropy. Some would call this summoning, some would call this conjuring or manipulation of the metaphysical. Forces that pull apart and reconnect, not forces of nature.
Shadow Speech:
Warning: this is an actual spoiler. If you do not wish to spoil the main story work for yourself, skip this. It only becomes relevant much later."Remnants, fragments of power graced to us. A remembrance of what once was. Your voice, a gift that we still use with our own lips. To be birthed to a world that was ours to make. See now, do I. The Songs ancient voices sung, the notes that make each star in the heavens. Oh Great One, see now the notes sung into our bones by voice soundless. Sightless, idea given form. To touch the sea, the earth between abyss and water. Breathe deep and hear the voice that swirls above as the starlight reaches you where light never could. Mind cracked to accept the unfathomable, an insight of the mad. Locked away, keys swallowed have caused damage internally."
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Created by Ilgor of the Skullbrood Clan after she became an ascension candidate in the same way that Anlyth, First Son of Syn, Taneth The Navigator, Y'vitol had become gods. Ilgor had stripped herself of the darkness that The Shadows had placed in her soul at birth, and regained her full status as a Child of Vilorlith by becoming a Brownie. A once Goblin now turned Divine Species once more, she had an epiphany.
She was both Shadow and Divine. Her magic used both sources for its power, and instead of rejecting it as those of the Elsewhere had, she embraced this change in force and created a new, much more potent variant on both systems. Whereas Divine magic is the realm of reality and creation, Shadow magic is an agent of change and possibility. She combined them and made a magic that was both Creation and Destruction. A final whole to partial magic from either source. Her magic is by far and away more powerful than the Shadows and the gods, even when she had not ascended herself. This had made her feared by both parties, despite being allied to the gods.
She took Vilorlith's gift to her Children, Brownie Speech, to its logical conclusion. As The Quartet had always intended, ascended that gift into something her people, as well as all Shadow Touched Children could use to an immense degree.
Spells she and her people had created are: Elemental Enhancement, War Throat, Spell Parry. Potent, irreverent, agnostic magic that affects everything it is directed at.
- Talentless: 1:1,000,000
- Lesser: 1:2
- Greater: 1:150
- Domains: 1:10,000,000
All ability to use magic is derived from a Divine Spark that rests in the soul of every living thing. This spark can be trained to glow brighter, though to grow a spark is a path to Ascension. An apotheosis.
- Elemental Sources are born from the body, typically the body is born with genetic tendencies toward certain types of magic, and is agnostic of the level of power they are born with.
- Spiritual Sources are born from ancestry; the powers that flow through the blood are far more ephemeral, and can skip generations at a time. This is agnostic to the level of power one is born with.
- Metaphysical sources are born of the soul, one's own power derived from its ancient legacy. Metaphysical Talents are only found in those born with Domains.
- Lingering Spells: Should the will or intent of the spell not be controlled, the spell that was cast can linger without the Caster's permission. Depending on the spell, it can have devastating consequences. This happens to Casters who have weak wills, or an unclear intent, or have changed the intent of the spell midcast.
- Slumbering Effect: Limited to all types of healing magic, one must pull excess magic away from the body that was suffused to heal an injury. Failure to do so results in deformities, necrosis, additional bones and organs, cancers, and various other illnesses.
- Soul Tear: Separation of mind and body, where the soul attempts to stitch these pieces together again, is rare for anyone who doesn't possess a Domain. Symptoms include: loss of self-identity, loss of agency, loss of will, anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendencies.
- Rubber Wills: Rebounding spells can affect the Caster instead of a target, or something else in the vicinity. This happens to young Casters who haven't trained their minds to focus on the task at hand. Typically, the spells are amplified as they respond in positive feedback loops, making rebounding spells far more lethal.
"Magic is a dangerous thing though. Those without the concentration, those who play with reality, those who care not for the god's power they hold in their hands. Well, they can be reminded of just that fact, magic as it exists on the Branches of the Great tree, belongs to the gods. The talents that people are born with are those very gifts. Please be mindful with that power." Old Sage: Atrimir Schafer
Make no mistake, when you use magic you are using a power that you need permission for. Do not be so arrogant to think that just because you can use a power, means you are the one in control of it.
"From the poisoned chrysalis we were reborn. The echo of a womb that had long forgotten, the world built by her voice, longer forgotten. Bring forth the voices of the children so oft removed from their source, to breath life back in this emaciated corpse of the Great Ones. A metamorphosis."
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