The Magic System of The Onyx Throne

Almost all the humanoid races on Tewadunn have the ability to access mana*, and thus perform magic. That doesn't mean everyone can utilize it though. Lethelin, for example, has no magical affinity. Others have only one, or several. The most rare are those that can access all eight types of mana.

All children are tested for magical abilities around their 7th name day. This is similar to their birthday, but it's not exactly the same. A child will either be found to have no magical affinity, or between one and eight of them. The average among the population of all those with magical affinity is roughly 3. No one has determined why one person will have an affinity and another will not. A child can be born with no magical affinity when both parents have one or more, or vice versa. There is no hereditary component that anyone has been able to discover.

Once magical affinity is discovered, the child must learn to first sense their mana and call it forth. This is usually done through meditation and is not overly difficult. The second step--if the child has more than one affinity--is to learn to dissect the different mana types to draw only what they need. This is, in a sense, a misunderstanding of the true nature of mana. While the different types of mana are distinct forms, when that energy is absorbed into a person's body, it is all mixed together. The act of choosing the type of mana that the caster wishes to use begins to coalesce the other types into that form. Thus, it is possible for a person to cast a spell or spells using only one type of mana yet still use all the mana in their reservoir. This is a source of consternation for many young students as they learn to grapple with that limitation. If a child has access to Evocation and Divination mana, if they exhaust themselves casting evocation spells, they will be unable to cast any divination spells as well.

The most difficult thing for any new caster is learning to call forth the type of mana they want. There is no one method for this, and it is an individual challenge that every caster must overcome. It cannot be taught or explained and, to date, no two methods have ever been found to be identical, although there are sometimes commonalities. What is the same is that the ability to do so requires an association with something else in the caster's life. It could be the taste of certain foods, the feel of different temperatures on the skin, the sound of voices of people in the caster's life, or the image of different animals. This is why students often spend weeks in meditation, searching for the association that will allow them to finally harness their power.

Mana is collected and stored inside a caster's body in what is commonly called a reservoir. What precisely it is is not properly understood, as it is not a physical organ inside the body. It is a metaphysical construct that, while it can be detected, can never be directly observed. Casting a spell requires drawing the mana out of the reservoir and shaping it through a rune--typically constructed in the mind--to achieve the desired effect.

The rate at which a person's mana reservoir refills is roughly the same. What is not the same is the size of an individual's reservoir. Much like one's height, it is variable. Some will have more capacity than others. As with physical training, using mana on a regular basis will increase the size of one's reservoir, but there is an upper limit that is unique to each individual and no reliable or safe way has ever been found to increase a reservoir artificially. Experiments into that area almost always result in death or horrible deformity and is banned outright by most of the governments.

The eight known schools of magic are:

• Conjuration: It deals with creating objects and creatures, or making them disappear.

• Necromancy: In general, think of spells within the School of Necromancy as manipulating the ebb and flow of different creatures’ “life energy”, or the balance of energy between life and death. This can come across in the form of helping resurrection, or draining necrotic damage.

• Abjuration: Magical spells and effects within the school of abjuration are primarily designed for protection and shielding. Don’t be fooled however, some Abjuration spells can pack quite a punch.

• Evocation: Casters within the school of evocation unleash a raw magical energy upon their enemies. Whether it be flames, ice, or pure arcane energy: evocation spellcasters are here to deal damage and chew gum… and they’re all out of gum.

• Divination: This is centered around revealing and granting knowledge and information to the caster. Useful for reading ancient scripts, identifying magical items, and seeing invisible enemies.

• Enchantment: In its casted form, enchantment is used to manipulate the mental state of the target. This entire school is very similar to hypnotism, where the affected creature may act completely differently than how they normally behave.

• Illusion: The School of Illusion is concerned with manipulating the various senses of people and creatures. This could be vision, hearing, or other various senses such as body temperature.

• Transmutation: Casters who study within the School of Transmutation are able to manipulate the physical properties of both items and people. This could be something simple – such as turning copper into gold – or could be an advanced spell that turns you into a newt (it’ll get better…)

Magical affinities are organized into ranks.

Zero Affinities: While there is no official title for someone with no magical affinities, a less polite term is 'dun'. This is in reference to a gemstone that is not channeling any mana. There is a distinctive glow present in any gemstone when it is compressing mana and a person with zero affinities has no mana. Thus, dun.

One or Two Affinities: Sprite

Three or Four Affinities: Witch/Sorcorer/Sorceress, or Warlock.

A note on the term warlock. This is an archaic term brought to Tewadunn from the elvish language. On the Elvish homeworld of Manaal, to gain more than one natural affinity, one was required to pact with a magical creature. This would gain the elf an additional second or third affinity, depending on the nature of the pact and the power of the creature pacted with. Magic on Tewadunn does not function in such a way and no pacts with magical creatures or deities are necessary, yet the term stuck.

Five-to-Seven Affinities: Arcanist

Eight Affinities: Mage

Casters must learn runes to shape their magic into the desired effect, which can be anything from encouraging a flower to grow, to casting a fireball into a group of enemies, to ripping a building asunder. Some spell runes (also called spell forms) are too complex to hold inside the mind. Those require runes to be drawn out using various different inks or even cast with various different metals, such as gold, silver, or electrum. The more powerful the spell, the more complex the rune. Runes in the same school will have the same underlying structure, but the higher circle of spell, the more complex the rune will become.

Spells within a magical school will usually be categorized by what circle they occupy. You can think of this as the level of the spell. A first circle spell is the simplest of that form, requiring only a small amount of mana. Circles range from first to ninth, although few have the skill to hold ninth-level spells, and they require an inordinate amount of mana. It is a level that not many have ever achieved. Spells beyond the ninth circle require physically crafted runes.

Lower-circle spells can often be applied to physical objects when their runes are drawn or crafted onto said objects. This requires small alternations to the rune's original design, but--for example--the rune for casting a mage light can be carved or even drawn onto a surface and, once charged with mana, will last until either the mana is exhausted or the medium degrades and can no longer hold the charge.

There are places where new spells are researched for, but--for reasons that should be obvious--it is a dangerous profession to go into. Still, not without great rewards if one successfully discovers a new and useful rune in any of the eight schools. There is still wealth to be had even in altering an existing rune to a new purpose. The chill box was one such invention that modified a 2nd-circle freezing touch rune to generate a continuous output of cold air that could lower the temperature in an area. This revolutionized food storage and transport as the spell, while still expensive, was cheaper than stasis runes that seek to slow entropy in a given space rather than just make it colder.  Efforts are ongoing to utilize this effect to cool entire rooms, but at the time of Mitchell's adventures, the size and power requirements of such a construct are far too expensive to be practical.

Once a rune has been learned, the caster will usually focus the magic through a gemstone that resonates with the type of mana they are utilizing. Utilizing a focus allows for greater power output with less mana. It should be noted that, despite the perception of the caster, the order in which this is done is actually reversed. To the caster, it appears that they call forth the mana, channel it mentally into the rune they have contructed in their mind, and then push it out through the gemstone. However, in carefully controlled experiments, it was discovered that, when gemstones are present, the mana is drawn to it and compressed before filling the rune. The process happens very quickly, and it leads many novices to think that they call the mana forth and then direct it to the rune, but doing that would not conserve the mana as they wished as they would be drawing it out of their reservoir before it is compressed inside the gemstone. But because it requires no effort on the part of the caster to utilize the gemstone, they usually never notice the difference.

It is this compression of mana that creates pressure inside the gemstone and leads to micro fractures that degrade the gemstone over time. The more degraded a gemstone becomes, the less efficient it is at compressing new mana, and thus more mana becomes necessary for the same effect. Casters can usually detect when a mana crystal has degraded enough that a replacement is necessary. If the gemstone is not replaced, it will eventually shatter. A gemstone can also be destroyed if more mana is channeled into it than the gemstone can withstand. This is a common problem among inexperienced casters before they have learned to control the amount of mana they draw out of their reservoir.

There are three gemstones known for each mana type, ordered from most efficient to least. Efficiency in regards to the various gemstones refers to how quickly they build up micro fractures during mana compression. Effects created by the different stones are equal, but the less efficient stones will degrade faster, all else being equal. For practical purposes, those who specialize in combat magic favor the most effient stones that can be found, while non-combat oriented casters will rarely notice the difference.

• Conjuration:

  • Quartz

  • Cubic Zirconia

  • Amethyst

• Necromancy:

  • Fire Opal

  • Lapis Lazuili

  • Topaz

• Abjuration:

  • Black Onyx

  • Blue Sapphire

  • Black Spinnel

• Evocation:

  • Bloodstone

  • Topaz

  • Obsidian

• Divination:

  • Star Sapphire

  • Star Ruby

  • Star Garnet

• Enchantment:

  • White Opal

  • Rose Quartz

  • Emerald

• Illusion:

  • Red Garnet

  • Blue Opal

  • Blood Ruby

• Transmutation:

  • Pink Sapphire

  • Jade

  • Turquoise

Gemstones can also function as a sort of mana battery. They can be filled with a specific form of mana and it will remain there until it is either extracted, the gemstone is destroyed, or it degrades over time. The capacity of the gemstone depends on its size and quality. The discovery that mana could be stored inside gemstones to be used at a later date was a revelation and allowed magical spells to be used in all manner of applications that never would have been possible without a way to safely store mana outside of the body. Research is ongoing in different ways to operate devices and charge runes using mana storage.

*Note: The tilsins are the only humanoid race on Tewadunn that has never been found to have any affinity for magic. No explanation for this oddity has ever been discovered, and if the tilsins know the reason, they have never shared it.

Additionally, there are two races that have racial features that function much like mana affinity does, but which does not actually use mana. The fire affinity possessed by all cambions, and a nature affinity among the gnomish people. While the fire affinity of the cambions is more direct in that they can manipulate, control (to a limited degree) fire, and even create without the use of any sort of runic magic, the nature magic of the gnomish people is more abstract. It expresses itself in the form of healthier plantlife wherever gnomes settle, and new species can often be found where they have lived for a few years. Their very prescence seems foster adaptation and evolution to existing plant life.

Also of note, is a sense innate to most dwarves of the composition of rock. Few call this a magical ability as it does not manafist in any physical way. Dwarves cannot shape rock, form new rock, control rocks, or exert any will upon them outside of with runic magic. Elves also seem to be more resistant to magic meant to charm. They are not immune, but show more resilliance to its effects than other races. And while it is subjective, it is believed by some that illusion spells cast by elves are more potent than those cast by other races.