Magic (Paladask Supplement)
Magic on Paladask is powerful and abundant, existing in every nook and cranny of the plane. Wizard's power is drawn from Paladask's magical channels that cover both the cities and the vast nolands. Sorcerers tap into Paladask's ancient and strong magical presences to be able to initiate complex and stupendous rituals. Mages from all over the world alike with non-mages know of Paladask and her magics. And while magic is generally looked down upon on Paladask, none have sought to put an end to the magical presence there, fore who knows if it is even possible. Paladask's magic has been around since the beginning of Paladask itself and its very essence has been an integral part of the plane, what with the creation of magical items or the abundance of mages running around in the world. Mystical beasts and enemies threaten Paladask's cities daily, but without them, Paladask would not be Paladask.
Magic is common enough on Paladask that just about everybody has encountered magic and the magical at least once in their life, usually multiple times.
This section looks over the magic of Paladask including the science behind the spread of magic, its use, its effects, and the tools that employ it.
Magic Distribution on Paladask[edit]
Magic, its essence being mana, is distributed across all of Paladask, but not evenly. Areas where magic is more prevalent allow for increased spell intensity or improved enchanting and imbuing, or even the discovery of more powerful magical items. These areas are generally mountain peaks, or valleys sealed far away from civilization, essentially any area where people aren't readily present. It is thought that these areas can move over generations, allowing populations to grow in their area and then moving on like a current to another.
Mages and magic-haters alike sometimes make a job out of finding these mana deposits, and either rejoicing and setting up camp, or rejoicing and attempting to force the mana away if they ever find them. Seekers generally are forbidden from travelling into or near these strong mana deposits, and any Seeker who has disobeyed this rule is normally stripped of their title or worse. These strong mana deposits are not numbered nor pinned onto a permanent map, but are somewhere in the minds of every civilian on Paladask.
There are ways to collect mana on Paladask, or rather, to gather more mana than naturally available for temporary use. Some black market dealers will sell items that allow for the gathering of mana and therefore the improvement of magical abilities for a period of time. These items are illegal and can be very dangerous or in some cases complete rip offs (as one is to expect with the black market). There are also famed wizards who -it is said- know spells and rituals to move the very magical essence on Paladask. Who knows? Probably just rumors, or is it?
Contrary to the powerful, magic-filled mana deposits one may find travelling remote places on Paladask, the opposite is true as well. Just as strong winds travel from area to area in perfect balance, the magical presence on Paladask is similar.
Areas of weak and damaged mana are usually the same areas where many people live, such as cities. The greater the population of a city, the weaker their mana. To be clear, mana does not deplete as is how is seems, fore it cannot be depleted just as magic itself can never be destroyed. No, mana simply cannot exist in an area with high populations. So these areas of weak mana distribution are what people are most accustomed to.
The royal court's mages are used to the feeling of their magic seemingly being held back. The mage's with the Dark Brotherhood (LINK) are used to their kill spells not being as dastardly and deadly as they could be (although, if a kill spell kills, mission accomplished). Artificers in the cities are used to sub-par creations that include magic. This is all simply because there is not as big or strong of a magical presence looming over Paladask's cities.
Magic too, can be felt through creatures and beings. How else would somebody explain away a dragon's breathe weapon or a unicorn's ability to charm? The people of Paladask have encountered magic many times in their life, with wall guards encountering more and Seekers encountered more still. Knowledge of magical beings is of utmost importance to the survival and safety of Seekers and even occasionally city guards.
Spellcasters have the greatest knowledge of Paladask's magic and mana deposits, and their skill shows it. A wizard who has trained for 60 years will be years ahead skill-wise than even a Seeker who have been training since childhood. Sorcerers who study in the royal court are most skilled and have their abilities more precisely honed than say, sorcerers within the Dark Brotherhood. Learning Paladask's ways of magic is time consuming and difficult. It is long nights in the mage's corner's libraries and having to practice in secret at night fore fear of being imprisoned if caught. But ultimately, those who choose this path are some of the most talented individuals with the sharpest minds on Paladask, and often offer invaluable assistance to Seekers if permitted or the royalty of select cities if necessary.
Mages' Corners[edit]
Each city on Paladask has a Mage Corner, where all magic users are forced to live, with some exceptions. Walls are built to keep people out and keep mages in, and guards are posted along to outside of the wall, near the gate entrance. Each Mage Corner has their own shoppes and their own doctors and their own housing; being much less hospital and comfortable than those same buildings around the rest of the city. No non-mage is allowed into the Mage's Corner -unless allowed by a King- and no mage is allowed to leave the Corners. There are messengers who deliver news or goods for shoppes (all secondhand, of course) to the Corners, with those same messengers taking all but 5% of the profit from these mage shoppes and presenting it to the cities' bank.
Children born in the Mage's Corners are branded mages at birth even if the child shows no sign of magic even up to their 18th birthday, when they are finally set free after a rigorous test proving they are not mages. Pets are not allowed in the Corners, nor are weapons or armor. And food is brought in from whatever the rest of the city doesn't use at the end of every day.
Another group of people who are forced to live within these Corners are tieflings. Any and all tieflings, mages or not, who have made it past their first day alive (fore most are killed before they live to a few hours) are thrown into the Corners. If nobody takes care of them, too bad. If somebody does, that likely will lead to that mage being ostracized in the Corners. Being ostracized while being already ostracized? That is why the tiefling population on Paladask is so dramatically low.
Life in the Mage's Corners is dangerous and boring, with limited food and no mages ever being permitted to be Seekers and no outside interaction whatsoever allowed. Nobody wants to help the mages either politically or socially, and even sometimes young mages are sold off as cargo to faraway lands. The only reason the mages live here (as if they had a choice) is because the nolands are far too dangerous for these malnourished, ill-equipped mages to handle.
But some mages do get to live life outside of the Corners. Notably are the court mages, who advise and serve the Kings and Queens of Paladask with all matters arcane. They get to live in the castles and dine with the royalty and be public heroes at times.
Free, too, are the cities paladins and clerics, fore holy magic is seen as less dangerous and much less vile. Often, paladins serve in the militias or become Seekers and clerics serve the city in their God's temples or in city funerals.
Magic in the World[edit]
Spellcasting[edit]
Manipulating the energies of the mana on Paladask and forming it into a concrete effect is the foundation of all spellcasting. Mages take those energies and, through force of will and their own energy, manipulate that mana into effects. Wizards take these thrumming strings of mana and twist them between their fingers, shaping the mana into a solid object. They give the spell further purpose and intent with words of power and material components or a focus for their spellcasting. These help solidify a spell and enable that spell to influence the world around it. Then, once properly shaped, they are sent out into the world to effect change, introducing mana to cast a magic in defiance of the normal rules that govern reality.
Some mages use tools to manipulate the flows of their magic or to add to their power. Wands and other magic items can lend a spell strength or definition. Some magic items can create preprogrammed spellcasting reserves through their own internal power. Other mages use intermediaries to cast spells that would otherwise be impossible, divine spellcasters like clerics use assistance from the Gods to give their spells further definition and strength. Spellcasters like warlocks use other learned entities as a shortcut for their own learning, letting their patrons infuse them with an understanding of the spells they cast. Sorcerers exploit their own internal well of energy to give their magic further strength, and rely on a combination of instinct and practice to learn to master their art. Bards exploit the use of will in drawing in energy and words in giving spells purpose to use their voice and instruments to give a spell form.
There is another distinction for divine magic as it stands against arcane magic, the addition of divine power. This acts like a font of strength for a sorcerer and not only empowers spells, but also refines them. Magic cast with the addition of divine energy into itself is “cleaner” and it much less likely to land the spellcaster (often a cleric or paladin) in prison.
Spellcasters have an easier time manipulating magic with the use of tools, magic focuses like crystals and staffs, the more personal the object and the more steeped in arcane purpose, the more effective these objects serve as a refinement for arcane power. The point of using a focus like these is to refine the wild mana, focusing one’s will around the spell, similar to the purpose of using certain material components in spellcasting. This is effective enough that the use of a focus can replace some spells, though certain spells require extremely specific materials to work, generally this applies to gems, which interact in interesting ways with magic but other materials can also have interesting interactions with magic and can also help to refine intent for the spellcaster.
Wild Magic[edit]
Blessings and curses can be handed out randomly due to the wild and ever-changing mana deposit system on the plane. These can increase in frequency when one travels nearer and nearer to stronger mana deposits. Mages that have royal pardons have been studying these random occurrences for quite some time now.
Now while no advancement in stopping these random occurrences has been made for generations, wild magic can be felt in other ways, too.
Wild animals and beasts often can be discovered to have previously unknown characteristics or abilities to them. One might find a flying ogre or a bullywug with a breathe weapon! These occurrences are never the same, case to case, but they baffle those who come across them. Magic on Paladask, especially in areas of strong mana distribution can create wild and dangerous abominations. Some people seek out the strong deposits just for this reason, either to hunt new monsters or in the hopes that they will be granted an ability such as flight or given gills. More often than that, however the foolish explorers just end up dead.
Supernatural Power and Psionics[edit]
The inborn magical abilities of certain creatures, the acquired supernatural powers of people such as monks, and psionic abilities are similar in that their users don’t manipulate mana in the customary way that spellcasters do and understand.
The mental state of the user is vitally important: monks and some psionics users train long and hard to attain the right frame of mind, while creatures with supernatural powers have that mindset in their nature.
How these abilities are related to the flow remains a matter of debate. Some students of the arcane believe that it is some form of innate magical talent, others believe that it is like an enchantment built up within the individual’s mind, some others think that it is akin to taking the flow of the world's mana into the person and pouring the energies directly within themselves. Unfortunately for academics, there is still no understanding of how these innate magics work and still no means of observing how these magics might work.
Magic Items[edit]
The effects of a spell are brought to life through force of will, study, and delicate manipulation of mana. But these are impermanent, lasting only as long as the energy put into them is sustained, some only lasting a fleeting instant. Creating magic items is a way to make the magic last far beyond the instant of its creation. Allowing a spell to last for as long as the item does, or as long as the energy within can sustain the weaves.
In some cases, the magic of an item is incomplete, it must be tied to its wielder to complete the mana concentration within it. This entwines threads together, a mixture of energies, both empowering the other. This connection between the wielder and the object they wield is often called attunement. There are limitations to this ability, an individual is only able to handle so many of these connections before the burden they place on the wielder becomes dangerous.
Crafting Magic Items[edit]
It is impossible to construct magic items on anything like an assembly line. Magic is too delicate a tool to simply be automated, it depends too much on the will of the one doing the casting, too much on intent. The magic must be woven into an object as that object is being constructed, infusing its nature with the magic. This is a technique known as weave enchanting, or simply “weaving.” The other major technique consists of carving inscriptions into an object to give it its purpose, creating magical texts to impose arcane strength. This latter technique is commonly called rune enchanting or “carving,” though it does not always use runes and does not necessarily need to be carved. Carving allows for more precision in the enchantment, but does not sustain itself beyond a few uses.
Weaving enchantments into an object is considered the best method of creating a magic item, it lasts the longest and can infuse much stronger magics. Rune enchanting lasts a significantly shorter time, but can allow for finer control, using language and the nature of the object to give the enchantment definition. The most successful enchanters incorporate both techniques into the construction of a magic item. Infusing the object with strength and delicate weaves, then further refining that strength by inscribing words of power onto the object. Because both of these techniques require an abundance of magic during the object’s construction, they require a person to do it; and they also can only be done in areas of strong magical mana deposits.
Restrictions on Magic[edit]
Magic is a frightening power, it enables its practitioners to perform things beyond the hopes of other mortals. This is a strong reason why magic is feared and why mages are confined to living in the mage's corners of Paladask's cities.
Most cities impose restrictions on its use and those who use it. Mages are not to use magic or practice magic at any time of the week, save for Sunday mornings, when the royal family normally goes out to sea for a few hours. The use of magic outside of these times or outside of the mage's corners is considered a crime in and of itself, it may be punishable by imprisonment, exile, or even death on multiple violations.
Most common people mistrust magic and spellcasters, and share some fear of them for their association to wild magic and the Dark Brotherhood or even the Thieves' Guild. People who give birth to mages (which in and of itself is governmentally controlled) will often give their children up or hide them and force them into leading normal lives. This is rare, however, fore most mages are birthed within the mage's corners and therefore the child is branded a criminal from there on out, with their entire lives to be controlled and regulated.
Resurrecting the Dead[edit]
There are several nearly insurmountable restrictions on resurrecting the souls of the dead and restoring them to life. The first restriction is that the task requires the assistance of a powerful entity that can intercede with the soul and restore it. The Gods, save for two or so, oppose resurrecting the dead. In addition to hounding the ones who raised that soul.
In addition to the intersection of a willing God, the soul must have a body to return to, and that body must be in good enough condition that life can be returned to it. Finally, the soul must be willing to be resurrected, a soul in the process of resurrection is aware of who is attempting to revive them, as well as the identity of the deity that is acting towards that end, some souls simply refuse to be resurrected.
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