Intro to Magic

“It is difficult to imagine a world where we never developed our mastery of magic, yet I implore you to try. Close your eyes and picture a world where a brewer must wait years to age their wines, a sailor has no ritual to predict a coming storm, a scholar cannot revisit memories of times past.
These volumes will be a fictional recounting of three individuals growing up in such a world, following the daily hardships they face from childhood and throughout their lives.”

excerpt from ‘Not a Single Candle, book 1’
J. Ilemaiya, novelist, 948 D.H.

In addition to existing within the souls and bodies of the living, essence flows through the world, its amount and potency constantly rising and falling like the tide.
Times with high ambient essence are called times of power, and during them all magic is more powerful: sorcerers can cast more freely, spirits can easily influence the world, and stronger rituals require a certain degree of essence to be usable. Times of low essence are the inverse, with magic being more difficult to access and generally weaker in effect.

Most times of power are tied to astronomical events, such as

• Twilight
• Nights with a half-full moon
• Lunar and solar eclipses
• Solstices and equinoxes

There are other sources of essence, though they are typically more difficult to predict and harness:

• Large crowds of people united with a single purpose, roughly least two thousand individuals are required for a significant amount to be produced, such as during a festival, battle, riot, or public ceremony
• Large flames, at least the size of a house
• Ritual sacrifice of a living creature
  
  

“Being born with one of the magics does not alone make one a mage, but a menace. It is their responsibility to society to hone their craft, at least to the degree where they are not in danger of setting their home aflame in their sleep.”

Unknown, c. 300~400 D.H.

All humans have an innate connection to the essence around them, but that does not mean that people are born with the skill and talent to use magic. The five forms of human magics are divided into two categories:
The primary magics of Sorcery, Seeing and Enchanting that fewer than one in five thousand is born with the ability to perform, and the secondary magics of Alchemy and Ritual Magic, which anyone can learn to utilise through research and practice.

While essence is inherently a force of chaos and change, it seems to abide by multiple constraints. Each form of magic has it additional limitations specific to it, but the three rules that apply to all forms of human magic are:

• Essence embodies freedom - magic cannot directly touch, bind, or alter another individual against their will. Conjured flames may burn another person and a ritual may peek into their future, but a magical ward can never physically block another person’s path and no magic may alter their thoughts.
• Essence is transient - magic can’t last forever. A ritual ends when its circle is broken, a seer’s power lasts only as long as they maintain concentration, and every alchemical infusion eventually drains out.
• Metals draw essence - much like a metal rod attracts lightning, most refined metals draw in nearby essence and negate the effects of magic. A sorcerer with metal cuffs cannot perform magic, and large metal objects may cause nearby rituals to malfunction.
  

“And thus, I have no choice but to concede that this hypothesis about the quantification of essence, much like the others I have proposed this past century, does not stand up to experimental scrutiny, and must therefore be discarded.”

excerpt from ‘Measuring the Unseen, vol. 26’
H. Morena, astronomer of the inner circle, 852 D.H.

While the term secondary magic might lead one to think that these magics are less important or prevalent than the primary magics, for the vast majority of people the opposite is true. A person may go about their entire lives without meeting a single seer, but you would be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t have a friend who knows a ritual or two.

Most people learn alchemy and rituals as part of their daily lives and jobs, with formulae being passed from parent to child or master to apprentice. Others choose to study them in formal academies, striving to formalise the arts and develop new concoctions

The secondary magics as a whole are far more versatile than the primary magics, both due to their accessibility to the common person, and due to the wide array of effects they can produce. While most sorcerers only master a handful of manifestations throughout their entire lives, a scholar might learn a dozen different rituals in their first year at an academy, and a master alchemist could offer hundreds of unique brews and concoctions to their patrons.

It is important to note that alchemy and rituals are still bound by the universal rules of magic, even if on the surface they seem to break them. For example, an alchemical poison can harm a person who unwillingly consumes it, not because the magic affects them directly, but because it alters the composition of the source material and allows it to cause greater harm.

Similarly a ritual may appear to persist even after its circle is broken, if it is bound to a gemstone that continues to feed it the power it needs.