Magic In Trithofar Bump!

I'm hoping to hammer down magic in Trithofar a bit.  A friend and I have been working together on some ideas about magic in Trithofar, and he has a lot of good to say about it.  If I step on his toes (WPW) it is not intentional.  Bump, dangit.  Go up! 

Anyway, there are several, for lack of a better word "Primary" schools of magic and several "Secondary" subsidiaries.  They form 8 basic schools, though some are more chapters or subsections of other, higher schools.

Typically, what designates a Primary School of magic from a secondary is the nature of the use of the magic.  The Primary schools have a singular function, which is to govern the world or the way the Aethran interacts with the world.  Primary school magic is more direct, and deals with a problem directly.  By contrast the secondary schools are those which facilitate or further aide an Aethren to directly contact the world, so they are the makers of tools, the helpers, the facilitators, etc.

Anyone who is considered to be "Traited" meaning they can use magic is also called, if trained, an "Aethran."  The plural of this is "Aethren."

Mystroskus: This could be compared to an ice berg.  Mystroskus is a physical 'end' of a large amount of magic sticking into the physical world.  Mystroskus can be turned into pure magical power or effect by those trained to use it (particularly artificiers).  Mystroskus is extremely hard to work with, as it usually only stays in one state so long as the conditions of that state remain the same.  Usually, it appears as a liquid that is both purest white and steel colored at the same time, mixing and mingling and swirling.  Mystroskus, and Magic in general is, effectively, pure will-power.  In the beginnings of Trithofar, it was left behind when the powerful beings (which some worship as deities) fought over their creations.  Their blood was said to have been spilt.  These creatures, though they can take many forms, are primarily composed of pure willpower.

The Primary Schools:

Wizardry

1. Concerns itself with the use of portals and cross-dimensional travel and use.  Wizards find and manipulate or create portals for the purposes of getting things done or for traveling.  
2. Wizards are typically characterized as being extremely quirky and eccentric.  Sometimes, they can be very distracted and slow to accomplish some things.  Largely, this is because when confronted with a problem, they see multiple ways of arriving at their solution, and decide based on their needs as to which way to go. 
3. Know a wizard by the fact that his eyes never close or even blink.  Wizards can actually find the paths through time and space, and often do not travel directly to any place they wish to go, but through careful maneuvering along physical space.  
4. Wizards often have a tool through which to concentrate their magic or to use in order to connect to specific targets.  Wizards often do very complex calculations and figuring with their wands, leaving trails in the air or on target things, which looks like magical language, but is really vectors and mathematical computations designed to figure out how to get where they want to go.  

Magecraft

1. Magecraft is manipulating or positioning certain physical objects to maximize an aesthetic or psychological effect.  Sometimes, however, magecraft can also be used to put objects along certain lines of balance, such that the object stays in position, moves or behaves a certain way, or affects the environment around it.  
2. Mages are often characterized as having very controlling, condescending, and judgmental personalities. They are very concerned, typically, with appearances and meticulously assuring things are just 'so.'  
3. It is most difficult to recognize a mage, except that they tend to fidget when alone or when bored.  Often, they will either be found standing in odd positions or manipulating objects.  These are the types of magicians you would find balancing a pencil at an angle on its tip.  
4. Mages do not typically have tools to use.  The world around them, and the objects of their environments can serve as tools.  Sometimes, however, they will make use of pre-fabricated objects with a particular effect on the mind which they will position so that the spell 'rolls off of them.'  

Aavemancy (WPW, this is what I'm calling what we used to call Sorcery)

1. Aavemancers are people who manipulate the will and the spiritual forces of the world.  Sometimes, to fuel their work, they will use the spirits of animals or, in the case of those who are considered evil, will use the souls of dead people.  By manipulating the mental state and/or the body attached to a soul, they can motivate people to do things.  Of course, they also create ways to motivate ghosts and lost souls and are most responsible for the creation and use of the undead as weapons and servants.  
2. Aavemancers are typically very litigious and extremely careful to both follow and make the rules.  They are crafty, cunning, and often very scrupulous.  Their personalities usually cause them to think in terms of black and white, wrong or right.  Therefore, when they choose to do something, it is because they have justified it in their mind to do it.   
3. Recognize an Aavemancer as someone with a single part of their body to have a peculiar attraction to the unsuspecting.  For instance, a finger or an eye, or even an ear, could cause a strange obsession in the unwary, and while the victim focuses and is nearly hypnotized by it, the Aavemancer uses his magic or hypnosis and mental manipulation to catch the attention and obligation of his victim.  
4. The Aavemancer's magic mostly deals with manipulating and confining the spirit or soul and the manipulation of the body so that the soul is also touched.  Some of this has to do with manipulating already lost souls into doing their bidding by giving them a temporary escape from hell or the abyss or the Lack.  Aavemancers also deal in absolute truth and binding loyalty from their subjects, creating 'spiritual contracts' that force the subject to do something.  Theirs is a magic of binding and unbinding, words, and manipulations.  
5. NOTE: Aavemancers also talk to non-corporeal spirits, and sometimes even demons.  They are the ones who are in tune with the desire of the unliving things.  

Tah-Nith (Mind Touch)

1. Tah-Nith are mostly martial arts magic-users.  Originally developed by the kinto-shah to aide their peculiar bodies in the art of martial arts, the art of Tah-Nith allows its user to have absolute control of his/her own body as well as be able to control the bodies of others.  The Tah-Nith, through poses, moves, and dances changes the flow of magic to perform specific tasks.  
2. Tah-Nith magicians are usually very calm, but also thinking ahead.  They concern themselves with harmony and balance.  They sense the moving of magic, and attempt to direct it within themselves.  They also are very aware of their own bodies and are almost constantly in control of it.  Their stances can make things around them seem to 'bend' or 'hum.'  Some Tah-Nith are quite cavalier when not actively engaged in battle.  
3. Recognize Tah-Nith as they sometimes either brand their bodies or decorate themselves with tattoos.  When they move, it is with supernatural grace and poise.  Typically, a Tah-Nith is very quiet and rather careful and prefer to watch and observe.  
4. Tah-Nith magic is very physical, involving the body and interaction with physical surroundings.  Though Tah-Nith is the word used by its creators, the Kinto-Shah, and was originally used by them, it comes in a wide variety of forms surrounding a primary philosophy.  It is, essentially, martial arts magic, and involves elements also of acupuncture and pressure point manipulation.  

The Secondary Schools:

The Sensers:

1. Sensers are those that can best read certain signals around them.  Which type of senser a person is, depends primarily on which type of stimulation they are most keyed to.  While many can use the knowledge gained from their talents to have a better grasp of what is going on, very, very few sensers are able to completely and accurately predict the future (of course, seldom would a senser tell someone else this).  
2. Sensers' personalities sometimes vary depending on which type they are.  Some of them are easily agitated and quite paranoid.  Many of them hear voices and seem more able to respond to these voices than physical beings around themselves.  Some of them spend long hours asleep, resting, or meditating. Quite a few of them are avid writers, but not avid readers.  
3. Recognize a senser by his/her shadow.  No matter what the light source, the sensers shadow falls upon that which he has interest.  They often make every effort to avoid human contact when it involves their art or gift being invoked or involuntarily required.  They typically refrain from touching others often.  
4. Sensers typically have one or more heightened senses.  Often, they see the courses of things, both how things arrived in the point of time in which they exist or most likely where they are going from there.  This is not to say that some pre-destiny fuels their 'sight.'  One Trithofar philosopher said the sight is like watching an insect struggle in a pond of slightly muddy water.  One can see the fish circling underneath, and can tell which fish is likeliest to strike first, but nothing is set in stone.  The rest of the world is unable to see past the ripples.  It could be compared to having the vantage-point of an ant vs. the vantage point of a person looking at the same rock.  The ant can see what is closest around himself, but the human can see the edges of the stone, yet cannot tell necessarily which side of the stone the ant will walk towards.  But even these explanations fall short.  It is the ability to hear voices from all kinds of sources, but at the same time, sensers have problems with these voices.  Which to trust?  Which are real?  Which are false?  This is the cruel and difficult curse of the senser.  They are never alone.  

Chiurgans

1. Chiurgans are almost so varied as to be unclassified.  Their art is all about the manipulation of the body and they can serve almost any function necessary to that end.  They manifest as both torturers and healers, scientists, scholars, and complete monsters.  
2. Recognize a chiurgan by his 'scars.'  Unexplained, blood-colored patches seem to appear and disappear from the chiurgan's skin.  
3. Personality-wise, a chiurgan again varies.  Either they have absolute sympathy and empathy with a person in pain or they do not seem to empathize at all with any sensation common to mortals.  Their personalities typically group at one or the other end of this scale.  However, one thing is in common with all chiurgans: they are fascinated by the body.  They study it, they observe it, they obsess over it.  A chiurgan will stare at people until they are uncomfortable.  Some of them will pay money just to see performances so they can admire the workings of the body.  They are an audience member of almost every dance or show, athletic event, or public park where people are moving.  They look at the body not in a perverted or erotic way, but like someone examining fruit or cattle, like a person surmising the worth of a commodity.  The more sympathetic ones are interested in the body as a work of art and want it to work like it should; but healers also desire for someone to feel good and be happy as well.      
4. Their tools are among the most nefarious and notorious tools in Trithofar.  One tool in particular is the Life Table, a table designed to keep anything upon it alive, no matter what happens.  On such a table, a body can be vivisected entirely and left and it will live.  Also, through the horrible magic of the lifetable, a body can be reconstructed with alien limbs and become a new creature, which is how many monsters in Trithofar were actually created.  Life Tables have been banned in Trithofar by almost every society except for Drod (while it was still a Kingdom) and the Gnoblins.  However, healers and other chiurgans have other tools that are a little less questionable in their benefit to society: healing potions, magic scalpels and surgery tools, etc.  Quite a few of their healing methods have been perverted into weapons or torturing devices.  The Mad Doctor of Coth is among the most notable example of a Chiurgan among humans.  

Artificiers and Mejen:

1. Known by several different names, including: chemysts, alchemysts, enchanters, constuctionists, and mejen.  These are magic users who make tools to be used.  Effectively, through the use of complicated design, decoration, and/or makeup, the tools they make are capable of casting spells, enhancing magic, or causing the environment to change.  One could almost think of them like magic weapons and tools builders.  They also work with potions, powders, and seek to extract magic from nature.  
2. Artificiers are the closest things to scientists Trithofar has, really, as they measure and manipulate the environment to gain magical power.  The biggest mark of the Artificier is their tinkering with things and the way many of them leave a visible light trace on things they touch, like an aura, but which goes away in seconds.  
3. Because of the complicated and very detailed spellworkings required of artificiers, they are typically very meticulous, very cautious, and very prepared.  These are some of the most math-minded aethren in the world, capable of doing very complicated calculations in their own heads.  Typically, due to the nature of their need for manifested mystroskus (the physical magic that fuels most of their spells and which must be mined out of natural objects and certain magical places), they are often rather personable with people, able to get along, but very tight-lipped about their work.  Towards the things they create, they often have a devil-may-care attitude, wondering merely if they can, and not usually about whether or not they should, build something. 
4. Their magic, similar to the Tah-Nith, involves coordinating and driving magic through what they have built such that it functions, much like an electrician would do with wiring.  Where they differ from Tah-Nith is that they flow magic through a tool and the magic is altered by the tool, whereas the Tah-Nith will use their, or other people's bodies to move magic (they themselves are the tools).  Artificiers' spellworking causes the power/magic/aether to respond in certain ways repeatedly, as though they constructed roads or paths for magic to follow.  They also cause the magic to react and trigger a tool's higher functions after a certain stimulus has been achieved.    

The Motivars

1. The motivars were, for a long time, tantamount in Trithofar to a psychologist.  They worked magic to motivate people to do desired things.  They drifted from being educators and police forces (being able to figure out what strongly motivates someone to do something) to becoming servants to the school of Aavemancy.  They became torturers and bullies, primarily, because they desired to make slaves of people.  As the school of Aavemancy also drifted to taking control of people's souls for their own personal uses, the motivars worked to prepare souls for the taking, denying them heaven or any form of goodness and twisting victims into giving up on righteousness.  Motivars became known later as Manipulators and Soulbenders.  Sometimes, they were called Herders or Warders or Binders.  Just as Aavemancers worked to create binding spells for souls and spirits, Motivars created spells to bind the minds of people.  At first, the school worked to police magic users, as well as leaders of various empires, but after Willeonis Treborrin's famous "Aethren shall not rule" decree, the Motivars stuck to binding magic users (the exception of course being those who went rogue and tortured people for their own entertainment.  
2. Recognize a motivar by their controlling nature and their condescending attitudes towards others.  They tend to abstain from most pleasurable activities, for fear that someone might use such things to bind them to it or use it to motivate themselves.  Therefore, they do not decorate themselves, nor do they eat sumptuous foods, so they can be found to be very thin.  They might seem jumpy or particularly paranoid, as well.  
3. Their magic is one of rules and loopholes.  They can tend to be very litigious and value rules and their consequences far more than people.  In relationships, they expect people to follow the rules, to do what is upright and good, or what they think is upright and good, or at least what they think is good for themselves.  They hold themselves slightly above laws and rules, while expect everyone else to be perfect adherents.  If not, they will often enforce the rules on someone.  Quite often, they are people that begin their career as an Aethren who seeks to establish order, but don't realize that one man's defensive walls are another's prison.  
4. Much of the Motivar school has descended into using the implements of torture.  They tend to carry knives, or they tend to carry implements of torture, usually made with spells for maximizing pain.  Much of their magic revolves around amplifying the sensations, or completely deadening sensations.  

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Now, how an Aethren might handle the following situations: 

Moving from place to place: 

1.  A wizard would find a path through what they call the Sark, the emptiness between all things, which would carry them in a few steps hundreds of miles.  

2.  A mage might handle travel in two different ways: 1.  He might just cause his environment to do what he wants so he never has to leave.  2.  He might create 'mage roads' where certain environmental signals forbid enemies and/or predators to see him, to attack him, or even approach him.  Some mages have such things established all over their territory so they can walk through without taking any harm.  

3.  An Aavemancer would either send for what he needs or use the undead to transport him (like a vampire or an undead animal to go without stopping while pulling a cart, etc.

4.  The Tah-Nith would simply fly or jump really far.  

5.  Sensers would wait and try to sense the best time to travel.  They might wait until they could get a good deal on transportation or they might wait until it is the safest to go.  

6.  Chiurgans would create a mount to carry them or pull a load.  

7.  Artificiers would build portals for themselves, and use liquid portals.  

8.  Motivars would enslave someone and force them to pay the costs of transportation.  

Fighting a Dragon (this is purely hypothetical, and really quite depending on how prepared the Aethren is to fight the dragon.  If unprepared, most of these Aethren would be quite useless in any direct combat situation): 

1.  The wizard either transports himself away, or he transports part of the dragon away, or he summons something to hurt the dragon.  Some wizards have been known to establish portals with one end on the sun, and the other end facing the enemy, such that the light pierces through the portal and roasts the victim alive.  A wizard might establish a portal through a river and wash the enemy away.  Etc.  

2.  Mages would establish a safe spot where the dragon would not see, could not find, or would be motivated away from.  OR the mage could make use of a tool to confound the dragon and make it forget something or stare at something for hours.  

3.  Aavemancers would attack the dragon's soul.  Likely, they would crush the dragon's will to live with sudden, shocking images of the history of dragons, such that the dragon knows its cause is a hopeless and terrible one.  Then, the aavemancer would somehow bind the dragon's heart to a particular cause, convincing the poor creature the cause was worthy.  OR, they would summon and bind to their will a much more powerful Aav (Aaviri are the spirit creatures which live by pure will power: to be discussed later).  

4.  Tah-Nith would dodge and move faster than the dragon and would use his abilities to change the nature of balance and weight ratios at will.  The Tah-Nith could be able, therefore, to literally throw a dragon around, or change the nature of gravity or change the physical forces such that the dragon would have no effect or be weak.  

5.  Sensers would avoid the dragon altogether, having some heightened idea of where it is or when it would appear.  

6.  Chiurgans would create a virus or sickness, perhaps a flesh-eating mold, to attack the dragon.  Likely, they would make it where they were the only ones with an antidote so the dragon, if capable of reason, would be forced to surrender to survive.  Of course, the chiurgan could also enhance other creatures to attack and kill the beast, such as flaming maggots, etc.  

7.  Artificiers would create armor and weapons that the dragon could not get around.  Perhaps a ring that would not allow something to touch them, or a fire-repellant armor, etc.  

8.  Motivars would attack the dragon's nerves or body in some way.  OR would make a direct assault on the dragon's mind, such that it would be forced to surrender.  Motivars would read the dragon's mind and find what makes it afraid.  Then, they would create hallucinations inside the mind, manipulating the very brain of the dragon.  

Surviving the Elements: It is assumed for this that all Aethren have no means of doing what they need to do except their magic.

1.  Wizards might make a portal to another area with more tolerable temperatures, or use a "breezetube" to channel air through.  For instance, in a snowy climate, a wizard might channel air from two thousand miles away to air condition their immediate surroundings.  Or, a wizard could perform the sun trick, but with warm air, not perfectly hot air.  Then again, he could make a vertical, repeating lava flow, where lava falls through two portals, the bottom-most of which recycles the lava back again through the top one.  Really, this would be three portals used, so not as efficient as other methods.  

2.  Mages would literally establish feng shui where the air around themselves would be recycled or only warm or cold air would actually be able to enter the area.  They can literally accelerate growth of things, as well as speed up rot to make more firewood, etc.
3.  Aavemancer: This one might be the most susceptible to the elements.  With the exception of binding his or another person's spirit to their body so that later they can be healed, it is very difficult for an Aavemancer to manage to change the elements.  They deal with pure willpower or the desire of spirits, etc.  Perhaps, they could force an animal to surrender its life for food and/or shelter.  Or, perhaps, they could force animals to lay down and provide body heat, etc.
4.  Tah-Nith: He could force his body into a state of suspended animation, slowing but continuing to move his blood.  The Tah-Nith has absolute control of his body.  Of course, through stances and peculiar moves, he can cycle air through himself, much like a mage can do.
5.  Sensers: They can find shelter, perhaps predict safety, find people, smell or hear fire, smell or hear or see far away people, etc.  Against the elements they are currently in, they are useless.  However, they can find food, water, and possible shelter.  So, they can tell where to go.
6.  Chiurgans: Like sensers, they are virtually useless if caught unprepared and without their necessary tools.  However, with minimal tools, they could fleshcraft a living body suit around themselves.  Disgusting, but somewhat effective.  They can create gills and construct biological ways to process salt water and/or cause the body to grow extra hair, etc.
7.  Artificiers: Can create tools for just about every situation, warming devices, cooling devices, breathing filters, fire makers, fire stoppers, weapons for killing enemies or animals, attractants and baits to bring food to them, clothing that maintain temperatures, devices for preventing poisons from spreading, devices for clotting the blood at a necessary amputation, devices for destroying infection, etc.  Perhaps, if well stocked and prepared, the most useful in a situation of emergency.
8.  Motivars: With the exception of forcing creatures to cooperate, or people to keep going and keep fighting, motivars have little power over the elements.  If they happen to be the most intelligent in a specific emergency situation, they can force people to cooperate and follow his plan.  If, however, you get a motivar who is stupid and powerful (rare, but possible), then you might be led into a deathtrap.  

Entertainment (This is discussing hobbies or desires for entertainment related to their actual fields):

1.  Wizards: Usually, wizards love to challenge themselves with ridiculous calculations and complicated puzzles.  They will make maps almost obsessively.  They'll also
2.  Mages like to decorate and manipulate objects in the environment.  Of course, they can create hypnotic sorts of entertainment, such that a person is entertained or distracted for hours and not realize it.  They are able to actually adjust the environment in such a way as to make peace and relaxation for a person.  They can cause people to see and feel certain things based on the environment.
3.  Aavemancers find entertainment by controlling things, making animals dance or move in strange ways, or creating strange sights with spirits, etc.
4.  Tah-Nith enjoy meditations and katas.  They might also appreciate fine arts.
5.  Sensers enjoy quiet places and solitude.  They would also enjoy books or any activity that does not involve a lot of people.
6.  Chiurgans: As previously mentioned, Chiurgans are interested in any activity that puts the body to the test. They enjoy watching athletes, dancers, etc. for the purpose of studying the body.
7.  Artificiers enjoy working with their hands, and most any activity where they can do so is fine with them.
8.  Motivars would likely enjoy political debate or interpersonal debate about important issues.  This is one of the few times they would not force someone to agree with them, in that they like to think they don't need their magic to do so.

Gathering Information (This is assuming they are not making use of a particular type of Aethren who does this):
1.  Wizards: Through the use of miniature portals designed to allow certain things to pass through, like light, sound, smells, etc.  They are set up, usually, as part of decoration, etc. so they go unnoticed.  This is one of the more common tools of the trade for spying, sometimes attached to a mobile 'creature' or 'artifact.' etc.  
2.  Mages: Establish a particular environment such that it copies or mimics another in some way.  For instance, enchanted devices that cause sand in a terrarium to duplicate, on command, what is happening in a particular spot.  Likewise, echoes, light refracting devices, etc. could be used to magically 'mirror' the particular spot.
3.  Aavemancers: The use of demons and aaviri of course.  While this is one of the easiest ways to find out information, it is also among the riskiest and most difficult to trust.  You are dealing with a creature who knows more than you about the entire universe, and who is being coerced, in some fashion, to help a pitiful mortal.
4.  Tah-Nith: They cause ears and eyes to become hypersensitive to a completely supernatural extent.
5.  Sensers: It's what they do.  All kinds of different techniques, depending on the senser.
6.  Chiurgans: Create some form of heightened sensory organ or creature that can connect to the chiurgan in some fashion.
7.  Aritificiers: Create a device that records information or in some way transmits it back.  They usually create the permanent or long-lasting devices used by others for this purpose.
8.  Motivars: Force another person to become a spy for them through some physical motivation.  Either brainwashing, mental connection, simple 'do it or feel excrutiating pain' magic, etc.

Turning Into Animals (using their magic alone):

Wizards: Cannot accomplish, except through very, very complicated magic involving swapping one's body out for a 'possible' other body from a parallel universe or some such, but it's never been successfully accomplished through the school of wizardry without side-effects.    

Mages: Cannot accomplish.  Not even feasible to them.  However, they can create illusions to make people believe they've become animals.  

Aavemancers: Move the spirit of a person into an animal or use a shape-shifting spell.  

Tah-Nith: Actually force the body to change through absolute control, shifting bones, tendons, etc.  When a tah-nith does, for instance, tiger technique kung-fu, they actually can turn parts of themselves into tiger parts, like claws, etc.  Takes an ABSOLUTE master of the art of Tah-Nith magic, however.  

Sensers: They can sometimes sense through animals.  Otherwise, not feasible.  

Chiurgans: Create a potion that forces DNA to transform a person into their desired animal.  Extremely painful and not exactly instantaneous, but plausible for them.  

Aritificiers: They create an artifact that mixes and matches Tah-Nith, Chiurgan, and the Aavemancer spells to speed up and enhance the process.  The most successful at causing a successful animal to human and back transformation.  

Motivars: They make animals do their bidding.  They do not become animals themselves.  To do such would corrupt them.  

Aav/Aaviri: These are not gods, but they are not mortal.  They are creatures who existed before humans and other mortals.  The closest thing they could be compared to are Omi or Angels, etc.  Unlike angels, these creatures have free will, to a certain degree.  Because they are closer to the Eternal Highest, they better know that Entity's will and desires.  They also know the consequences for going against It.  Some of them have rebelled and have made themselves enemies of the Highest, and many of them believe they can cause the Highest pain by ruining his plans or attempting to harm the creation or in some other way undermine him.  However, others have aligned themselves with this Highest and wish to do it's will in the world.  Yet others, who have great fear but not great knowledge, are only willing to continue doing what they have already been doing for thousands upon thousands of years.  They know they have not been punished yet, like those who are cast far from the Highest's will, but they don't know how to grow closer and fear growing farther away.  These stay the course and many of these Aaviri are the sources of magical spells.  The Aaviri are the sources of all magic, whether they are dead or alive.

How do Aaviri die?  There are two ways an Aaviri might be considered to be dead.  One is when it has sided itself with darkness and undeniably evil activities.  It will not be destroyed until the final time, but it will continue doing what it knows it can do and get away with so far, somewhat like a thief or criminal who is about to be caught by the police but believes himself safe for a while.  The second death of an Aav is to be destroyed by one of the other Aav's.  Mystroskus and magic is pure willpower, but when an Aav is destroyed, the mind behind the willpower is gone.  Therefore, mystroskus is the remains of an Aav, and will respond to a strong enough willpower that will control it, to make it act as it wants to act.

While I'm thinking about it.  What if Elf Mages had sort of shows where all it was was an object that made a person relive happy memories.  People would pay a lot of money for such a thing, wouldn't they?  Hmmm.