Magecraft

**Magecraft** or **Thaumaturgy** is a general term refers to systems of rituals to perform mystery through occult means linked to mythology and folklores. It is a field of study to craft a system of spell to achieve a result similar to how science works but with the means of occult. Thus, Magecraft can not achieve miracles result. Miracles can only be achieved through the use of True Magic.

## Origin

After the Ages of Gods, human started to lose their mystery, replacing their power by science. As the gods fell, mankind needs something to replace them.

A small portion of practitioner of mystery though, did not want their arts being forgotten. Those people then, created the basis of magecraft as a way to preserve the relic of the Age of Gods, magecraft through the use of the power of the Paradox of Faith.

The premise of this paradox is "Trust but not see". In another word, mystery is something that should not be seen by people but still somehow works the way everyone believe it works. The power of magecraft comes from the power of faith. And when you think you could do it, you would do it. However, this premise does not mean to create anything impossible. As mention before, the power of magecraft comes from faith. Thus, things that is impossible (or rather impossible to believe in) will not come true. Thus, achieving miracles using magecraft is impossible.

An easy example of this paradox power is an easy fire spell. When a simple fire spell is casted, the caster will imagine how hot a real flame is and then mirror his spell based on a real flame. If he thinks the flame is 100°C, and everyone agree that a normal flame is that hot then the spell could generate that amount of heat. If it's 500°C and everyone thinks so too, then the spell could generate that amount of heat. However, if the caster imagine a flame that is ∞°C (which does not exist as there is no real flame like that), the spell would not be generated as there is nothing for it to based its existence on.

For that reason, magecraft will develop and exist alongside science as science provides evidence for magecraft to based their spells on. Magecraft cannot do anything that science cannot do.

## Principle

### Energy

Similar to all other kind of supernatural power, magecraft uses mana to perform their mystery. Most mages have a system to transfer their life force into mana so that they can perform magecraft better. This is because magecraft uses rituals to perform mystery rather than actively creates mystery itself, thus needs more care. Compared with sciece, life force and soul of a mage is like crude oil that needs to be refined to create mana while those with special attribute can just use mana in the air to fill the gap.

### Idol Theory

#### Principle

**Idol Theory** or **Idolatry** is one of two basis of magecraft alongside Law of Contagion. The term is used to refer to the phenomenon wherein an imitation of a whole or parts of a subject, the source, gains properties and attributes that are inherent to that source. It is used as an explanation on how magicians draw their power, and how they wield it.

With the use of idolatry, two similar objects influence each other. Idol Theory postulates that duplicates retain the properties, attributes, and powers of the original source. For example: A cross of a church that duplicates the cross where the Son of God was crucified, it will retain the holy power of that cross. Although a duplicate can only retain a little amount of that original power. Compared to science, it is similar to how the Sun providing solar power for electricity as the power of the 'original' is almost limitless even with the power split across so many duplicates.

#### Reverse Idol Theory

The reason why it remains as a theory is because of that it can also be switched around. This means that changes upon an idol (the duplicate) will also affect the original.

### Law of Contagion

**Law of Contagion** is one of two basis of magecraft alongside Idolatry. The law proposes that once two people or objects have been in contact a magical link persists between them unless or until a formal cleansing, consecration, exorcism, or other act of banishing breaks the non-material bond.

## System of Magecraft

Due to the system of faith that magecraft based itself on, it comes with a set of rules. People who practices this set of rules will then believe in the result that set of rules provide (for example, a belief that if you can dance a certain way will invoke a certain spell). Different set of rules create different beliefs and different system of magecraft.

Normally, people would just follow an existing set of rules (like religion) to perform magecraft rather than creating their own set of rules.