Magic

To put it bluntly, **magic** was the power to accomplish wonderous effects by drawing upon a supernatural power source. Many characters in the Discovery Pages have access to some sort of supernatural power, and although *magic* is a perfectly acceptable blanket term for these powers (especially from an outsider perspective where the end result is the same with each power,) there are a few abilities that are not considered to be magic by leading sages such as Nanasuji Shitodo.

## Overview

The rawest form of magic was a certain kind of energy, or more or less, a potential found within all matter and between all of spacetime. This form of raw magic was locked away and, before the work of the gods, inaccessible to mortals. Mortals draw upon the Weave to cast spells, use sorcerous innate abilities, and other supernatural things that aren't the work of one's own mind (as that falls under the category of psionics.)

Suji classified magic into two axes: Internal/External and Active/Passive. She was *really keen* on making this system work, even though some powers are hard to classify under this system, and most forms of magic have the potential to go beyond what their designation is within this system. In fact, with the right training, birthright or just pure fortune (read: abusing the rules with dumb prestige classes and feats), one could accomplish nearly anything with any form of supernatural power.

### Internal/External

This axis governed the power source of the magic being used, whether it came from within or without. As written, internal magic drew upon the power of the caster. They were using a power inherent to them to change reality or invite the changing of reality. This power was often housed in one’s mind or soul. External magic drew upon otherworldly forces. The interface field known as the Weave, or the divine powers of gods, are all forces that the caster could wield to cause change of some kind.

### Active vs Passive

Active forms of magic produced obvious effects, and could be used to perform great feats of manipulating reality. Stuff like throwing huge fireballs or becoming a lich mostly fell under active magic. However, active magic was not limited to active effects, and neither was passive magic limited to passive effects. They sometimes crossed over.

Passive magic had much more subtle effects. They tended to more or less “invite” change, or influence things, rather than actively changing things themselves. They tended to be buffs. They could also be portals, or communication with otherworldly beings.

## Types

### Primary

These forms of magic were considered to be 'primary', which meant they were ordinary forms of magic that were relatively widespread amongst practitioners of the supernatural, and usually came in the forms of conventional spellcasting, although this was not always the case.

#### Arcane

Arcane magic was considered active/external on Suji's guidelines. It drew upon cosmic forces, or more specifically, the Weave directly and raw magic, with no intermediary forces such as a deity. Arcane magic, practiced by wizards, bards, sorcerers and the like, was quite varied. Restorative effects such as healing were scarce in its field, with only really bards and witches being capable of that sort of stuff, but its potential for changing something was immense, whether shaping landscapes, transmuting materials, shapeshifting or just straight blasting holes in people.

#### **Divine**

Divine magic was considered passive/external in Suji's system. Generally, it was a form of magic granted by divine powers or other godly entities, and usually manifested in response to piety and faith, although this had exceptions, such as the oracle, whom was granted their powers without any influence on their part by any number of deities, or the ur-priest, who siphoned the energy that a deity granted in the form of spells for their own uses. It was known for its curative properties; the most advanced forms of healing and curing was the domain of divine magic, but it was also known for its ability to contact extraplanar entities or cross through planes. The form of divine magic that druids and rangers received from the power of nature had transformative and exploitative effects, particularly around nature.

#### Occult

Occult magic was considered passive/internal in Suji's system. It was an esoteric kind of magic that drew upon the caster's will, as well as the ties between concepts, to produce supernatural effects. It was used by a few who called themselves psychics, although that archetype was often confused with *psions*, the representative of psionics. It was also utilized by spiritualists, an archetype that had bound themselves to the spirit of a dead person and who could manifest them out of ectoplasm, as well as mediums, who channeled the legends of nearly-forgotten heroes and villains of the far past. Unlike arcane and divine magic, it did not use verbal or somatic components, as it did not channel forces outside of the caster's will; instead, only the correct emotion state and thought image were necessary to conjure forth an occult spell.

#### Psionics

Not traditionally counted as a form of magic, but in Suji's system, it was considered active/internal, for it drew upon the caster's- er, the manifester's mental strength. Psionics produced effects pretty much identical to arcane magic in the case of psions, who learned the craft like wizards, or wilders, who channeled raw emotion and innate talent to produce effects. Primarily, this came in the form of transmutations, energy attacks, conjuring things from ectoplasm, or perhaps muddling the mind of foes or communicating telepathically with friends. Other, more esoteric psionic classes specialized their psychic abilities, creating usually unreachable effects such as the ability to heal others, or the power to raise the dead.

Because psionics was "not magic" in a certain sense, it interacted with magic in very strange ways. Sometimes, it would simply pass through, leaving both manifestations unharmed. Other times, psionics and magic interacted with each other as they interacted with themselves, although very weakly. The exception to this was occult magic, which bypassed this opacity and could affect and be detected by psionics at full strength, and vice versa. Sages presumed this was because they came from the same power source. Despite not being magic, psionics was a distinctly supernatural craft, and so could be suppressed or dispelled like any other supernatural effect.

### Secondary

Secondary forms of magic were generally not their own thing, but rather just sub-effects of one of the primary types. This was not *always* the case though, and some forms of secondary magic had their own unique mechanisms behind casting.

#### Shadow Magic

Shadow magic was a highly mutable form of magic deriving from the matter, energy and essence of shadow. Most practitioners drew shadow magic from the Shadow World, but some could draw it from the power of the abyss (in the case of Deushi Matsuko), the hatred in their soul, or some other suitably dark power source; these were physical, conceptual, and spiritual darknesses. Shadow magic on its own did not use spells, but instead mysteries, which were an alien ability that only sort of meshed with conventional magic, like psionics. Despite that though, mysteries followed a lot of the same rules for casting spells, and the weakest form of mysteries conjured by the novices in the art were considered to be a form of "spell" in their own right, mostly because they were vulnerable to all of the same things that conventional spells were vulnerable to. The mysteries employed by mysterycasters such as the shadowcaster, eventide magus, cultist and shadow savant could produce effects that manipulate perception, breach dimensions by opening rifts into shadow, alter conventional magic, or produce blasts of cold shadow energy which could be offensively weaponized. When meshed with regular magic, shadow magic could produce primarily illusionary effects, such as turning an ice statue into a quasi-real clone of its likeness, create quasi-real objects, or replicate spells with quasi-real illusions. The strength of this "realness" was determined by the strength of the spell, although some specialized casters could pour more energy into their illusions to make them more real. In this form, it was considered a subschool of illusion magic.

#### Shadow Weave

Not to be confused with shadow magic, the Shadow Weave was an alternate conduit with which to interface with raw magic. Where the Weave was quite balanced to accomodate all forms of magic, the Shadow Weave was not, and it favored spells that muddled the mind and senses or manipulated life, but was worse for energy blasts, conjuration of objects or transmuting physical matter; matter and energy were not things it could do well. The Shadow Weave could be combined with any form of magic (not counting psionics) by devoting oneself to it, although once you make the conscious decision to switch to the Shadow Weave, you cannot return to the Weave.

#### Subpsionics

Where psionics drew upon the conscious mind, subpsionics were to draw upon the unconscious mind. Due to drawing from a deeper source, they had a shift in the power balance of effects. Like shadow weave magic, abilities that affected the mind were enhanced, while matter and energy were harder to manipulate, although there was one exception in the form of conjuring "tainted" ectoplasm from the Astral Sea. Some sages thought shadow weave magic and subpsionics were connected, because of their similar effects.

#### Spherecasting

This unique form of supernatural ability wasn't considered to be the same vein of magic as spellcasting, nor was it close to psionics. It could take on any form, and simply appeared to be any kind of magic that was destabilized and became free-form; thus, a "psionic" spherecaster was a spherecaster whose power source was their own mental energy, while a "wizardly" spherecaster had all of the same arcane trappings as a wizard (verbal, somatic and material components), and may have needed to prepare sphere abilities by assigning their magical power to each ability beforehand. Spherecasters did not cast spells using spell slots, but instead knew magic talents, some of which were at-will, and others of which required the expenditure of a kind of energy, known generically as spell points but which could've been really any kind of energy (such as Choko's gem energy). Due to its free-form nature, it appeared most commonly when a gem tried to train their abilities beyond their natural limits, unlocking new powers that drew upon the same power source, but which were not part of their inherent abilities. As a result, most spherecasters were gems, and this pattern is established with Choko and D.D being the only known spherecasters.

wip