Schools of magic

## Overview

Magic in Cresia is commonly divided into schools of magic.

#### Chronomancy

The magical discipline of manipulation of time and manipulation of the perception of time. Practitioners are commonly referred as *chronomancers*. Chronomancy is one of the hardest disciplines to learn and master.

#### Cosmology

This discipline is the manipulation of the physical world by either altering the laws that control it or inventing new rules that supersede how the Universe normally operates. Cosmology is the source of such things as levitation and flying, illumination control, teleportation and even gravimetrc distortion. Practitioners have no special nickname. Simply calling them *wizards* is normally sufficient.

#### Mentalism

Mentalism deals with the essence of living entities. The practitioners - caleed *mentalists* or *illusionists* - are able to tap into the essence and alter it either permanently or temporarily. Such feats as planting fictive memories, introducing new thoughts and reading other people's thoughts are possible for a trained mentalist as well creating make-believe structures within their targets' minds in order to aid or hinder them.

#### Necromancy

Somewhat like mentalism, the discipline of necromancy differs from it in that necromancy does not care whether or not the essence being manipulated or controlled is part of a living entity or not. The connection to a corporeal entity is meaningless to the practitioner - called *necromancer* - and all that matters is it's connection to the universe. Necromancers are notorious and feared because they can capture essences from the nether and instill them on inanimate targets (such as corpses) creating a mockery of life.

#### Elementalism

This discipline is a cousin to cosmology in that it manipulates the physical reality but refraining in the 5 primordial elements of *fire*, *water*, *earth*, *air* and *entropy*. An *elementalist* can exert much greater control over these 5 primordial elements than is possible with cosmology. As mastering this art is dangerous and hard, most practitioners concentrate only on one, two or three elements and usually none of them are opposites of each other (air is polar opposite to earth, fire is polar opposite to water and entropy is opposite to each of the others).

#### Biomancy

*Biomancers* focus on the living tissue, neural activity, bio-electric impulses and stimulation of the body. The discipline is greatly valued by healers and witches alike in that this discipline allows both healing the body and making it sick. Most biomancers are also herbalists and *alchemists* as well since these augment each other quite perfectly.

#### Alchemy

As *mentalism* and *necromancy* deals with the essence of living creatures and once living creatures, alchemy relies on altering the chemical or atomic essence of non-living objects. *Alchemists* manipulate how material world operates and may change the material world's parameters to better suit whatever objective the practitioner aims for. Such as inciting the molecular activity in a metal objects heats is up. The most feared creations of alchemists' are the golems - animated objects that the alchemist instills with energy in order to make it act like a living creature.

#### Enchantment

When objects are infused with magical energies, the object is said to be *enchanted*. *Enchanters* make the infusion happen. The infusion process may be quite elaborate taking years or it may take the form of a simple incantation taking seconds. In either way the effects are usually not permanent but fade over time. Only the most powerful enchanters are able to permanently infuse magical energies into objects making these items extremely valuable and sought after.

#### Witchcraft

*Witches* manipulate reality and faith and predict outcomes. Some witches are not easy to tell apart from illusionists but then again others focus entirely on outcome predictions and consulting the universe while yet others make rituals that affect the lives of their targets for great periods of time in either benign or malign ways. The discipline is most diversified (perhaps after cosmology) and boasts are a great variety of spells, rituals and incantations. Many witches are also herbalists, mystics or naturalists and some are healers as well.

#### Naturalism

When nature needs to be "guided", the one who can help out is a *naturalist*. The discipline deals with subtly changing natural processes and the outcomes are usually not easily predicted and take quite a lot of time to take effect. Naturalists can change weather patterns, affect growth of fauna and flora, manipulate fertility of both living creatures and land alike and even cause land slides, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes to happen! Whereas the biomancer manipulates the essence of living entities, naturalist understands that the essence of the world is just as easily manipulated as the essence of a man or ant. The famed *druids* are naturalists.

#### Summoning

*Summoners* (or more commonly - *sorcerers*) call in aid from other places. Summoning creatures from other levels of existence, temporal period, alternate dimensions or even the netherworld itself is considered a wile and evil practice since it usually means that the summoner takes the creature(s) as his prisoners and binds their essence to obey his bidding. Summoning can focus on corporeal entities, ethereal spirits and even magical entities composed entirely of magical energies. Sorcerers of the most despised and feared sort are those that summon entities from the netherworld since those creatures are immensely powerful, wile and evil by their nature.

#### Demonology

Netherworld creatures are commonly (if mistakenly) referred to as *demons*. They can breach our levels of existence in many ways - some of which are still mysteries - but their goal is without exception to cause harm, havoc and destruction. Practitioners are called *demonologists* by persons initiated with magic but are commonly called as *sorcerers.* This makes sense since almost all practitioners are also practitioners of summoning making the two disciplines uniquely entwined. The ultimate goal of the practitioner is to trap, manifest, consult, banish, bind, control and annihilate these demons.