Artifice

On a broad level, Artifice is magic that is learned, powered by the efficient use of latent aetherial energy, brought into being through Aetheric arrays.

Though Artifice is an extremely broad category, Artificers are most commonly known to be craftsmen, creating and enchanting technology.

Artificers that wield spells with speed enough to be useful in combat situations are rare.

## Aetheric Arrays

Aetheric Arrays are what makes Artifice possible. The primary component of an Aetheric Array are glyphs: geometric shapes that channel and pattern aetherial energy as it moves through the shape of the glyph. Every glyph is made up of lines, angles and curves. Lines direct the flow of energy. Angles create a carom point to allow the spells energy to instantly pivot and change. Curves (most often as a circle) bend and focus the spectrum of energy, providing finer adjustments.

However, without Sygils to modify and bind that energy, a glyph is almost useless. Sygils are a quasi-alphabet that alters the effects of a glyph, usually at it's carom points, in order to more solidly create a desired result. Sygils provide the caster with a mental crutch, allowing a spell to rely less on raw intent, offering a more predictable, repeatable result.

## Artifice as Craft

The most common understanding of Artifice comes from the crafts created by artificers, items present in every day life that use the principals of Aetheric Arrays to accomplish simple magical tasks. Stove tops and ovens use adjustable arrays that generate heat. Ice boxes and larders use frost arrays to chill an interior. Witchlight lamps generate adjustable light. Recirculators generate a cooled or warmed breeze and air built with air wicking to purify and draw moisture out of the air.

Plaster Weapons and Skiffs all use Artifice.

Not to be confused with more advanced forms, such as Phylaptics, Air Ships or Skycraft, which require the use of bound aetherials in combination with Artifice to function.

## Artifice as Spell Casting

### Kindling

Becoming an Artificer is not easy.  Expanding your mental faculties; broadening and deepening your understanding of the scientific and aetherial; knowing the natural and aetheric laws is only the first step.

Understanding that the natural and ephemeral laws can be bent and broken is very different from actually knowing how it can be bent and broken.  This process is commonly referred to as sparking or kindling, breaking the minds rational link to what it knows to be true and grafting in the comprehension required to contradict the natural law.

The House of Light academy in Ascent has a ritual to spark it's students using extreme sleep deprivation and hallucinogenics all while the initiate repeatedly attempts to trigger various arcane arrays.  The hope is that eventually something will 'click' and they will get it, the spell will successfully trigger and their mind will be open to practice practical artifice.  On average, only one out of twenty students are successful, the rest either going mad after kindling or give up.

The House of Light Academy in Bastion uses a combination of mind shattering thought-projection and marionetry to seize control of a students mind and body to induce a spark in their students.  Though it has a higher success rate, the process is widely criticized as being unnecessarily traumatizing, inducing psychological breaks in 9 out of 10 cases that leave lasting post-traumatic disorders in their students.

Once an Artificer is kindled, there is a long process of learning how to successfully project and cast spells.

### Signetry

An individualized form of mental muscle-memory, Signetry is a way for Artificers to quickly form the necessary Sygil bindings and glyph shapes to complete an Aetheric array to caste a spell

Each artificer tends to develops their own methods of Signetry based on how they are taught.  Verbal commands, and somatic gestures are the most common types of Signetry but others may use less obvious internal methods.

Signetry is what separates a spell-casting artificer from a craft artificer.  Most upper-class folk know some artifice and can replicate the sygils and glyphs to create an array but lack the ability to actually bind the sygils into a glyph to activate the spell without an outside trigger source; usually a shard of Aetherite.

It's those that can master Signetry that become capable spell casters.  Signetry is what allows an Artificer to cast spells in seconds instead of minutes.

## Professions

#### Artisan

The most common profession for an artificer is that of an artisan craftsman, creating, repairing and maintaining magical technology. Every town knows an artificer and there are many who make circuits from village to village selling their goods and fixing broken things.

#### Transmutect

Artificers skilled in architectural transmutation are known as transmutects, capable of transmuting bare ground into livable dwellings within only a few hours. Most buildings in Threia are transmutected. The complexity of analyzing foundation content and reconstituting it into solid walls is a feat of artifice inaccessible to all but the most gifted artificers, requiring specialized transmutation gnosi to accomplish the intricate alchyric calculations and transmutation process.

Part of a transmutects job is to filter out harmful materials from the foundation materials, leading to many poorer communities relying on less-than-qualified artificers to shape their structures, leading to poisonous contents being embedded within the walls of their living spaces, slowly poisoning them.