Primal Magic

## **The Path to Clarity**

Magic is Energy.

Magic is Power.

Magic is the fifth element that flows between the other four.

The magic of the multiverse has been described countless ways, but the vast majority speak of an arcane force that flows through "the Weave." This "Weave" is more misunderstood than understood, and the raw energy beneath it is more feared than appreciated. And rightly so: Weave magic flows *through* existence, raw magic powered the *creation* of existence.

### **Magic in the Metaphor**

The Weave is easy to reach and friendly to shape if just a few rules are known. The raw magic below it, feeding it, is difficult to reach and harder to shape. The contrasts in controlling it are profound: magic of the Weave is escaping steam against the roiling, boiling water creating it.

When one understands the differences between the pressure of steam and the dynamics of the water below, the arcane becomes comprehensible. The power is no less hazardous, but the "wild" effects disappear. Magic flows like water.

Therein was the discovery of House Stonehearth: learning the relation between Weave and Raw threw back the veil, revealing the laws of magic with unprecedented clarity. To the enlightened observer, that wellspring of energy was no longer "raw" – it was revealed to be what it was: *primal*.

And the way to access it was called the *Primal Technique*.

## **The Complicated Relationship with the Divine**

One can't talk about magic, especially in the Forgotten Realms, without mentioning the divine overseer of the arcane: Mystra. Then there's Azuth. Then there's Shar and a meta-network of the "Shadow Weave."

On a related note, one might wonder why there can be gods that claim portfolios with multiple aspects, like "justice," but magic follows its own rules. Killing Lathander doesn't break the universe's ability to have a sense of justice, yet killing Mystra endangers the multiverse's access to Weave-based magic.

We can't pin this entirely on the narrative gods at Wizards of the Coast, either. There are goddesses of magic popping up all over in the fantasy genre. So how do we reconcile a series of sentient beings assuming responsibility for the Weave, which is otherwise a force of nature?

### **To Embody an Aspect**

First, let's look at what allows gods, often multiple gods, to claim the same aspect? Working backward, we must assume that a given "portfolio" is carried on some sort of manageable, trackable energy. Everything in nature, the existence of the aspects themselves, generate a some sort of "resonant frequency." The nature of water and crashing waves, or mountains and volcanoes, or winds and tornadoes, and so on.

Now assume that more complex patterns also carry their own resonant frequency. This rises to the level of sentient behaviors, where intentions and interactions create a more nuanced but still measurable and distinct metric of energy. This is where the behavioral aspects of the portfolios live.

Claiming or assuming some aspect becomes easy for a being of a particular level of existential insight. However, claiming magic as a portfolio aspect works a bit different than the others because magic is itself a channel and conduit for energy that crosses literal dimensional boundaries. Think of the four-dimensional space of the Prime Material plane. Now imagine that magic lives in the 21-dimensional singularity that gave birth to it all. *That kind* of cross-dimensional boundary.

The problem, and it is a problem, is that portfolios are claimed at all. For whatever benefits "management" might provide, mismanagement induces turbulence. Way up at the lofty heights of Ao-level management, the middle-management "of the gods" is more tolerated than encouraged simply because nature itself is so easily assumed, commandeered or co-opted.

### **The Divine Take on Primal Methodology**

So what do the gods think of Stonehearth's Primal Method? They're concerned, but unwilling to act on it as it would bring *them* too close to the primal interface. The gods already have access to a massive amount of power through Weave-based channels. To them, if they reach into the primordial soup, they risk losing what differentiates them and their portfolio.

Thoughts on warning the foolish mortals away might occur to some of them, but some of the gods have a grasp of history. They know enough that the Weave wasn't enough to prevent the primordials from taking up residence on Abeir-Toril. It didn't have the oomph to repel the aberrations of the Far Realm from infesting the world. Now they see Stonehearth working primal magic into a sophisticated weapons – *and aiming it at the exact problems that have plagued Ao since the creation of the Forgotten Realms*.

The gods take: it's risky, but they're officially agnostic.