Al'terra (Magic)

## Magic

It is worth noting that neither kind of magic is very good in war and so it is not usually seen in war. In theory, the gifts could make decent offense, if adults had them, and indeed that was seen in the most recent battle of the Gifts. The Gifts only last so far as the concentration and exhaustion do in the user. Fvi on the other hand lasts as long as the user has magic - a little like creating a battery. When the 'battery' runs out, so does the effect of the magic.

### Learned

All magic (learned magic) is based around the board and must be done with the board. The better the user, the less ritual they need around the board.

For example, all fvi starts with a calming, mental preparation that takes ages for the untrained and seconds for the trained (like finding first position for a practiced ballerina). Since magic is a bit like steering a river, or shaping the unknown, the mind must be clear and the fvi steered through talismans, trinkets, signs, shapes, and the physical area around the person, often including words. Ever incantation and request is different - the more complex, the moreritual required. Lighting candles can be done stood, holding a clear crystal, muttering to yourself (no particular language is necessary - some people use old languages they find help them steer the river better), while summoning the fires of heaven to smote an army is a memorized chant with 54 points around the user. Magic is not, in any circumstance, either a surprise or easily created.

If you could remove the board from a magic user, you would absolute cripple their ability to do music.

Fviya - the trained magic users of Al'terra and Galeez have ranks, societies, their own rules. Fviya pick apprentices to mentor, if they show promise. The magic formed through a combination of boardwork and some mental gymnastics, not spoken or physically indicated in or focused. What is required for magic is quite a lot of rituals. This type of magic need not be against the Nine - but in very recent times it has been used for the sole gain of the rich and elite, therefore the tides have turned...The limits of magic are the stem cell balloon theory - the magic runs out - the fad of the current time is just to work on esoteric topics.

\*\*Sometimes there are more ways to do magic that avoid the ritual but are more dependent on the board of the person - how good they are at manipulating it and playing with that.

The Pride is obsessed with the magic (fvi, learned) that is barred by the chessboard - they are looking to crack such things as resurrection (which has been done, though highly irreligious), changing things in time, changing the properties of objects, changing mental states such as emotions or thoughts, physically moving objects, and changing 'spaces in time'. All casual mention of magic is about the Pride, though it is only the elite who learn, study, and practice it - no ordinary person could or would learn those sacred secrets. Fvi has been used for good purposes, but the unblessed experiments give rise the granting. Learned magic is a process, best started young by those who can do it. The average person doesn't understand any form of magic or how it works. The average person cannot 'accidentally' do magic.

Students at The Academy, especially the Pride born etc, carry their own personal talismans such as expensive pieces of jewelry, artistic motifs, carvings, things that enhance and certainly help some of their magic. Some of them are just good luck and good fortune. The gifted children don't seem to carry these around.

### Gifted

The magic of the children is considered different and obeys very different rules: gifted, or granted. Considered the right and correct magic by the very old school, which several groups are trying to free the kids that are being imprisoned - literal tunnels, collapsed tunnels that didn't work and so on. The Pride has never liked the granting and still doesn't as they can't control it. Granting increases when the Pride flex the learning - 'Gift vs fvi'. If the granting isn't conquered and mastered by adulthood, then it vanishes. Adults with uncontrolled granting would be dangerous to all. Most of this is just spoken of heavily in lore but no one really pays it any heed. Most kids will have it beaten out of them in the last task. If they don't learn it, it disappears and they return to society. The Gift has been around a lot longer than the Learned. Gifted folk used to be the heroes of the world - but all of course, but some. Before it was so strictly killed off.

Gifting only seems to improve with practice and age, and while sometimes manifests better the closer one is to religion or a religious site, there doesn't seem to be clear evidence of this (an athiest, for instance, would be no less gifted than the devout).

Gift has an area of effect and many gifts can be hobbled simply by blindfolding the user, especially young users that have a need to see what they are doing.

### Other

There seems to be magic tied to the land somehow - at the The Academy - and likely in Tantus proper - it is steeped into the soil. The very earth and rock resist changes to them, have been known to move and react to changes in the environment. This magic, at least in the Academy, is powerful and unwieldy - those who try to control it with their board have been known to be killed. People have tried to study it, unlock it, tease it, speak to it, with sometimes disasterous results. THe academy has been known to act out on its own - call to dark forces, defend itself, create and destroy. While not necessarily sentient, it is an extra layer that isn't well understood.