Sorcery

## **A BRIEF HISTORY OF SORCERY**

The first sorceress was Pandora Nightsinger, the eldest daughter of Cato and Lihua Nightsinger. Unlike her siblings, she was born a human and did *not* have the formidable magic of the Ancient Thysticals, causing her to be a bit of an outcast amongst her peers while growing up. Driven by a desire for power and her deep ambition, she became well-versed in non-Thystical magics by apprenticing herself to various non-Thystical magic wielders such as witches, priests and priestesses, and even a few mages when she could track them down. Eventually, she became an expert in non-Thystical magics, but it *still* paled in comparison to the strength and effortlessness of even the youngest Thysticals.

Still unsatisfied and encouraged by her parents to explore her interests, she plunged deeper into her studies and research, entering into an area of magic that was *very* much forbidden... *necromancy.* Unbeknownst to anyone else, she became fascinated by dark, forbidden magics that were exclusively practiced by magical heretics like dark witches or necromancers or the priests and priestesses of gods such as Morrigan and Azrael. These magics were a form of magic typically used for selfish, self-serving and/or nefarious purposes. These dark, forbidden magics were collectively known as "dark magic."

Though it is not necessarily "evil" magic, dark magic tends to focus on destruction, harming, cursing and otherwise complicating the lives of other people while advancing the user's state. Users often reject social convention and the status quo, which some suggest is in a search for spiritual freedom. As a part of this, they embrace magical techniques and practices that would traditionally be viewed as taboo and are generally willing to go farther than most would even consider if it serves their ends.

Pandora took these teachings and *expanded* ​upon them, experimenting and twisting and warping them to see how far she could go. While she had been born human, she still had the blood of Cato Nightsinger, one of the *Six*, running through her veins and an extraordinary instinctual talent for magic. Because of this, she eventually created the rudimentary form of what is now known as "sorcery." Up until then, necromancers had only been able to bring back the ghosts and spirits of people, and commune with the dead. They could reanimate the dead up to a certain point, but would never be able to hold it for long and the attempts often killed them.

But with sorcery, Pandora was able to develop a way to bring back the dead, making them able to follow basic orders and have some semblance of sentience and cognitive understanding. She pioneered revolutionary discoveries within necromancy and other dark magics, making the process of summoning ghosts and spirits much easier, smoother, and quicker. She wasn't simply able to speak with them, she could *command* them.

Sorcery goes beyond raising and communing with the dead, though. She developed it into controlling and summoning and manipulating dark creatures and beasts and monsters from the Underworld, or manipulating dark forces. She grew more and more powerful, until her sorcery was on par with that of an Ancient Thystical's. She communed with dark spirits and entities, even contacted the likes of Morrigan and Azrael a few times.

The key difference between sorcery and Thystical magic, however, was that sorcery could do what Thystical magic could not... they could resurrect and affect the dead, piece the veil between the mortal realm and the Afterworld. It was a new, strange, and foreign concept, and it would take the world by storm when first unleashed.

However, Pandora and the world had yet to learn what dark, devastating consequences sorcery had. For the first rule of magic was this...

Magic ​*always* had a price.

## Info

### **SHATTERING**

So, I'm pretty sure I've already established that sorcery comes with a steep price. And while it can vary from person to person, generally their life essence and soul and youth and beauty are slowly but surely leeched away the more they use sorcery, eventually to the point where they either are fully consumed by the dark magic and are no longer recognizable as the people they once were, turned into dark, twisted, and horrific beasts trapped in a sort of waking death, unable to move onto the Afterworld as their Threads have rotted away and their soul's are "shattered," they go insane and commit suicide before their souls after fully consumed, allowing them to pass into the Afterworld, but are automatically landed in the House of Justice, or they eventually come to a tragic, often painful end.

The phenomenon of a sorcerer or sorceress's soul being gradually eaten away by the sorcery is called "soul shattering," or simply the "Shattering." One's soul is fractured and rotted and consumed, eventually vanishing completely or being warped into something dark and twisted and unrecognizable.

Usually, it gets to the point where the sorcerer is trapped in what is called the "waking death," unable to die but not really alive, either. They essentially become wraiths/phantoms/ghosts/spectres, nobody really knows what to call it, and are trapped either roaming the mortal realm or imprisoned within the Underworld or, if they're lucky, eventually erased from existence by one of the gods and their life force is dissolved into the ​*aether* from which the universe was formed.

### **GLAMOURS**

As sorcery erodes the soul of a sorcerer or sorceress, their *physical* body will also slowly begin to twist and warp into something otherworldly and twisted and *unnatural.* While not necessarily ugly, many users sorcery wove complex enchantments and glamours to hide what was referred to as their "true forms." Often times, they'd make themselves unspeakably and inhumanly beautiful, putting even the loveliest vampires and mortals to shame.

However, this otherworldly, literally *flawless* beauty lacked the innate warmth or genuineness of natural mortal beauty. To a trained eye, one could spot a sorcery user by the way they looked *too* beauty, *too* perfect. While the glamours of sorcery users may bewitch and enthral many, and incite a fierce envy and jealousy in others, people will eventually find that their beauty is simply *too* flawless and devoid of that natural warmth, often inspiring a sense of eventual uneasiness in the ardent admirers...

It really is dark and eerie, because of you’re constantly bombarded by the illusions and glamour and enchantments that sorcery users drape themselves in, one with a knack for it might begin to pick up on the increasingly inhuman and unnerving parts of the sorcery user’s glamour, such as their lack of human traits like acne or wrinkles or particularly deep or genuine emotive movements of the face.

Everything slowly starts to begin to feel more and more distant, cold, detached… *eerie.* Very few are able to pinpoint these difference, put two and two together, and fully realize what’s happening. On the rare time that someone *does* notice and have a sickening realization of what this divinely beautiful person is, they often disappear or die under mysterious circumstances.

After all, sorcery users never like it when people start prying into *deeply* personal business or poking their noses into matters that don’t concern them…

Another thing is that to the trained eye, or to those with exceptionally clear sight to see through the veil of the mundane, they’ll slowly begin to notice incredibly subtle details about a sorcery user’s glamour, and see snippets of their true form… Jewel-guard eyes flashing to soulless voids for a fraction of a second, perfectly straight, pearly white teeth seeming a bit *too* pointed or looking rotten, voluptuous figures appearing almost skeletal, slender hands suddenly having fingers that are too long or have too many joints, skin shimmering clear in the sunshine for a brief moment to reveal a spiderweb of veins and arteries and blood vessels…

For the rare person who *does* begin to see this, they often doubt their own eyes or slowly go mad with constant questioning of their sanity or seeing things that nobody else seems to notice…

While a sorcerer or sorceress can make themselves appear however they wish with a glamour, their glamours will *always* have a flaw, or what they refer to as a "Tell." This can be almost anything, and can be difficult to spot as the sorcery user will usually do their utmost best to hide their Tell. Back in the ancient days, when sorcerers and sorceresses were hunted down more and more, part of the way they were rooted out was by searching for Tells.

A Tell is essentially a flaw in the glamour, anything from too-long, spidery fingers to eyes with no pupils to sharp teeth. Although Tells are usually discreet and able to be hidden, some unfortunate sorcerers have had fairly obvious Tells that aren't easy to hide, such as snake hair or extra limbs. They're not always physically *on* the sorcerer or sorceress. It can also affect things such as their shadow or reflection or their voice. For example, some Tells of past sorcerers have been that they didn't have a shadow, different people saw their eyes differently (they had blue eyes to one person, brown eyes to another, green eyes to another person, etc), their blood was an unusual color, they had *glowing* blood, etc.