How does the Magic work in Ayrul?

Magic System

(The Essence of Magic by Jaques Smit)

Most magic in Ayrul draws from the Weave, though some draw from the Shadow Realm. For magic to function, it requires a vessel, such as weavesilk, holding blank potential. This potential accepts a behaviour encoded with simple, logical instructions. In addition, for the vessel to possess aspects of healing, heat, or any other state change, it requires Life Essence of some kind to shape around.

While anyone in Ayrul can learn to craft spells, it’s incredibly hard to learn and dangerous to experiment with. Most spellcrafters gain their weavesilk via a weaverift, which, if handled improperly, cause a massive implosion called a Weavestorm.

Spell casters are therefore rare and, unless their power comes from a divine source, heavily mistrusted.

Divine casters are highly sought after. Since deities protect temples from Weavestorms, cities spread these buildings through the city and defensive structures incorporated temples into their designs.

What is the Weave?

An arcane web and a vibrant ecosystem pulsating with the harmonious flow of magic. Empowered cords, called weave-material or weavesilk, stretches in all directions. Streams of blank energy runs through them and with various insectoid creatures feeding from it. The goddess Mag nestles in this sprawling network at the section where the Weave overlaps with Azrea.

The power running along the Weave’s cord network is filled with raw energy. Celestial entities like Mag continually regenerating the complex web and fortifying the network. Ensuring a steady supply for magic users to wield.

While connected to the Weave, this magical power is at its peak. But, once a part of the web is taken to another realm, it begins deteriorating. It is hard to keep a spell crafting connected to the Weave. Only highly skilled people who understand magic can make objects that keep their magic and require orillium to do so.

Lesser creations lose their power quickly and spells rarely last more than a day without a connection to the Weave. Most lose power in a few minutes.

Weavesilk is very malleable and easy to shape by someone with the right skills and tools.

What is a Rift?

Magic users spend their Life Force to rip a tear from their realm to the Weave and must continue to spend more in order to keep the rift open. Rifts must be carefully controlled, or they can escalate into a Weavestorm. Rifts are the primary way to retrieve neutral material for crafting spells.

How does Spell Crafting Work?

Weave material is filled with energy, but it’s a blank slate. Spell crafting is the art of encoding this material with a behaviour and then powering it with Life Essence. The more complex the encoding, the more time and effort it takes to create the spell. Spellcrafters can template spells for later use, which allows them to cast complex spells more quickly.

What is a Natural Magic User?

Magic powered by creatures with innate essence, which tends toward a particular behaviour. For example, Jormungers tend towards Life. Their essence permits spell crafting to grow, regress, heat, cool, brighten, darken, dull or enhance the natural properties of an object or person. Every entity has unique properties, and some are more powerful, while others may be more diverse.

What is a Divine Magic User?

Deities are Natural Magic entities with extensive domains. They can grant their Life Essence to their agents to empower spells through conduits like holy symbols. Since the connection between a follower and deity is managed by a much more powerful being, their rifts are more stable and their spells predictable.

What is an Arcane Magic User?

Wizards study the properties of other life forms to understand their interactions with magic. They harvest the Life Essence of those beings, carrying them in spell pouches to use in crafting. This means that wizards can cast a much more diverse set of spells as long as they have access to components.

What is Encoding?

A verb that describes giving a spell crafting a particular behaviour or set of behaviours.

It requires physical contact between the crafter and the material draw from the Weave. The material must still contain enough neutral magic to encode, and the user needs a clear mental image of their intent to project into the material. Finally, the crafter spends their own Life Force to fuse the behaviour into the Weave.

To dispel the encoding also requires physical contact. While it’s easier to dispel than encode, some spells are inherently difficult to dispel. For instance, touching a fire spell can be deadly. A spellcrafter could also have encoded a counter measure, like an explosion triggered by a dispel.

The crafter can set trigger conditions, provide instructions in terms of how energy should be spent, and use logic to dictate other conditional behaviours. Each behaviour the crafter adds to the spell must be powered with Life Essence that can create that kind of effect.

For instance, a fireball would require a spellcrafter to use Living Essence with a heating component and a kinetic energy component to mix into the material. The spellcrafter would then set a trigger such as “on contact with a surface other than my own hand, ignite then explode”.

The more complicated the instructions, the more time it takes to craft the spell and the more likely it is to go wrong.

What is Life Force?

Simply put, it’s a soul. Energy that allows an object to resist entropy. Every living thing in the realms has it. Draining too much of something’s Life Force allows entropy to overwhelm it and leads to death, but it also regenerates from rest.

What is Life Essence?

The way that something’s physical existence interacts with its Life Force, leading to its particular nature, pattern of life and terms of its death. The essence types are Light (modifies brightness), Life (modifies natural properties), Weave (modifies sentience), Shadow (modifies desire). Light combings with Life to modify temperature. Life with Shadow modifies energy consumption. Shadow and Weave imparts control, while Light and the Weave affect gravity. Everything is tied to one or more of these essences. As such it is possible anyone to learn to modify themselves accordingly.