Magic

Magic in Halse operates under specific rules, but still allows for a lot of creativity in how it is manipulated.

Entering the roleplay without any knowledge of Halsean magic is not a huge blunder, as much of the following is just groundwork for explaining why it exists in this setting and how mages actually work under the hood. But, especially if your character is a mage, you may run into power-balancing problems or slight issues with rp canon further down the road.

Mechanism of Magic

 * Magic is the finished product of a certain naturally-occurring raw material - mana.
 * No mana in the environment = no magic can be performed (similar to a car being unable to run without gas, or trying to write a quill with an empty inkwell).
 * Mana is an airborne plasma-like substance - invisible, indestructible, and usually inert, but mages and magic-adept creatures can notice its presence physically and mentally, and even manipulate it. Think of mana as somewhat like a noble gas in this manner. Upon being used, mana dissipates back into the atmosphere for re-use. This means spells can be cast repeatedly at a time, but only if the mage doesn't use more mana than is available around them. Therefore, especially complicated or powerful spells have a cooldown time.
 * Leading sages theorize that the world is made of incredibly dense mana, and that the mana in the environment is the loose remnants of a massive magic explosion event called the Cataclysm.
 * Mana concentration varies; it is densest in cold areas, bodies of water, and coastlines, to varying degrees in landlocked/temperate areas, and sparse in hot climes. However, there are ways to artificially keep the mana levels in the air present, which are usually a herculean effort of engineering and magic know-how.
 * If present in high enough density, mana may warp the environment, turning it into a sort of Genius Loci or otherwise playing havoc with physics and reality in general.
 * Some phrinu are born addicted to mana for some reason; they are often adept mages but experience withdrawal symptoms and eventually death without constant exposure to adequate amounts of it. There are different words for this, but in Aerestra they are known as Lorshals. The city has a less-prejudiced view of them compared to other regions of Karsen due to the neighboring countries of Gryons and Cairns having a culture that favors Lorshals as destined sorcerers.

Magic Charisms and Temper
A mage is anyone who manipulates magic. A mage's charism is the spiritual persona of a mage's skill and potential, and the vehicle that transforms mana into magic. The more developed a charism, the more powerful the magic that it can work. A charism's temper describes its type (i.e., dark, light, anima, etc) and "personality" (i.e., irate, stolid, naive, etc). For example, an evil dark wizard's charism might be described as having an aggressive dark temper, indicating they mainly specialize in offensive magic. This specific classification system is subjective, and is most often seen in established mage universities.

Essentially, a charism's temper roughly mirrors the mage's actual personality, but scholars refer to it as though it has a mind of its own, which might well be possible. There is debate over whether charisms are truly alive.

Charisms can be sensed by other mages with the ability to do so, giving the sensor a hint of what kind of mage they are. They also may take a protective role over the mage when they are asleep or incapacitated, responding differently to threats depending on their temper. Again, this is dependent on the maturity of the charism. A mage without any training is nearly the same as a non-mage in magical ability, with the exception of very minor spells at their disposal.

Mages are somewhat uncommon, compromising about 30% of phrinu, 10% of drakes, and 90% of faeries. Of these amounts, an even smaller subsection is comprised of actual trained mages. One may become a mage in one of two ways: Charisms can be removed from a phrinu mage and transferred to another, although this is an extremely risky procedure that may result in death for both individuals at worst, and an unknown change in personality for the giver at best. The main reason for doing so is wanting to use different kinds of magic that would otherwise be impossible or take a lifetime to learn.
 * Innate mage - Someone who is born with an immature charism fused to their soul. Makes up about 95% of the mage population. Where new charisms come from is up for debate - Some believe they are a gift from the gods who see potential in the individual's future, while another belief is that they simply arise randomly from gathering mana in the environment. Those who are descended from mages or are born in a mana-rich place are more likely to be innate mages, giving credence to the latter theory. Charisms in family members often look and act similarly, causing families to specialize in certain types of magic. Any member of any race can be an innate mage. Learning to nurture and shape one's charism into a proficient conveyor of mana, however, takes years of hard work and study. Because of this, most innate mages neglect their charisms throughout life, remaining capable of only the weakest magic.
 * Artificial mage - AKA tempered mages. Someone who convinces a charism to fuse with their soul. This is most commonly achieved via a dangerous ritual known as the Tempering, in which a pre-existing charism with a personality of its own and the aspiring mage attempt to overtake each other's willpower in a battle inside the mind. Overall this is less common due to the mental difficulty of this with no guarantee of a reward of powerful magic.

The Flare
The Flare is the name given by phrinu to the unique charism of the Cataclysm, who sealed away its magic before falling into eternal sleep. However, phrinu mages discovered it a few thousand years ago and unsealed the charism from its slumber. This resulted in an entirely new type of magic being introduced to Halse. Prior to this, mortals could receive blessings from the gods, but could not harness true divine power on their own.

Practitioners are referred to as Flareists, and are typically religious clerics. It is a dichotomous magic characterized by potent destruction and creation spells that warp the fabric of reality, made of a divine matter called manara, supercharged mana that has had its properties changed by the Flare acting upon it. Flare magic is incredibly hard to master, and only ordained members of the Flareism cult are selected to learn it from sages in the faith's upper echelons. Legendary skilled Flareists have been known to erase individuals from existence and create new life out of seemingly nothing but manara.

Types of Magic
Among phrinu and Fae scholars, the most commonly agreed-upon fields of magic study are the following, which can be split into hundreds of sub-categories based on specialty/discipline. Because of this, the major fields are cautiously and vaguely defined based on what it's affecting: Flareists are considered a combination of all three of the above categories, as the Flare manipulates all aspects of the known universe.
 * Anima (AKA nature, natural, or elemental magic) - Manipulates the inanimate environment and plant life (weather, earth, etc.). Specialists in one type, such as fire or water, are the norm, with mastery of several types being a trademark of experienced mages. Anima mages include illusionists (who manipulate light and color) and nature druids, among others.
 * Mages who petition the environment to change it rather than forcing their will upon it are known as ritual mages. Ritual magic is unpredictable and the least understood of all magical disciplines, as its rural experts aren't likely to enter academia.
 * Formal - Manipulates the physical and mental aspects of a living creature, involving their mortal body. This can have either positive or negative effects. Healers are formal mages, since they work with tangible flesh and, to a lesser extent, minds. Beastmasters are included in this category because they bind the minds of animals to the caster. Blood magic is formal as well.
 * Spirit - Manipulates soul-related aspects of a living creature, as well as charisms themselves. This can have either positive or negative effects. Summoners are spirit mages, since they commune with the souls of Socii, or summon creatures. Witches are also considered spirit mages thanks to their tampering with the immortal souls of their enemies. Necromancers, because they anchor otherwise departed souls to the world of the living, are spirit mages.

The Magic Spectrum
Magic can be further classified into why it's used rather than how, with a widely-used informal scale known as the magic spectrum. As with the main fields of magic, this can be subjective and not all mages will think of themselves in such terms. Nevertheless, it can be applied to the anima, formal, and spiritual varieties as an additional descriptor of charisms: Mages are not subject to using only one type of magic throughout their lives, although it is difficult to become an expert in more than one field. Most often, they are skilled in one type of magic and have a very weak secondary skill in another. Mastery of several fields can be achieved through much study and practice combined with inborn potential. The exception to this rule is faeries, whose charisms are flexible enough to be lightly skilled in several types at once.
 * Dark - Negative, harmful magic with a destructive element. Mages who dabble in combat, like sorcerers and witches, are usually considered dark mages.
 * Light - Positive, helpful magic with a creative or restorative element. Those such as healers, necromancers, and druids are usually considered light mages.
 * Gray - Ambivalent magic that doesn't fit neatly into either of the two categories. Scholars, summoners, and alchemists are usually considered gray mages.

Anima
Anima is unique among the three fields of magic in that it is clearly divided into narrow categories based on the eight elements of nature created by the Unity and maintained by the Chaotic One, which are called the Prime Arts. Nearly all anima mages have an inborn affinity for at least one of the Prime Arts. They are as follows: In magical combat, each Art has certain strengths and weaknesses against each other. Offensively, most have two super-effective advantages against other Arts (2x), three disadvantages (1/2x), and three Arts they perform a normal amount of damage against (1x). Outliers include Volt, which has only one weakness but also just one advantage, and Mana, which is only weak to itself and Sound (and is also strong against Sound) and has no other special attributes.
 * Pure mana.
 * Fire magic.
 * Water magic.
 * Life magic.
 * Air magic.
 * Volt magic.
 * Earth magic.
 * Sound magic.

Note that the following strengths and weaknesses do not accurately predict the effects that the Prime Arts will have on nature, nor on all aspects of form and spirit magic. These particular interactions are unique to dark magical conflict.

Combination Magic
Outside of combat, the Prime Arts can be combined in various ways to enact Combination Magic, also known as the Second Arts. The Second Arts are necessary in mid-level and higher anima spells. To perform combination magic, one's charism must manifest the physical artifacts referred to as Occus (singular: Occu) by formal scholars. An Occu - a small, nearly transparent sphere marked with the Chaotic One's glowing elemental signatures - contains a concentrated amount of the Art's mana energy for use in the Second Arts.

TBA

Combining a Mana Occu with one of any of the other Prime Arts results in the creation of one of seven forms of altered mana - Igna, Aqua, Vira, Aera, Tona, Tera, and Sona. Skilled mages use these altered forms to prepare even more complicated spells.

In Society
Public perception of magic differs from place to place and across time. For the Fae, magic is an essential fact of life that most couldn't conceive of living without. Drakes, too, are used to living with magic, despite not using it much themselves anymore, and respect its place in the world.

Phrinu have a more complicated relationship with magic, with positive or negative outlooks differing wildly depending on the society. Overall, phrinu are slightly wary of magic's unpredictable nature.

Magic use by species
As a general rule, phrinu are the most powerful mages, faeries are the most elastic, and drakes are poor at magic. See individual races' pages for more information. Phrinu mages have the most raw power, and can usually be skilled in one or two specialties. Faeries may be able to use several kinds of magic, but are relatively weak in all of them. Drakes are more or less non-mages. Those who are can usually use feeble spells of one kind, but nothing more.

Just as each individual charism is different, charisms also differ by race due to biological or cultural factors. For example, faerie magic tends to be focused on power gained through sacrifice (of objects, people, etc.), while what little drake magic exists tends to be concentrated around their hoards and possessions.