Magic

Magic in Ulaan is viewed as a law of nature the same way that storms and seasons work. All magical energy comes from the suns and is absorbed by water, making living creatures and plants batteries that can be charged with magical energy. Magic is fueled by life and emotion as well, meaning that magic users can draw upon art, books, and music as fuel for their spells. Using magic is often forbidden in libraries and museums because the art could be destroyed or distorted due to magic. For example, a wizard casting a spell without focusing on the source of the magical energy could completely erase shelves' worth of text or cause paintings to melt. The distortions could also cause much stranger effects, such as all the proper nouns being changed to the wizard's own name, or adding goofy mustaches to high class paintings of noble ladies.
Using magic is taxing, and uses some of that energy stored within your body. Many people who have over-exerted their magic or used too powerful of a spell can become severely dehydrated or famished. Those who tap too deeply into the magical currents can have their entire life force siphoned out of them, leaving them a whithered husk. This can be mitigated by using a source of energy such as another living thing, magically charged artifacts, or potions. Magic users who have been trapped in caves and mines for long periods also have their powers diminished because they aren't being charged by solar magic.
There are those who seek to expand the pool of solar magic within their bodies, and many of those magic users have become mutated by the very magic that fuels them. Any creature can become oversaturated with magic, resulting in growths, mutations, and unexpected magical abilities forming within the user. To prevent this, some powerful spell casters have undergone invasive surgeries to implant devices to "vent" the excess magical energy.
Another effect that the radiation has is how it mutates flora and fauna living in the deep desert. If someone consumes the flesh of a plant or animal they can become poisoned with Solar Saturation. This makes much of the food found outside of the city-states poisonous and deadly without proper preperation.
People learn to cast magic by focusing the solar energy within their bodies to bend the reality around them. This can manifest as moving objects, creating lighting, or anything else the spellbooks have to offer. Symbols also have power, and many magic users have symbols and glyphs written all over their bodies, clothes, weapons, and enchanted objects. Some spells require you to speak deep personal truths out loud or may use names as words of power. Many spells also require ingredients and preparation for the solar magic to correctly work, i.e. witches cauldrons, potion making, sacrifices, etc. Some magic requires solar energy directly from something living, meaning that some magicians use plants as a recurring source of magic albeit an expensive and time-consuming one.
Magic has properties similar to radiation, especially when it radiates from the twin suns Ast and Hata. Hata, the red sun, is the main source of magical energy, and it is at its strongest when eclipsing the larger yellow sun. This makes it look as if a god-like eyeball is looking down on the planet, called The Glare of Ast. Magical energy is strengthened and the arcane horrors of the desert are filled with otherworldly power. When the red sun is behind the yellow sun, called Hata's Sleep magical objects become innate and many magical users are powerless unless they have a spare battery of magical energy. The eclipse of the suns happens every decade, and people prepare accordingly the same way they would for a monsoon season.
As magic and technology overlap, the magical seasons have begun to cause a lot of issues in modern civilization. The Glare of Ast causes machinery to malfunction and makes magical creatures incredibly powerful. Monsters from the wasteland begin raiding the cities and those who want to cease power and wage wars are emboldened. On the other side of the coin, the Hata's Sleep renders necessary modern technology such as Airships and Water Dowsing useless, along with any magical defenses a city has. Society has begun to rely more and more on modern advances in science and magic, but with each coming eclipse the house of cards becomes more vulnerable.

Type

Natural