Magic

An overview of magic, it's laws, abilities and effects.

A Manavaxian Druid by 3D Model via HeroForge, created by TJ Trewin

All living things in Melior have the ability to utilise magic, but people never knew it was a possibility until plants rich in maisha came through the rifts after The Rupture fifty years ago. Consuming these plants filled a void they never knew they had - it was as if they'd been starving for so long and had finally taken their first meal.
Flora and fauna can use magic, too, but have limited intelligence or maisha reserves to utilise it in great strength.
Having magic feels like a different kind of energy. When you use it it's similar to a kind of tiredness, and can only be replenished by consuming more maisha-rich foods.
There are three different "fields" of magic:

Regular magic, used to directly manipulate objects.

Enchanting - used to store reserves of maisha and/or a component to manipulate with (it does not imbue the item with any ability or spell).

Alchemy, which is not strictly magic, it's just natural ingredients mixed with maisha-rich ingredients that replenish your reserves faster.

Consuming in excesss to gain more magic will not make you powerful, just fat.

— Wise saying.

You can slowly expand your maisha capacity, up to a limit for your species. Folks native to Melior have smaller reserves becuase they are only newly experiencing magic for the first time since 50 years ago. Newer generations are developing larger capacities. Some folks have a different eating metabolism, the same thing goes for magic reserves. Maisha reserves don't show visibly.

How to use magic

Magical abilities are based on direct contact with the thing you want to manipulate, and you need to have a deep understanding of the thing you're trying to control with magic. It uses magical energy reserves from within the body, which can be replenished with more maisha consumption.
Complex things made up of many components are difficult to manipulate, even if you have a good understanding of them. Things (or components of things) that have motion are also significantly harder to manipulate.
You need to be able to concentrate enough to achieve your outcome and interruptions will mean you may need to start again (if you still have the maisha reserves to do so).
Muttering incantations or running commentary can help with focus when manipulating things with magic, but others find it easier to focus by remaining silent. The choice is yours.

Uses

As magic has only been around in Melior for 50 years, people are still making huge discoveries about what magic can and can't do. folks are relying on self discovery and trading knowledge from scholars and tutors from beyond the rifts in other planes and realms.

How long it takes to use magic depends on: how skilled you are, how much maisha reserves you have, and also how much physical energy you have. Even if you had full capacity of maisha, you couldn't do a thing if you're so tired or exhausted that you're about to fall alseep or collapse.
Doing things for the first time takes longer, as does working with delicate or complex manipulations.

What it can do:

Some examples of what magic can be used for, with varying difficulty:

Moving or changing the temperature of fluid or solid materials

Manipulating the wind

Changing the shape or colour of something

Healing yourself of minor injuries such as cuts and grazes

Healing someone you know well, or someone of the same kind of folk as you

Manipulating complex things that you yourself have created

Note that it’s near-impossible to manipulate a living creature’s breathing with magic as the breath is constantly entering and leaving the body, same thing goes with the movement of bloodflow

What it cannot do:

Magic does not have a will of its own, you won’t find random pockets of it or magical anomalies in nature - everything is controlled by living beings.

You can’t summon material things from nothing, you need a source to expand from.

You can't revive the dead, sorry for your loss,

You can't heal an injured creature if you have no idea how its anatomy works.

You can't make an item weigh more or less without increasing or decreasing its mass.

Manipulating fire, lightning, lava, toxins - anything ouchy that you need to directly touch is going to be not very fun and near impossible to manipulate.

You cannot manipulate things you can't touch or fully comprehend, such as gravity or time.

Magic and the law

A Faun mystic using elemental magic by 3D Model via HeroForge, created by TJ Trewin

Anyone is allowed to use magic, unless the laws of their country disallow it or if they've been imprisoned (punishments or precautions sometimes include restriction to maisha-restoring substances).
Some countries have age limits on learning or using magic, and some places require you to pass a test and become certified before using magic in the workplace or in public.
Some practises of magic are illegal, questionable, or frowned upon, and these typically include:

Attempts at necromancy or reanimation.

Non-consensual manipulation of people (and in some countries, common creatures too).

Poppetry.

Some countries have laws that forbid it's use after sunset due to accidents.

Some religious faiths forbid the use of magic alltogether and others forbid it within their religious buildings.

On the flipside, there are different religions that are the opposite, and encourage it freely and even teach it.

Perceptions

Older generations (on the whole) are skeptical of magic, but those who embrace magic have enjoyed their small newfound powers. They're frequently scared of it because they had only known magic in a fantastical sense in children's stories and horrifying myths and legends where "powers" were described as destructive and world-ending (as they were often told by religions to invoke fear).

Learning Magic

Magic is learned by experimenting and practising, you can learn it from someone else or from a book, but much like learning any other skill it’s useless in your head until you actually practise using it for real.
How long it takes to learn depends on your aptitude for learning, the quality of your teachings, your enthusiasm for what you're learning, and how much you practise and are guided. Some people appear to be prodigies, some people pick things up really easily, and for others it takes a long time to grasp. Like any skill, there are some folks think it's impossible or that you "have to be born with it", which is untrue.

Where is maisha stored? Hard to tell. Where is your energy stored? Do you feel it comes from your stomach? Your mind? Contained within yourself, or in a bubble around yourself? No one knows. You just feel it.

With the big interest in defense, conquest, and military advancements (and also just personal self defence classes) - new schools of martial arts have evolved to try and incorporate their learnings of magic alongside their survival and fighting techniques, as well as adapting their learning routines to defend against new physical kinds of folks - because before the rupture, there were no folk with wings.
Due to it being so new (only introduced 50 years ago), the subject of magic has become a spectacle, craze, and is everywhere seeping into all parts of everyday life in Melior. opportunists are rife and having a field day scamming the uneducated masses with fake potions, enchanted items, and selling the secrets to "lost arts", even going as far as to set up their own legitimite-looking academies, certifications, and accolades.

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