Law of Power and Law of Transactions

"It's 48 4C—where's my horseless carriage??

—Many people every single year

Every schoolchild knows the Law of Power: the more powerful the effect of a spell, enchantment, or potion, the more input it requires. A spoken-word spellcaster using Red Fire, for instance, can control the size of their fireball at will, but the larger the flames, the more magical energy will be expended.

Less commonly acknowledged, but perhaps more crucial to many spellcasters, is the Law of Transactions. Various works of magic, particularly in the school of rune magic, have differing complexities. A spell to fill a glass with water, for instance, is more complex than a spell that simply summons a jet of water, and in turn less complex than a spell to form a free-standing shape out of water, even if the quantity of water, and thus the power of the spell, remains the same in each.

Practical Impacts

Due to the Law of Power, access to strong magic is restricted to those who either devote years of study and practice to build up the necessary resistance and pool of magical energy, or have enough money to pay someone to do such a thing for them. Furthermore, while the cap on magical power is soft, the Law of Power ensures that such things as city-levelling fireballs are unheard of.

The Law of Transactions has similar ramifications to the Law of Power. In addition, it can cause a sort of "maximum complexity" within each school of magic. Natural-born mages have the lowest maximum complexity, divine and spoken spellcasters slightly greater, alchemists and enchanters greater still, and runewriters have theoretically limitless complexity, though most complex runespells eventually run into too many errors to function. This Law is also cited as reason to believe the development of a horseless carriage is an unattainable goal.

Several spellcasters working together can circumvent the power and complexity thresholds to a degree, whether by pooling their energy, trading off control of a spell, or working in shifts or tandem to cut time on a potion or runespell. However, there are still limits to each school of magic which no one has yet found ways to circumvent.

Manifestation

The Laws of Power and Transactions manifest themselves in different ways depending on the school of magic:

• Spoken spellcasters seeking to increase the power of their spells must expend more magical energy. More complex spells require a smaller increase in energy, but the spells themselves are longer and thus take more time to cast. While a large expenditure of magical energy does not deplete physical energy, casting too large a spell can result in temporarily being unable to cast further magic, as well as feelings of extreme hunger and mental exhaustion if an attempt is made to do so.
• Potions with more powerful effects often require rarer ingredients or greater quantities—often the only way to brew a longer-lasting variation of a potion is to brew more of the potion. More complex potions often require a greater quantity of ingredients, several of which may be difficult to obtain, and longer and stricter recipes.
• Runewriters have no options to increase the power of a spell save for doubling it, adding intensifiers, or invoking multiple synonymous runes. Increasing complexity of a spell naturally involves adding more lines to the spell, which drastically increases the necessary time and effort, as well as the likelihood that an error will occur in the casting of the spell.
• Enchanting an object requires a steady stream of magical energy from enchanter to object. The more powerful an enchantment, the greater the amount that must be continually transferred, and the more complex, the longer the duration. In order to avoid fully draining an enchanter with a particularly powerful or complicated spell, runes or gemstones are often used as symbolic conduits to reduce the needed energy.
• Natural-born mages are often limited in the complexity of their magic, so the Law of Power is more prevalent to them, but increases of both power and complexity result in greater drains to their magical energy, and unlike spoken spellcasters who have the buffer of spells to protect them, natural-born mages can accidentally draw from their own energy or life force to use in spellcasting, resulting in dangerous levels of exhaustion, hunger, or even dehydration.
• Divine spellcasters draw all their powers from their sponsoring gods, so they theoretically have a limitless pool of energy. However, just as with enchanters, greater power requires them to draw greater energy from their gods, and greater complexity requires them to leave the connection open for longer. As sustained exposure of a mortal to divine power can be dangerous, great feats of magic bear a risk far greater than exhaustion to divine spellcasters.

Localization

At first glance, the Laws of Power and Transaction seem to fall apart when one takes into consideration the state of the First Course, wherein mere words—with no loss of energy from the writer—could temporarily reshape almost any aspect of reality. However, when one looks more deeply, the laws hold firm—the energy needed to cast "impossibly" powerful or complex spells came directly from the elder gods, in the form of the runes that symbolized them. As the runes acted as a buffer between writer and god, no ill effects befell those who inadvertently moved mountains. As the elder gods retreated from Deus and the runes were used more and more casually, their power slowly faded until all that was left was the alluring Song of masterful creative writing.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane