Earth Magic

To wield the power of Earth is to wield the sands of time; patience is a virtue when dealing with its power, as it is not wont to act brashly. Should you be able to adjust to that, however, Earth magic stands as one of the world's most potent forms of magic; hard to blunt or redirect, incredibly potent and extremely versatile.

— A proverb from Torana's Student Curriculum

Earth Magic is a powerful form of magic devoted to wielding the earth - be that the ground or a cliff face. It's got a rather mixed legacy the world over, due to its slow-acting nature but potent utility.

History of Earth Magic

Antiquity

It's reasonably common knowledge that Earth Magic has been in use since time immemorial, appearing in the earliest records of Hysilens ruins; in those ages it was used by the fox-folk to shape the world in ways that suited them, as well as a potent force multiplication magic for combat - as earthen golems and earthworks were a vital multiplier to combat in history.
It's believed that both earthen golems and magical earthworks were used in the early history of the world, as well, but the knowledge of these techniques vanished over time, with many suggesting that the end of the Raqise Confederacy ultimately lost those tools to the sands of time... though the reality is that those techniques ended up primarily in Subterra.

Early History

The early modern period was set out by a regression in knowledge generally; the Shard Era and the general collapse of organized society in the era saw the various elements of earth magic - such as the earthworks - simply... vanish. Others, like the magic of golem crafting, all but vanished around this time, for unknown reasons.
The Shard Ritual had generally positive results for earth magic; earth mages become ever more plentiful, and the research into their techniques began to increase, recovering their ability to search for minerals and metals.

Modern History

Nowadays, there's something of an... earthen renaissance underway, with active attempts to recover the long-forgotten knowledge of the magic, for posterity and archival if nothing else. Progress on this front has been glacially slow, as leads on ancient earth magic are... hard to find, to put it mildly, especially with the Greentide preventing easy and safe(ish) access to Subterra.

Geo Shards

Geo Shards are... complicated. Generally the Geo Shards are most concentrated in Subterra - the vast underground depths of the old world - where they're heavily venerated and guarded by the locals, while the Dwarves of the Dragonspine Mountains retained a significant number of them prior to the Greentide. Outside of those two regions, Aelnar is also believed to possess some.

Uses of Earth Magic

Dwarven Geomancer by Raphael Madureira

Earth Control

The core facet of earth magic is the ability to manipulate the earth itself. Unlike all other forms of magic, earth control is slower to enact, but causes sudden spurts of many changes at once after a Geomancer has spent the time laying the groundwork for everything they want to change. In this facet, earth magic has a variety of uses in both civil and military applications, being able to accurately shape the earth and sense both its strongest points and its weakest.
More advanced earth casters can wield it far more directly in an offensive manner, bringing forth masses of earth to launch at enemies. The nature of this element of magic necessitates that even a powerful caster learns to wield earth control on conjured earth to begin with, before being able to pull javelins and spears of earth from the ground itself.

Geosense & Tremor Creation

Two facets of the same coin, geosense is the earth caster's ability to sense the state of the land itself, feeling its composition, stability and general movements. This is an extremely broad ability, and generally allows for a Geomancer to track geological events and disturbances, but its nature also allows for it to be a vector through which earth magic can be applied more directly to fault lines to spur the artificial creation of tremors.

Earthen Protection

Earth Magic is also one of the premiere protective magics in the world, its power allowing for a Geomancer to ward their body in defensive stone, harden their skin, create ablative rock shields and a whole lot more. In a lot of ways, earthen protection is very complementary to Shielding Magic when it comes to the defensive aspects of magic casters.

Elemental Summoning

While Summoning Magic is the core magical overseer of the summoning process, elemental casters like those with earth magic can establish a link to the elemental realm of earth to conjure forth limited summons. These typically range from binding small earth familiars to summoning larger earth elementals.

Metal Sensing

Most skilled Geomancers are able to control and sense minerals and metals, whether or not they're in the ground. Many beginning casters can sense the location of certain materials - such as iron or gold - could be; they can't pinpoint it, but they can get close. This is of immense, and obvious benefit to miners, and is a big reason why geomancy is a major focus of the Dwarves and the peoples of Subterra.

Earth Magic in Subterra

Subterra is a quite special case on the planet in regards to Earth Magic, - referred to as Terramancy underground. Subterra, being a continent-spanning underground world existing deep below even the Dragonspine Mountains' vast tunnels, promotes intensive investment in earthen magic, far beyond that of any other region of world, with its eponymous Terramancers being a specialty of the subterranean region.

Golem Magic

Focused primarily on animating the earth itself into a construct, golem magic is a trademark of Subterra's Terramancers, allowing them to create grand golems for offensive, defensive and utilitarian needs. These golems are immensely durable, being resistant to many forms of damage and magical blasts, and act as one of the most notable wardens of Dwarven Holds and Subterra.

Subterran Metal Manipulation

Beyond basic metal sensing, many from Subterra are proficient at manipulating metals with their abilities too. The best Terramancers can move these materials even when they're in a processed form, allowing these casters to bend metal swords or armor, or hurl metal at foes as they would with rocks.

Subterra Terramancer by Alexis Pflaum

Combining Elements

The four elemental magics can generally by combined by highly experienced characters to create truly destructive things. To date, there have only been successful combinations of two elements at a time, with three-and-four element combinations proving invariably fatal due to the sheer difficulty in controlling it.

Earth and Air

The elemental combination of Air Magic and Earth Magic allows for the creation of extremely potent storms. In the case of earth magic, this is done to create grand sandstorms with untold destructive might, but it can just as easily form floating clumps of earth that can be launched at an enemy. Similarly, air magic has great utility for launching grand spikes of earth at a foe.

Earth and Fire

The combination of Fire Magic and Earth Magic is a combination that has a surprising amount of versatility and power, with the ability to superheat the earth magically, to create areas of searing heat or even - at high levels of skill - to create searing hot lava. While this lacks the destructive elegance of the plasma created with Air Magic, it can still be extremely problematic when allowed to be used for a long time. That said, this combination is infamously difficult to pull off properly; it's not impossible by any means, but requires a lot of experience in both types of magic.

Earth and Water

The combination of Water Magic and Earth Magic has generally more utilitarian purposes than many of the other options using either magic type; generally, it's used to infuse the ground with water or ice, which allows the ground to trap enemies in deep mud, or off-balance them with an icy slippiness. Beyond that, the other major known use is to create large streams of mud to damage settlements and structures from a distance.