Shielding Magic

Many believe that Fire Magic or are the pinnacle magical traditions of the world, arguing their superior combat potential and power. What many fail to grasp is the magic that counteracts those spellcasters, and provides safety to the world's residents. For that reason, Shielding Magic could be called the pinnacle magical tradition.

— Lorent Marshal Gustave Bruneau

Shielding Magic is an extremely old and storied magical form, believed to form the basis of most defensive magical techniques of the modern day, and requiring access to other forms of magic to reach its pinnacle. Its reputation has moderately ebbed and flowed with time, but it has consistently remained one of the most valuable forms of magic in the world.

History of Shielding Magic

Before the Raqise

Shielding Magic is one of the forms of magic in the world that has observably seen usage all across history, with the Hysilens famously swearing by the magic as their sole form of defence - eschewing traditional defensive equipment entirely in favour of finery and a mastery of protective shielding.

Early History

Even after the Hysilens ascended, the Raqise picked up precisely where they left off, further expanding magical knowledge of shielding magic and the other schools of magic required to make it as efficient as possible. Indeed, like the Hysilens themselves, the Raqise in the era of the Confederacy often used shielding over traditional defensive equipment. The Raqise made a significant innovation however, that cemented their own legacy on shielding magic, the invention of the antimagic techniques that led to the birth of the Metamage.
Following the fall of the Confederacy, however, the standard has generally shifted away from that mindset, and towards using shielding magic as a supplementary defensive measure, alongside regular armour and shields. That said, Metamages still remain just as valuable as they were for the Raqise, and the world has been expanding their knowledge on shielding magic steadily as time goes on, despite the regression in knowledge in general since the end of the Raqise.

Modern History

Nowadays, shielding magic is a premiere defensive option utilised by many corners of the world, albeit within the confines of its obscene rarity and thus cost of access if not naturally blessed with a magical bloodline. For most corners of the world, however, much time and energy is being spent on furthering their understanding of antimagic and the powers therein.
The most important innovation isn't even related to shielding magic itself, though, but rather, is tied to the development of Spelljammers by the Feiten Engineering Guild, which promise to open up the Lantyr system to exploration by the inhabitants of Elaienna, should the final issues of the spelljammer project be overcome.

Pure Shards

Pure Shards are one of the most troublesome Crysium Shard to actually uncover, with them only being found in areas that are both natural congregation points for Aether, while also being a location wherein a Crysium Shard is able to grow naturally. This makes them extremely difficult to find, contributing to their rarity and expense, but they are possible to find on Elaienna. Pure Shards do grow naturally, congregating around Leyline Nodes across the planet, with many being located in the Crown Isles of Aelnar, as well as the Dragonspine Mountains and the Subterra, where magical alignments are near-perfect and crysium shards are plentiful.

Uses of Shielding Magic

Water Barrier by Nele Diel

Physical Shields

Magic defensive measures against physical objects - such as a sword, bullet or arrow - requires a physically-attuned shield to create a magical barrier through which physical objects cannot pass. These shields have a wide variety of uses, notable being useful for defending against the physical effects of enchanted items, as well as protecting against physical items animated through the use of magic - though the non-physical aspects will continue as usual.

Energy Shields

Magical defensive measures against energy - such as an energy bolt or nonmagical fire - requires an energy-attuned shield to create the magical barrier through which energy cannot pass. While these shields aren't quite as diverse as a physical or magical shield, they do have niche uses... though they're still an often-ignored aspected of shielding magic.

Magical Shields

Unlike physical and energy shields, spellwork to ward against other magical abilities is built around the dispersion of the magic that impacts it; to act like a physical barrier is to at best act like a flimsy obstacle for a flowing river; the magic will simply bypass the shield, if not outright deplete it were they to pose any resistance at all. A truly capable magical shield has to harness the nature of magic itself and thusly counter it, to hold any significant capability when it comes to defensive measures.
This is why magic shields are so varied by the form of magic they're designed to protect against, and why they require an innate understanding and knowledge of how to use the form of magic that is to be shielded against; a shield raised to protect against Fire Magic will have no effects against Water Magic spells, for example. Spells of the correct magical type cast directly at a functional shield will not be able to penetrate, while area affect spells of such a type will find that they will affect everything except what is within the shield - thus making shields an excellent offensive tool as well to render allies immune to spells a caster will deploy in battle.
Spells that merely direct a physical object in some way will instead find that their direct control over the object or objects is removed once it passes through an appropriate shield, but the objects themselves will continue to follow the patterns dictated by the traits they had at the time of entering the shield, including their existing momentum.

Phasing Shields

A key component of magical shields is that each type of shield can only protect against one potential type of threat - physical damage, energy damage, fire magic, ice magic, and so on - and as such, phased shields were a natural result that act to blend together multiple types of shield. Intrinsically, these phased shields sacrifice effective power, as the forms of damage they're designed to protect against will weaken all shields at once instead of just the shield that would have protected against the damage ordinarily. That being said, these shields are also far more economical when it comes to their Aether cost, which ensures they remain an extremely viable, and commonplace, option.

Advanced Shields

Generally only available to the best shielding magic users, Advanced Shields take the same principles as phased shields, and aim to create phased shields that possess all of the benefits of the phasing process while having none of the downsides. These shields do make the concession of Aether-efficiency, but for that cost they provide shields that are capable of independently taking damage as appropriate and can be cast far easier than the constituents.

Shielding Magic by Charlotta Bavholm

Antimagic Shields

A very rare form of magic indeed, exclusive to the Metamages of the world, antimagic shields define a boundary within which magic is diminished. This shield could be centred on an individual or location, and can be set to be one-way or bidirectional. Antimagic Shields can be a one-time absorptive antimagic effect or a channelled cancellation effect, denoted below, depending upon the caster's needs and processes. Notably, antimagic shields are not damage or spell-type specific; they work on anything.
Antimagic shields can be used to block magic entering or leaving the area of a spell, but will have no effect on magic that does not attempt to cross the barrier, nor will it stop anyone or anything from physically doing so. Generally, however, antimagic shields are rarely deployed in this fashion, except in rare and extreme outlier cases; it is often cheaper to deploy them with the help of Rune Magic.

Absorption Antimagic

Absorption Shields are set to absorb a certain quantity of magic before the shield fails and magical casting can proceed as usual. The quantity of Aether absorbed depends upon the caster as well as the level of Aether that was used to formulate the shield. Once the shield is used up, it is done, and magical effects can proceed as before with no effects on the results of subsequent spells.
These types of antimagic shield are typically known as Static Antimagic Shields, and do not require channelling - unlike all other types of shielding magic - to maintain their effects. As a result they are also easily transcribed into runes for specialized cases, albeit they need special storage for these runed cases, to ensure that their effects do not erroneously drain their power.

Cancellation Antimagic

Cancellation shields, by contrast, are traditional channelled shields, cancelling all spells weaker than the cancellation shield itself. For magical effects that are stronger than the cancellation shield, only the remain strength of the magic will resolve. In cases where absorption and cancellation shields both exist, the absorption shields will be depleted first.
Cancellation shields are also notable for only working on new magical spells and effects, having no impact on previously present or channelled effects that began before the cancellation shield channel began, making cancellation shields immensely powerful preventative measures, but an impractical reactive response.
Cancellation shields also drain the Aether available to the caster; this is in addition to the standard costs of a shield's channelled nature, and while it's negligible by default when the shield is unchallenged, it spikes rapidly when magical effects are successfully nullified.