Arcana Formulae

Its commonly known that gnomes are not the most intelligent creatures but they are absolute geniuses when it comes to adapting to an environment and making things work. Who puts a symbol on a rock? They just did it and bam! Magic torch...

From runes to a complex formula, the genre of magic commonly known as enchantment has grown and evolved much in the nation of Estoya and by proxy, its neighboring nations.
Enchantment is one of many genres of magic listed in arcane tomes across the land.
What once began as a primitive tool used by gnomes grew to become one of the most complex and powerful forms of magic. Its practice is widespread in one form or another and some regard its modern applications as an art form, integrating it in their crafts leading to a massive uptick of self-enchantment through tattoos and magic items such as enchanted weapons.
While significantly more expensive, the investment is worth the effort.

This is my new designer collection, the sword contains both runes and sigils and I used a Mhirrian based dialect to make the glyphs. It works with a handy set of gears in the pommel. You twist this wheel till the arrow aligns with the desired enchantment and there you go.. Don't let the price tag deter you, you always get what you paid for here...

The effects of enchantments are varied and some have several effects linked together in elaborate chains. The purpose of enchantment is to efficiently cast a spell or apply a magical effect in any way without expending magical energy or needing to be present when the enchantment is activated.
It is a complex magical art form that has stemmed from experimentation to grant safety efficiency, and convenience.

Due to the complex elements of an enchantment, any mistake can radically change the effect, sometimes to lethal degrees. This, however, occurred mostly in the genres infancy.

There are four types of enchantments that have developed over time: runes, sigils, glyphs, and formula.
Each of these types are an evolution of the one before it, the study and development of which occurring over the last 300 years.

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Runes

Enchantment in Estoya began in the form of Gnomish runes. These objects were made of a specific type of gemstone and a single symbol called a rune carved, drawn, or in some way placed on the stone. Mixing stones and runes often yields different effects and as time went on, new runic dialects were created. Currently, three dialects are used throughout the world.

The Druidic Oghram

The druidic runes, referred to as Oghram are symbols representing different breeds of trees. Each rune is carved into a chunk of bark. When charged, then rune activates and is self-sustained. While the original gnomish dialect focused on simple elemental effects, the druidic runes focus more on nature. Making plants grow, come to life, or charming wildlife are all examples of these effects.

Why Runes Work

The bards are the ones who determined why runes work. Runes are symbols that have acquired the same meaning among a very large group of people. This collective cultural consciousness still remains even though the cultures are long dead, similar to how bardic lore functions.

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Sigils

Sigils are a refined form of runes. Runes are static and each combination of rune and stone will apply the same effects they always have. Even when mixed with new combinations you will never find anything too unexpected and more importantly, you can't create new runes in a dialect, meaning learning a dialect gives you an advantage over an enemy using it and vice versa.
As such a few clever mages went out of their way to establish a new form of enchantment. These became sigils and were inspired by the sigils of Ozlith.

What differs between sigils and runes is that runes are independent of knowledge and runes do not need to be charged.

Alphabetical Sigils

As the experiments continued something new occurred. Mages discovered that while a single person cannot create their own dialect of runes or sigils, the alphabet itself was a set of culturally relevant symbols.
If one writes a simple sentence, and breaks each word into the first and last letters, you can arrange those letters, even using a specific part of a letter into any pattern and the effect made clear in that sentence would apply.
This means that you can use your own language to apply specific effects, control those effects and apply conditions to when those effects would occur and how.

Runic Sigils

Like with the Estoyan dialect of runes, the first sigil was an experiment set by the mages tower in Rouxsgate . The goal was to create more diverse effects that were more convenient and varied. The effects of the runes are simple and could only be useful in a number of ways. However, if you combine one rune with other runes in a circle, then actively charged the new symbols it could yield New and more diverse effects. This was taken a step further when the mages sought to create a unified dialect of these sigils.

This was a revolutionary idea and was successful to a degree. The establishment of dialects worked, but the sigils were temperamental and had to be extremely accurate or the results could be dangerous.

Conditions

Enchantment has, since the development of sigils, placed enormous significance on conditions.
A condition is nothing more than enchanting based on context rather than effect. A condition. Is a contextual limitation, addition, or any set of rules that one adds to their enchantment. These conditions are usually simple, as the more words added the more complex the sigil and by proxy the harder to duplicate perfectly. Since the creation of sigils, the establishment of conditions, such as a failsafe, has been essential to ensure safety and also to cater an enchantment to specific needs.


It's far more useful to have a sword that can use both fire and water elements, but it wasn't until the development of conditions that such a thing was even possible.

by boscopenciller

Intent

Intent is the secret to modern enchantments, and became the primary goal of Lady Valentina as she developed the last two methods of enchantment. The intent is literally the intent of the symbols in an enchantment which negates the actual meaning of the symbols used.

The Condition of Intent

A term coined by Lady Valentina, the condition of intent is a sigil or a thought the enchanter has when charging an enchantment with arcane energy. If you state that the conditions and intents of your enchantments are whatever you want them to be at the time of creation, specifics and accuracy are no longer relevant.

The Gnomish runes

The Gnomes discovered ancient writing on the walls of caves in Waiversea and the Waiversea hills . They found that when placed in or on a stone, the enchantment is primed and ready without charging. The symbols are unknown in origin and were used as the established runic dialect in Estalia for some time. Many believe the runic dialect originated in Ozlith , but Ozlith is only known to use a different form of enchantment similar to sigils. The gnomish runes are far more focused on applying elemental effects to whatever they are on, leading the gnomes to develop tools with them to make certain tasks easier such as fishing which they did with a crude lightning spear, or lighting their novels with fire or light runes on sticks for torches.

by tiagosilverio

The Estalian Runic Dialect

In present-day Estalia, the runic dialect officially used by most, is a combined dialect with various changes applied to maximize efficiency. Runesmiths run experiments routinely to test new combinations, but the applications of runes can only be changed so much. Runes are very static and can only be used for certain effects.

While runes can be very effective and are often used for weapons and for lighting rooms, they lack other practical applications. This fact led to new experiments that attempted to create other ways to accomplish more complex goals and that could allow the user to exhibit more control over the effect as you can't alternate between two runes on the same weapons, use more than one rune if the other cancels the first runes' effects, or "turn the rune of" so to speak

Blood Sigils

Blood sigils were used in ozlith. Using ozlithian language, the sigils would require the sacrifice of blood to activate leading to the idea of conditions. Blood sigils are also far more lenient as far as a perfect application of the symbols used as blood is potent and can be used to channel intent which led to the idea of glyphs.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane

by Mario Wibisono

Reception and Use

While the idea was revolutionary it wasn't used widely, as to ensure safety a mage often refused to use sigils unless they had sigil templates, plates of metal accurately shaped so the practitioner can trace the sigil instead of drawing it free handed.

the templates were complex and therefore expensive not to mention numerous incidents that occurred while they were developed. [Br] Sigils are incredibly powerful and it's hard to cheat their effects, making them useful to seal off doors. Several mage towers locked their doors with these sigils. This led to problems even with sigils based off of the alphabet.
the door would require a password and to forget it or even stuttering could cost you your life. Both alphabetical sigil and runic sigil dialects are still in use, but rare to see since the creation of glyphs.

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Glyphs

Lady Valentina, Poet Laureate of Estoya created glyphs to prove to all of Estoya the true power of a Bard . She theorized that if a language can be used, then why can't a personal language be used if charged and given specific intent. The secret, she discovered, wasn't intent or conditions but a combination of the two, what she referred to as the Condition of Intent.

The simplicity of it escaped her for so long she felt like an idiot having not realized her mistake. In essence, her mistake was that she forgot the @first law of magic, the law of loops which states all magic is relative and therefore no rule is 100% in stone.
The loophole in enchantment: if you establish within an enchantment a simple statement that says "the conditions and effects are whatever the enchanter intends" while charging an enchantment, it opens a world of possibilities.
This actually allowed for complete abandonment of previous dialects in favor of creating one's own. Some people didn't even have a dialect, as intent and conditions became the fundamental basis of all complex enchantments.

These new enchantments became known as glyphs and could be whatever the user wanted them to be. A glyph is simply any symbol or design that is charged with the condition of intent in the mind of the enchanter. When charged the enchantment is active and the effects and conditions match the intent of the enchanter.

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Formula

Lady Valentina created a spectacle no one had ever seen before. It showed that enchantments can be linked using geometric shapes with conditions and limitations and intents that could be broken down in countless ways. You could create enchantments With many effects and even brought in fail-safes, allowing users to take measures to ensure effects would play out as planned. Glyphs allowed for any symbol to be an enchantment, but formula allowed for the most complex enchantments ever conceived that could operate independently and in many ways think. It could analyze situations and make determinations based on its conditions.

Containment Geometry

An enchanter can contain enchantments in geometric shapes allowing a single enchantment to be placed in a specific shape and linked to others, but still remain separated, allowing effects to have a fork off switch that can be used based on conditions.

Circles

A circle contains an enchantment and that enchantment's conditions. It's filled with glyphs, sigils and runes that are linked together, but only operate with what is inside the circle. Linking two circles together with a line means you can have two enchantments that happen at the same time and on the line you can write a formula establishing fail-safes and conditions That affect both circles or switch between the two or both.

Triangles

A triangle allows you to link multiple circular enchantments, and even other triangles allowing for sets of enchantments to operate with other sets. The triangle can also serve as a switch between different sets.

Other shapes

Many other shapes can be used and its dependent on the user. Squares can often reference the room the enchantment occurs in and the use of three-dimensional shapes means you can use a pyramid to link enchantments on 3 spheres, one for each face of the pyramid, and the base of the pyramid to reference the room as it is a square.

Drop for Aesthetics: Enchantment in Art

Enchantment has a major influence on bards and craftsman as being able to use this genre allows one to really impress with the aesthetics of their work. Blacksmiths, jewelers, and many other crafters often offered positions to those who knew the art of enchantment and paid well in commission for the goods sold. On top of this, enchantment grew to be a very personalized genre. Enchantments often give off a faint colored glow when charged or activated followed by the obvious effects of the spell itself. One may hear a humming when charged as well. Many young enchanters would toy with the sounds and visual effects of their enchantments, and due to its unique applications, developed their own styles as well, glyphs and formula were often used as maker marks and were viewed like handwriting and art style. The creation of enchantments that allow personal dialects to determine the effect, intent, and conditions created a resurgence of enchantment in Estoya, particularly among artists and bards. Tattoos were applying enchantments to the body, paintings hid doorways, blacksmiths etched their weapons with complex designs, giving them power and with this new found fame, it was a hop, skip, and a jump away from the final form of enchantment: Formula, created by the very bard who has already pioneered enchantment. This new form is what cemented her position as Poet Laureate.