Magic (Maj-Ick)

A woman clad in a long flowing robe sits on a cliff overlooking a sunset. She clutches to her chest a necklace from a friend. She whispers the words she wishes her friend could hear. She makes a fist around the necklace before gesturing outwards and opening it, the piece of jewlery gone and replaced with an orb of light. As the sky gets darker the orb floats into the sky and she gives a slight smile as more orbs join it and tears fall down her face.

Magic is the energy of change, it can be used for bad and good and in some way it affects every creature who has ever existed and will ever exist. Change permeates all, and some have the spark to grasp this energy and bend it to their own will, to change the world in the way they wish.

Magic in Living Creatures

Every creature is born with a soul, but creatures born with the spark in their soul to use magic are sparked. This can manifest in a variety of ways but most often it is just a wellspring of energy that someone can draw on and shape in various ways, a power that they can cultivate into many different forms. A broad term used to describe people with standard sparks, is "witches". Witches have a clear pool of energy within them that doesn't have a definitate shape or ability it is predisposed to, allowing them to control its shape and choose what power they want to pursue. However, some people are born with sparks of a particular shape that are predisposed to have their energy used in a particular way, not giving them the freedom of using the energy in any way they wish.
Spirits are beings whose souls are their physical forms, and their sparks permeate their bodies, but often have a definite shape towards what power the spirit has and what they represent. Grass spirits have the abilities to grow limbs of grasping vines, transform into blades, and in some cases purify or heal, but could not use their energy to create a fireball because that isn't the shape of their spark.
Creatures without sparks to generate and cast magic are known as sparkless. They sometimes can still use magic through lambentcasting, wherein someone uses outer sources of magic to cast it from outside their body. On the opposite end of the spectrum from sparkless there are illuminants, creatures born with The Abundance, too much energy for their body to handle prone to short bursts of life before they fizzle out. Magic is a fire and a creatures body is the fuel that lets it burn.

Physical Mutations

Those born with magic typically have physical mutations caused by the latent mana in their bodies. Humans have pointed ears, halflings have furry ears, dwarves eyes of metal, felthera and leonin particular fur markings. Upon birth it is immediately apparent whether a creature has the spark or if it doesn't which causes many cultures to build around this difference, revering the babies who have it, or casting them to flame.

Forms of Magic

Magic has many different forms. Primary among them are the Arcane, the Natural or Primal, and the Divine. Beyond those there are many different forms of magic some easily attained, and some not. Anyone born with a spark can practise Arcane or Primal magic, but to practice Divine magic one needs the blessing of a deity or other powerful being, bestowing embers of their own power to the lucky or unlucky recipient.
Niche forms of magic include oesteomancy, haemomancy, and chronomancy. These can be accessed by the particularly devoted, but are especially hard to pull off properly if not born with a predisposition toward them.
Certain forms of magic when intersecting with a being affect their appearance more than is typical. When the magic of The Gloom World permeates a creature they become, or are born as a tiefling. Tieflings are partially spirit in nature and thus always have sparks, and due to the origin of their magic they are predisposed to magic that surrounds the gloom, and around flames. Other planetouched beings are similar with further appearance modifications, and predispositions to magic associated with their source.

Terminology

Certain terminology is commonly used in magical research to refer to users of different forms of magic

• Lucents: A lucent is someone born with the spark to do magic innately.
• Lambents: A lambent is someone who was not born with magic, and or uses magic from outside their body. Someone who uses enchanted objects to cast, or someone who gains magic from a patron being.
• Illuminants: An illuminant is a lucent who was born with too much magic for their body to handle. illuminants typically have short lifespans due to their magic burning them from the inside out.
• Cruors: A cruor is someone gifted with a disposition toward haemomancy, blood magic.
• Ossein: An ossein is someone with a disposition toward oesteomancy, bone magic. ossein's can typically manipulate their bones but this is typically rather painful and scarring.
• Pharos': A pharos is a rare individual who has a spirit bonded to their soul. This spirit is typically called a shadow bitch and are the physical spirit manifestation of the pharos' soul which is submissive to them.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane