Introduction to domains

Wielding

In Orcerta, an energy called Signum is used to create fantastical effects, reaching from the creation of fire, so the healing of wounds or even manipulating living beings. Due to a crystalline mineral called Saxum, which can be found in small amounts in the body as well as in crystal form in the world, every living being has the inherent ability to use Signum.
Not unlike a neural network, Saxum forms a complex mesh inside of the body.
By manipulating this network, redirecting it's energy-flow and concentrating it on certain areas Signum can be used to produce a wide variety of effects. This act of manipulation is called "Wielding".
Thought the wielding of Signum can be trained in many different ways, physical actions have shown to be the most efficient and effective way of producing the desired effects. The use of Signum is highly unique for every person, thought, over the years, certain movements have shown to be the "best" way to learn the basics of a certain domain. For example: The domain of fire focusses on breathing techniques and high intensity upper body movement akin to boxing whereas wielders of the Mind-Domain train by forming different handsigns; which by now became its own language used by mute and deaf people.
There are many different aspects, like range of effectiveness, duration and more that can differ between domains. Due to these specifics the proficiency of someone is measured in ranks; each rank of every domain having a standardised set of rough estimates.
Example:
ranks lowest to highest: E, D, C, B, A, S
If a Rank-E Fire-Wielder is able to manipulate fire in a range of 1m, a D-Rank-Wielder can manipulate fire in a 5m radius.
Moreover, this introduction article only describes the teachings of the most common schools, teachings may differ greatly between schools and locations. The specifics will be listed in the stand-alone article of every domain.

Fire

The domain of fire is specialised in controlling the name giving fire and flame as well as the increasing and decreasing of temperatures above 0°C.
Before even creating their first flame, Fire-Wielders are trained in suppress fire. Subsequent years of training then teach different techniques to manipulate flames around the wielder or create flames on their own.
Students get tought different breathing techniques as well as different stances to manipulate fire and heat around them and inside their own body.
While low ranking fire wielders may be able to incinerate small objects or form fireballs, high ranking wielders can create whole firestorms or even coat their body in flames.

Water

The domain of fire specialises in the manipulation of water in all states, as well as the raising and lowering of temperatures below 0°C
Water-Wielders learn to have a flexible mindset and to react reasonably even in stressful situations. This is done by so called walking-meditation where the students walk in circles and spirals for hours on end and by the studying of 10 different hand-techniques between which every Water-Wielder will be able to fluidly change by graduation.
The circles in which the students walk are also used as a restriction. For example:
The circles are used as the maximum space a student is allowed to lower the temperature and fails once the cold, or water, leaves this area.
Once Students have learned of to accuratly use their signum, they move on to the manipulation of water itself, first creating only waves while later being taught to create different shapes.
Some schools teach the extraction of water from living beings, this is seen as a very difficult thing to do without hurting the subject and as such only selected students are taught these techniques. Once someone is able to accurately do this, they are almost sure to have a job in medicine due to the fact that they can extract fluids like poison from bodies.

Nature

The Nature-Domain specialises in everything regarding the manipulation of plants and their uses in alchemy.
Wielders of the nature domain are schooled in a wide variety of non-signum related things such as botany, biology and alchemy. The high focus on plants stems from the fact, that animals can't be manipulted by this domain, as such, students are tought biology in its relation to alchemy.
The common way of training to become able to wield Nature-Signum is by first strengthening the body and bulking up while naturally also increasing their own raw force. As well as, mostly regarded as the worst part of this education, the steady self-poisoning to build up resistances to a variety of bad substances.
Signum abilites not only cover the manipulation of plants, be it their growth or their characteristics but also the transfer of different properties on the users body. Such as producing a variety of resins or covering ones body in thorns.

Soul

The Soul-Domain researches the previously mentioned Saxum-Network in the body of living beings which is, esoterically speaking, regarded as the soul.
This branch of domains looks into how the Singum-Network works and interacts with ones own body but also into how to connect the networks of different living beings and manipulate it.
Psychology and Synchronisity are key subjects in this domain, after these have been understood by students they learn how to "connect" different networks and share effects. Connected individuals are able to talk to each other via a kind of telepathy, feel each others emotions and even share physical feelings.
As such, this domain can be highly dangerous for the user and being subjected to this domain and a key aspect in learning to wield this domain is to shield oneself from negative effects of a connection while still being able to use the positive effects, this is commonly called: being the "Leader" in a given Network-Connection.
Skilled wielders are even able to seal of the use of Signum of other individuals.

Electricity

The Electricity domain deals with the obvious electricity as well as with magnetism, anatomy and mechanics.
In the center of this education stand the 64-Vital points. The physical training is highly focussed on mobility, accuracy and the strengthening of the fingers and hand. Earlier mechanic courses teach what materials conduct electro-Signum, while later courses focus on building and smithing contraptions.
The other focus is medicine, here the focus lays on accupuncture and the afformentioned vital points. Courses entail teachings in mechanics, to either know what materials conduct electro-signum or Students learn 16 Vitalpoints per school-year and have to succeed in a test to be accepted into the next course.

Power

The domain of power focusses on the manipulation of matter and is the only domain that doesn't solely focus on training the body, but training with weapons.
The Power-Domain has 4 core principles:

1. Gathering matter aka. increasing weight
2. Releasing matter aka. decreasing weight
3. Concentrating matter aka. creating of objects
4. Altering the attributes of created objects

Each principle is taught over one school year respectively with the gathering and releasing of matter being often taught simultaniously.
The physical training always runs parallel to any other subject. There are 10 common types of weapons used in the teaching of Power-Signum, most schools thought, focus on 5 weapons from which each student has to master at least 3.
While this domain is mainly focussed on oneself, higher ranking Power-Wielders are able to also increase and decrease the weight of other objects as well as to create gravitational fields.

Mind

The Mind-Domain is closely linked with research and the manipulation of Signum.
Students of this domain are very knowledgeable in every domain as well as one research field of their choice. As such, rather than physical training, students have to take one or two courses of a different field. E.g. Biology, Physics, Chemisty, Psychology.
The focus of the domain itself is the manipulation of Signum, this encompasses three things:

1. Negation
2. Reflection
3. Absorption

To even be able to do these things, a great knowledge of each domain is necessary and as such the first year focusses strictly on theory and information gathering. Students are taught how to effectively gather information, planning and using their Signum to absorb wisdom from books written with special Saxum-Ink.
Talented Students often take courses in how to encrypt and decrypt messages using Mind-Signum as well as reading "parameters" from objects and beings. This parameters can range from accurately "reading" an objects weight/height to getting a good picture on the physical and mental state of living beings.

Body

The Body-Domain teaches biology as well as the manipulation of ones own body, be it adepting parts of ones body or transforming it wholly.
To transform ones body even partly an in-depth knowledge of the target aspect or animal is needed. Due to the fact, that the transformation process puts huge strain on ones body the physical training encompasses endurance training as well as training to endure pain. The movements needed for transformation orient themselves on animal movements, here it is also important to channel the animals mindset as well as all the knowledge about it.
Prospective students first choose three aspects of animals they want to master until the end of their first year. These Aspects can range from Claws to Wings and more. A huge part of the first years curriculum is the danger of failed transformation. If a transformation is not perfect, risks range from short- to long-term paralysis, to going berserk as the targeted animal Students will be intentionally and unintentionally brought into this state to get them used to it and teach other people how to react to it. So called "Chimera transformations" are also addressed, so the mixing of two complete animals, which most often end in death.
The following years concentrate on the complete transformation into land dwelling, water dwelling and airborne animals.
Talented students are taught how to mix aspects into their transformation, giving their bird transformation a shell for example. Because those teachings come dangerously close to chimera transformations, only 1-5 students per year are taught in these fields.

Emotion

The domain of emotion concerns itself with the manipulation of emotions in living beings.
Students learn different causes of emotions, how to clearly differentiate them and also how to evoke their own emotions on demand. Physical training encompasses a wide variety of different modern dances while the studies themself concentrate on acting classes, writing and playing instruments.
Each student learns step by step how to invoke emotions in other people via Signum. These not only encompass basic feelings like happiness, sadness or anger but also more complex feelings like being encouraged, depressed or inspired.

Dream

The dream domain deals with how the mind affects the body with a special focus on hypnotherapy
Students learn psychology, somnology as well as biology and how the mind interacts with the body. To channel dream Signum, most people prefer the usage of slow court dances like waltz.
The first year concentrates on the emitting of ones signum to trigger trance like conditions in the targets minds and cause hallucinations and illusions. Further years teach how to manipulate the senses of their target as well as growing their range and radius to afflict more than one target.
Later years teach the concept of "Dream Walking" where a Dream-Wielder projects part of themselves into the mind of a sleeping target to gather information or help them working through unknown trauma.
Talented Wielders can subtly change the perception of people so that it seems they are controlling fate itself.