Channelers

The predecessor magical traditions to those currently used in Corval, Channelers used contracts with elemental spirits to learn magic relatively rapidly, similar to Atavism. Channelers were linked to three particular elemental courts, which were virtually always conflicting with each other.

• Court of the Blazing Sun
• Court of Flowing Waters
• Court of the Endless Sky

Due to elementals generally refusing to make contracts with multiple individuals, this led to each faction having a finite number of more powerful individuals. Due to this, the ambitious were known to arrange the assassination of those who held contracts they desired, and numerous wars broke out between factions inside and outside the elemental courts. This also proved the art's downfall.
Due to the conflicts between courts, other Corvallian magi developed the Corvallian Spheres, in part to separate themselves from the traditions of the channelers and make their magic useless to their foes, but also to allow anyone to learn magic. This allowed them to raise far larger numbers of magi, and in the end they purged the majority of the warmongering courts from Corval and established the beginnings of the Corvallian Mageocracy.