The Basic

 I am Balthazar, Balthazar of Klausdhar to present myself in the usual way civilized people are supposed to on this planet. Pleased to meet you, welcome to my first didactic text about magic for lay people.
      I am not from this planet, and since you are reading this chances are that you are not from Sharitarn either. My original planet is Earth and up there we have no knowledge of Xar, the principle of aspect of reality that allow will to directly affect reality in more ways than usual. Another Earthling translated it as "magic" and decided to add a adjective to it for the sake of complicate his explanations. This fellow, Altair, calls what they have here "ostensible magic". 
    If you are from Earth (what the fact that you are reading a text in English about Xar strongly suggests to me) then you already know what "magic" means for our History  of Religion, of Science and of fiction. 
    As archmage Altair explains in his texts "Xar" in the fuel of magic, the magic itself, the knowledge related to it and actually anything else that has something to do with it. Or with any other field or competence that isn't safe or available for common men. The therm is far too polysemic to be practical and to make things worse it is also sacred in a non-religious way that smells far too much like confessional faith. Unfortunately is impossible to avoid this term, because in is at the core of every conversation the Xar Castes (Mage Castes) have about the common element that defines them.   
   I must ask your tolerance with some inevitable haziness them, promising to be as clear and simple as our object of study here allows me.  

   

   Xar

       Where exists something existes Xar, it is in all Universes but in different stages of self organization. Altair calls the higher degrees of internal order in the Xar "purity", what seems imprecise to me since there is no external source of contamination, "impure Xar" isn't Xar mixed with something else, just scrambled Xar. Regardless, I will use the archmage's terminology since it is  well  established in ii circles. Just keep in mind that isn't a perfect metaphor. 
       Universes where Xar is impure have no possibility or develop life. In a higher level of purity you hace life, but not language. When we reach the purity of Xar that allows intelligent beings to develop communication and derive complex concepts from simplest ones we are close to the levels that make non-talking animals capable to evolve powers that look much like the spells made by sigraxes and mages on Sharitarn. 
       By strict definition the spoken languages are "natural magic", there is no difference between language and the telepathic power pafix plants have to attract animals and make them sleep above them. Is possible to describe both in terms of biology but a simple divination spell shows that something else is in place in both cases. Something that is not involved in the capacity of breath air, digest food and perform photosynthesis.           
     One step above that we reach the point where talking species may evolve capacities for use their natural "like magic" powers at will, developing individual potentials in different directions. Them they can "learn magic", like humans and some other species learn music and dance. The possibilities will differ from one Universe to the next, since the physical constants affected by the will are not the same. 
    Each time the Vortex touches a Universe for the first time,  by bringing  a person from up there to Sharitarn, the interaction fixes a paradigm. Things from that Universe will exist in this Universe according to that paradigm, making this planet a combination of countless natural and magical laws. The main element in that are the physical and magical constants of Sharitarn Universe, but there is a lot more, and a constant influx of new elements of unpredictable effects.                 The "Paths of Magic", or "Paths of Power" are uses of Xar that are not entirely well adapted to the nature of this Universe, magic schools brought by iis and not yet translated into Ways of Magic. "Natural powers" are capacities low animals and some intelligent (locals say "talking") species  have that are similar to spells, but inherited by genetic and not as flexible as actual spells are. Giant females reduce their size to about the same scale of humans when they are pregnant, and all giants can learn how to do the same at will, with some effort: is a natural power of that specie. 
    Ways of Magic are the "true" magic, what Sharitarnes recognize as magic. The disciplines designed to work in optimal level in this Universe, taking advantage of the core nature of it.         Is impossible to say for sure how those Ways would work in other Universes because there is no way to leave the Universe of Sharitarn. Theoretically spells learned here should work in other realities, but not as well as they work here. Some say that learning magic as it is learned here would be impossible, or less likely. I consider that mere speculation. 
 

    
     AWAKE XAR       

     The process of teach magic is one of the most characteristic traits of magical Way, if follow lows any local sigrax will recognize, no matter his specie or culture. I will not go in details about why things are as they are, what I can say without make that text absurdly confusing for uninitiated is that I am not describing cultural options here. Those are objective limitations most nations have tried to bend, countless mages over the Ages have fought against, but no one could overcome (with one partial but noticeable exception: the Tattoo Magic Way of forest people Maothis)            "ALL TALKING SPECIES GENERATE SOME INDIVIDUAS WITH MAGIC POTENTIAL." 
        "ONLY TALKING SPECIES GENERATE INDIVIDUALS WITH MAGIC POTENTIAL"            "INDIVIDUALS WITH MAGIC POTENTIAL ARE ALWAYS RARE EXCEPTIONS IN THEIR SPECIES"  
   
     
       That is the basic of how things work. 
      Magic potential is born with you, or you don't have it. Without it you have no chance to learn magic, you cannot even use the spells implanted in magic items like weapons and clothes. You can be affected by magic just fine (unfortunately to you, nine times in ten) but many magic potions and elixires don't work in you. Takes a particularly good alchemist, with some expensive ingredients, to mix potions that work in people who have no potential. 
    Have the potential is the same than not have it in all aspects but one: you may have your potential awaken. 
    Alchemists have the potential awaken, and burned in the moment it awakened. They cannot do magic, or learn Magic Ways, but they do active the spells in magic items whenever they came in contact with those objects. Is not something an alchemist can choose not to do, he touches a magic sword and it manifest its power. Not always a good thing for the alchemist, but allows him to use magic tools to repair armors and weapons, or dismantle some to mix their parts in creative ways. In general any spell can be put in a object, what means an alchemist with the right equipment is almost as good as a sigrax or a mage. 
    Sigraxes and mages are the "magic users" according to Altair, properly speaking they are the magic casters, since alchemist do use magic as I just explained to you.   
    In case you are curious about I am a sigrax myself. "Anti-mage", the term don't means someone who is against magic but a follower of a magic Way named Anti-magic. This Way is completely useless ninety nine percent of the time, since it does not work in anything except Xar. I am not sure why I decided that would be a good idea to dedicate my existence to follow that Way. On the other hand, we do learn a great deal of Metamagic and is not a sign of vanity for me to say that we understand how magic works and what it is better than anyone else. What our spells basically do is nullify the spells, and magic powers, of others.              Sigraxes and mages have magic potential awaken, that allow us to use all the tools alchemists can use. However, we can make spells. Mages are in a distant mountain top in terms of brute power, far above any of us, but what they do are the same spells we do. Just in larger scale, and without need to stop for rest. 
     Magic potential awaken _and not burned_has some minor advantages, aside the capacity for learn spells. I will not talk about spells here, but I want to finish by mentioning those secondary booms: 

  

SECONDARY BOOMS OF BEING 

SPELL CASTER

       1. We don't have to eat or drink. 
         Sigraxes and mages can use the Xar of their magical bodies to sustain themselves. For us it means sacrifice our capacity to make spells, spells take a lot of energy, and they usually are a better investment of it. However, some now and them you may be in a circumstance where you can take advantage of the magical energy to replace food and water. Is healthy enough, in case you would like to know, and if obesity is a concern to you I was told it may be solved by that method. 
      2.  We have a natural intuition for magic essences         
        There is a lot of divination spells around, but that is not it. We can actually feel strong magical forces and follow their direction if they have one. Takes attention, but we can notice the Xar exchanges between our magic body and the environment. That makes harder for low animals with magic like powers to hunt us, unless they don't use their powers for that. 
      3.  We attract magic to us.
       Not necessarily a boom, but it do happens. Is a constant and pervasive characteristic of our core being.                Is less like magnetic fields and more like gravitational forces. You may not see it working, but it is there. People and things that share magical nature move in the direction of each other. Any given day a ship with no magic user floating on wild waters has little a chance to bump it a non-intelligent monster or natural phenomenon that has magic power or essence, ad one sigrax and the chances raise considerably. Ad half dozen sigraxes and in a few weeks the chances approach mathematical certainty.     
        Is fortuitous accident, but is not random. Just look like random. 
        To me that means that I have a unfair advantage over most people, or even alchemists, if I choose to leave for a walk hoping to find a magical weapon or jewelry. I am more likely to find magical items than they are. On the other hand, the weapon and the jewelry may both be with a hostile fellow or in the belly of some large beast who likes to eat undead sigraxes like myself. And if I don't want to find those magic items, and collateral attachments, my will in that subject makes no difference; I will probably bump into them any way.

  STUFF and Magic

   Generally speaking magic on Sharitarn does not demand material ingredients, books, or words of power. 
   Noticeable exceptions do exist. Enchantment Magic needs something to enchant, and a lot of parallel ingredients to flourish its full  potential. Dimensional magic also needs a continent of some sort, a bag or a room, something that can be closed. Hetero-Somatic Transmutation needs living organs of animals or plants to implant them in someone, in order to grant the properties of the specie which has that organ to the members of other specie which don't. Aside cases like that, magic flows from will to realization with no essential need for mediation. 
    Sigraxes and mages place power in objects and formulas all the time, on purpose or not. And is possible to use a combination of ingredients to make a spell easier, or more powerful than the magic user would be able to make it all by himself. However, the spell can be made without any gesture, word or material ingredient just fine, will be the same spell just less powerful or harder to finish.

MAGIC IN TIME

Each magical Way provides a particular set of tools, and some are more inclined towards improvisation than others.
Usually, for most magic Ways, a sigrax learns a small number of "expensive" spells. Those he need expend months preparing, even years in some cases, and a equivalent period recharging each time he uses. The EP (Energetic Perimeter) is the most typical example for that category.
Depending on what is his priority the sigrax will invest what is left of his daily Xar in spells that take weeks or days to make, or left most his energy circulating free to be used in dirty and cheap but instantaneous spells.
In any case, once the spell is finished it is ready to be used. Can be manifested any time the magic user wishes to.
Sigraxes have to balance carefully their Xar. Those who follow some Ways have more to worry than others, Illusion spells cost little (in general) and illusionists tend to recover their internal Xar quickly. Self Somatic Transmutation is so exhausting that those transmutators seldom manage to do any spell from other Ways, they usually invest almost all they have in permanently improve magically their own bodies and live with that.
Most Ways allow some sort of balance between improvisation and planning. And most magic users keep a portfolio of spells from other Ways at hand, to complement the spells of their own Way.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane

Magic and Time (in a larger scale)
Right now you will walk the entire surface of the Four Continents and will not find a single flying cavalry. There is no flying ships facing each other on battles in the sky, hundreds of kilometers above ground. Very few mounted warriors have flying mounts, and none of such beasts can be found for sale on the Main Markets. You will find some warriors who are from non-human species with the natural capacity of fly, mostly wild folk, but they are so rare that you would be excused for walk the entire continent and never notice one. However, there was other periods where things where quite different. There was long periods when most nations where build on floating islands passing through each other in the sky. 
Even during this Age there was important flying cavalries. Matched in the sky by flying vessels made of wood and magic. You still find the treaties of Tactic and Strategy for combat in the air in the oldest parts os the Libraries of most Noble Houses and Warrior Caste Head-Quarters. Nowadays people think about flying mounts as if they where teleportation spells, but that's far from the true. To use effectively a flying beast of war one must take under consideration matters like the altitude the animal can fly, the atmospheric conditions, the velocity and the distance it can cover without stop to rest, and also how much ground the beast need to leave the ground. 
What is like teleportation spells, actually, is every spell of the magic Way of Teleportation. There was periods in the past when flying ships where quite common, and even flying mountains and islands, likewise there was times when barely every middle sized feudal nation had a handful of teleportation sigraxes at its service. Either as mercenaries or as regular swords. 
Flying combat and teleportation magic are no where to be seemed now. Those who still remember the spells or can find a magical object with this kind of magic are (with a eventual exception or two) non-humans with long life expectancy, in many cases former humans who are now undeads. 
As many other things in culture magic spells and Ways are subjected to the whims of fashion. Sometimes is easy to explain why a given Way as lost (or almost so) but more often than not there is no true explanation to be given. The Way just lost importance, and was replaced for others that seemed more interesting for those who had the magic potential during a couple of generations.