Arcana
Everything that is, was, or ever will be, is a part of an all-encompassing Tapestry. To say that the Tapestry exists would be a misrepresentation. The Tapestry of existence is beyond concepts such as existence or non-existence. As far as understanding of reality goes, Tapestry is the source and origin of everything else, and the Arcana are its aspects, small facets creating individual patterns in the weave.
There are twelve known Arcanas: Prime, Force, Fate, Time, Mind, Space, Spirit, Life, Death, Matter, Void, and Vision. The last two fell to The Nightmare's corruption around the time of the Worldbreach. Practitioners of the Donnemeno avoid invoking Void or Vision, and knowledge of these Arcanas and their Pattern was systematically purged from most arcane teachings.
Primal Sources
Each Arcana has its Primal Source through which its power flows into the Planes. Primal Sources manifest in different ways and forms and an untrained eye is entirely oblivious to their presence. In most cases a Primal Source reveals itself even to arcane practitioners only once in their lifetime, in their moments of Awakening.
These six adjacent Planes of existence each hold two Primal Source:
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Telluria (material plane)
Holds Primal Sources of Void and Vision -
Aether (ethereal plane)
Holds Primal Sources of Prime and Force -
Arcadia (astral plane)
Holds Primal Sources of Fate and Time -
Pandemonium (Abaddon)
Holds Primal Sources of Mind and Space -
Arborea (The First World)
Holds Primal Sources of Spirit and Life -
Stygia (shadow plane)
Holds Primal Sources of Death and Matter
Encountering a Primal Source during Awakening is a life-changing experience. Connection with the Arcana provides power beyond description, but such power always comes at a cost. In many cases the cost of a failed Awakening is the adept's sanity, or their life.
Brief Overview of Arcana
Prime
Everything is, essentially, energy. Even magic itself is energy, in a way. Prime controls that energy in its raw and unrefined state. A practitioner of Prime can manipulate this energy, allowing the mage to alter the spells of others, imbue mundane objects with magical properties, dispel the works of other mages, shield herself from magical power, materialize raw magic into a physical form or absorb it back, read the nature of a being through its aura, etc.
Force
Where the arcanum of Prime controls the flow and form of raw magic, Force arcanum controls all forms of energy and force, natural or artificial, found in the material world, including heat, light, electricity, radiation, gravity and kinetic energy. It cannot affect raw magic or the mystical energies of other supernatural forces, but is nevertheless a very powerful Arcanum, allowing mages to throw fireballs or call down lightning. A practitioner of Force can fly, become invisible, hurl lightning, or cause earthquakes.
Fate
Fate's purview covers all aspects of destiny and probability, though it cannot predict the future - peering into the future is within the scope of the Time arcanum. Common uses for Fate are creating good or ill fortune, bestowing blessings and curses, mystically sealing an oath, or predicting or influencing random events. A practitioner of Fate arcanum can level a geas on another, forcing this person to do the mage’s whim. They may increase their luck or that of another to incredible levels, or decrease the fortune of a foe.
Time
The arcanum of Time governs interactions with the flow of time as perceived by the practitioner. Spells within the purview of this arcanum grant the mage a wide range of abilities influencing such things as knowledge of future events and the ability to see into the past. A practitioner of Time can look back in the past or ahead into the future, alter time's flow around them or others, and, in extreme cases, travel backwards and forwards in time, or rewrite their own history.
Mind
Through practice of this arcanum the mage connects with the minds of all thinking beings, such as humanoids, animals, spirits and even ghosts or other supernatural creatures. Powers granted by this arcanum include telepathy, mind wiping, thought control, using people like puppets; are just some of the powers available to a mage proficient in the Mind arcanum. Mind Mages can raise the power of theirs or someone else’s mind, create hallucinations, implant thoughts or false memories, or simply batter at an enemy’s body with sheer force of will.
Space
It commands both physical and metaphysical space, useful not only for travel and viewing distant events, but for erecting wards and determining the connections between things. Common applications of the Space Arcanum include teleportation, opening rifts and portals through space, scrying, improving spatial awareness and manipulating the sympathetic connections between objects and/or people. Space governs the manipulation of distance, dimension, and scale.
Spirit
The Spirit arcanum enables the practitioner to perceive twilight spirits, command them to do her bidding, cross the Gauntlet between worlds and, like the Death Arcanum, affect the human soul. A mage skilled in the use of this arcanum can see into other Planes or enter them, summon spirits into objects, creatures, or directly into the material realm, and even create his own spirit court. Spirit magic however cannot affect ghosts, just as Death arcanum cannot affect spirits; they are different classes of being. Though both Spirit and Death may be used to affect souls, Spirit is limited to protecting or restoring them; Death grants greater control, though there are some effects it cannot duplicate.
Life
The Life arcanum grants control over the physical forms of all living things; Life spells might heal wounds, transform the bodies of living creatures, spread disease or exert gross physical control over animals and plants. A Life practitioner can change her shape, make her body stronger, alter her physical appearance, control the behaviour of life forms all the way up to humanity, and raise life from one state to another. The Undead - even thinking, previously living humans like vampires or ghosts - cannot be affected by Life magic; they fall under the purview of Death.
Matter
Practitioners of this Arcanum can repair broken objects, transmute substances into other substances, shape solids, liquids, and gases as they please, annihilate matter, and even create matter out of nothing. A Master of Matter can combine the arcanum with Prime arcanum to create a unique magical substance known as Thaumium. This material is expensive and difficult to create, but it is prized by mages because items made from it can directly interact with magic.
Death
As well as ghosts and the undead, this arcanum's effects include things metaphysically associated with death, including darkness, decay and, most horrific of all, the stealing of souls. Its practitioners can steal and trap souls, speak with the dead, siphon lifespan from a target, raise zombies, and, with sufficient skill, even bring the dead back to life. Death allows control and command of ghosts in much the same way that Spirit affects spirits. This arcanum grants unparalleled power over the soul, and is justly feared for this reason.
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