Magic

On Valerick, Magic is seen as a necessary risk, but is also seen as taboo and terrifying. There are strict laws in place governing its use. Magic comes from the Void, it is inherently unstable and inherently dangerous, as energy flowing from the Elemental Planes is not pure anymore, not since the Sundering. Now the Void envelopes our world, and even the purest of elemental energy must pass through that tainted realm on its way to our world, and carries the seeds of that taint with it. So even with proper training, there are always inherent risks.

By the decree of Empress Cyndra Fiorabrynd the I, almost a thousand years ago, the first Empress of current historical record that any can follow, the first to hold the throne that history remembers at the end of, and after the Sundering, arcane magic is not illegal. It is however heavily sanctioned. Unless you are an elf, whom have different rules, given they are born of magic, any child whom shows magical potential is to be turned over to the nearest Magisters Collegiate. The Collegiate is a strict organization and order. Only magisters formally educated, trained, and graduating get a license and are allowed to use magic, and even then there are many strict laws on when and where and in what situations magic use is legal.

Of course this does not mean that the only people using such magicks are Collegiate sanctioned magisters, far from it. In urban centers, an apostate, or even further, a druid or a mystic would be very unlikely for you to meet, and even less likely to be capable of being in the city for long without being found out if they were plying their crafts. A true Witch on the other hand, is even less likely. But in the villages and more rural areas around Valerick, especially the further one gets from the infant modernized transportation systems, like Sky-Ports and Railyards, and hereby the further and further from the likes of Exemplaris or Witch-Hunter Orders you are, the more such people as Druids, Mystics and Witches are to be found. These folks embrace lost arts, and forms of magick that are generally considered unsafe, too risky, dangerous, or downright heretical in nature. Geomancy, Hedgecraft, Witchcraft, all the way into the truly depraved, such as, Nightmarelogy, or even Necromancy.

Furthermore, in a different vein, the magicks of the gods, which are very different. Divine power unleashed, both of the Gods, and of the Ruined Ones, both can exist. Shamans to the Ruined Ones, though wielding the Void for their magic, it is no way Arcane, and therefore, in no way can any Magister counter or stop such things. They pray to their dark masters and are offered the power of Blights in return, and sometimes in rare episodes of true terror, the power of true Calamities. The same is true of the Ascended and those so blessed. Blessings and Miracles.

Alchemical devices of the more complex nature also are included here, because Alchemy, though a Science, is in some ways a magic all its own to many, and many of the ingredients for these devices do include materials heavy with magick.

The reason magick is looked upon with such suspicion and has such stringent rules and laws, is because of the source of the Manna Flows that feed the spells of magisters, druids and witches alike. Far to the north and south of Valerick, at the poles of Tariek, are the jagged tears in reality known as the Eyes of Madness. These holes in reality are direct portals to the Void, and though contained, they surge and ebb and from them, besides the horrors and nightmares one might expect to come forth with some frequency, there flows constantly currents of Manna, the raw primordial energies that are a part of everything. These flows, these winds, these currents clash in the ground, at sea, in the skys, broiling and surging, ebbing and flowing, and permeating the world with the arcane. It is from these currents, these flows, that magisters, druids, witches and their ilk draw the energies for their spells.