An Exploration of Magic

An Exploration of Magic in Selenia
In the world of Selenia, magic is woven into the fabric of daily life. While much of it is seen as mundane, reserved for everyday convenience, some forms of magic require rigorous study or rare connections to ancient forces. The schools of magic are distinct, each with its own practices, societal roles, and cultural implications.

Mundane Magic: The Magic of the Everyday

Most of Selenia's inhabitants have access to mundane magic—a convenient but unremarkable aspect of their lives. These spells include mending broken items, creating light in dark spaces, cleaning, and other small abilities. Mundane magic is taught casually within communities, with parents passing down basic skills to their children as one might teach any practical craft. Artisans, householders, and travelers alike rely on it for small tasks that improve quality of life and productivity.
However, even within mundane magic, there are distinctions. For instance, a mender in a bustling market might perform minor enchantments on wares to make them more attractive or durable, while a lantern-maker could enhance lights with more brilliant or lasting effects.

The Schools of Magic

The higher levels of magic in Selenia are classified into distinct schools, each requiring dedication, study, and often a natural affinity. Here’s a look at each school, its capabilities, and its societal role:
Life Magic
Life Magic is deeply revered in Selenia, as it includes the power to heal and enhance vitality. Practitioners are often healers, botanists, or protectors of the natural world, capable of closing wounds, accelerating plant growth, or preserving life force. Due to its nurturing qualities, Life Magic practitioners often hold esteemed roles in communities, sometimes serving as village medics or advisors to rulers.
Key Abilities: Healing injuries, enhancing plant growth, restoring vitality, extending life force.
Cultural Influence: Healers are considered wise figures, often called upon to mediate disputes due to their association with preservation and peace.
Elemental Magic
Elemental Magic is one of the most versatile schools, granting control over fire, water, earth, and air. Some advanced practitioners might even specialize further, wielding rare elements like metal or lightning. This magic is highly practical, employed by architects, engineers, and warriors alike. In battle, elemental mages are formidable forces, capable of shaping the environment to protect allies or vanquish foes.
Key Abilities: Manipulation of natural elements, limited creation of fire or water, elemental shields, minor weather influence.
Cultural Influence: Elementalists often work closely with city planners, builders, and defense forces. They are sometimes divided into guilds or orders based on their elemental specialty.
Creation Magic
Creation Magic focuses on the manifestation and enhancement of physical objects. Although its base forms can overlap with mundane magic, advanced Creation Magic allows practitioners to craft temporary items or reinforce objects in ways that surpass regular mending. Artisans skilled in Creation Magic are highly sought after, as they can temporarily conjure tools, strengthen weapons, or even create ethereal constructs to assist in tasks.
Key Abilities: Creation of simple objects, reinforcement of structures, minor illusions tied to physical forms, enchantment of tools.
Cultural Influence: Creation magicians are often guild-affiliated, especially in artisan communities. Some also work as assistants to higher nobility, enhancing armor or weaponry for special ceremonies.
Illusion Magic
Illusionists manipulate perception and appearance, able to create vivid images, disguise themselves, or alter others’ perception of reality. Unlike glamours used for minor aesthetic changes, Illusion Magic goes much deeper, allowing casters to craft entire false scenarios. Illusionists are often hired as entertainers, spies, or covert agents, as their skills in deception can sway perceptions without physical conflict.
Key Abilities: Crafting illusions, minor mind alterations, disguise, concealment spells.
Cultural Influence: Known for subtlety, illusionists are often mistrusted yet respected. While some are part of espionage networks, others become famous as performers in large cities.
Astral Magic
A mystical and enigmatic field, Astral Magic allows practitioners to tap into the energy of the stars and celestial bodies. Astral mages can engage in dream-walking, limited precognition, and summoning ethereal guardians. This rare school is often pursued by those who seek deep knowledge of the cosmos, and its practitioners are revered as sages and oracles. Astral magic is also rumored to provide glimpses into the world beyond Selenia, though at a high personal cost.
Key Abilities: Dream-walking, minor foresight, astral projection, communion with celestial forces.
Cultural Influence: Astral mages are seen as scholars, often serving as advisors to rulers or philosophers. They rarely engage in combat, but their insights are highly valued.
Obscure Schools of Magic
Some forms of magic remain shrouded in secrecy and suspicion, such as Necromancy and Control Magic. Necromancers study the manipulation of life and death, often seen as taboo, as they tap into energies associated with the underworld. Control Magic, the ability to influence or even command others, is considered even more dangerous, banned in most parts of Selenia. Those practicing these arts typically do so in secrecy or exile, with small, hidden cabals existing on society’s fringes.
Key Abilities: Necromancers can summon spirits or raise the dead temporarily; control mages can impose their will on weaker minds, albeit temporarily.
Cultural Influence: Obscure mages are rarely accepted openly in society. Many fear their abilities and associate them with dark intentions.

Divine Magic: The Rare Gift

Divine magic is the rarest and most awe-inspiring form of magic, bestowed only upon chosen individuals by the gods or inherited through bloodlines marked by divine lineage. Those possessing divine magic have abilities that cannot be replicated by study alone; they are born with powers that might heal, protect, or devastate on a massive scale. The divine are revered, sometimes even worshiped, as their gifts are believed to be a direct sign of favor from the gods.
Key Abilities: Divine healing, sacred protection, summoning celestial beings, rare glimpses into the gods' plans.
Bloodlines of the Divine: Some ancient families carry divine bloodlines, granted when mortals once consorted with the gods. While these gifts may fade over generations, some families retain divine traits, making them targets for those who seek to harness or exploit these powers.

Divine Magic: Domain-Based Abilities

In Selenia, each god or goddess presides over specific aspects—such as Drava over healing or Edarr over storms. Those blessed with divine magic from a particular deity gain abilities that reflect these domains. For example, a devotee of Drava may heal wounds or protect life, while a follower of Edarr might summon storms or influence the weather. This domain-based magic uniquely ties practitioners to their deity’s essence, making them conduits of divine influence.
These domain-aligned abilities not only distinguish divine practitioners but also place them in society as living symbols of their gods. The role they embody, whether healer, protector, or warrior, profoundly shapes both their path and their responsibilities.

Clerics

Clerics derive their abilities directly from the specific powers and values of their deities, becoming extensions of their patron’s influence in the world. Here’s how it might look with different gods and goddesses:
Amalee (Home and Hearth): Clerics of Amalee channel powers related to protection, comfort, and resilience, often enhancing their allies’ endurance or creating wards that safeguard homes and communities.
Astruscoil (Knowledge): Devotees of Astruscoil wield abilities that enhance learning, discern hidden truths, and reveal secrets. They might receive visions or divine insights to guide their path.
Athos (Lies and Deception): Clerics of Athos specialize in illusion, charm, and subtle manipulation, using these abilities to gather information or influence events indirectly.
Hyara (War): Hyara’s clerics are formidable warriors, blessed with combat prowess, increased strength, and protective auras, which they channel to lead in battle or defend sacred spaces.
Each cleric's abilities are thus defined by the domain of their deity, allowing them to serve as specialized agents of divine will in their communities.

Consequences of Magic

Mundane Magic: Minor spells for mending or cleaning are safe and low-risk, but overuse can lead to fatigue. Craftspeople may rely heavily on these skills, creating dependency on low-level magic for everyday tasks.
Life Magic: Healing or extending life can strain the caster's vitality, and failing to master balance may cause a healer to absorb ailments. Practitioners are encouraged to ground themselves with restorative rituals.
Elemental Magic: Manipulating elements requires constant vigilance and discipline. Uncontrolled elemental spells can backfire, causing accidental fires or environmental damage. Cities employing elementalists face periodic elemental drift, where seasons or landscapes shift due to magic’s interference.
Creation Magic: Conjuring physical objects drains the caster's energy and can disrupt natural resources. If overused, Creation Magic causes material fatigue, where local resources like stone or metal become brittle, increasing community maintenance costs.
Illusion Magic: Illusionists risk illusion sickness, where their perceptions blur, unable to discern reality from their own creations. Communities dependent on illusionists may fall prey to misinformation or overuse illusions in place of genuine beauty.
Astral Magic: With astral projection or foresight, there’s always the risk of losing part of oneself in the astral realm. Prolonged use causes star madness, a condition marked by fragmented thoughts and disturbed sleep. Astral mages often face community isolation due to their erratic behaviors.

Necromancy and Control Magic: These schools face the heaviest consequences. Necromancers who channel death energy risk becoming corrupted, eventually showing physical signs of decay. Control mages lose part of their free will the more they manipulate others. Both types of magic attract fear and persecution.
Divine Magic: Using divine magic without reverence or purpose can cause spiritual estrangement, severing one's connection with the deity. Divine casters may face the Divine Fracture, where powers wane or manifest in uncontrolled bursts, depending on the god's response to the caster’s actions.
In Selenia, some individuals may unknowingly possess magical abilities, leading to dire consequences. When these latent powers surge without control, an Aetherial Collapse can occur, resulting in catastrophic explosions and widespread devastation. The severity of the explosion correlates with the individual's magical potential—those with dormant divine abilities can unleash untold destruction. Communities often face the risk of these accidents, creating a fear of the unknown among those who might be secretly gifted, while also fostering stigma against anyone suspected of hidden powers.

Societal Impact of Selenian Magic

The structure of magic in Selenia creates a society where individuals find roles based on their magical abilities. Life mages often become community healers, elemental mages guard or shape cities, and illusionists perform or spy. Divine magic-wielders are rare, yet they wield tremendous influence and respect. The mundane magic accessible to most provides an underlying sense of security and practicality, while the rarer schools inspire awe, fear, or reverence.
In the noble courts, mages are often recruited to advise or aid in strategic endeavors. Border territories are guarded by elementalists and life mages, and astral sages guide rulers with insights. Meanwhile, necromancers and control mages are driven underground, either to hidden cults or isolated sanctuaries.
The divine, blessed by gods, exist as legends. They are seen as both a blessing and a threat, especially by those in power who fear that divine influence may one day disrupt their own. In this complex tapestry, magic does more than cast spells—it shapes destinies, alters social structures, and defines Selenia’s path forward.

Type

Metaphysical