Magic

“Magic is the art of circumventing the normal. [...] The stars march in order across the sky, the seasons fall one after the other with lockstepped regularity, and men and women live and die. If that does not happen, it's magic, the first warping of the universe, a few floorboards that are bent out of shape, waiting for industrious hands to pry them up.”

Toriel is a realm filled with potent magics and mighty beings. Since the dawn of time, these forces have influenced the cosmos, setting the stars in motion and the destiny of countless worlds and mortal civilizations. To this day, no one fully masters the weave. for example, there is no recorded instance of 10th level spell or higher, even if it is believed that the great extinction was caused by something of this power level.

The Elements

The elements of fire, air, earth, and water serve as the basic building blocks of all matter in the physical universe. Shamanic cultures have long sought to live in harmony with, or assert dominion over, the elements. To do so, they called upon the primordial forces of Spirit. The weave is often referred to as the fifth element by shamans and wizards.

Elemental duality

Elements can influence a variety of emotional positive and negative states:

• Fire influences passion and fury
• Air influences cunning and madness
• Earth influences stability and stubbornness
• Water influences tranquility and indecisiveness
• Weave influences chaos and change

Different types of magic

Spell are classified in 8 main different schools, more precision and detail can be added to each spell, but all correspond to one of those 8 school: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation.
In addition to those main schools, lesser-known schools exist, such as Chronomancy, Gravitational Magic. Some of the main school may also me subdivided into sub-school, an evocation wizard can often be some kind of hydromancer or pyromancer.
There's another important way magic can be categorized: Arcane or Divine.
Arcane magic, used by wizards, warlocks, sorcerers and bards draws directly on the weave to produce their effects. Divine magic, used by clerics, druids, paladins and rangers, is mediated by divine powers, gods, the primal forces of nature, or a paladin's sacred oath. Both types of magic can be quite potent.

Main schools

• Abjuration block attacks or negate harmsful effects.
• Conjuration transport objects and creatures or bring them into existence from thin air.
• Divintation Reveal infromationsuch as forgotten secrets, the location of hidden things, or glimpsesof future events.
• Enchantment influence or control others though entrancement or commands.
• Evocation maniupulate the weave to create a desired effect, including the creation of fire, lightning, or beams of lights.
• Illusion deceive the senses with magical trickery, right in front of one's eyes or sometimes inside the mind.
• Necromancy use the cosmic forces of life, death and undeath to strenghten or drain energy froma target.
• Transmutation alter the nature of things or creatures frotheir original form.

Lesser sschools

• Chronomancy manipulate time and the outcome of any given futur.
• Graviturgy is the art to affect bodies of matter, drawing them together or driving them apart.
• Manipulationis the art of shifting and redesigning spells as they explode into being.

The laws of magic

"Arcane magic doesn't follow normal rules of nature. Opposites definitely do not attract."

— Belmaril

Law of Complexity. The more complex a working is, the more likely it is to fail; a wise mage works within the parameters he deems necessary, and neither more nor less than that.
Law of Contradiction. When a mage's Arts press against the laws of what is accepted as real, reality itself will press back upon him with force equal to how strongly his workings violate that accepted reality.
Law of Conservation. The Weave cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be manipulated, reformed, catalyzed or absorbed.
Law of Sympathy. When someone handles an item, they leave a part of their own magical aura attached to it.

The sympathy between a subject and the object used by her becomes stronger with a more constant and thoughtful use. As auras vary with individuals, the vibration makes it possible to connect to the individual by affecting the item, and vice versa. Among its practical uses, sympathy may allow a lock of hair to be used in a love charm, or a coin to be tracked back to its original owner.

The two rules

There is a set of rules that governs the destiny of every person that chooses to continue down the path of a mage. These guarantees are:

• Magic is powerful.

Magic in Toriel is the difference between a slave and a master, a foot soldier and king. Few races and nations can operate without powerful mages and warlocks. The use of magic is ever present; historically, each time this has happened before, a great disaster shortly follows. However, even though the history of the arcane is partially known, mages and their patrons invariably come to the same self-serving conclusion: It won't happen to them.

• Magic is addicting.

When one feels the power of a spell coursing through one's body as it's being cast, resisting the urge to cast it again is difficult. Frequent use leads to a desire for more.

Origin and characteristics

The weave is innately volatile, and wielding it requires intense precision and concentration. Magic is the process of manipulating the weave. Pure magic, concentrated weave appear white and/or violet. However, when used to manipulate different types of magic (see magic school above), it takes on the characteristics and appearance of those magics. Examples of this can be seen with the bronze glow of chronomancy.
The weave has been described as one of the element of this world, and magic described as the "base fabric" of the world. Wielders of magic are usually called mages, a general term for the various spellcaster.

Effects and applications

“True arcane mastery only comes with patience and dedication.”

— Archmage Antonidas

In general, magic can be used to do nearly everything and is seemingly limited mostly by imagination, as it can be used to manipulate both space and time, and bend reality. It can be used to create objects such as food or drinks or conjure gems from nothing, and briefly enhance your personal intelligence. Magic can be used to turn yourself and your allies invisible, to become inaudible, to create multiple images of oneself or other creatures capable of distracting enemies or assisting you in combat, or to Polymorph objects and people into something else entirely, ranging from a variety of animals, and elemental beings such as phoenixes as well as to communicate from afar via projections and even enable understanding of other racial languages.
It can be used to animate constructs and objects such as arcane golems or brooms, power machinery, manipulate the fabric of time (usually by rewinding, reversing, slowing or hastening its flow), access alternate timelines, scry other places and peoples, view the past, sense the future by discerning fortunes, open locked doors, summon objects or individuals from other locations, share visions of others' memories, project visions of past events complete with sound, preserve and record messages inside enchanted crystals, form empathic bonds, strip others of their spells and use them as your own, conjure illusions by disguising yourself entirely, remove negative magical effects, erode others' magical resistances, create runes of power capable of greatly amplifying your spells, knock nearby enemies into the air, briefly fade into other realms such as the astral plane and avoid all attacks, or simply cause massive destruction.
Spells could also be used to protect yourself in a transparent Shield, transmuting raw weave into a personal barrier and the weaker but more easily cast Mage Armor. Jaina Proudmoore, Antonidas and other powerful mages have been able to generate larger arcane barriers shielding entire groups of people, record of the Orrin civilization cities able to maintain city-wide shields capable of repelling dragons were also found. It is also possible for high-level magi to temporarily negate others' arcane abilities, even imprisoning them for an extended period of time, and it is not apparently uncommon or particularly difficult to ward cities against unwanted portals.
According to Darvik When a mage creates fire, all they do is concentrating the inherent nature of the fire contained in the surrounding area into one location in order to call it into being. He also mentioned that stress and anxiety make it more difficult for a mage to read a person's mind.
Older and more experienced spellcasters are capable of even more extraordinary and formidable feats using Magic. Malygos, the Dragon God of Magic, was able to channel enough energy to overflow the nexus itself. Nozdormu, the God of Time, through his blessing of temporal magic upon the elves, was able to greatly change their lifespan for millennia. The Humans of the Orrin civilization accidentally caused an enormous extinction which forever transformed Toriel.

by Robin Olausson

Mythals

Great works of magic are by no means unique to elves, but the creation of mythals seems to be knowledge that did originate with them. A mythal is a persistent magical field that changes how reality works over a large area. Creating the most powerful of mythals requires many wizards of great renown and long experience to engage in the same ritual, while lesser wizards feed spells into the growing webwork of magic. Such a ritual can take a long time to perform and sometimes requires the sacrifice of lives in order to achieve its purpose, but the results can be utterly miraculous.
Mythal were typically used to protect and hide entire cities, preventing the entrance of enemy races and negating spying magic and teleportation. In Tana's Empire elf are task to use such ritual in important places, such as castle and stronghold to ward them of spying magic and teleportation attempt.
A mythal can’t be dispelled or suppressed by any conventional means, nor can its effects. Once one is in place, it seemingly lasts forever, since none are known to have dissipated (except for the great extinction who caused ancient Mythal to be dispelled). A mythal’s nature can only be warped or changed, and that can be accomplished only through the use of magical energy equal to that required for its creation.

History

Magic is the gift of the planes to Toriel, coming with the manipulation of the weave, said weave flow into toriel thanks to the Nexus. he origin of which is unknown, some say it was the first gods that places the Nexus in Toriel to serve as a source of restoring, life-giving energy. They intended that the Nexus' energies would empower life of all forms to emerge on Toriel — plants, animals, monsters, races.
When the first races appeared, the ancient god left their place to the new god, such as the dragon gods, leaving Toriel in their hands.
The mortal soon discovered the Nexus, plucking its power, the orcs became the first to learn spellspeech and used it to weave the first spells used by mortals. Within decades, Orcs mages had attained sufficient mastery over arcane magic that they built a great civilization. The word quickly spread, and more mortals started to be able to cast spells, to bend and manipulate the weave to create a new form of magic under the supervision of the god of magic, Malygos.
Especially after the War of the Ancients, magic was used for civilization to develop, hard to obtain and manipulate, only the stronger of mortals were able to become great spellcasters. Magic as addictive, but very limited, and its use allowed for great achievement.

Nexus Overflow

After the incident that caused the Nexus overflow, the flow of the weave in the world wasn't restrained, and magic changed from something rare, accessible only by the greatest, to something so common, everything was infused by it. The human mages, were more reckless than ever, developing their civilization at incredible speed, they were addicted to the empowering feeling of magic. They were warned by Julianos of the danger coming with such reckless use of magic, but the humans dismissed any suggestion that a tragedy would happen.