Talon's Research Ch. 1: Basics on Magical Theory

The “magic” of a world is determined by two things: the Metaphysics of the world and the Will of those who utilize it.

The above is the most basic principle of magical theory. It is this tenant which started my research and has been the centerpiece of nearly every discovery I have made. But what does it mean? First, let us explore what “magic” actually is.

(Author’s note: I will be placing terms into quotation marks until the term is defined. Afterward, said term will not be placed in quotes, as its meaning for the purpose of these papers has already been established.)

“Magic”, in this case, is a catch-all term that I and many others use to describe effects created through a mystical means as well as the rituals used to gather the mystical energy (what the Oun called a “charge” or “mote”) needed to perform said effect. The “casting” or utilization of the effect, or “spell”, often times involves a verbal invocation and, depending on the spell, may have other requirements to create the desired effect.

This does not include invocations utilized by spirits, accursed, monsters, and various other entities whose ‘natural’ abilities allow them to perform otherwise supernatural effects. In fact, the ability to use a specific “magical school”, the magics derived from a specific world’s metaphysics, is not internally inherent to a person, but instead is something which the practitioner must be initiated into before they can gather the energies through rituals and shape them into spells. Though there are people who are more predisposed towards using magic, specifically those who are Attuned to mystical energies and can call upon said energies more readily without rituals, this does not mean that the source of the magic is from within them. Magic, quite specifically, originates from the metaphysics of a world which is then channeled and shaped through the will of the practitioner. Thus anyone who “learns” a school of magic is not merely learning the words and actions of the rituals and spells, but is literally attuning themselves to the metaphysics of the world from which the magics originate.

This means that, regardless of intentions, anyone who initiates into a world’s magic has the potential to learn any spell and any ritual from that world’s magic. A prime example of this would be the Dooms of Light and Shadow, a dualistic school based upon the flux and tension between light and darkness. There is no barrier preventing a practitioner of the Dooms from from learning both light and darkness spells, or even fueling darkness spells with rituals of light or vice versa. To be able to utilize a world’s magical school one becomes capable of “learning spells and rituals”, or bringing forth the ability to utilize these effects, of the entirety of the school regardless of cultural proclivities or taboos.

The basis of what a magical school can and cannot do is based upon the Metaphysics of the world from which the school originates. I theorize that this is closely associated with, if not directly tied to the concept of the “themes” of a world as described in some of the notes pertaining to the World Striders. This means that the magics of a world, even greater workings, cannot accomplish something that is not within the purview of the world’s Metaphysics. This becomes important because of the ramifications of the second part of what determines a magical school: the practitioners’ will.

Magical schools can be changed. More specifically, the spells and rituals of a school of magic can be changed. Spells and rituals are essentially how practitioners utilize the metaphysics of a world, shaped through their will to determine what effect they desire or how they wish to gain access to these mystical energies. A prime example would be the ritual “Five Summers’ Lesson” amongst the 13 Harmonious Changes. The ritual used to be a warning against god worship within the Empire. However, as the Empire (at least south of the wall) had not had any instance of god worship for decades, but was fairly fresh off the turmoil caused by the Red Hand Rebellion, the Justicars decided to change the ritual to remind against a more immediate and pressing danger in their history. The same can be done with spells. This is not an easy or quick process, as it requires a concerted effort and a large number of practitioners to willfully want this to occur. Once again, however, spells and rituals cannot be changed to encompass something that is not a purview of the world’s metaphysics. One of the changes within the 13 Harmonious Changes could not be transformed into something akin to a fairy trick from Woodsong and Moonsecret, for instance.

Perhaps the most direct expression of the magical theory axiom is the “Greater Working”. A “Greater Working” is the purest expression of the metaphysics of a world shaped by the purest intent of will by a practitioner of a magical school. It requires a great amount of skill and closeness to a world’s metaphysics to be able to tap into said metaphysics so directly and intimately. Greater workings are not bound to what spells and rituals have already been set in place, but are limited only by the creativity of the caster and the metaphysics of the world. Greater workings are, in many ways, the true spells of a magical school, with the various spells and rituals simply being ‘rote’ practices based upon widely used greater workings that are far more accessible and easier to cast or enacted.

This concludes the basics of magical theory as I have discovered them. The following are my sources of where my findings came from.