Magic of Alashiya

Magic is interwoven through the world of Alashiya like golden threads in a vast tapestry. It is a rare, powerful and volatile force, rightly viewed by most people in awe and abject fear.

There are three kinds or sources of magic that practitioners can draw upon scholarly/priestly magic, pact magic, and innate magic.

Scholarly and priestly magic

Scholarly and priestly magic is practised by a professional caste of wizards and priests. Though differing in the application, as far as society is concerned, wielders hold the same venerated position.

Scholarly magic

Scholarly magic is attained through vigorous study, practice, and the use of artefacts imbued with power, either by artificers or because of the natural properties of the materials used in their construction — or both. Wizards probe and pick at the fabric of reality, using spells, to direct and shape these fundamental forces for the desired outcome. They study magic and its properties, much like a jeweller studying the flaws in a gem.

Wizards are ideally identified young, and chosen for their natural attunement, and are then taken to one of the academies of magic and subjected to a series of tests. If successful, they undertake a lengthy apprenticeship with an appointed master for a period varying between 12 and 20 years.

Scholarly magic is the most taxing on the practitioner’s body, ageing those who wield too much. Some have avoided this limitation by study, or more likely by those whose bloodlines have intermingled with the Xotikoi.

Priestly magic

Priestly magic is practised by priests and their acolytes, though not all who undertake a religious life can use magic. Priestly magic is attained through intense religious devotion and faith. Priests believe they are channelling their god’s power, though wizards quietly dispute this. If a priest has a crisis of faith, breaks a vow, or is excommunicated, they often lose their ability to channel magic.

Though some priests learn to master basic wizardly spells, much of their magic is wielded through ritual incantations, gestures, and relics. Priestly magic can be performed individually or within a larger coven for greater effect and risk of catastrophic failure.

Priestly magic is typically limited to the domain of the priest’s deity, as realised by the roles each god assumes in the Alashiyan pantheon.

Pact magic

Pact magic is the rarest and most feared form of magic. It is practised by those who obtain their power through a pact or covenant with a supernatural entity, typically a daemon or the shade of an undead wizard rather than a god.

In this respect, the practitioner acts as a conduit, bridging the planes of reality, and the power they draw is only limited by their strength to withstand the burn. Pact magicians (typically called witches and warlocks) do not require spells and rituals. Instead, they directly manipulate magical forces and shape them as desired. This gives them both tremendous power, but also makes them vulnerable to that power consuming them as their body is the focus, rather than an externalised focus such as a spell, ritual to artefact.

In Alashiya, Pact magicians are almost always hunted down and killed when their presence is detected. Accusation thereof is also used as an excuse to do away with one’s enemies or those manifesting innate magic, particularly in territories under theocratic law. However, Pact magic is commonly practised outside Alashiya in lands such as Khemron, where it is accepted and even revered.

Innate magic

Innate magic is the most common form, and practitioners vary widely in their abilities. In its simplest form, innate magic is an attunement to the world’s magical forces, achieved through blood and birth, wisdom and insight, meditation and training, or even the practice of some professions. Practitioners are widespread, forming a pool from which wizards and scholars are found among the populace by those seeking to recruit others.

Innate magic is the source of folk magic, clairvoyance, divination, natural healing, and preternatural physical abilities. Much of it is practised without realising its source, nature, or even that magic has been performed. However, in some individuals, it can blossom into considerable power either through raw talent (wild sorcerers), years of training (warrior monks), or the wisdom and charisma gained through vocational pursuits (soldiers/hunters, and orators/bards/artificers).