Image by Karl Frey from Pixabay

(originally titled ‘Flowing Mana and other arcane concepts’)

Today, I thought I would share with you a few concepts from my superhero campaign that relate to the “science” of how magic works. I’ve addressed the circumstances under which these were presented in-play in an earlier post; this is more about delivering the high-concept ideas themselves for public consumption.

Context

I’ve always advocated looking at the Big Questions when creating campaigns, as a way of generating plotlines that are fundamental to that campaign – see, for example, this early campaign mastery post: A Quality Of Spirit – Big Questions in RPGs.

These concepts grew out of an evolving set of rules, and may need to be implemented in the form of House Rules to be adapted to any other campaign. However, they should work in any campaign in which magic use (or an equivalent, like The Force) is an element – that’s Cthulhu, D&D, Pathfinder, Pulp, Star Wars, etc.

Parts of this article have appeared in-game as a couple of quick tutorials on the way magic works by a graduate and lecturer at the Academy Of Magic (which no longer exists). At one point he prefaces the second part of his lecture with a wry complaint about teaching without a lesson plan meaning that important things are always left out.

That’s the context within which these concepts should be read – as off-the-cuff simplifications of a more complex and interactive process. They hit the highlights of the story but do not contain everything, and may not be anything better than a broad approximation when you dig into any aspect of them – a starting point, nothing more.

Heck, in your world, they might be entirely incorrect and yet describe the state of the art in Arcane Theory.

What you do with them is up to you.

Mana

Mana is an energy field generated by, well, everything – one that conventional instruments cannot detect. It has been described as the binding energy that maintains the continuity of things being what they are, and that is not entirely inaccurate, but misses the major point.

    Life

    Mana seems inextricably bound up in what makes the living alive.. In the absence of Mana, life withers and dies, often with no discernible cause, or through succumbing to some pre-existing condition.

    Mana powers spells, and the consumption of life is a powerful fuel for such activities.

    Organisms can be biologically ordered in terms of evolutionary complexity. They can also be ordered in terms of “Mana carrying capacity”, and – surprisingly – the two systems of classification accord fairly closely.

    There are some organisms that evolve, in mana-rich environments, to depend on Mana as a source of biological fuel, and – in time – evolve extraordinary abilities deriving from those Mana potentials.

    Image by Noupload from Pixabay

    Sentience & Spellcasting

    Most sentient beings are completely unaware of the Mana within them.

    A few seem to have a mana-derived “Sixth Sense” but are unable to do anything more with it.

    Some learn to collect additional mana within their beings, almost instinctively, and may even create spontaneous magical effects upon themselves or their locality without knowing the reasons these things occur. There are any number of psychological influences on these impacts; it is believed that lycanthropy is one material manifestation of this phenomenon, but research is difficult and often inconclusive.

    A few learn to both collect mana and express it in the form of uncontrolled or ‘wild’ magic. Such amateur mages usually learn discipline or self-destruct in the relatively near-term.

    Any such ‘wild mage’ or ‘natural mage’ has the potential to become a true student of the arcane; again, the psychology of the individual has a paramount effect on the outcome of such education. If you do not want to learn, you will not make sufficient effort to do so, and your education and understanding is fundamental to how much of your potential you can access.

    There have been reported cases of third parties functioning as intermediaries, providing the restraint and discipline required to restrict a ‘wild mage’ to (relatively) safe functions. There have also been cases where the belief in higher-order beings has been sufficient to serve this function. Both phenomena are little understood.

    A formal educational process is by far the most effective method of mastering an arcane talent. Furthermore, since there is often little time to respond to unexpected developments – spellcasting is always a somewhat chaotic process – constant practice is needed to develop instincts and the correct spontaneous reactions to untoward developments.

    There are several such educational frameworks, some better than others. Fundamentally, they all have general similarity of features when closely examined. The framework described and assumed below is not the only one, but it possesses all those common features and has a proven effectiveness.

    Geographic Features

    Singular geographic features are known to be extraordinarily large sinks of Mana. Mountains, Deserts, Lakes, Oceans, etc. The size is almost irrelevent.

    It is generally thought that Mana flows from the polar regions to the equator and then loops back around – but no-one has ever verified this conclusively.as a universal constant. It may be that it is only true of Earth.

    Cosmology

    Similarly, Celestial Bodies and entire planes of existence posses Mana; it binds reality together.

    Overall, any given plane of existence has a specific planar potential of Mana, which may be higher or lower relative to another such plane. The higher the potential, the greater the likelihood that the populace will include more residents capable of using Magic, and the greater the number of singular and noteworthy features.

Image by Genty from Pixabay

Mana Flow

The above completely misrepresents Mana in one critical aspect: the picture it paints is one of static potential, of a resource that can be depleted. But Mana is not gold or pixie dust; it is a dynamic phenomenon. Mana is constantly leaving whatever holds it, and being replaced with more from the surrounding environment. It is thus more correct to say that mana flows through everything, constantly.

The rate of mana flow is unrelated to the mana capacity of the object, location, or mage, but can also be improved or increased by those who have trained themselves to retain a greater capacity, or who have such a greater capacity naturally. Thus the two – greater capacity and greater mana flow – tend to be convergent aspects of reality in sentient beings and manipulated environments.

Mana streams repel each other, as a general principle, unless a mana stream is sufficiently strong to overcome that resistance and forcibly merge with the surrounding streams.

However, it is also possible for such a strong mana flow to spontaneously re-divide into smaller streams, a process called Mana Scission. It is believed by some that the repulsive effect is a chaotic expression of some underlying process that occasionally manifests in repelling forces of sufficient magnitude to overcome the binding force. Others believe that the organization of mana streams into larger flows, the binding of the streams together, ‘consumes’ some of the mana of the flow, weakening it’s capacity to resist the repulsive force. It is possible that both are correct, or partially correct.

It is also true that areas of low mana potential tend to diffuse or spread strong mana flows that enter them. “Nature,” it is said, “abhors a vacuum” – a flawed statement as the effect does not require a vacuum in which to operate, merely a differential potential of sufficient magnitude.

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Mana flows are constantly changing, as people, animals, clouds, etc, move, go about their business, live, birth young, and die. Similarly, geological processes have an impact – usually small, but occasionally dramatic, such as a volcanic eruption or explosion. Mana flows are inconstant, with a stability inherently tied to the lifespan of the source of the outflow. What seems like a permanent flow of stable character can slowly drift or change, or abruptly destabilize. Such effects have ripple impacts throughout the locale. A mountain may provide a steady mana flow for thousands of years – but when the mountain erodes away, the organization of the flow will vanish, replaced by another; to all intents and purposes, the mana flow ceases to be concentrated by the mountain when it no longer exists.

Note that there is no net reduction in Mana; there is a reduction in Mana structure and organization, nothing more. But that can nevertheless be critical on any creatures or processes that depend on that concentrated mana flow.

    Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

    Portals and Planar flows

    Quite obviously, if one plane is at a higher mana potential relative to another, and a portal is opened between them, there will be a mana flow through the portal from the first to the second. Applied correctly, this can be used to stabilize the portal, transforming it into a semi-permanent rift between realities.

    As a general rule, the larger the reality in terms of contents, the more diffuse the mana flow will be throughout it; pockets of reality are more likely to have higher concentrations of Mana even though their total Mana potential is lower.

    There have been cases of explorers from low-mana environments spontaneously transforming into other biological forms when entering a highly concentrated-mana environment. These transformations may or may not reverse when the explorer returns to his native environment, or may only partially reverse. One documented case describes a human who spontaneously became a centaur and then “reverted” to being a horse on his return, because that form was more like that of his transformed self.

    It is therefore incorrect to regard any mana flow or system as existing in isolation. Such descriptions are valuable as theoretical simplifications and educational tools only.

Image by PhotoVision from Pixabay

Fundamental Spellcasting

A mage uses the accumulated mana within his body to initiate and shape a mana flow such that a particular spell effect manifests. Many parameters must be controlled by the mage or they will manifest in random determinants. The more tightly controlled and predictable a spell is, the more difficult it is to cast.

This use of the mage’s mana produces a “relative vacuum” within him that bends nearby mana streams toward him, and this recharges the mana consumed by the spellcasting process. But there are many details that this simple description glosses over.

    Mana Burn

    There is almost certainly going to be an inequality between the mana ‘consumed’ (i.e. disbursed from the mage’s internal store) by the spellcasting process and the amount which ‘arrives’ to replenish it. Each mage has a limit to the amount of mana that they can retain, and a higher limit that they can retain only temporarily. Exceeding either of these limits results in a phenomenon known as “Mana Burn” in which the mage’s physical well-being is diminished and his capacity for the successful casting of spells is cauterized. The mage may recover from these effects in time, if they are sufficiently mild, but permanent damage is also possible.

    Advanced arcane training provides a number of techniques and tools for the relief of such excess in-flows, but none of them are without their limitations. These include the storage of mana within external objects, the dispersal of the excess into recharging ongoing spell effects and so-called ‘permanent’ magic items, draining the excess into a spell of measured inefficiency, creating and maintaining a spirit-self semi-independent of the physical body (which can therefore go places and do things that the physical body cannot), or directly manipulating the local mana flow.

    At a larger scale than the individual, these effects are self-correcting – mana intensifies and then disperses back to a ‘natural’ level. Neighboring mana flows are disturbed, ‘pushed away’ by a sufficiently large concentration of mana within the mage, diminishing the inflow. At the individual scale, however, this holds little consolation, as the mage effectively immolates himself, or suffers some permanent change in form, or the permanent “burning out” of his arcane abilities, or some combination thereof.

    At their hear, all spells are exercises in controlling energy flows and shapes. It has been said that the purpose and arrangement of electrical components within a device does the same for the flow of electricity; if the flow of lightning through the device could be affected directly, the components would be unnecessary. This is, of course, not entirely true; many of the components serve to alter the nature and properties of the electrical flow, but it is nevertheless an instructive analogy; a spell is the equivalent of a self-powered ad-hoc television receiver, with the mage substituting words, motions, psychology, and material components for the components within.

    Schools Of Magic

    Mages are not equally adept at all magics. Through education, need, and predisposition, some forms of magical effect will come more naturally, or more fundamentally, to the individual.

    The structure normally used to describe the relationship between these ‘similar spells’ are “Schools of magic”, a slightly misleading term that derives from specialist educational facilities that teach a single topic from basics through to more advanced forms. But this implies that such formal definitions are the only structure possible, and that is misleading; the individual’s classification structure, the definition of his personal ‘schools’, are a personal thing and not subject to such artificial restriction.

    Such institutions can nevertheless provide a coherent and well-defined view of a specific specialty that fits the precepts of many prospective mages, perpetuating the self-referential definition of that ‘school’ of magic.

    One mage may have “weather magic” as a school; another may have “comfortable travel” as a school; and, until advanced spells are learned by one or both, the spells in these very different schools may be completely identical.

    In general, the school from which a mage first manifests a successful spell is known as his Primary School, the one that provides a central definition of the mage. A “Fire Mage” may have other schools like “Ice Magic” and “Aquatic Magic” that are (superficially) completely opposed to their Primary school – but they will nevertheless still be known as a “Fire Mage” first and foremost.

    There are many reasons for this: the mage can generally stock his Primary School with more powerful spells, a greater variety of spells, and a greater number of spells. He or she will generally find it easier to cast spells from that school, and it’s characteristics will have the most profound influence on his personality and mental processes, his view of the world, and his instincts. So the Primary School is defining of the mage, but this definition is not an inclusive restriction.

    Spells

    Arcane ability defines not only the number of schools that a Mage can posses, but the number of spells that they can ‘learn’ within that school. The spells that a mage has learned from within a particular school are known as the mage’s Spell List from that school.

    It is possible to learn more spells within a school than the indicated limit, but only at the cost of an arcane school that the mage may have developed at a later time.

    For example, a mages’ Primary School may have a limit of 7 spells, so his secondary schools will have limits of 5, 3, and 1 spells, respectively. Or perhaps his school provides less intensive focus, and the secondary schools have limits of 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1, respectively – for three additional schools.

    The greater the focus on the Primary School, the greater the advantages that the mage derives from that school, but the less scope he has for variety.

    Let us say that a specific mage has developed only three schools in total, and now wishes to add further spells to his primary school. In the first case, that manifests in the ‘loss’ of the 1-spell school and adds that 1 spell, plus one for the lost school, to his Primary spell list – giving him 9, 5, and 3 as his limits.

    In the second case, he would lose the 4-spell school (the next to be developed) and add 4 (plus 1) to the primary school’s capacity: 12, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1 is the resulting capacity.

    It is possible to add some or all of these gains to a school other than the primary school, but no secondary school can ever have a longer spell list than the primary. So, if the second mage decided to add the 5 spells from the loss of his 4th school to his second school, he would get 7, 11, 5, 3, 2, 1 – but that violates this rule. So he needs to divert some of the 5 to his Primary school – two of them, actually – to be able to ‘fit’ the remaining three into the secondary school: 9, 9, 5, 3, 2, 1.

    As a general rule of thumb, each school grants an increased ability to attempt to do various things like adding spells, casting spells, etc. The larger this focus, the faster the capacity for additional schools and hence additional spells declines outside of the primary school.

    The further down the mage’s spell list that a spell is, within a school, the greater the difficulty in successfully casting it.

    All mages eventually reach their spell limit; the only way to increase it is to advance their knowledge of the Arcane, increasing their Arcane Talent.

    Ad-hoc Spells

    Mages are not constrained to merely casting the spells on their list; all mages can ‘invent’ spells on the spot, something known as Ad-hoc Spellcasting. The difficulties and costs involved are much larger, the time required can be substantially greater (minutes or even hours, depending on the spell), and the construction is a one-off; the spell must be re-designed each time it is to be cast. It is often the case that making these spells “affordable” (i.e. within the mage’s capacity),

    Rituals

    Another solution is to cast a Ritual. These have several advantages – they are in a spell book, not in the mage’s head, and so ignore the usual restrictions; additional mages can contribute to the mana costs and buffer the group leader from the effects of Mana Burn; and rituals use time and symbolic components to substantially lower the difficulty of casting a spell.

    Image by Peter Pang from Pixabay

    Spell Crafting

    Spells can be acquired in one of two ways – you can learn them from someone else, or you can craft an original spell yourself. This is akin to the process of creating an ad-hoc spell but with careful documentation of the parameters involved, which takes time, and often must proceed in small steps- Remember that any uncontrolled parameters will effectively be randomized – at the start, you might not even know how many parameters will be involved.

    It is quite commonplace for a mage to start with a spell that is not quite what he wants (which may or may not already be in his spell list) and adjust it to his requirements.

    Arcane theory can take the place of some of these castings, but not all. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way, even by the most accomplished of mages.

    Some mages have a knack for spell design that has led to their handiwork being spread far and wide, effectively becoming a standard.

    The end result is a spell that is sufficiently stable to be appended to the mage’s spell list, either within an existing school or as the first spell in a new school.

    Spell Refinement

    Mages can also take a spell that’s already on their list, refine it to more closely match their needs, or make it more efficient, or easier to cast, and then replace the original with this Refined version. Again, this process takes time, and improving one aspect of a spell often involves reducing effectiveness in another, or even losing control of that other aspect altogether.

Spell Detection and Identification

There are two methods of detecting spells – observing or sensing turbulence in the mana flow (usually only tells you that a spell of significant power levels has been cast), or using a spell that traces disturbances in the mana flow back to their source and gives the caster impressions of the cause of the disturbance.

Since there are many possible causes of mana flow discord, the latter is by far the more productive approach, but many mages employ a more instinctive initial approach to tell them when casting such a detection spell is more appropriate.

Such a spell can also detect mana stored in an object, give a sense of the level of mana within another mage or a creature, hint at the physical health and superiority of a non-magical creature, and locate enchanted items.

Once a spell or magical effect has been detected, a mage may cast an identification spell to gain some understanding of the intended effect of the spell. Duration is very important to such spells, as it takes time for the sentient mind to interpret the details of what they perceive.

  • The first round of observation gives an impression of the level at which the spell is cast.
  • The second round of observation gives an impression of the basic effect of the spell and the school of magic from which it derives.
  • The third round of observation gives an approximation of the total mana cost of the spell.
  • The fourth round of observation gives an approximation of the total spell effect in some appropriate numeric scale.
  • The fifth round of observation identifies the first of any special triggers or conditions or parameters of the spell.
  • Sixth and subsequent rounds of observation identify other special triggers or conditions or parameters. These follow in (fibonnaci sequence) rounds apart, starting with the sixth, then eighth, eleventh, sixteenth, then twenty-fourth, rounds of observation. The mage may not break concentration to do anything else, or the process restarts. Note that spells cannot be studied after they conclude, only while they are still operational.

To clarify that sequence:
1+0 = 1; +5 = 6.
1+1 = 2; 6+2= 8.
1+2=3; 8+3 = 11.
2+3=5; 11+5 = 16.
3+5=8; 16+8 = 24.
5+8=13; 24+13=37.
8+13=21; 37+21=58.
13+21=34; 58+34=92.
and so on.

Imprints

All objects contain mana – even Cold Iron (see below). Significant events in the ‘lifetime’ of an object in its current form leave an imprint on the object that can be read by certain spells or naturally-gifted individuals, a process called Psychometry.

Such spells may reveal mental visions of those events, conjure actual images of the events, or imbue the object with the capacity to tell its story. Each of these methods has its own shortcomings and limitations.

Mental Images distort specifics of the events to allegorically match experiences in the past of the caster. If it was given to a child as a gift, for example, the vision will be of the caster receiving a gift which is recognizable as the object. These visions are often disjointed and need careful interpretation.

Actual images show the events occurring but with no sound and no context. Sequence may be recent back, beginning forward, or random, depending on the spell. Those viewing the image may speculate on the context, even observing details that help the plausibility and accuracy of such speculations – but at the end of the day, they are still speculations, at-best, informed ones.

“No problem,” think many beginning mages – I’ll cast actual images and then mental images to give me context behind the events.” Unfortunately, it’s not that simple – reading an imprint generally disrupts that imprint. You can have context, or specific events, but not both.

As a result, many mages turn to the third alternative, which offers a compromise between both that is often more informative, giving the object an otherworldly voice and the sentience (temporarily) to use it, permitting the object to tell its story in its own words – the bits that it judges to be important, anyway. The caster’s opinion often differs.

Another trap for the unwary: like all constant spells, these ones require a fresh endowment of mana every round in order to continue functioning. With most such spells, the caster can choose when to stop “feeding the beast”, ending the spell; with such psychometric reading spells, however, the mage cedes control of the spell to the object, which will continue it’s display / recitation until finished, draining mana each round from the mage. And the reading can never be repeated – so if you miss something, that’s bad luck!

Curdles Of Mana (Stealth Casting)

Moving a hand in a circular motion and investing one or more points of stored mana creates a Curdle of Mana, also known as a Mana “Knuckle”.

There are a number of consequences to this action. Mana flows around the disturbance in the flow, at least for a while, so the Mage only has access to his remaining internal store to power any spell; this creates a zone up-flow where Mana is especially low, called a Mana Void; life-forms in a Mana Void acquire greater protection against the spell being cast and any resulting side-effects; spells are more difficult to cast because of the turbulence; and mana flows may be sufficiently distorted to force two flows to cross or combine, however temporarily, creating what is known as a Mana Flare, a point of wild magic in which random effects manifest.

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So why would you do such a thing? Because spells cast within a Mana Curdle are up to an order of magnitude harder to detect and identify. The more Mana invested in creating the curdle, the greater this effect.

The amount of mana invested in the curdle must be more than the cost of casting the spell, and the mana within the curdle leaks back to the mage (replenishing his reserves) at a rate that is less than the mana cost of the spell.

A Mana curdle plus an inefficient spell can be an excellent way of dispersing an excess of stored mana before it results in Mana Burn.

Casting Exhaustion

If the combination of Knuckle and Spell result in the total loss of stored Mana within the mage, he or she begins to die from what is named “Casting Exhaustion”. Even if this effect is mitigated a round later by an influx of mana from the knuckle, this still reduces the mage’s physical health, consciousness, and endurance. The amount is roughly double the percentage of the mage’s total current capability represented by a single mana point or by the spell cost, rounded up. So a mage with 20 mana capacity, currently containing twelve who casts a 4-point spell and an 8-point knuckle, completely emptying his mana reserves. 4+8=12, and 4 is 1/3 of 12, so surviving the Casting Exhaustion costs the mage 1/3 of his physical capacity, round up. The next round, he gets three Mana inflow from the knuckle, which diminishes to 5 points as a result, so the maximum spell power he can muster is three points – and consuming all of it in a second spell costs him 100% of his remaining health, advancing the process of dying considerably.

The mage can still be saved at this point; basic sustaining procedures (CPR etc) will prevent the onset of death. But without such intervention, the mage is certain to die.

When the knuckle dissipates, the mana streams begin to push back into the straightforward normal flow, pushing the Mana Void downstream – to exactly where the Mage is. As noted earlier, Mana Flows abhor a vacuum; in effect, as the void passes, the mage gets in one hit all the mana that he would have received from normal inflow during the time the Mana Knuckle was distorting the flow.

In the case of the example, the mage gets 3, 3, and 2 from the knuckle; plus perhaps 3, 7, and 9 from the resumption of the normal mana flow (three rounds worth). That’s a total of 28, more than the mage’s 20 capacity, but probably within his temporary limits; he needs to find a way to bleed off the excess quickly. Unfortunately, he’s probably still comatose at this point…

Mana ‘Knuckles’ are easy to create unintentionally. All mages are thus taught about them early in their formal educations, because the consequences can be so dire.

Suspended Castings

It is possible to partially cast a spell and then suspend the casting by placing it within a receptive object. Some such castings need only a command word to activate them, others a specific gesture, and still others simply require an influx of mana. The majority can be completed by the Mage simply completing the spell.

To suspend the casting, the mage must provide the mana required to cast the spell, plus an additional amount. Each extra point extends the ‘casting time’ by two orders of magnitude or one unit of measurement, whichever is lesser. So, seconds to minutes to hours to days to weeks to months to years to decades to centuries to millennia to tens of millennia to hundreds of millennia to millions of years – effectively, permanent.

This is the basis of virtually all magical equipment.

Some items are designed to be capable of multiple charge-ups, making them a multi-use tool. Others are designed to have a permanent effect whenever activated, drawing mana from the outside environment. Both are trickier to design and create than a straightforward one-shot item.

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

Mana Tags

A Mage may store a point of mana within a mundane item or person, with a particular “tag” or Mark, by virtue of which, the mage can track the item or person, and by which any other mage can identify that the target has been ‘tagged’. There are various ways of obscuring or removing such tags – chiefly, dumping in more mana than was used in the tag – that makes these unreliable when used on another mage or his property. But despite the limitations, this is still a handy trick to know.

Elementary Summoning (Tagged Items)

An even handier trick is to use the tag to target a summoning spell, bringing the object or individual to the mage for a specific period of time, and perhaps forcing them to obey the mage’s instructions. In general, this permits a relationship to be formed between the mage and the target (if it is capable of such) – for example, summoning a mount or wild creature and then spending part of the summoning time in feeding, petting, and grooming the target will begin the process of taming it, a process that can be deepened and extended with additional summonings.

Summoning an untagged creature means that the mage will receive a random creature that meets the specified parameters. Such summonings are far more difficult, often requiring the mage to forgo or generalize his parameters to make the spell practical. One of the first things to “go” is often the capacity to force the target to obey the summoner. You can bring a horse to water, but if it’s untagged, you may not be able to make it drink.

Once the creature is in the mage’s presence, of course, he can tag it and begin establishing a relationship with it, as described. Such relationships decay in the natural way if not maintained; there are mages out there who spend their every spare moment summoning their ‘pets’ and ‘companions’ just to maintain the bond between themselves and the summoned creature.

Principles of Advanced Summoning (The Bargain)

The difficulty ramps up considerably when the creature to be summoned is sentient, even more if it is capable of spell use itself, and even more again if it is inherently magical. Most difficult of all are creatures that tick all three boxes, such as some Dragons.

Forced obedience is the first thing to go. Magic-users and up may even be able to prevent or delay their being summoned by force of will or magical counter-spell.

Either way, mundane negotiations are involved in getting the summoned creature to do whatever the mage wants them to do. What the demands are, and what may be offered by the mage, depend on what service is required and what the risks are.

There are also some creatures who are more susceptible to the power of command when in the physical presence of the summoner, and know it, so that if they accept the summoning, they have less resistance to instruction, but will drive a harder bargain at the outset.

Some creatures are able to cast spells upon the caster of the summons through the link – these may be benign, assessing the intent, honorability and honesty of the summoner; others may be more malevolent if the summoned creature resents the inconvenience of dropping whatever it is doing at the time to join the summoner.

Note that protracted negotiations may exceed the duration of the spell, requiring it draw a second ‘batch’ of mana from the mage before his mana recovery takes place, or even a third. Casting Exhaustion can occur before terms are agreed, if the mage is not careful.

Mana Combustion & Quick Recharges

Mana can be imbued within objects, the amount being a function of the nature and size of the object. Gems and Sygils and Talismans are common choices. Noble metals have a greater capacity than mundane ones. Once-living objects and objects created from once-living tissue, like bone carvings, also work well. Iron and Steel are poor choices – see “Cold Iron” below.

These objects come in two forms – Consumable and Permanent. Permanent items are harder to make and harder to recharge, but do not have to be destroyed in order to relinquish the mana stored within. They also tend to have greater capacities than a Consumable storage device, though the amount of Mana they can release in a single burst is likely to be smaller.

Consumable mana storage devices don’t hold as much as a Permanent device, but are quicker and easier to create/charge, and release their entire contents when destroyed. Mages must be cautious not to select storage devices that contain more Mana than they can handle, or Mana Burn can be induced by the act of recharging.

The final “quick recharge” method is the most dangerous – casting a “spell” whose sole purpose is to temporarily redirect local mana flows toward a target (usually yourself). This produces an acute Mana Flare and a single larger mana stream where once there was two – and the balance of the sum of the two streams plus the binding energy that held one of them together floods into the mage.

Like the creation of a Mana Knuckle, this is not really a “spell” in the conventional sense; it’s more akin to sticking your hands directly into the mana streams in question – or sticking your fingers into an electrical socket. This is known as “Mana Combustion” because measurements show that the system has less mana in total after the event than it did previously – the difference being that ‘binding energy’.

The resulting single mana stream is relatively unstable and prone to Scission.

    Cold Iron

    All iron and steel are “cold” to some extent. To enchant these, they need to be alloyed with some other substance which can contain the enchantment. The big trick is choose something that won’t weaken the material.

    It might seem that Coal, being once-living, would be the perfect choice, but while adding carbon to steel makes the metal stronger, the carbon itself is destroyed as a coherent entity within the metal in the process, so there is nothing for the ‘spell’ to latch onto. The materials most conducive to magic, silver, gold, and platinum, do not alloy with steel very well or very easily.

    Exotic materials are thus the best choices – but these are hard to obtain and harder to work successfully. Titanium, Cobalt, Rare Earth metals, Aluminum, and Mithral are the most common choices (Copper tends to weaken the metal too much and make it brittle).

    Modern composite materials like Kevlar and Carbon Fiber are a completely different story, as the Carbon remains intact, though an integral component of the material.

    “Cold Iron” is capable of cutting through Mana streams, and can penetrate spells and arcane defenses with relative ease. Mages sense its presence as a nauseating sensation, and many claim that it inhibits the casting of spells – others claim that this is a psychological effect and not a ‘real’ one.

    Knowledgeable mages hate and fear the stuff.

Greater Voids

Casting too powerful a spell can overwhelm the fundamental channels of reality along which Mana flows (no, no-one knows what they are). This inhibits the entry of mana into the area, kills everything too close to the spell, and creates a dead zone around which mana will flow without penetration.

These Greater Voids will slowly dissipate, but will last for years or centuries. Any living thing entering a Greater Void experiences a slower form of Caster Exhaustion as the mana slowly leeches from their essences. Mages are especially susceptible to this effect.

These are a frequent consequence when Rituals misfire or are miscast. For this reason, it is never a good idea to hurry a Ritual.

Dimensional Fissures

Sometimes, if the boundaries are sufficiently weakened by travelers or other disruptions, a Mana Void can spontaneously metastasize into a Dimensional Fissure, an uncontrolled portal into a higher-mana reality. This “punctures” the Mana Void, drawing Mana in from the higher-mana reality, and leaves a passage that may or may not be visible from one reality into another.

These fissures can be very hard to close, because they potentially have access to the whole mana flow intercepting the surface of the interface between realities in the higher-mana environment to use in maintaining its existence; that mana flow needs to be redirected from the Fissure and the accumulated mana within leeched out before it can be closed.

Nevertheless, most mages “drop everything” to do so, because in an expanding zone on both sides of such fissures, the nature of reality and natural laws begin to mix, often in wildly unpredictable ways.

Left open, eventually the two realities will coalesce – an end that some consider desirable, and so they attempt to induce the effect deliberately.

Mana Flares

I’ve mentioned Mana Flares a couple of times already. Mana Flares are places where uncontrolled or”wild” magical manifestations can spontaneously occur. Some theoreticians suggest that when a Mage suffers Mana Burn, it is because he has taken in more Mana than he can control, resulting in multiple internal mana flares.

Certainly, casting a spell on a mage who is also casting a spell is less likely to result in Mana Burn in the target mage. Two mages acting in concert are therefore more powerful, and more capable, than the sum of their individual capabilities. Fortunately, such concerted casting is much harder than it seems.

Magic Circles

You may have wondered at the differences between a Mana Knuckle and a Magic Circle.

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A magic circle is a closed circle around the mage. The mage then imbues that circle – which must have some physical reality, even if it is simply a line drawn in the earth or with chalk – with a spell and a point of additional Mana. The spell protects the mage against spells cast by other mages, but the mage must remain inside the circle. The larger the circle, the more people can shelter within it and be protected, but the more mana must be invested in activating the circle. As a rule of thumb, the number of arms-lengths radius, multiplied by itself, is the requirement. So one mana can protect 1 person, 2 mana can protect three people (i.e. 1 plus 2), 3 mana can protect six (i.e. 3 plus 3), 4 can protect 10 (i.e. 6 plus 4),, 5 can protect 15, and so on.

The spell of protection is powered by the Mage’s mana. Mana impacting the magic circle is focused inward toward the Mage – so his risks of Mana Burn may be seriously increased. Once the protection spell is cast, the mage is free to cast some other spell, the cost of which should always be at least equal to the expected influx plus any capacity that the mage wishes to retain. In other words, any excess has to be expelled before it causes deleterious effects.

Part of the influx must be spent replacing the extra Mana required by the Circle, because the old mana investment is continually leaking out as the protection spell degrades. This creates a zone of Mana Turbulence, in which spellcasting is much harder than usual, and in which vast numbers of mana flares can occur.

Eventually, the protection spell will expire. Since it is the vehicle for the extra mana emplaced into the circle, it too ceases to have any effect. There are many consequences of this reality.

First, the Mana Turbulence flows slowly ‘downstream’ with the normal Mana flow, gradually smoothing out and becoming less disrupted, once the spell ends.

Second, in practice, any mage seeking to cast a spell upon another who is within a Mana Circle must expend additional Mana upon his spell greater than that of the circle before their spell can reach the target, and must also overcome the protection conferred by the spell of the mage within the circle. A single mage, concentrating on defense, may be able to withstand attack by two, three, even half-a-dozen, more powerful mages – for a while.

Third, any mage who is in between another and the inflow of mana to that second mage has a substantial advantage if they emplace a magic circle around themselves due to the turbulence in the Mana flow. Casting difficulties may as much as double or triple. For this reason, experienced Mages naturally place themselves to one side or another of the mana flow being used by the protected mage. Of course, if the latter has positioned himself to intercept the most powerful Mana flow, this also confers a disadvantage on the attacking mage.

Fourth, as you can see, duels between mages are often won and lost before the first spell is cast. Tactical preparations and strategic spell usage and hidden allies are essential to surviving such. Treat any such situation that may arise as life-and-death. Arcane-oriented societies frequently have rules regarding duels that MUST be observed for the civil good. Failure to do so will generally result in any passing mage joining with the participant in the right, regardless of other considerations.

Pentagrams

Finally, we come to the exact opposite of a Magic Circle – a Pentagram. This is a complex arcane structure that takes considerable time and effort to prepare.

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The mage stands outside the Pentagram and summons some creature, who is forced by the Summoning spell to appear within it. Observe the mana flow. It starts with the Mage, who invests all the mana he can spare into the Pentagram, reserving only what it will cost to cast the Summoning. New Mana then rushes into the mage from the Mana Flow to replace it, as usual.

The invested Mana courses around the points of the pentagram. To facilitate this, the mage should always position himself between the source of the Mana Flow and the head of the pentagram, which should point toward him. As with a magic circle, mana continually leaks from the pentagram and must be replaced by the Mage; it creates intense Mana Turbulence, and many Mana Flares downstream. This, in turn, affects the surrounding mana flows, which Sensitives can detect; it might not be known who or what has been summoned, but it will be known that something or someone has been.

In order to cross the Pentagram, either physically or with a spell, a mage confined within must not only overcome the Mana placed into the Pentagram by the caster, they must contend with the internal turbulence – tripling the cost of any spell cast AND the difficulty of successfully casting the spell.

On top of that, the Pentagram leeches its next load of replacement Mana from any spell so cast, permitting the caster to replenish his own reserves, and reducing the effectiveness of the spell so cast accordingly, and as much again will be reflected back onto the imprisoned mage. A one-point pentagram has little effect; a 10-point pentagram is a serious problem.

Consider a spell costing 20 mana being cast within a 6-point pentagram. Six points of the spell will be absorbed by the pentagram, renewing it, leaving 14. Six more will be reflected back at the caster, and Six will be lost to the internal Turbulence. That leaves just 2 to affect the caster of the pentagram – so the spell will only have 2/20ths of its normal effectiveness. And that’s before any defenses are taken into account.

The caster is not invulnerable, but is very well-protected. A pentagram does not guarantee that a summoned creature will remain within, but it is as certain a protection and a restraint as has ever been devised. Especially if the caster is also within a magic circle.

Final Word

Magic is a rich and complex tapestry, with many areas ripe for customization. Devising fundamental principles permits consistency and believability across many such customization instances. You don’t have to understand why something works the way it does – just define that it does, and then look at the ramifications as thoroughly as possible.

You could take the ones that I’ve outlined above (where a lot of the ramifications have been spelled out for you) and adapt it to your needs, or use it as inspiration, or simply use it as a list of the many areas that you can tinker with to make your world your own.

Once you have a description of how things work, rules are relatively easy to write/adapt to reflect that description. And that’s all it takes.

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