Guns for Hire Magical Mechanics

A page for the magical mechanics of Guns for Hire

The Four Courts of Magic

What are the 'Four Courts' of magic?'

The four courts are the founding forces of magic, be it draconic, human or otherwise. The courts are tied to the seasons, being Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. In general, each court is inclined towards a general concept: Spring to growth, Summer to heat, Autumn to decay, and Winter to cold. As one may surmise, some courts oppose others (Summer and Winter, Spring and Autumn) while non-conflicting courts can synergize (Spring with Summer or Winter, Autumn with Summer or Winter).

All bloodline and other non-innate forms of magic must adhere to a court (See Chakra for non-courtly magical endeavors). Thanks to this, the interactions of the four courts are integral to understanding how different practitioners' magics will work together or against one another. In general, it is hardest to harm a magic user with the same magic they use: Summer court based mages are hardest to hurt with Summer magic, Autumn with Autumn. While opposed courts do the maximum amount harm possible to one another, most mages try to avoid directly pitting opposed courts against one another, since it's possible to have a runaway magical chain reaction that slays both fighters in such contests. The most common form of magical combat, where the courts are concerned, is to either attack someone with a Court other than their own, or the court they are opposed to (Spring or Autumn on a Winter bloodline, for example). This gets more complicated with Dual Bloodline opponents, as unless they have opposed court bloodlines they will not have a court that is neither opposed to them nor the same as the ones they use. Another solution is to use internal manipulation magic to enhance a fighter's physical aspects and thus avoid directly pitting opposed or similar magics against one another.

It must be noted that Dragons are considered the dominant force where it comes to manipulating the four Courts. Because Dragons frequently have at least one bloodline of each court, there is no way to attack them where they will not have the same court to defend with, and there is no way to avoid them having the particular court you are opposed to ready to sling in one's face. This is one of the many reasons Dragons are left to their own devices.

I remember something about the Courts being fae things-how's that work in GfH?'

The Courts are more than just how all bloodlines are classified-they are a classification system for non-draconic magical creatures large and small, and is the basis of the five Fae Courts. There is one for each season, with Summer and Winter being heavily dominated by Gaelic Fae while the Spring and Autumn courts are dominated by Eurasian Fae. In addition to each seasonal court, there is a fifth, Wyld Court that governs the creatures that manage to exist without having a Courtly orientation. It is by far the smallest group, and commonly is not part of any major gatherings of the other Courts, due in no small part to the hands-off approach the Wyld Court's ruler, the Erlking, manages his 'empire'.

In general, any Fae being that encounters a mortal who's magic is of the same court will be friendly, while one of the opposed court will be met with more hostility. In the case of a dual bloodliner with opposed courts, how they are received is dependent entirely on their accomplishments and endorsements of other Courtly beings.

Okay-so how about some examples of how to abuse this?

A Summer bloodline external Fire Manipulator faces a dual bloodline Spring and Winter practitioner. Despite the danger, it would be most tactically beneficial to still ply the explosive energy of opposed courts clashing, in the hope of avoiding the chance the dual bloodline foe will overwhelm them.

Chakra

What is Chakra?

Chakra is an internal energy system present in all ensouled living beings. Chakra is not naturally useful for many that have the capacity to use it, humans among them, and requires practice or intervention. Chakra is both the name of the energy itself, and the name of that which emits this energy: points within one's body that are linked to Soul, deriving an offshoot of soul energy from this connection. On occasion these points are referred to as chakra gates, to clarify the difference between the energy and the source.

There are seven prime chakra gates in the body, largely synonymous with the Hindu belief of placement within the body, running from the top of the skull to the base of the spine. Each chakra produces energy that can be differentiated from that originating from any other individual chakra, but the difference is small enough it is not passively visible to students of chakra manipulation.

Chakra gates can be opened variable amounts, and this is commonly referred to as dilation. Chakras 'focus' to different output levels like how eyes 'focus' to different light levels.

An arrangement of energy from one's chakras into a cohesive, practically usable system, is called a chakra orientation. An orientation is like a single spell which the user can fuel using energy from his chakra gates. Orientations take many forms. Even when someone learns another person's particular Orientation, they will not be able to replicate it perfectly. Each person's known chakra orientations are, in at least small ways, unique. Chakra orientations provide ways for a user to affect himself and the world around him. In general, the more complex an orientation and/or the more exaggerated its effects, the more energy intensive it is to run.

Chakra orientations are, in a way, self-perpetuating. Once a user has entered an orientation, he can actually alter the degree of dilation or contraction of any chakra gates in use, and it will merely alter the performance of the orientation. In effect, the user is sliding between different but nearly identical versions of the same general form of chakra orientation, but as most individuals are quite limited in the degree of change possible, this is commonly judged to simply be an example of how one can customize a given orientation's performance.

Each chakra orientation has a 'natural' state, somewhat unique to each user. This is the precise amount of energy and chakra dilation involved in each of the seven chakras, and is something akin to a fingerprint for each given orientation. Any use of chakra energy to push an orientation above this default state through dilating one's chakras for increased output is called overcharging. Any use of chakra energy to lower an orientation below this default state through contracting one's chakras is called undercharging.

A user is not limited to a single chakra orientation, and is able to freely switch between them. For most chakra practitioners, attempts to switch orientation mid-battle would be doomed to failure, as the process is too time-consuming. One must have masterful skill in several fields of chakra use and/or have chakras capable of dilating to levels that traditionally take decades of training to achieve to be able to switch orientations in a matter of fractions of a second.

Besides switching orientations, one can attempt to run multiple orientations at once, a technique simply termed multi-orientation. This is considered unreasonably difficult for those who are not dedicated and experienced scholars of chakra. Running a multi-orientation consumes energy faster than the sum amount that would be consumed by each individual orientation being used. That is, multi-orientation will always be more energy-demanding than attempting to do the same thing with a singular orientation that is designed to innately achieve both desired effects. Successfully running a stable multi-orientation for a period measured in something more than seconds is in many cultures and organizations considered one of the requisites to be given a title such as 'Master', insofar as chakra manipulation is concerned.

How do you use Chakras?

Chakra manipulation can be learned through rote training in Orientations, or by having sufficient knowledge of chakra's mechanics to construct new Orientations. The following is critical information to such experimenters.

There are some common associations tied to these 'classes' of Chakra energy. In general, the two lower chakras in the body are more suited to stabilizing and defensive magics, the three chakras in the middle are more suited to offensive/mobility/flexibility/evasion/support magics, and the top two chakras are more suited to detection/illusions/mental magics. These are not hardline principles (one can fully use lower body chakras for a mental chakra application) but rather are generalizations about what each chakra is most naturally suited to.

Just as all energy emitted from a specific chakra shares certain observable commonalities, so too does all energy emitted at the same degree of dilation share commonalities. It is these two sets of shared traits, those unique to each of the seven chakras, and those unique to each level of energy output, that are the basis of all in-depth chakra analysis.

Just as each chakra has varying affinities, each level of output, be it Overcharge or Underchage, share commonalities-and these commonalities manifest in their application. The more Overcharged a given chakra application is compared to it's user's 'default' state, the rougher the magic will feel. It will be less inclined to properly function where grace, restraint and precision is required while most certainly excelling where brute force it the primary goal. Undercharging, on the other hand, is largely the opposite-it has atrocious performance when forced to directly square against forces, but excels when applied to uses that rely in indirect application, and either evade or absorb offending attacks.

Chakra energy does not persist statically. However, it also does not fade rapidly. Once chakra energy has been invested in something, it will take between a few minutes to an hour for a given batch of chakra energy to fade, with energy invested in the environment, rather than in a body, fading much faster. This fading can be accelerated by performing something called a Chakra Flush. As the name implies, this means 'flushing' the chakra energy from one's body swiftly-and is considered a vital skill for any combat applications of chakra.

The reason one flushes Chakra energy is simple: While energy from a previous Orientation persists in the body, any further orientations will be hindered by the conflicting energy until it finishes dissipating. However as long as one's new orientation does not involve investing energy in the body, or the same parts of the body, there is no need in flush, as it would only result in the destruction of the lingering benefits of the prior orientation.

What is the scale for chakra progression?

So what's it look like for a normal dude to learn how to manipulate Chakra, as presented on the following scale:

[Know-Nothing]<[Amateur-Dabbler]<[Apprentice]<[Cadet]<[Journeyman]<[Adept]<[Expert]<[Master]<[Grandmaster]<[Everyone-Step-Back-I-Got-This]

Assuming that this individual is spending six hours a day learning how to manipulate Chakra from someone that is trained in its use, they will learn, on average, like this. Please note it is assumed this training is never skipped, for the purposes of the example. Also note that this scale assumes specialization-by that, a distinction of whether the practitioner uses external or internal manipulation, offensive, defensive or supportive magics. There are many possible combinations that can come together to form one's specialization in Chakra Manipulation, such as 'Internal Chakra Manipulation focused on manipulating health and illness.' or 'External Chakra Manipulation of kinetic energy manipulation'. Traditionally, one is not considered to even have a specialization until at least an Adept.

The first week or two will be occupied getting the person able to even enter an Orientation, and it will take them a day to do so the first few times. This can be considered an 'awakening' period, as growth does pick up after here... for a while.

The first month after a successful application of a Chakra Orientation will be occupied expanding one's familiarity with that first Orientation, and getting the user able to enter this Orientation more smoothly. In theory, by the end of this month, a normal person will be able to enter their initial Orientation in six to ten hours, and is expected able to sustain this Orientation stably for at least a day, barring directly disruptive influence. This would be considered the moment the student has learned enough they are no longer a dabbler, and are considered an [Apprentice].

To reach the next level of understanding, [Cadet], usually takes between two and five months-and observes a reverse bell curve: Predominately people either learn it rather easily and finish in two to three months, or have trouble, and take four to five months. Very few fall between three and four months. At this point, the individual is assumed to know at least five Orientations, and be able to switch orientations within two hours. Further, the individual is expected to now have a grasp of the 'Overcharge' principle, if not anything resembling mastery. At this level, they are expected able to utilize their understanding of chakra in live combat, and not just in the less hectic conditions of a training environment. Such a student is still not considered versed enough to teach.

To become a [Journeyman] usually takes a year, and is largely a period of refining existing knowledge. A key trait of a Journeyman is the ability to perceive one's own chakratic energy as it flows through their body. To this end, it is rare to expect one to know more Chakra Orientations as a Journeyman than as a Cadet-however, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that Journeyman to more fully understand how to apply each of those known chakras. In particular, a Journeyman is expected able to accurately estimate and subsequently use only as much Overcharge on an Orientation as is necessary, as opposed to the clumsy attempts of a Cadet. A journeyman can switch Orientations in less than a half hour. Journeyman is the rank one normally would have to reach to be allowed to teach in any form.

[Adept]s are when one's knowledge of Chakra fundamentals is considered solid enough to prepare the student for learning of it's more esoteric and advanced uses. Adepts are able to switch chakra orientations in less than ten minutes. To this end, one spends nine months to a year and a half learning between five and ten new chakras-and learning how to use them with equal skill to those already known, and to do so with minimal direction from a mentor. At the same time, the student learns how to Undercharge chakras, a lesson purposefully omitted until now as without incredibly stable control of one's Orientation, an Undercharged Orientation becomes worthless. Once one has demonstrated the ability to accurately estimate how to properly use a new chakra, in terms of use in actual combat and applying overcharge and undercharge alike, they are considered to be an Adept.

To become an [Expert] is a long and arduous process. In point of fact, most students of Chakra without something driving them to push themselves will stay at the rank of Adept forever. It takes at least five years, usually closer to a decade for an Adept to have gained enough experience to become an Expert. At this point, they are assumed to know approximately fifty Chakra Orientations, and are expected to be able to switch chakras within five seconds. It is Experts and above who are able to switch Orientations swiftly enough to do so in battle. Experts are also expected to have learned how to differentiate between energy from each of the seven chakras, and assess what output level the chakra was at when making the energy-even when analyzing chakra energy in another person's body. The last trait expected in an Expert is the knowledge of how to perform a Multi-Orientation, if not the ability to apply it in combat.

[Masters] and those rare few above them are rare-it takes legitimate talent or considerable extenuating circumstances for an 'average' person to reach this rank. The single largest defining trait is that a Master can, if they choose, use Multi-Orientation with sufficient competence to apply it in battle if they so chose. A master can change chakra orientations in under a second, barely needs to think to render a given Orientation at precisely the desired Over or Undercharge level in a split instant, has learned how to perform all manner of Chakra Flushing, and is usually attained some twenty to thirty years after becoming an expert.

What are Grandmasters like? What of the final category you ask?

Well frankly humans don't enter either often enough for averages of any sort to even exist.

What makes Bloodlines different from Chakra Manipulation?

Bloodlines are something one is born with, uses immense personal talent with magic to self-generate, or is gifted one by a God, Wizard or Dragon, completely different from Chakra's 'everyone is capable if they try' format. Chakra manipulation, while effectively infinitely flexible given enough time and practice, is ultimately an inefficient use of one's spiritual power. Bloodlines forgo this fundamental inefficiency, and for equivalent amounts of time invested will always overpower Chakra manipulation by a nearly-insurmountable amount. This is why in general, Bloodline users drastically outperform chakra users. There are far fewer Bloodline users than Chakra manipulators, but there is nothing that prevents a Bloodline user from learning chakra manipulation as well (and many do so). Another point which applies to all forms of Bloodlines is that a user may have one or two bloodlines but no more than that. Dragons are the only known beings to violate this limit, with most dragons having four or more.

Transcendent Humans

What is Transcendence?

Transcendency is a state of being attainable by entities who have transcended the flaws of their natural magic and have embraced becoming something beyond that. Transcendency candidates must have active chakras but lack bloodlines, and must have attained a purity of form either by birth, by their own power, or by specialized processes. Not all trancendents are equal. Transcendency acquired naturally has quality proportional to the being's own quality at the time. An artificial transcendency is variable in quality and depends largely on the source from which it was derived: for example a wizard would produce a better transcendent than any natural process could. An average wizard will impart a better transcendent state than the average deity could.

The talents required to artificially produce a transcendent are skill in either Ritual, Name, or Conceptual magic as well as in Soul, Mind, or Flesh manipulation with respect to the type of transcendent being created. Essentially one skill is required per pool of three skill sets, meaning one who is well versed in Ritual magic and possessing Flesh manipulation could grant someone a transcendent body while someone equally skilled in Name magic and Mind manipulation could produce a transcendent mind.

What does Transcendence do?

Transcendent people have high capacity for learning chakra techniques, and energy efficiency that makes their limited power pools useful enough to be comparable to the larger power pools bloodline practicioners have.

How does a person walk the Transcendent Path?

Foremost, the Transcendent must not have a bloodline or significant magic that does not stem from themselves (i.e. chakra is allowable but contract powers aren't). A Transcendent may be born, or made.

There are ritual procedures to encourage an aspect of a person to become transcendent. Some use ingredients from transcendent people, but not all do.

How does Transcendence compare to bloodlines?

Transcendants are magically bright and visible, make decent magical ingredients, are prone to conflict amongst each other and other beings, and don't have any support structure in place for them usually.

Soul

What is the Soul?

A soul is a bundle of organized magic energy, condensed into structures that perform tasks. A normal human soul looks like a sphere with various structures all over and inside it. All things which are considered sapient by Draconic law and tradition have souls.

Think of a sphere of gelatin. Now stick fruit in it and put bands of candy shell around it. The candy shells have some value in keeping the gelatin in the right shape, and in keeping it coherent. They are like the memory structures in souls. The fruit bits are personality, skills, quirks, gates, and the soul-bound components to bloodlines, and can collectively be thought of as spell matrices formed from the soul itself. They act like rebar in concrete and add stiffness, strength, and coherence (also called soul size) to the soul overall. The gelatin itself can be made stiffer with the right treatments (a case of soul coherence going up innately instead of as a result of specific structures). In a soul seated in a body, there are slim little lines from the soul to each of the chakra points. Those are the chakra gates, and as is implied by the name gate, they're actually two-way connections. Because the mind and body exert influence on the soul, a being can slowly change the shape of his soul by thinking the right thoughts or doing the right things to his body.

Now, imagine this candy coated sphere of fruit laden gelatin is being exposed to heat. As the temperature of the gelatin goes up, it becomes less stiff. If the sphere becomes just warm enough, it can be reshaped easily. If it is overheated, the gelatin will eventually melt and become a goopy mess. In a soul, free magic energy acts like that. It reduces the stiffness value of the soul-matter and puts pressure on the soul itself. Once the amount of magic (the potential energy, also called capacitance or volume) in the soul is above its capacity to contain, the soul loses structural coherence and fails. When the soul is near its total capacity for magic, it is very easy to shape, either through experience and mental exercise by the first party, or by soul crafting by either a third party or the first party.

What Should I Do for a Near-Capacity Soul?

A skilled soul manipulator can put patches on a soul that is ready to burst, but in general to permanently solve the issue one must find a way to use or eject the magic in a magically overloaded soul. Increasing soul coherence is also very helpful, but does not remove the energy.

One technique for ejecting magic is to channel it through existing soul structures instead of allowing it to gather in the soul. The gate formed by a bind to a spirit animal can perform such a function, since spirit animals can use excess power to overcharge themselves safely to some degree (this solution will not work with most sorts of familiars, because the magic energy will corrode their connection to their body, eventually killing the body and leaving the ex-familiar a normal spirit animal).

Certain chakra techniques can allow a third party to forcibly flush excess energy from another person. In Istanbul, the required expertise is rare enough that Baki Yamada has made it one of his special services in his massage parlor.

What is Soul manipulation magic?

Soul manipulation magic is ultimately everything that chakra manipulation in it's totality strives for. Unlike chakra manipulation, which plies the power of one's soul filtered through natural gates (the seven primary chakras) within the body, soul manipulation magic directly uses the soul itself. Like all bloodline formats, Soul Manipulation is divided into three categories: Internal, External, and Hybrid. In general, the most common soul manipulation format is internal, followed by hybrid, with purely external soul manipulation being exceedingly rare in an already relatively uncommon bloodline class. This focus directs both what is used as a power source for magic, and what one is able to target for manipulation. Internal purists use their own soul's energy to alter itself; a very recursively oriented ability, often excelling in disguise, impersonation and at sufficient levels of mastery crude simulation of other internal bloodline abilities through sufficiently advanced soul sculpting.

Soul Sculpting, along with Soul Binding and Soul Breaking, is one of, and in fact the most prevalent, of the three principles on which all soul manipulation is based. Soul Sculpting is the act of reshaping a soul like clay to change its properties, and potentially the properties of its host vessel. Soul Binding is the act of imposing rules, conquering and/or enslaving Souls in a lasting manner by use of magical structures imposed on and integrated into the target's soul. Such bindings are not able to be Soul Sculpted away, and in fact cannot be undone without the assistance of a Master of Soul Manipulation that specializes in Soul Binding. Soul Breaking, as the name implies, is the act of breaking a soul but this does not only mean permanently rendering a soul broken. One can either use the fragments of a broken soul, or break off fragments of a healthy soul to create new Souls. Soul Breaking is by far the most uncommon aspect of soul manipulation to be used, and is the hardest to find reference material on. Attempting self-study of Soul Breaking is one of the most dangerous acts a student of magic could ever dream of.

How do you use Soul Manipulation?

While one can, to a degree, use it's 'little brother' Chakra Manipulation to experiment with some measure of safety, the same cannot be said of Soul Manipulation. Due to how easily it can alter the seat of consciousness, it can very easily cause irreparable harm if one is unaware of what they are doing. With Soul Magic, more than any other type of magic, it is imperative to do as little experimentation as is necessary, and always strive to learn of what happened when others tried such a thing, if one is to have a prosperous career.

Flesh

What is Flesh?

Flesh is literally matter which can, in quantity, act as a body. The most common examples of flesh are amino acid based lifeforms (i.e. lifeforms that use proteins and have protoplasm contained in cellular membranes). These versatile and chemically self-organizing systems provide a good framework for containing magic, but are not the only examples of flesh.

Technically anything which acts as a body proper is flesh. An ensouled shadow has a body of shadow, while an ensouled computer would have a body of semiconductors. However, protoplasmic flesh is the most common sort of flesh.

What is a Body?

A body is a corpus of matter of some sort which has sufficient presence in the NeverNever to serve as an anchoring point for a soul, and which has the capacity to contain magic energy. Traditionally, a body has structures to help house a mind (i.e. a brain and nervous system) and to help circulate magic energy (i.e. a blood circulatory system which can eventually interface with a soul's chakra).

What does Flesh Manipulation do?

All fleshcrafting is based on manipulating biological tissue. Each flesh manipulator has an affinity for one of the following groups moreso than the others, and it is this affinity which sets the tone for their abilities. The specialization categories are Muscle, Connective, Nervous and Epithelial tissue.

Tissue	Journeyman	Adept	Master
Muscle	2	3	3
Connective	3	1	4
Nervous	4	2	1
Epithelial	1	4	2

Ranked, from 1 for best to 4 for worst, in terms of how much innate material there is for people at assorted levels of expertise. Please note that Muscle and Connective tissue focuses in general progress faster than Connective and Epithelial focus.

• Most Internal, martially orientated fleshcrafters go with some mixture of Nervous, and muscle or connective. Most don't really try for glandular funtimes the preference is usually to simply cave a skull in one hit and be done.
• Focusing on nervous tissue or epithelial tissue in general requires a larger knowledge of biology as well as outside fields to properly utilize.
• Nervous gets rather gimped glandular control compared to epithelial, and epithelial gets rather incomplete nervous control.
• Beginning nervous tissue focused fleshcrafting would be naturally inducing positive neural plasticity on command-with a goodly headache afterward from the blood flow fun resulting from it's use. When I say this, I mean it would 'sharpen the mind' in a manner not unlike a strong cup of coffee and a slap in the face.
• Fleshcrafting epithelial focused students learn on day one how to reset drug tolerance, or otherwise moderate it. It's kind of a fundamental skill. Even for the brain, since fleshcrafting's gotten REALLY good at building filters in the sack around the brain and in the blood vessels leading to it. So-strictly no, not the brain, not as a beginning student. But all the paths something can take to REACH the brain, yes. This does exempt glands already in the brain, obviously.
• Beginning Musclecrafting students learn how to localize muscle changes-render an arm wholly one type of muscle, for example. The ability at face value is not as useful as what one can initially learn with other focuses, but with sufficient skill is exceptionally versatile in it's application.
• New Connective tissue focused students of flesh manipulation will learn how to render joint dislocation completely harmless in both the short and long term, reinforce joints and increase flexibility. Similar to Muscle focused flesh manipulation, these initial teachings require skill to use properly
• Out of all four formats, Muscle tissue focus leads to the greatest raw gains in general regenerative ability as a result of this focus involving working with comparatively more mass than the other focuses.
• Out of all four Connective tissue allows one to become the most efficient at healing large wounds involving limb-loss, and can render such things far less costly or time consuming to regenerate.
• As something of a balance for their innate lack of sufficient higher level function compared to mastery of Nervous tissue or epithelial, Muscle and Connective focuses will always have greater regenerative ability than their otherwise focused peers.
• Out of all four formats, Nervous tissue focus allows one the most resilient fleshcrafting-based defense against mental attacks, and the fastest reflexes.
• Out of all potential forms of organ grafting and the act's impact on flesh manipulation, Glands are the easiest thing to integrate possible of organ grafting, and as such Epithelial focus is the most suited to
• Epithelial will never make you as strong as muscle focus-will never make your joints as monstrously enduring and flexible as connective, or your brain/reflexes as sharp as nervous focus-that's a fact, for equal levels of skill.
• Connective Tissue also means that, once you learn external flesh manipulation, having a pretty easy time fucking other people's joints on contact. Including monsters.
• Muscle, manipulate their muscles, move them like a puppet.
• Nervous, enjoy randomizing (and at higher levels) controlling their senses.
• Epithelial, their glands are yours, and can be rewritten to new functions.
• Nervous control would arguably control pain better than glandular, which would chemically mask the signals, whereas nervous would just handle the signals differently.
• The realm of poisons, caustics, paralytics and toxins is wholly dominated, with fleshcrafting, by epithelial focused fleshcrafters.

Mind

What is the Mind?

The mind is a construct formed from willpower and magic. A common analogy for it is to think of the mind as software running on the hardware provided by the body (usually in the brain) and soul (usually in the cognition soul structures on a healthy soul). As the mind ages, it automatically constructs a self-image and builds its own internal reality based upon accumulated will, which is commonly called the mindscape. Most people's mindscapes are vague and weak, but a very mentally oriented person will have a more defined one, as will a very magical person (as the mindscape's formation is a function of will acting on magic energy within the confines of a soul and body).

A very well developed mind can be extracted from the soul and body and be capable of operating independently.

What are Mentalists?

Mentalists in general are a potentially powerful class, though individuals are usually limited in focus. Because of how individualized mentalist powers are, two mentalists could have completely different power sets. Where mind manipulation magics use magic to affect the mind, mentalism uses the mind to work magic. The mentalist uses willpower to drive his mindscape, which is itself able to do things.

Unlike most other specialists, mentalists do not have an energy pool that can be depleted. Instead, mentalists use their willpower to channel available energy. They are primarily limited in the number effects they can achieve at once by their available willpower. The sorts of effects they can achieve are limited by their experience, imagination, and prep time.

Mentalists use their will, time, and mental focus to create mental constructs. By imbuing them with more and more energy and making them more mentally real. An on-the-spot construct is basically nothing more than a mental focus aid; anyone can make one. A mentalist could spend days, weeks, or years pushing willpower into the construct until finally even if they stopped thinking about it completely, even if they died, it would still be real. Particularly specialized or talented mentalists can pull mental constructs into the real world.

What do Mentalists do?

There are basically only two mentalist abilities and all mentalists have them. One, every action a mentalists takes is mentally is backed by his will. Two, everything a mentalist imagines becomes more real over time. A "low-level mentalism ability" is basically anything that a completely normal person can do if put into a mental or spiritual plane, though any mentalist will be able to do them better than your average schmuck.

How do I become a Mentalist?

People exposed to enough magic and with the right mindset will eventually become Mentalists. A would-be mentalist needs his soul and body to be saturated with magic, such as from eating magic food, and to not have anything that his accumulated magic is being sunk into. Any constructive channeling of the collected magic will stop it from being channeled into mentalism.

What are Karmic Mentalists?

Where a mentalist uses willpower to force his mindscape to do what he wants, a karmic mentalist uses karma (the concept of cosmic balance for all actions) to make his mindscape do what he intends. In many respects being a karmic mentalist is much easier (and the bar for entry is much lower) than being a mentalist, but to be truly effective requires a degree of self sacrifice many people do not make. It is not uncommon for karmic mentalists to give away all their possessions and money to gain karma that they then expend in their mentalist endeavors. There is little outward difference between a destitute hobo and a particularly powerful karmic mentalist.

Conceptual

What is Conceptual Magic?

Where Courtly and Chakra based magics are considered to be high level magic that tap power sources of comparatively small potential, Conceptual Magic is a low level format that directly taps the NeverNever for its power. Each Concept embodies a given sort of magic, and can either achieve effects by itself or can interact with other magics and matter in a flexible manner. Conceptual magic is generally held to be a dangerous field in general, since each Concept is its own topic to learn and presents significant risks to the user in terms of damage to Body, Mind, and Soul from missteps.

What is a Concept?

A Concept is the sum total of all the magic its Concept encompasses. Concepts are innate to the NeverNever aggregate (commonly called the 'NeverNever Root'). Accessibility to a Concept is only limited by how much energy the user can handle channeling, and by how the given Concept's dimension interacts with a given user's occupied dimension.

How do I use Conceptual Magic?

Where a Wizard accesses the NeverNever by acting as a planet's chakra gate, a Concept User accesses the power of the Concept by directly interfacing with the part of the NeverNever where the Concept is housed. Concepts are "learned" through exposure to the Concept in carefully metered amounts until the Concept User develops an interface with the Concept, effectively a low level access method with the NeverNever which channels power from the dimension the Concept in question is housed in.

Wizards

What are Wizards?

Wizards (and Witches) are living conduits, effectively chakra gates for the planet's NeverNever field (or some other power source in the case of lesser wizards).

What Can A Wizard Or Witch Do?

Whatever they want. They outclass everyone in terms of power with the exception of the three wizards who have become living gods. Ruling dragons, very old dragons, and very powerful gods can approach a Wizard in terms of power storage but (generally) cannot match the raw output or power regeneration rate a Wizard enjoys.

How Can I Become A Wizard?

Wizards aren't born. They're made by a flood of energy from the NeverNever attempting to vent through their souls. Provided conditions are right, a soul can attune to the NeverNever gate event and become a conduit between the raw energies of the NeverNever and the expressed reality the Wizard lives in. In one sense, the Wizard's soul is a chakra gate for the entire planet.

A Wizard or Witch is a power unto himself or herself. Dedicated teams of dragons, skinwalkers, or other Hekatoncheires-class fighters have a chance of killing a prepared wizard, but no more than that. Even Owner, the oldest and most powerful of the Ruling Dragons, would have trouble with defeating an experienced wizard in a serious fight.

What's A NeverNever gate?

A NeverNever gate is an event where different dimensions interact. The gate is expressed as a rush of magic energy flooding from the invading dimension into the target dimension, usually focused on a locus of low magical energy- though such gates can be actively aimed at specific individuals. When a gate interacts with existing magic, it usually creates a violent explosion. With proper modification of the gate itself though, interesting interactions are possible. The origin of the magic performing the modifications is important: Dragons, Divines, Skinwalkers, and Wizards all have the ability to modify the event with different results.

In short, a divine intervention creates a Wizard or Witch Saint. A draconic intervention creates an Elder Wizard. An intervention by a skinwalker creates a Were-Wizard. A wizardly intervention creates another Wizard. Unknown circumstances cause a Reversed Conduit.

What Are Witch Saints And God Wizards?

When a god interferes during the transformation to Wizard or Witch, the conduit is redirected to the divine being instead of to the earth. Thus, the would-be-wizard becomes a divine conduit, or more commonly, a Wizard or Witch Saint. There are 60 known Wizard and Witch Saints, with there being notably more Witch Saints than Wizard Saints. Their powers are strongly biased by the god they are connected to, but as a whole they can easily dominate divine beings and are known for being able to emulate all divine magics with relative ease. They also are largely banned by the God Wars treaty, with A.O.R.B. playing the part of policing and enforcing body.

Wizard and Witch Saints have a reputation for being mentally unstable, since they develop a Gate of Self (a conduit that links to others like itself) when they become multidimensional. The most common effect is that the Witch Saint loses herself entirely to the Gate of Self, her personality being overwritten repeatedly by personalities from alternate versions of herself. Ultimately this leaves the Witch Saint in a state of confusion about her own identity (as alternates can have very different lives), primed to lash out at random. This can be avoided if the correct candidate is chosen, or if the patron god takes steps to shield the new Witch Saint.

Wizard and Witch Saints were traditionally seen as the 'hands' of their respective gods. Since the format of their magic makes it possible for them to replicate and emulate magic, experienced Wizard and Witch Saints are effectively living superweapons.

When a normal Wizard or Witch gains enough Belief power to eclipse their personal planet-based magic, they become a full god with both divine powers and the planetary magic wizards enjoy. There are three known god wizards: The Yellow Emperor, King Solomon (a.k.a. Solomon Grundy), and "The Third" who actively masks his or her identity entirely.

What Are Were-Wizards?

Skinwalkers are masters of were-forms, thanks to their proprietary techniques, and thus have a Divine aspect. When a skinwalker interferes with a gate event, the resulting being is a Were-Wizard, a more specialized version of a Wizard Saint. Were-Wizards are linked to the skinwalker that performed the intervention, and are principally known for being able to affect all forms of were-magic (but not other sorts of divine magic, or indeed, other magics in general). They are usually considered inferior to Wizard Saints. As Skinwalkers are by nature secretive and isolationist, there are very few known Were-Wizards.

What Are Elder Wizards?

In antiquity the new human Divine Gods and the dragon Elder Beings (gods which were based primarily on the mathematical draconic magic) battled in the Elder Wars. A decisive factor in the conflict between humans and dragons was the existence of human Wizards. Ultimately, the dragons lost, and their pantheons were banished to the Elder realms.

After the war, the dragons eventually learned how to create their own sorts of wizards by aspecting a NeverNever gate event properly. The resulting being is an Elder Wizard. Such beings are exceptionally rare and secretive, numbering less than thirteen total. Elder Wizards are effectively chakra gates for the dimension the Elders are stored in, and can access that aggregate.

What Are Reversed Conduits?

Unknown and extremely rare circumstances can cause a gate strike to effectively have reversed polarity. The first two reverse polarity strikes damage the soul of the afflicted person, and do not turn him or her into a living conduit. The third strike effectively adds enough power for the afflicted person to be able to leech all the energy from a Rule of Three binding so that it does nothing to them.

Unknown effects occur with more strikes, the afflicted soul being more and more damaged and changed by the reversed strikes until by the seventh strike it is notably difficult for most magic to affect them. By the eleventh strike such a person poses a direct threat to even very potent magical beings such as skinwalkers or dragons as by merely touching them they actively drain their energy back into the ground.

By the thirteenth reversed polarity strike, the person has become a full fledged reverse-polarity living conduit, and poses a massive threat to all forms of magic in their vicinity. Even souls, which are effectively bundles of magic energy in an ordered state, will unravel in proximity to a Reversed Conduit.

Dragons

Why Are Dragons So Powerful?

They can learn every school of magic, innately have multifaceted blank bloodline slots for each court (and can develop more as they age), can learn all forms of magic, have no innate point they start aging, have inborn perfect regeneration that's mundane to act as the foundation of any magic they learn, and they have a long history of bullying lesser beings.

Spirit Animals

What Are Spirit Animals?

Spirit Animals are Souls bound both to prevent their dissipation after-death, and to slave their soul to that of the one binding them. There is only one requirement for what may constitute a spirit animal and that is that it must have a soul which, by definition, means it is self-aware. A variation on the concept of spirit animals is what is called a familiar, which is a spirit animal still in it's living shell-not a soul slain and enslaved, but enslaved while alive. There are some who could argue it is the origination of the concept, but nevertheless there are minor differences between the two all derived from the nature of the familiar's embodied existence, primarily it's ability to continue soul growth after enslavement.

How Do I Get One?

An aspiring master of a spirit animal must first have the desired ensouled being it wishes to own, generally these are animals which have been sanctioned by the Accords-which include any non-sapient mundane creature that develops a soul sometime after maturity, or from the wholly bestial facets of the magical realm: Mythic and Divine Beasts and the like. The difference between ensouled mundane creatures and that of Mystic, Divine, or Demonic Beasts is in their monstrous power and master's ability to adopt their possessed magical abilities.

After acquiring an appropriate ensouled being there is the ritual required for slaving one existence to another, this comes in three general forms based on the facet of the owner's existence he wishes to bind the spirit to-to whit there are Body, Mind, and Soul binds. A spirit animal can have multiple forms of binding, requiring additional rituals per bind. The rituals themselves are age old, thankfully requiring low to no magic, but demanding careful attention and adherence to. These rituals are rarely innovated on as they involve one of the binder's crucial tethers to life and the use of a valuable resource like a would-be spirit animal.

There are general rules that come with binding a spirit animal that apply across all binding types and methods. A spirit animal cannot exceed three times the potency of its master's soul as this could result in the failure of a ritual or worse it's success which would render the binder the bindee. A person may also only have so many spirit animals, each binding area (Body, Mind, and Soul) has it's own limit which is largely dependent on it's magical development. The average person has a limit of one, normal spirit animal per binding site. A spirit animal taken from the magical realms will generally consume all available binding slots in it's binding area, exceptions to this rule being exceedingly rare among the human population.

Assuming all of the preceding steps have been completed and requirements fulfilled the prospective master can safely consider him/herself the proud owner of a spirit animal.

How Can Spirit Animals Be Altered?

A somewhat popular "augmention" among spirit animal owners is that of rendering a spirit animal chimeric. These generally require the consent of the spirit animal undergoing the spiritual change, but after that can be done in the following legal ways:

1: Have consent from the other spirit animal you wish to merge.
2: An untrained soul manipulator can claim in self defense it destroyed/warped it's spirit animal in self defense, although this requires investigation and confirmation by a draconic council.
3: Purchasing preshredded soul bits (do not think of this as a conventional commodity-people who acquire legally okay soul shreds usually covet them.)
4: Use bits of the master's own soul (note that feeding your own soul to a spirit animal in this more permanent sense, rather than funneling spiritual energy, can greatly disturb the spirit animal bond and mutate it)
5: Have a god imbue it after getting the spirit animal to agree to the specific thing you want to do
6: Have the spirit animal ascend to Mythic status while other spirit animals are bound in the same location(s), this will result in them being forcibly unbound and potentially converted into soul scraps which the newly mythic spirit animal will consume.

What Do Different Species of Spirit Animals Do?

There are three types of Spirit Animals: Defensive, which empower their master's body, Sensor, which grant spiritual awareness and preternatural senses, and Assault (otherwise known as Predator among

shamanistic circles), that can use their soul mass to directly harm other souls-and sometimes flesh. Those three types are the way you classify what kind of spirit animal any given bound spirit is. In GENERAL, Sensor bonds best with Mind, Predator best with Soul, Defensive best with Body-but there are, as always, exceptions and particular circumstances where that's just not true.

The specifics of what a given spirit animal can do are largely variable, but generalizations can be made for species. For example:

• Hummingbirds: Sensors with an eye for mundane senses, speed gauging, and mental quickness boosting or Denfensive spirit animals built for speed and mobility.
  
• Gorillas: Defensive type spirit animals widely regarded as the best boosters for physical strength and offering strong secondary defensive boosts.
  
• Orangutans: Defensive granting impressive durability and stamina buffs.
  
• White Harts: Defensive types who give mobility boosts based on stride length and terrain, most often for forested areas and involving limited spatial manipulation.
  
• Mimic Octopus: Sensor or Defensive, with the Sensor type individuals offering a diverse suite of magical sensing bonuses including Elder and the Defensive types granting the curious ability to mimicry to it's owner, making them a near perfect copy of someone they have touched at will, though only the last person they've touched and only storing two disguises at once, one per hand. The cost of these abilities is however dire as members of Cephalopoda class they corrode the sanity of their owners and incline them towards inhuman thought processes.
  
• Squids: Sensors or Defensive who provide a range of prenatural mundane senses which lend themselves towards amplifying mental acuity and providing the oft desired ability to sense Elder magic. As Defensive spirit animals they are known for impressive flexibility enhancement. As with the mimic octopus they carry negative mental effects
  
• Sheep Dogs: While dogs are traditionally Predator-types, a dog which was ensouled in the process of working as a sheep dog can make a very effective Sensor spirit, with abilities that improve mundane senses, spatial awareness, empathetic reading of intent, and effective soul-level communication in sublime examples.
  

What Happens If I Mix Binds On A Spirit Animal?

It is possible to apply a second bind to a spirit animal to more tightly integrate it to the master, as long as the second bind is of a different category than the original bind. For example, a spirit bound assault class spirit animal could also be flesh bound. This allows the spirit animal to convey more aspects and abilities to its master.

Applying the last bind forces the master to merge with the spirit animal and become a were-being of the same type as the spirit animal. The spirit animal itself is consumed in this process, becoming one with the owner.

What Are Skinwalkers?

Skinwalkers are the undisputed masters of wereforms, as they have the ability to convert themselves into almost any sort of mundane animal. They are well versed in were-based fleshcrafting techniques and enjoy personal power slightly below that of dragons of similar age and experience. They are secretive and isolationist, as their techniques for making more of themselves require significant investment.

In antiquity a spirit shaman with a brilliant soul got the idea to bind a werebeing as a spirit animal instead of an animal. This same shaman then tried a triple bind to become something new: the first skinwalker. Each subsequent triple binding with new werebeings added to the complexity of the skinwalker's soul and granted him further magic reserves, until he finally became a being capable of challenging dragons. Long before men knew how to make metal tools, the first skinwalker had absorbed werebeings representing every mundane creature on earth, as had all the members of his clan.

The first skinwalker clan recognized that they could not add mythic-creature based weres to themselves indefinitely. Mythic weres represent a far more dense soul to integrate through a triple bind, and are used by individual skinwalkers as a way of specializing.

The skinwalker creation technique is a secret that the disparate clans will work together to protect. Interlopers who steal the secret or learn it independently are usually killed.

Skinwalkers and dragons almost never cooperate. The proprietary techniques skinwalkers use to make more of themselves are completely illegal by Draconic law and the Accords.

Vampires

What Are Vampires?

Vampires are people who have been infected with the vampire spiritual disease.

What Can Vampires Do?

Vampires can auto-push their bodies to the breaking by design (muscle recruitment, bones breaking, etc), but need to unlearn being safe to utilize it fully. They get immunity to shock and pain caps off, barring magical attacks. As an example, a vampire could have all his guts on the floor and blown off legs and talk fine.

Vampires are obligated to take in 5 liters of blood per month, 1 and 1/4th a liter per week, and it has to be from beings that have souls. It's hard to not drain someone to death when a vampire is running on empty. Vampires are instantly rendered catatonic in sunlight. Vampires are very vulnerable, compared to humans, to spiritual attacks, as a vampire's soul is always in his blood, and thus both very easy to find and less warded than a conventional soul. Vampires can sense bloodflow, as a sense, but don't have boosted normal senses.