dark magic

Dark Magic

Dark magic is a versatile and powerful school of magic, able to do many amazing things or feats that might seem impossible, at least at the level of magic prowess one would otherwise require. Say, outright possessing another’s body is at the level of a demon, is it not? Indeed, powerful as this magic is, there are many good reasons that most discard it, vilify it and decide to never use it. But, if you’re reading this book, clearly, you’re an intellectual and smart enough to not blindly run in fear, not carelessly vilify a branch of magic that is, unlike how most people perceive it, not good nor evil, merely another tool in any monster’s arsenal of magic. But, without knowing how to use a tool, that tool is useless; therefore, this book aims to educate you on the branches of dark magic, their capabilities, and the risks involved in the use of this magic.

Branches:

Empathy

Empathy is the most complicated, abstract branch of dark magic; in short, it is magic that affects both you and one or more targets. This could mean healing yourself at the cost of the health of another, or sacrificing your own health to heal another, to keep them alive. It could mean equalizing differing viewpoints you and another have, or any other thing you can imagine that would involve affecting both you and another. For this reason, dark magic weapons enchanted in the Empathy branch are often the most perplexing; one is equally likely to cause you to feel the same pain you’re inflicting on your target as it is to restore health to you as you attack them, and the magic is equally arcane, as stated before.


Shapeshifting

Shapeshifting is much simpler, in some ways, and more complex in others; it concerns the changing of oneself, at least when used on its’ own. This could be as simple as changing the color of a patch of fur and as complicated as transforming yourself into another creature entirely, or changing your size drastically for a limited amount of time. Shapeshifting enchanted weapons are extremely valuable for this purpose - why merely have an axe, a sword or a spear, when you can have a weapon that can effortlessly shift between the three? With enough practice, users of the Shapeshifting branch of Dark Magic can shapeshift parts of their own bodies into weapons, eliminating the need entirely - turning one’s arm into a large blade, for example. This has been noted to be impractical at times, however.



Possession

==tbd, possessing shadow and others and other stuff like that, weapons that can trap the souls of others inside them and give a life to the weapon==


Risks

While many forms of magic carry the risk of exhaustion and burnout, the risk in Dark Magic is much more severe, though many, including the author of this book, argue that the versatility and power of Dark Magic is worth the risk. In short, while other magic uses your reserves of mana and stamina to perform spells, dark magic uses you. Or your soul, more specifically. Whenever you use a dark magic spell, a part of your soul will be consumed in the process as fuel, along with a smaller amount of mana; This is what allows dark magic to be so powerful for such a lower price of mana. As long as you remain conscientious of your own health, though, and how much of your maximum the magic has drained, there should be little cause for alarm. In addition, as one uses dark magic spells, that spell will slowly lower in price of health and increase in power as one gets used to using it, so practicing a spell one uses often is a good technique for not risking oneself too much.


Critical Limit

When using Dark Magic, beware your own critical limit. This is a dangerous point, usually between ¼ and 1/3 of one’s maximum health, where a monster’s natural regeneration and healing ceases to be sufficient to restore their missing health. Instead, the monster has been driven past their breaking point, and their health will start to deteriorate, even without the ‘aid’ of dark magic. Unless one were to get some other, external magic to boost their maximum health until they recover - normal healing magic would by no means be sufficient - their HP would continue to decrease, until it got to a maximum of just a sliver.. then the monster would dust. For this reason, it is extremely important to watch one’s health when performing dark magic, and stop when necessary to recover.



Combining Branches




Empathy-Shapeshifting



Empathy-Posession


Shapeshifting-Possession



Triple Magic (Empathy-Shapeshifting-Possession)