A warrior kneels, her weapon in pieces, but with a spirit as strong as hers she is not yet disarmed: a searing, wild flare builds in her hands.

	A shaman, wreathed in incense smoke and torchlight gazes into the soul of another, and sees their heart enshrined in thickets of gnarled, sick hatred.

	A treacherous manipulator looks through his friends and family, and by the strings he sees puppeteers them for his enrichment and amusement.

	A howling lich barrels through a party of wayward souls in the forest, reaving their souls and consuming them whole for its dark magics.

	Spirit magic is among the most common forms of magic on Var Sarlir, and it is not hard to see how. A mortal’s greatest asset, and their greatest vulnerability, is their soul. Whether one looks within themselves for power, or finds it by toying with the souls of others, souls bristle with possibility. A soul is one’s avatar, their force of will and mind given form, and through that one’s own will can affect the world or indeed be affected by the world.

	Spirit magic is split into two distinct disciplines: inner strength, and metaspirituality.

	Inner strength is the name given to one’s own connection and familiarity with their soul; it is through inner strength that one can manipulate their own soul, and come to understand it. Inner strength in its most basic form is used to siphon magic from within oneself and deploy it, usually in elemental form; one casts tiny slivers of their soul into spells that effectively ‘will’ the world to be as they would like it, willing a flame into existence, willing the freezing deaths of their enemies, willing the wind to blow a certain way or the earth to quake.

	Inner strength is at first simply one’s own soul looking within for power when in desperation, but it can be developed by spirit magi and their ilk into a more full mastery of one’s own force of will. How this will manifests varies: is it one’s own self preservation and enrichment, or perhaps a righteous goal that must be carried out? Like the way in which [[Primordial Magic]] draws from one’s own creativity regardless of direction, Spirit magic draws from one’s own will just the same. A vile and wretched serial killer determined to hold onto the mortal plane so that he can continue his grisly work will have just as powerful a soul as the righteously-guided paladin who hunts him tirelessly; driven by different things, to different ends, but just as driven.

	Sourcing magic from within oneself can be exhausting, depending on the strength of the soul. Even a hopeless individual, powered by desperation alone in a dark situation, might be able to will a spell or two from within themselves, and even a mighty, driven warrior will grow tired and weak after issuing enough commands to the world around him. As well, one can only draw as much strength as they themselves have; one with their back to the wall might be able to draw a flame from within, but that flame will burn only as bright as the soul from which it was taken, and if his will is shaken and his grasp on this mortal coil is loose, then he will find that power underwhelming.

	Through inner strength, however, greater things can be achieved. A more intimate understanding of one’s own soul can have more passive effects: the ability to will oneself to greater and greater ends, to be confident in one’s own spirit to withstand things, to know that one’s own morale is important and to foster that morale, and to be able to see deeper into oneself than most can. Achieving this perfectly may not be possible for everyone; anxious and uncertain types may not achieve perfect certainty, spiritual strength and clarity of purpose, but a better understanding of their own mind and soul can help to build those things. Ultimately, though, these aspects can make a soul stronger, and make the magic cast from those souls stronger too.

	The other half of spirit magic, and one far more obscure, is metaspirituality: the outward capability to see and even interact with others’ souls, and to look and feel beyond the [[Veil]].

	The Veil blinds most uninitiated and unwitting mortals to the goings-on of the Astral Wild, where spiritual phenomena generally occur. It is here that most souls exist, fully real and physical, and that most fully incorporeal beings live entirely. Mortal beings have a means by which to see into this world through their soul, a ‘higher sight’ which can be accessed only through a baseline and strong understanding of one’s own soul, and later through study and practice.

	To see into the Astral Wild is a great power on its own, and one easy to misuse. Where a therapist might gaze into another’s soul, hunting for that which plagues them and seeking to excise emotional blights and clear up emotional scars, a more manipulative sort might use this gift to gain insight into the beliefs and desires of others, and exploit this vulnerability to control them. Furthermore, this grants a lot of insight into spiritual phenomena; the ability to see [[Ghosts]], [[Wardens]] and the like certainly is quite useful.

	But the highest power available to the spirit magi is to reach out and interact with these other souls. With enough study in metaspirituality, one gains the ability to interact in the Astral Wilds on their own terms; normally, spiritual creatures are corporeal only to those to whom they choose to appear, but an expert in metaspirituality can learn to actually control other spirits. One can use this ability to banish spirits, deal direct damage to other souls, or even to manipulate the minds and thoughts of other mortals. This culminates in the ability to draw elemental power from the souls of others, to remove the souls from others’ bodies, and even to entirely consume souls (denying them afterlife in the process) for one’s own uses.

	The peak of the discipline of Spirit Magic is [[Lichdom|Liches]], in which both inner strength and metaspirituality work in concert to create a being with perfect spiritual agency and immense power in the Astral Wilds.