-- Magic

Magic is the highest art and the greatest gift. It is often simply known as the Art, the Gift. Nobody is born entirely without magic - from a cosmological point of view, magic is simply the manifestation of Keter, understanding beyond understanding, the potential for form and potential for life - as if an empty sphere with no boundary; it is the most primal reflection possible for tellurians of the Highest Trinity, that of Zero, Infinity, and Omniscience. But magic, in less formal usage, often refers to what is formally known as Magecraft - and this is what is known as the Art, the ability to harness dual states - variously being, depending on who you ask, as Form and Fundamental, Feminine and Masculine, Comprehension and Wisdom, among other things.

But the ability to manifest Magecraft is rare. Perhaps one tellurian in ten thousand is capable of manifesting magic. Perhaps two out of three will take notice of their abilities. Perhaps one out of a hundred will be able to use so-called High Magecraft - the power to levitate or even fly, or to shatter a blade with a single word, or even to move at twice the speed of a normal man and summon thunder from the sky. A tiny fraction will be able to use magic beyond even that. All evidence points to those capable of High Magic - a word used to indicate mastery beyond that intended for tellurians - being able to also eventually use True Magic, the highest class of magic - but then again, there have been eight tellurians in history capable of such feats, and three of those are dead.

Worse, the ability to manifest Magecraft is unpredictable. A child born to a pair of magecraft-wielding parents are perhaps a hundred times more likely to manifest some form of magical power - but even then, the vast majority do not. Some who are destined to become mages will manifest their first spark as a babbling toddler; others may be well into old age before they suddenly make an apple tree bear fruit in the dead of winter. No one sign, or one test, is able to confirm or deny the presence of overwhelming magic - the potential for comprehending the incomprehensible, become wise beyond wisdom - within a man.

Of course, all of the above mostly applies to what is formally known as Arcane-school or Occult Magecraft. The contrast between this school and the Divine school is astounding - for Divine Magecraft users routinely reach the edge of High Magic, and worse, perhaps one out of every thousand men may reach this pinnacle, simply through steadfast prayer and service to a god or philosophy - a thousand times more than those sticking to Arcane magecraft. However, Arcane magecraft has its own merits. Divine Magecraft is, as a rule, not something enacted by the actual caster. Instead - at least according to the analysis of Rin Tai'in - they borrow the authority of their god to gain a glimpse of understanding into Wisdom. As it is merely a glimpse, their magecraft almost always ends near the attainment of High Magecraft - there have been only two tellurians who have ever moved past that point using Divine Magecraft, and neither had attained True Magic. Furthermore, Divine Magecraft borrows the authority of their god or philosophy (which, according to Rin Tai'in, simply implies that philosophy is derived from a shard of the Truth - a shadow of the First World seen from a distorted mirror while underwater, to use her terms); thus, anyone who falls out of favor with their god, or finds fault in their own philosophy, can and do immediately lose all of their magical prowess. As divine magecraft takes much time to master, this often leaves the once-celebrated magus a simple tellurian without applicable real-world skills.

 -- Archmagi

The heroes of old are very rarely magi. This is because magecraft is very difficult to use, even more difficult to master, and above all, rare. It is uncommon for even those who are capable of High Magic to achieve True Magic, for tellurian lives are short and the world dangerous. Even the greatest of mages may fall victim to the ravages of old age or plagues for which there is no cure. Worse, the use and research of magic often exposes them to the very dangers that prove their end. Even today, the Blackball sits, ever silent, ever watching, in the Blind Tower where an aspiring True Magician had sought to harness its power, and promptly disappeared from history.

However, there have been eight great names known to all who truly research magic, and sometimes even to those who cannot use magic themselves. They often rank as highly in mortal consciousness as Dragonlord Siegmund, slayer of a thousand drakes, or King Marcus Allwinter, the first and only man to conquer the world. Archmagi are those who, at their time, were the most powerful mage to ever live - those who pushed the pinnacles of magic, and those who were True Magicians in their own time.

The first was Kancolhaut. This human man, a High Magician, was, perhaps, the first man to ever break free of the restraints of High Magecraft - he is at least the first we have records of. Living around thirty-seven thousand years ago, few details of his life remain - his greatest, or at least most celebrated, feat was apparently the ability to instantly move from one end of the country to another. To this day, many aspiring High Mages begin their practices, not with flames and lightning, nor with the aspiration to soar the skies, but to master one of the most basic and yet most important spells in the book - Kancolhaut's famous Magic Seeing (Detect Magic) and the far more powerful Arcane Sight, often celebrated to be the single most important spells to the development of arcane magic in history. To this day, almost all mages encode their scrolls and spellbooks with Kancolhaut's incredibly efficient Abbreviated Class-Adhering Triplicate Systemic Verse Ordering Method (ACTS Verse Ordering Method or ACTS-M for short), and magic items are often known to laypeople as Kancolhautic Artefacts - inaccurately; Kancolhaut, to our knowledge, never created any magical items, though he collected a great many. While his name has been elevated to immortality, however, the man himself was not so lucky - from the few records that remain, he seems to have passed away at the age of 47 after two years of poor health, leaving no living descendants behind.

The second was the philosopher-magistrate, Rin Tai'in, who lived sometime between thirty-two thousand and twenty-five thousand years ago. No records survive of her family, private life, birth name (Rin Tai'in, as current understanding of Runic stands, literally means She Who Approaches the Moon, which most historians agree is most likely some form of honorific title or officialdom), age of birth or death, station, responsibility, species, or indeed of what state she worked for - all records seem to simply have referred to it as the Divine Empire, even while recording edicts and garrisons in areas that seem to cover the globe, and some historians have suggested that this could mean that, twelve thousand years before Marcus Allwinter and his Ossyric Empire, there was another great empire which spanned the globe. If so, no traces remain of it, although some have suggested that some of the Ossyric ruins which are built in a most unfamiliar style might not be Ossyric ruins at all - and in any case, the only one who might hold all the answers, Archwraith Mjonn Tzyengkhi, is not talking. Most of the records we have come from the (possibly misattributed) slew of illusions and enchantments which bear her name. Charles d'Ivrea, the foremost historian of the Ossian Empire and direct descendent of Imperatrix Etea d'Ivrea, claims that he has found evidence that Rin Tai'in was, in fact, a True Magician, even by today's standards - this claim remains one of the only of Lord d'Ivrea's theories to not gain widespread acceptance.

The third was and is the Grand Archmagus, the old dwarven king Madrizei, also known as the Argent Magician, Lord Evoker, the Old Man of the Silver Mountain, and Old Silverhand. He was born just over nineteen thousand years ago, making him the oldest tellurian still alive. How he is still alive is a mystery - some say even to himself. Among the Archmagi, he is perhaps unique for knowing very little about magic - while his field of expertise, known as Madrizeian Magic, Argent Magic, or more neutrally Force Effect Magic, is often touted as the king of all evocations, takes much skill to use, Madrizei was born with natural talent for it - so much so that he spends most of his time polishing his formidable spear and sword skills instead of focusing on his magic. Even so, he is a powerful archmage - one just shy of True Magic, but, according to Cornelia, one who will never achieve it so long as he does not understand the "Root of Magic". That said, nobody dares challenge Madrizei's innate talent - Nigelrath actually believes that Madrizei is, perhaps without his knowledge, demidivine.

The fourth is unique. Nothing is known about the fourth, besides the fact that he existed at some point in time. Madrizei himself recalls meeting him for a quiet meal more than once, but cannot remember anything else about him. He suspects that the fourth is cursed to be forever known but ever forgotten by the world - or is deliberately hiding, though for what reason, and for what, Madrizei cannot guess. It is often conjectured among High Magicians that the fourth must have been a Conjurer who somehow contacted a malign entity far beyond his understanding or capability to confront, though Madrizei intuits this is not the case.

The fifth - Wallenstein - is another human man. He is famous for not truly being a magus at all - rather, he is a man devoted in service to Ohrein-sof, an aspect of Pantokra dedicated (even more than usual) the destruction of evil where-ever it may dwell and the spread of light across all realms and all worlds. He is, in other words, what is commonly known as a Paladin. That said, as an old hand - almost nine-thousand years old, rewarded with immortality for the service of destroying a demonic god - he knows, more than most, that sometimes, faith and righteousness needs a little helping hand from raw power to defeat evil. Most of his spells - including the incredibly powerful, and magically advanced, Crown of Faith - are focused on strengthening himself, though one or two of his inventions smite his enemies directly. He currently resides in the White Chapel, near the eastern border of the Ossian Empire - and although he will defend the border against invasion, he certainly does not consider himself bound to the service of Ossia, and the current Imperator - Lucio - knows better than to press the issue, fearing Wallenstein's wrath.

The sixth was Legenstraum, Wallenstein's brother. Like Wallenstein, he was a man dedicated to defeating evil, and like Wallenstein, he believed in strengthening his own body. Unlike Wallenstein, he did not survive the destruction of the demonic god he and Wallenstein had faced down together. It is said that, in his final moment, he invoked a spell beyond any he had ever used, and this legendary feat - the Finger of the Lord Creator - which crushed a hundred liches and earned him the title the Martyr in Shining White - is what gives him the otherwise undeserved honor of being called an Archmage. He was a peerless swordsman, and Wallenstein reacts with fury to any who sully his name - but even Wallenstein will admit that before his final moments, Legenstraum was by all accounts a mediocre magus - if such a term is not oxymoronic.

The seventh is Cassia IV Formaedas, the Fairy Princess and ruler of the Kingdom of Formaedas, born a mere seven hundred years ago. Although she still uses a regnal title, she has long since destroyed her own kingdom, dissolving it in a fit of childish idealism into a great many smaller states - which promptly went to war for supremacy, nearly costing Cassia her life and certainly costing her the innocence and purity of heart which once earned her the epithet "the Seraphic". She is known for her offensively-oriented spells and her incredible ruthlessness in battle; as a general rule, the battlefields that she walks across will have no living beings left on it by the time she's done, being nothing but a field of desiccated corpses, a result of her favourite spell - Wilting Wind. She herself tends to reside in the Fae Realm, drinking wine and generally being a decadent fae, as fae are wont to do. Without a doubt, Cassia is the most evil - and most secluded - of the Archmagi.

The eighth and youngest is the nominal Archduchess, Cornelia the Grey, the last scion of House Criceta Cinereus, an ancient elven house destroyed during a foreign invasion of their territories. Compared to the other archmagi, Cornelia, being only one hundred twenty-four years old, is incredibly young - and incredibly skilled. Among the Archimagi, only Cassia, Cornelia, and possibly Wallenstein are able to use True Magic, and Cornelia is the most skilled in it by far. She is also unique in her relative lack of power in casting magecraft, despite her improvement on the already efficient ACTSM into her own Non-Exclusionary Verseless Class-Agnostic Geometric Ordering Method (NEVCAGO Method), allowing her to visualize - and silently cast - all her spells without moving so much as a finger. Instead, she is possibly the most skilled magic item constructor and ritual caster in the history of all worlds, including the gods themselves. Certainly, Stone Men - formally known as Type-7A Stone Golems - were stuff almost exclusively of legend before Cornelia, who has multiple castles garrisoned with hundreds of the things each, and the almost omnipotent spell, considered the pinnacle of True Magic - Astral Grail - was only theoretical before Cornelia, who needs but a day and a night to cast it without even a catalyst. She is often described as 'off' - not evil, but someone who is certainly not conventionally good. Most have also described an unhidden, unquenched ambition shining in her childish eyes - for as the elves measure time, she is but barely an adult. Cornelia is also known for her vast conventional wealth and incredible dedication to charity - something which has become the centrepiece of many a conspiracy theory. She is also an accomplished philosopher - as a general rule, most university libraries will have copies of her many, many writings, and her talks are often attended by nobility from across the world - even by those nominally at war with her host country. The Archduchess further has public ambitions to do the unprecedented - open a school of magic. She is currently in the phase of gathering funds, finding lecturers, and building a campus for her project.

Of special note is Roka Laemindira the White. She is not generally considered an Archmage, despite arguably being more powerful in sheer magical might than any of them, and technically being a nymph - a tellurian. This is because she is the daughter of Forneus, who is himself a demigod son of Mutsuki. As a partially divine entity, Roka is often considered not a 'true' tellurian, and so excluded, although most of the other Archmagi recognize her as a peer. In any case, she is worthy of note - at one hundred and sixty-five years old, she is the youngest of all the Archmagi except Cornelia. She is also the only Archmage who has a kingdom of her own - Fornagna, a state often derisively referred to as an oversized conglomerate of cities and ports, but which boasts the power of the entire Ossian Empire - if not more. For Roka Laemindira is a necromancer, often the Necromancer, and she is as powerful as Cornelia when it comes to the grasp of the Art. Unlike Cornelia, Roka is not that skilled in the construction of items, but she is just as skilled at ritual magic, and incredibly powerful when it comes to personal magic. While Madrizei is credited with "altered magic", and while Kurdisman (not an archmage, but a High Magician and magical theorist) is credited with the modern conception of "metamagic", magic applied to magic as it is cast, when it comes to raw magical skill in applying metamagic, only the gods rank as high as, and none of those higher than, Roka the Necromancer.

 -- The Magic of the Gods

Thus far, this section has talked mainly about mortal magicians - or at the very least, tellurian ones. Are there others?

The answer is, of course, yes. In fact, since the use of magecraft is exponentially more common in those with longer lives - those less mortal, less tellurian in nature - and superbly more common in those with divine ancestry, it's often considered the case that being divine, or closer to divine, somehow encourages the development of magecraft. According to Roka Laemindira, herself a quarter-divine, this is due to the fundamental structure of the Tree of Light, and the fact that those who have divine ancestry and longer lives are born with proportionally more Magic, and thereby more easily advance in the path of Wisdom. Cornelia, Nigelrath, and Wallenstein have all challenged this interpretation, but all sides of the debate fly far over the heads of most tellurians in the world - indeed, far over the heads of even most non-tellurians.

Part of this is due to the fact that, although magic is common among the divine, it comes as naturally to them as breathing and bleeding. Those like Wallenstein or Cornelia, who have had to slowly tease out the fundamental operation of magic through careful research and theory-building, know far more about the operation of magic than those who live and breathe it - even while being, generally, far weaker mages.

Some aspiring magi have, in recent years, attempted to combine the inherent wisdom and intuition of the divine with the research and infrastructure of the tellurian. These magi are often collectively known as Warlocks, Occultists, Theurges, Archivists, and, in some areas, Witches. The results so far have been mixed, but then again, it has only been a practice for about three hundred years. It is often considered an offshoot - or corruption - of the much older Druidic practices, which attempted to gain Wisdom through synchronization with the natural world. This synchronization is in one sense divine and in another sense far more than divine, and it has produced a great many High Magicians - though as of yet, no True Magicians.