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Contractverse
Backstory
Since time immemorial, mana has interwoven with the threads of life. But different beings have different relationships to it. Some simply house it. Some are fonts of it. Some feed on it. Today, magic is a fact of life, even to the layest of laymen. But underneath that surface, the world is much more complicated than it first appears, as high-school magician Nicholas Demorrir is about to find out.
Mana
Mana is the animating spark of all life. While an intact body is required to sustain the presence of mana, mana is what defines something as conscious. Mana exists in many forms, in many different kinds of life. It can be channeled to cast spells, or manipulated in rituals.
Mana is expended when spells are cast, and this can cause fatigue, enervation, and occasionally more severe consequences, but as long as the body is intact, mana will gradually replenish itself. Sleep and nutrition are important for this.
Saying that mana is expended may give the wrong impression. There is an enormous amount of mana in even a single instance of life, and there is plenty to go around. However, magic also requires a great deal of mana input, and so rapid, sustained use of powerful magic is draining.
Species
Humans
Humans, essentially, come in two flavors. All humans produce an immense amount of mana, more so than any other organism existing. However, most humans have nothing particularly to do with this mana, except spreading it to things they are emotionally invested in.
However, some humans (approximately one in seven) have extraordinarily reactive mana. By extending that mana outwards to touch the mana of something else (usually a god), Magicians can expand the capabilities of their own mana to cast spells.
Occasionally, humans without this natural capability can turn to artificial methods of various types to manipulate their own mana. People who do this are referred to as Witches or Warlocks.
Very rarely, a human can use their mana to produce magic without forming a link to something else. These one-in-a-thousand anomalies are called Sorcerers, and are often considered wild cards in a stable magical community. Unless they lie low, their life expectancy is often short. In addition, while there is inherent risk to overuse of mana, for Sorcerers that risk is always instant death and destruction.
Humans, and other organic life forms, are unique out of everything else because their organic bodies and organic mana sustain each other. While organic matter eventually fails, humans burn brighter than any other kind of life.
Gods
The term “god” is in many ways a misnomer. A god is anything in which mana is invested. It can be anything from a treasured heirloom to an old spirit to a genuine tulpa. After a certain points, gods begin to affect the invested mana, transmuting it into their own form of mana, which feeds on itself and grows in power as long as it is fed. However, this takes time and worshippers.
A god’s power is directly correlated to the mana invested in it. For instance, a neighborhood band enjoyed by a handful of people might provide a small amount of power to a Magician drawing on it, while a world-famous band could draw a much larger pool of energy from its fanbase, which could in turn be used to power Magician bodyguards. In turn, this band could be dwarfed in available power by a spirit of flame that has been worshipped for millennia as a god.
The essential difference between a god and a human is that a god, while its mana does not deplete naturally, cannot generate its own, as it is not technically a living being but a concept. Consequently, while a god without worshippers can continue to live, it will lose its godhood if it expends too much power without replenishing it. This is especially true in the case of some gods that are entirely formed from mana.
Spirits
When a Magician expends too much of their own mana, the strain on their body can become sufficient to destroy it. When this happens, the remaining mana coalesces into a spirit- an unformed mass of pure life energy drawn from both the Magician’s mana and that of the god the Magician served. This mass usually creates itself an avatar to interact with the world, and is technically alive, but as it lacks an organic body its mana does not replenish naturally. A spirit’s existence can be prolonged by humans investing mana in it through friendship or worship (in which case it usually evolves into a god), or through its god perpetuating its existence by choice (this requires some of the god’s energy, similarly to sponsoring a Magician, and as such is not done lightly). Spirits grow more powerful and more intelligent with age, and as their mana changes due to investment by humans or gods, their physical appearance often evolves to match. Theoretically there is no limit to the length of a spirit’s life, but if it expends its mana, it will gutter out. A spirit that neither receives invested mana nor expends its mana on magic beyond the magic required for it to exist will live several decades. Investment of mana by friends or devotees can prolong a spirit for far longer.
There are many different types of spirits, as they vary in identity and appearance based on both age and power and in what god they serve.
Undead
Essentially the polar opposite of a spirit, the undead are a class of beings defined by being bodies animated by mana that is not strictly their own. There are several notable subtypes.
Zombies: A corpse, or at the very least an entirely comatose person (whose mana becomes dormant) in which a spark of another human’s mana has been implanted through a ritual. Since this mana is not connected to a living/active body, it does not replenish naturally the way human mana does. Consequently, while a zombie is entirely immune to pain, and cannot be killed by any means other than total bodily destruction, its spark of false life will extinguish itself after a period of time between a few hours and a few days, depending on activity levels and how badly it is damaged.
Vampires: The first vampires were created by a god of death located somewhere in Transylvania. Since then, however, they have spread over the planet. A vampire, while it possesses its own mana, is dead, and that mana is mixed with a peculiar strain of “viral” mana. Since the vampire is no longer living, the mana gradually burns out, but a vampire has the ability to drain the mana from others to replenish its own. It does this, naturally, with a pair of sharp fangs. To create a new vampire, a vampire can imbue a body with a small amount of its own viral mana, and over time that body will die and be reborn as a vampire. Vampires appear mostly as they did in life, though obviously bloodless. They are both very strong and very fast. However, they are vulnerable to symbols of strong belief (as the organic mana within them reacts violently to the viral mana), fire (a vampire’s body is very dry due to being dead, and will go up like a matchstick), and the sun, which causes rapid burns, immense pain, and eventually disintegration. Other damage to a vampire’s physical body will not harm them (though removing their head will leave them helpless until it can be reattached), though certain rituals designed to manipulate the mana of others can.
Ghouls: Somewhere in between a zombie and vampire, a ghoul is the result of a ritual that binds someone’s own mana to their corpse. A ghoul contains far more energy than a mere zombie, and so is strong and fast, but at the same time possesses a vampire’s hunger for mana, as their own supply will gradually burn away without a living body to draw on. However, ghouls have no actual means of incorporating consumed mana into their being, and so are reduced to animalistic beasts with a hunger for flesh. They can sense mana over enormous distances, and are usually made to act as trackers. Unlike vampires, ghouls decay at a normal rate, and often have the appearance of extreme physical deterioration. Like zombies, they are immune to most forms of physical harm, but can be destroyed by burning them or incapacitated by decapitation.
Wights: The last main subtype of undead, wights are formed similarly to zombies, but the mana is bound differently, causing wights to become a sort of mana vacuum. Their presence, gaze, and touch all drain mana at varying rates. However, this mana is destroyed inside the wight, keeping them from reaching satiety and retaining their ability to drain mana. Wights are similar to zombies in that they are very difficult to destroy, and are best evaded until their life runs out. Fortunately, the ritual for creating them is highly unstable and a wight usually only lasts a day at most.
Fae
Fae are an entirely enigmatic race of creatures. Despite being very clearly alive, they do not appear to have any mana. They are exceptionally fast and strong, and are talented shapeshifters, able not only to shift every aspect of their physical form but to self-duplicate with ease. They are also thoroughly immortal, and can regenerate instantly if their body is destroyed. Most people believe that the fae keep their true bodies somewhere out of sight, and that what is seen in our world is only a projection of sorts. This seems like the most likely hypothesis, but ultimately all that is known about fae is that they are very powerful and seem invested in the affairs of this universe mainly out of boredom.
Theoretically, it is possible to kill a fae with the right kind of ritual. Practically, the fae aren’t generally willing to sit around and wait.
Characters
Plot
Nicholas Demorrir is a high-schooler, who plays the drums and acts as a magical showman for his band, “Gazillion Degrees.” However, when his sister dies suddenly, he visits a local shrine to pay his respects, and winds up entangled in the local world of magic.