Magic (A)

Magic has historically been THE driving force in the world of A. It has through most of history represented a master status, determining who rules, who serves, and what traits are thought of as worthy and unworthy. Even for the non-magical, and even in this new age of technology, magic is embedded in everyone's daily lives both literally and philosophically.

Ether
Ether is more or less tangible magic. Ether is fairly mysterious, completely renewable, very malleable, and an excellent energy source. To mages it represents limitless potential, and is easily the most important resource worldwide.

It's found in natural deposits in either rock, liquid or gas, and tends to occur often in places where magical populations lived and practiced, or in places where extreme magic is used, though no one (Archmages aside) has figured out how to create it from nothing. Unfortunately, ether-rich areas tend to overlap with regions filled with monsters and misfortune. It's also rather volatile in its raw form, which makes extracting it a very valuable process indeed. Perdition is currently the most ether-rich area on the continent and provides most of the Empire with its supply.

Ether is used as a raw material in most magical "inventions." It can be reformed by a mage with relative ease and used to augment their powers to create extraordinary magic, such as the railway that currently crosses the empire. It can also be used in small quantities to make pastes, dusts and ores used in runemaking, the bread-and-butter of the common man's magic.

Limitations of magic
Mages cannot...


 * 1) Raise the dead. There's also a limit to how much a mage can heal, generally speaking - not much they can do if you're already missing a body part, though an ether replacement is one prospect.


 * 1) Move through time. They can do slow/haste, but this isn't actually an objective effect on the timestream so much as it is on a group of people.


 * 1) Alter space. They can move through space via things like teleportation, but cannot affect actual space.


 * 1) Conjure a persistently existing item out of nothing.  Conjured objects will disappear after a certain amount of time or after the mage's concentration lapses, depending on circumstances. Ether, however, can be magically transmutated into almost anything, and will exist permanently.


 * 1) Cast constantly. Magic taxes a person's facilities. Archmages can and do break this rule.


 * 1) Get around things they just don't know. You can't magic yourself knowledge of a computer system.

Types of Mages
Magic is in the blood. A person with absolutely no magic in their blood will never be able to learn magic. However, a magical person can be taught to use more and better magic, though they will always be capped by their inherent abilities (which some put down to talent, and others to good breeding). Mages are usually divided into four different classes:

Runemakers
A runemaker is someone who knows how to use ether, the stuff of magic, in order to turn it into something useful. The runemaker is a skilled craftsman more a bona-fide mage, and most people can learn to become a runemaker with practice and training. They do need to be careful when working with ether, which can be volatile in its raw form for the average person.

Arcanists
An arcanist is the lowest level of a hereditary mage. They deal in charms, enchantments, hexes, and incantantions. Their natural aptitude with magic is traditionally combined with scholarship. Arcanists have traditionally been the one to develop runes and oversee their making, and acted something like magical engineers. About 30% of the population are arcanists.

Mages
A full blooded mage can do everything an arcanist can do, but seldom bothers. These mages are similar to D&D and Dragon Age mages - the people with the fireballs, often sorted into specialized "schools" of magic. There is a lot of status associated with being a mage, and one of the most important things for a mage to do is continue a magical line. About 10% of the population are mages.

Archmages
Archmages are wholly unlike any other class of mage. In fact, they are wholly unlike any other kind of human. They are almost impossibly rare and tend to have profound effects on human history. The central religion of the continent - though it has fallen out of favour and memory for western citizens of the Empire - is said to be based around archmage worship, and counts that there will be only 22 in all of human history.

Archmages are effectively immortal, and tend to live until another archmage is born, at which point the both of them seem to spiral inevitably into bloody wars of mutually-assured destruction. No archmage has ever died of natural causes.

The only living Archmage is The Empress. She survives the last two Archmages to die in war that scarred Perdition.

The upper limits of an archmage's power is unknown. Each archmage seems to weild a somewhat different "style" of magic and therefore have different capacities and capabilities. However, they can do everything a full-blooded mage could do, and are also able to conjure ether and transmute it into anything, including magical power. Folk legends tell of an archmage who built his entire kingdom out of ether, only to have it disappear completely upon his death, reflecting the convention that it is generally unwise to rely on such conjurations; however, Archmages likely conjure a lot of ether and ether-items over their lifetimes, and there are no factual records of any mass disappearances after their death.