Fundamentals of Magic in Edemia

The following is a broad overview of how magic works in edemia, written in a prosaic but factual format.

=Fundamentals of Magic in Edemia=

Painting
The universe of Edemia was once nothing but a blank canvas known as the void. It is upon this canvas that the first sketches of existence appeared: drifting asteroids, dead planets, and bursts of light which soon became living stars.

One day, a young star named Lassune embraced the void itself and awakened to the universe’s true potential. With it the goddess Lassune painted a beautiful planet, which she called Edemia, and the planet’s first gods.

Edemia is a magical work of art, and to cast a spell is to perform a brushstroke.

The Palette
Every element that exists within Edemia can be considered a colour of paint: fire, water, earth and wind are the colours with which forest fires, lakes, mountains and tornadoes are painted. A magician casting a spell takes that colour, and pencils, crayons or paints a desired effect back onto the canvas of reality.

These elemental colours exist within and beyond all things. They are ideal forms which even the gods who rule over them do not fully embody — they are simply closest among all living things.

Everything that exists is made up of these colours, right down to the smallest detail. A textbook contains the elemental colour of wood or stone, from its physical composition, but also at least one of the countless different tints of knowledge.

Basic Spellcasting
Of course, many spellcasters do not think of their spells in terms of painting and colours. As ages have come and gone, the inhabitants of Edemia have boiled down many magical effects to a science, and they are treated as such.

A child learning to light a candle or heat food will not usually be taught how magic is worked at its lowest level. They will instead be taught the process for working those effects into reality, drawing magic from the environment using mediums such as wands, incantations, or magic circles.

In this way, the average magician works several layers of abstraction away from the raw creative stuff of the universe.

The Individual’s Palette, Part I
However, individual souls are among the most colourful parts of reality. An individual will have an affinity for one or more types of magic, and the colours of their soul will match those affinities.

Most souls generate small amounts of magic matching their strongest affinities, the same way that a waterfall might be a source of water magic or noon hour might be a source of light magic.

For most people, this magical generation never becomes personally relevant; it is simply a metaphysical fact, akin to the beating of one’s heart. Instead, they rely on the mana, or magical fuel, that the soul provides to the body in a trickle. For usogami, this fuel is stored in the crystals on their body; other species store their mana in the body differently.

Intermediate Spellcasting
Not all magic is performed with spells. Indeed, most apprentice mages and desperate prodigies wield magic on the fly, conjuring fire without practice or direction. It is possible in this way to improvise. However, unpracticed magic will never compare to its properly refined equivalent, in much the same way that a scribble on paper cannot compare to a finished painting.

Once a spellcaster has refined a spell with a specific function or purpose to the point that it is worthy, it is tradition for them to name it. Doing so is seen as the final step of the process that separates spells from simple magic.

Advanced Spellcasting
It is possible to cast magic with nothing more than one’s will, decreed by their soul, and the mana it produces. Doing this is difficult at best and dangerous at worst, however, and only advanced magicians are capable of doing so. This phenomenon is known as “natural casting,” for its similarity to the natural, inborn abilities that some Edemian species possess.

It is easier to naturally cast magic that matches one’s affinity, though it still requires time and practice.

The Individual’s Palette, Part II Most magicians can be weakened by gagging them, taking their casting implements, and hoisting them above the ground upon which they could draw or create magic circles. At a certain level of power, however, when a magician can naturally cast easily, these common limitations no longer apply, or at least not to the same crippling extent.

But all magicians have certain limitations, determined by who they are. Even when you overcome the laws of magic, you are still bound by your own.

An archmage might have no aptitude at all with one or more schools of magic, rendering them completely unable to wield fire or ice or to heal. They might have so much raw power that they cannot cast small, simple spells, only large-scale ones. Or they might need to be calm, or enraged, to cast most of their spells.

As Edemia is a work of art, so is every being within it. And every work of art has flaws, no matter how small.