The Five Currents of Magic

The magic system of the Confluence involves the five currents of magic - Potentia, Bios, Arcane, Vitae, and Wane. Each of the five currents of magic are present in all living things, and it is the utilization of particular currents which allows people to perform magic.

Potentia

Potentia natually manifests in all manipulations of kinetic and potential energy. People who master the Potentia current are able to manipulate kinetic and potential energy, which allows for the manipultion of spplied force. The main limitation therein is that physical contact is required in order to manipulate force in this way. Some common uses of this current is to grant the user great strength and speed, though more creative uses exist. For example, a person can throw a punch, but have all of the force of that punch concentrated on such a small point (thus severely increasing the pressure of the hit) that a pinhole is punched through their opponent entirely. Temperature manipulation is also a common use of Potentia.

Bios

The Bios current is what tethers biological bodies (both plant and animal) together, allowing them to cohese as anything more than a pile of muscle and bone and sinew. Masters of this current are able to manipulate the shape, function, and biological behavior of meaty flesh and plant fibre. Practition of this current naturally varies widely. Some people grow plants to serve various purposes, such as brewing particularly good teas or manufacturing miniature corpse flowers designed as crowd control weaponry. Others might modify animals or, perhaps, even turn their magic use inward to modify their bodies in ways that can be as useful as it is grotesque.

Arcane

Arcane is the most chaotic and powerful current (though wane qualifies as most dangerous). Arcane is said to the the current that gives reality its shape, and thus through manipulating the arcane it is possible to simply break the rules that other currents have to follow. Wielders of the arcane can bend the world's rules, allowing for effects such as teleportation and invisibility, though arcane is especially noted as insidious due to its ability to manipulate a person's will. Additionally, due to the reality-changing effects of Arcane, its effects as its user weathers can be especially dangerous.

Vitae

While Bios gives flesh shape, vitae is the current which allows that combination of molecules to live. Vitae is a magic of rejuvination and life force. It's oft used to heal wounds, treat chronic conditions, and overall increase a user's vitality, which when using multiple currents can allow the body to surpass its natural limits. Culturally speaking, many prefer direct paths to power, which is unfortunate considering the good that vitae can do.

Wane

The final among the magical currents is Wane, otherwise referred to as entropy. It is said that over one's life, the Wane current slowly and inexorably subsumes the others, and when it overtakes everything else inside of you, you are dead. Practitioners of wane experience the most quick and severe weathering, often dying young, but the raw power wielded in the ability to suddenly convert something into its decomposed counterpart is frightening. Vanishingly few people deign to wield entropy in this way.

Consequences of Magic Use

Weathering

While magic has the potential to accomplish a lot, many magic users find there are unfortunate consequences for long-term magic usage.

Pushing the primordial currents through one’s body minimally won’t create any drastic effects, but a lifestyle that depends on magic, such as adventuring, can lead to the slow degradation of one's body or, possibly, the current laying claim to it. How this manifests is as unique as spellcasters themselves. A pyromancer’s head may have a cavity to reveal a great flame that burns as bright as their passion. A druid’s body may become a host to flora and fauna that burst forth from their techniques. An illusionist may become translucent and may leave a blurred trail, making it as hard to hit them as it is for them to find themself. It takes a long time for weathering to have any drastic effects on one’s health, for even when the aesthetic impact of it is apparent, the spellcaster themselves is now, in part, sustained by the increased flow of their chosen current through their system.

Some people avoid spellcasting for this reason. They may instead purchase magic items or choose to develop worldly skills, relying more on wit than any magical technique. Others attempt to pass the burden along, making automatons that can perform one or two magical functions or raising undead (as frowned upon as that is when it’s not consensual) to have them perform extramundane tasks. Others still just decide to be careful with how often they lean on their talents.

Sweeping Away

Being swept away, as opposed to being the danger of long-term magic usage, is a short-term danger present when performing an exceptionally potent technique.

Just as it is possible to let these currents flow through you to let them grant you their power, so too is it possible to be swept away and made into part of the world itself. Sorcerers that reach too far for the stars now find themselves permanently among them. Some who sought to master plant life are now rooted to the earth beneath them. This is a world full of myths, legends, and folk tales of those who have come before, and everybody seeks to carve their own path in life to whatever great end may await them.

Magic users must be wary of their limits, lest they become a part of the current they wish to master.

Flooding

Flooding is an exceptionally dangerous version of being swept away. There are but a scant few recorded instances of this happening throughout all of history, and all of them have been disasterous. Flooding is what happens when an exceptionally powerful magic user, or set of magic users, manage to hold on to their place in the world for some time before being swept away into the magical currents. Raw magic floods into the world through them. This has spawned deadly plagues and has directly led to the downfall of nation-states, siginificantly altering the geopolitical status quo of the Confluence.

Alternative Magic Use

Runic Magic and Magic-Imbued Objects

Runic magic is a subset of techniques wherein the magic is channeled through symbols (usually engraved into a surface such as stone, metal, or leather). These symbols, once carved with intent by a magic user, can be activated by anybody through providing the rune power. Oftentimes, this power comes from a user channeling a current through themselves and touching the rune, though other methods of powering the rune have been noted. For example, a bios rune might be activated merely by having fresh blood smeared upon it. Additionally, it is possible to store magical energy inside of an object, which then could activate a rune upon colliding with it.

Runic magicks also allow for the creation of magically-imbued objects. One of the most common ways for this to be done is as follows:

Notably, one of the technologies to emerge from this has been firearms. A firearm's hammer can have half of a rune carved into it, the spherical bullet will have the other half, and the bullet will store potentia magic inside of it, which will activate when the magical hammer collides with it. Of course more advanced firearms have been created since then (which use the more conventional gunpowder for mundane reactions).

It should also be noted that weathering also impacts magic items. Constant use of a magic item will wear it down. Additionally, this means that magic items with contantly active passive effects are far more rare than the more practical magic items that only take effect upon activation and which can be deactivated.

Group Ritual Casting

Just as an individual can manipulate the currents of magic, so too can groups. With multiple beings manipulating magic to the same end, exceptionally powerful effects can be achieved. Such efforts require a certain synchrony between participants, who will often have some medium through which it is achieved. This can often be achieved through a number of ways. In nations such as Corpus Corona, such regimen will often include song and dance, while in other places such as Arcturia it may take on a far more militaristic tone. Regardless of how this magical synchronization is achieved, many can achieve far greater (or horrific) effects than one.

An alternative reason group casting may be used it to avoid the effects of weathering through distribution of magical load. Ritual casting inherently splits the weathering effects amongst its participants, decreasing those effects as well as making the possibility of being swept away less likely. Some people use ritual casting to achieve effects they could very well manifest by themselves, avoiding some of the ill effects of magic use while also turning the spell into a community experience.

The distribution of magical load during a ritual spell can be manipulated, however. The term "weir" is used to describe a person in such a ritual that is designated to take on most or all of the magical load from the spell. Such a position is rarely filled willingly.

Spirits

Magical spirits are considered by some to be the apex of being. A magic user that is able to toe the line between being swept away and weathering and practicing advanced magics for years upon years may very well find a way to purposefully integrate their being into a magica lcurrent while maintaining a foothold in the material world. Spirits primarily interact with the world through magical effects specific to their current, and lose the ability to interact otherwise. A potentia spirit may manipulate kinetic energies around them to produce sound waves and speak, but they cannot project a spontaneous image of themselves, for example.

For ambitious magic users who'd rather not cultivate their own techniques, spirits can be bargained with to gain fractions of their magical power. Spirits might ask a variety of things of the person who wishes to channel their magic. It can be as specific as achieving a personal goal on behalf of the spirit and it could be as broad as operating on a set of principles the spirit held during their material existence.