Acquiring the Ability to Cast Magic
In order to access the powerful forces of creation and destruction, a person must attune himself or herself to the power of magic. This cannot be done easily without the aid of a higher power. A devotee must learn to harness the forces of magic, and this requires the aid of a spiritual being, or the insanity to attempt to draw magic out yourself. In Cyrus the known ways of acquiring magic are: Animancy (dealing with spirits), Arcanist (ripping magic from the world), Clavian Cultivation (attuning yourself to the flow of nature), Mancer (being born at the appropriate time and place, only available through the archai chart), Taeosian Ritualization (granted through the power of the Archai), or some of the other rarer and possibly darker means.
The Nature of Elemental Attunement
The subtle power of magic is able to affect the world, but not directly. Magic occurs when it is released from the bounds of natural law which contains it. Natural law is governed by the elemental forces. Fire burns, Water flows, Earth holds firm, and Wind moves to its own whims. Each of these forces governs a different aspect of magic. Spirit is the center of all, and the spirit of the world is found in the Wood of nature, while the spirit of progression is found in the forging of metal and Steel.
That which was locked away in earth behaved in a certain way, the natural way of earth. That which was locked within fire, burned as fired would. That which was locked away within water and wind flowed through the world as water and wind do. These are the four elemental spheres of magic. Beyond the four elemental spheres there arose magic with the power of spirit, culled directly from the spirits of the myriad creatures. Within the power of nature and growth itself arose yet another kind of magic, which was bountiful as the plants and the trees. Finally from the forging and changing of the earth into metals came another type of magic, that which is classified as steel but encompasses all which affects metals and things of a mechanical nature.
Manna The Raw Power of Spells
The raw power for the spell comes from a special reserve of power held within the caster. This power is called manna, and is a renewable energy which the casters can pull from their attuned element. Manna is actually a part of the casters spirit. The part which lies at the “fuzzy” borders of their soul. The manna of a regular person is not well defined, and just floats along bridging small connections from their elemental attunement and gaining power as they move through the world. It acts as a kind of static force, attracting power from the persons element, and absorbing it while clinging to the person.
Regular people usually don’t have access to their manna unless they have some kind of special ability which taps into its power. Mystic power focuses will draw from a persons manna to activate their abilities. The manna cost on a mystic power focus is usually fairly low, being that the ability is inherent within the person and not activated through a complicated ritual. This is a good thing because manna does not regenerate very quickly for the unattuned.
