Amaranthine Magic System PART III: Spellcraft For… Everyone Else (Including Unicorns)

Amaranthine Magic System PART III: Spellcraft for… Everyone Else (Including Unicorns)

This is Part III of a three-part worldbuilding set.

Part I - Part II - Part III (you are here)

So, we’ve now established how magic works and how it can be manipulated by a wizard. But wizards aren’t the only ones capable of using magic... as mentioned in Part I, even a tree can do it. How does THAT work? Surely it must be pretty rare, right?

Well, actually, a number of plants and animals have evolved to harness magic. Something about them—either a physical organ, body part, or some sort of instinctual behavior—is able to warp magic in a way that happens to be beneficial. Some examples:

A predatory cat that can use magic to bend light around itself and appear “invisible” thanks to the molecular structure of its fur

A mole that can vibrate its claws in such a way that they increase the charge of magic in the earth around it, causing solid stone to temporarily liquefy

A flower whose roots absorb magic from the earth and use it to resist freezing, allowing it to bloom all winter long

A bird who sings at a strange, disorienting, warbling song, the vibrations of which interfere with the magical frequencies used by its most common predator

A carnivorous plant that paralyzes its victims not with venom, but with numbing bolts of magic produced by a specially evolved structure whenever it detects nearby movement

You may notice that, with the exception of the carnivorous plant, all the other examples are simply using magical energy already in their environment rather than producing it themselves. Which brings me to the next detail… magic can be “cast” from two types of sources:

“Enchantments”/Ambient casting/passive casting: Happens by gently shaping the background radiation of magic already in the environment, like most of the examples above. It is typically done by passing the magical energy through some sort of physical structure in order to alter its frequency. Most enchanted jewelry functions on this principle. Studying animals that perform passive casting can be useful for wizards to learn new casting and enchanting techniques themselves, and many methods of spellcraft are based on patterns of magic wave manipulation first observed in nature. 99% of animals and plants that use magic fall into this category. Also, this sort of magic waxes or wanes in power depending on the ambient background magic radiation levels of the area… your magic locket may fail you at the worst possible moment if you take it someplace with very low magical background radiation levels.

Active casting/”Casting spells”: Magic where the power source comes from within the creature itself and can be actively turned off or on, such as the carnivorous plant example above. Animals and plants that are capable of active casting are typically quite dangerous indeed, though their bodies tend to make for incredibly valuable spell ingredients and materials for crafting magical devices. Luckily, this ability is extremely rare in nature… the ability to truly “cast a spell” is found almost exclusively in wizards.

As a half-celestial, Ambroys sits at sort of a weird position. He technically is an active caster, as he has his own magical field and he can summon his abilities up at will (or, more often in his youth, accidentally) using his mind/will as the primary trigger. However, half-celestials and half-infernals have the shape of their magical “filter” predefined by their heritage and physical anatomy—it is not consciously shaped the way a wizard’s is. They may be able to choose which of these predefined forms their magic takes, and may even discover new variations on their powers throughout their life, but they can never consciously teach themselves brand new spells from scratch, and will never be able to switch fluidly through several different types of similar magic without interruption the way a wizard could.

To Hyden, this makes Ambroys closer to a beast than a person, magically speaking (no offense, of course). He can’t talk spellcraft with him because he’s not doing anything on purpose… he’s just brainlessly clicking his silly little claws together to dig through rock like the mole mentioned earlier. He will never truly understand all the complex mental hoops Hyden jumps through every time he conjures up a flame to light his opium pipe, even if Ambroys can do the same exact thing by just thinking “ok, fire time now”. It’s just not the same, you know?

Aaand that wraps up the Amaranthine magic guide! This should hopefully provide a clearer view of how everything works in this setting. :)