Magic Rules, Laws...

Magic Rules, Laws, Taboos, and Affinities and How They Effect Each City and Race


The Basic Three Laws

1) Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Ex: You use a healing spell on somebody and save their life, but, in return, a bit of you dies. (what bit depends on your imagination and species. The undead obviously can't die, but maybe some of what ever is animating them wears down). So when I say opposite, I mean it.

2) You can not make something of nothing.
Ex: Following the above example, the bit of you dying would be the cost of healing the other person.
Ex2: When using battle magic, like blasting people with fireballs and such, the price, most often, is simply energy.

3) Nature follows its own rules
Ex: You may have magical power, but no one has control over Nature. You can suggest that things happen with her, but no one can simply control her. You can create the means necessary for a storm to form, but it won't necessarily form. You can create the situation for lightening to strike someone, but it may just not do it, etc.


The Types of Magic and Their Definitions, Limitations, and Strengths

1) Basics
Definition: Any type of minor magic used in the day to day.
Ex: Any sort of spell that will complete a monotonous task (sweeping, stirring a pot, etc) or aid in a small or short-lived task (lifting a heavy box, cutting meat faster, etc)
Strengths: Can make household chores a lot easier
Limitations: Mostly limited by the user. If you have ingenuity to use a Basic spell for any greater purpose or have the ability to strengthen it with you own magic pool/will, go ahead. This magic's cost is usually a small amount energy, not enough to hinder anyone unless they are using a lot of spells.
2) Battle Magic
Definition: Magic used in battle situations or to bring harm to another.
Ex: Any sort of a projectile, attack, or manipulation to create a trap. Other types of magic usually get loosely grouped into this type because of their nature.
Strengths: Allow a wielder to attack their opponents with powerful spells, to imbue certain qualities onto/into weapons, shields, people, etc, and to create magical traps with which to capture opponents.
Limitations: If you exhaust yourself to the point where you have no more energy to give to the magic as a cost, then it will begin to draw on your time line, sapping years from your life in order to power the spells you are continuing to use.
3) Healing Arts
Definition: Any spell used in the healing or protection of another.
Ex: Using a spell to close a wound or casting a defensive shield of magic.
Strengths: Allow the rapid healing of wounds and injuries and provides powerful shield magic that can withstand heavy damage.
Limitations: All healing spells cost life, whether it be your immediate health that declines or some of your time line that is siphoned away. Some wounds are too grievous to heal on one's own and may cause the attempter's death if they are not strong enough. A healer can also only manipulate living tissue without slipping into Necromancy.
4) Blood Manipulation
Definition: Magic that changes one's body or appearance.
Ex: Using magic to make yourself taller, stronger, look like somebody, etc, or to change somebody else's appearance or body.
Strengths: Allows very easy deception, can strengthen the weak in a fight for life, and can make for very painful torture.
Limitations: Requires an immense amount of concentration to evoke as well as physical sacrifices. Once the change has taken place thought, the concentration required is insignificant, but still required.
Ex: If you use Blood Manipulation to make yourself taller, the magic can only stretch what is there, possibly causing damage to the body unless the user draws extra physical material from someplace. Organic material is the easiest to use, though it is possible to use anything.
5) Necromancy
Definition: Any sort of magic cast over dead or dying flesh.
Ex: Bringing the dead to life again, healing a patch of dead tissue in a wound, etc
Strengths: Allows the user to create Life from Death. Can be used for Healing in extreme cases.
Limitations: Only allows the creation of Life in dead flesh. This means that the soul, if not still there, will not be retrieved by the spell, the body will simply be alive. This type of magic usually requires a sacrifice of someone else's Life so that it may be given, but there have been dabblers in the art that claim they have been able to get away with giving up only part of a Life...
6) Teleportation
Definition: Any sort of magic or ability that allows one to move from one area to another by bending space.
Ex: Tessering, portal creation, teleportation, etc.
Strengths: Allows the user to move quickly from place to place with no penalty by time.
Limitations: Only naturally possible through the genetic mutations inherent in both certain mutants and multidimensional creatures. Teleportation is also made possible by a cumbersome, expensive, and dangerous technology recently developed by those in Tiroch. This technology must either feed off a large source of magical energy or what basically amounts to a compressed nuclear powerplant the size and shape of a scuba tank. Each jump from place to place also drains the user's vitality. The first few teleports may instill weariness, but more will begin draining the user's life-force, drinking them to a mere skeleton. There is also the danger of becoming lost when one is passing through the time-space rift.


Taboos and Affinities

Strid
Does not tolerate any sort of magic within its city limits.
Areneif
Does not tolerate any sort of magic within its city, but Battle Magic and Healing Arts are used on the Celestial Battle Fields and when they are on Earth completing tasks.
Obsequium
No taboos. Love to abuse all the magic though they are particularly fond of Blood Manipulation and Battle Magic
Adustren
Are not fond of Necromancy, but have no laws against it. Battle magic is not allowed unless it is being used within a legal duel.
Veksle
All forms of magic are forbidden except for Healing Arts and certain aspects of Blood Manipulation
Mortuus
No laws regarding magic use. (What laws?)
Pyuock
Magic users are frowned upon, but magic is not outlawed.
Griof
Magic users are considered a cut above the rest. Blood manipulation is held as the most powerful.
Tiroch
Magic is restricted with strict laws. Magic is never to be used against a fellow being, even in defense. Magic is only practiced at the Universities under supervision or at the hospitals by specially degreed doctors. Anyone caught using magic inappropriately is forfeit.
Atra Solum
Magic is restricted to cetain areas within the city, but not necessarily outlawed. Healers are highly prized.
Menea
Similar to Obsequium.
Foro
Magic is part of a dragon's being, so no magic is expressly forbidden, though "Dark Arts" like Necromancy or the darker side of battle magics are sometimes frowned upon.