Magic

Mana
Mana does not independently manifest itself in the world, but instead flows invisible throughout it on paths known as Leylines, between points known as Nodes. Mana also comes in twelve varieties, which are often described as “colors” but formally known as “schools.” By channeling Mana into shapes and utilizing different schools, a unicorn can take advantage of its ability to ignore physical laws to cast a spell.

Mana is extremely mysterious; even today the most advanced of magical researchers argue over whether to call it a substance, an energy, or a spirit.

Planar Link Theory
The universe is divided into three planes of existence, which are layered one upon the other. The physical realm is the top plane, and on the bottom is the spiritual realm. Between these is a dimensional space, the magic realm, where Mana exists and can be pulled into the physical by unicorns. It is a key part of this theory that one must go through the magical realm to reach the spiritual, and that the extra-planar nature of Mana is what allows it to subvert physical laws.

Vital Magic Theory
An idea popularized by zebra tradition, Vital Magic Theory states that all things are magic, from the trees to the earth to the sea to living beings. It goes on to conclude that as such all things are connected through it, and that when Mana is pulled into being it is being taken from the world itself. It’s able to bypass laws of physics because it is completely one with existence. As such, magic is given the utmost respect.

Essence Theory
Essence Theory suggests that the world is essentially made of the same essence at its very roots, and that Mana is the unformed, leftover essence of the cosmos, giving it the power to act outside of its natural laws.

Starswirl’s Law
An idea thought up by and rigorously tested by Starswirl the Bearded, which would later go on to be the framework for other theories, which explains the idea of two planes of existence. The first, known as ‘Reality’, is a complicated mesh of Nodes interlinking with Leylines, and is home to all species. The second is known as the ‘Warp’ and is believed to be a plughole universe in which all things stem, like a tumor hanging from Reality with its own much more powerful Nodes, but no Leylines.. Where this theory becomes complicated however is when it delves into universal interaction, still being the only popular theorem to have attempted to explain void-complex and universal dimensions: which are now seen as bogus science. “Every action, emotion, thought or creation: has a parallel existence outside of Reality. Warp and Reality move in tandem, disrupting this balance leads to a reaction of equal scale: purely destructional.”

Varieties of Mana
Mana comes in six varieties, or schools, that each have an affinity for a certain way of acting. Whenever Mana is formed into a spell, the school of Mana involved influences how the spell’s result is reached. Furthermore, Mana is incapable of carrying out actions that do not align with the nature of its school. These schools are often organized in a six-pointed star inscribed within a circle, a visual representation referred to as the “Sixstar.”

The Greater Schools
The three Great Schools are considered the most basic divisions of magic. If used together they can manipulate, change, and control the physical world without limit. However, the laws of magic dictate that the vast majority of unicorns can never use more than two in a single spell.

Destruction: Also known as Red Magic, this is the branch of magic that is used to outright destroy entities in the physical world. It will vaporize, shred, burn, or otherwise annihilate anything it is targeted at. This magic is extremely powerful and difficult to use, as it is incapable of doing anything else. It’s inability to do anything but destroy causes most unicorns to steer clear of it, preferring to come up with creative uses of other schools for combat. However, none can debate the fact that Destruction is the most physically dangerous school of magic in the world.

Creation: Commonly referred to as Blue Magic, this school of Mana is used to conjure or otherwise summon matter and energy into the world. Creation Magic does not concern itself with momentarily bringing forth elemental energies as other schools do, instead it can be used to create lingering effects on the environment. It is the only school capable of creating permanent matter.

Existence:  Perhaps the most worldly of the three Great Schools of magic, “Yellow Magic” concerns itself with the existence of all things. It is adept at changing, manipulating, or otherwise perceiving what already exists. While it is a limitation that it can mostly only work with the world around it, this also means that Creation runes are often easier to construct, with the downside of it being inherently difficult to affect more magical targets.

The Lesser Schools
More specific and less powerful than the Greater Schools, the Lesser Schools are more commonly used. The average spell contains runes from one Greater School as well as the two Lesser Schools “next” to it, and the most successful unicorns often contribute their magical prowess to creative thinking with the Lesser Schools.

Discord: One of the more enigmatic and difficult to work with schools, Discord or “Orange” Magic is reknown for its ability to cause chaos. Runes constructed with this magic are viable to have different effects every time they’re used, and sometimes even alter any magic they interact with in unpredictable ways. Also of note is its unique ability to form pockets of space where time travels at an unusual pace. However, these time spells and unpredictable and known to bring unreliable results. Discord Magic will cancel out when touching Harmony Magic, unweaving whatever spell it is a part of. The risky and chaotic nature of this school has caused it be nicknamed the “Gambler’s Magic.”

Harmony: The natural opposite of Discord and polar opposite of Destruction, this school has a more splintered nature. It not only establishes order over chaos, but also protects existing objects and seems to have an eye for aesthetics. Harmony Runes add stabilizing and beautifying effects to spells they are included in, and are often used to decrease the influence of chance in a spell, such as for example by increasing its accuracy or stability. They are also known to be useful as protection spells, raising shields and magical reflectors over targets as a way of “stabilizing existence.” Furthermore, Harmony Magic is known for being capable of returning targets to their “natural” state. The most common use of this element is healing and repair spells, though sometimes the spell has a different idea of “natural” than the caster; for example, they are known to not restore amputated limbs that have been severed for too long. Another curious perk is that any rune constructed of Harmony will nullify any spells it touches including runes of Discord, including its own, and dissipate. The relationship between Discord and Harmony runes has resulted in many unicorns using them to “parry” enemy spells. The additional aesthetic nature of Harmony Magic has led to it being the base of most beautification spells, making it one of the most versatile schools in Trinity.

Alteration: Resting directly between Destruction and Creation on the Sixstar, Alteration, which carries a reputation as “Fake” Magic excels at changing physical properties. It can change the color of a pen, cause a pony’s tongue to taste everything as if it were a strawberry donut, improve vision, and thicken blood. Besides this, Alteration is also popularly used to form illusions, which has lead to its false reputation as being “fake” and “weak.” It is for some reason thicker than that of the other Lesser Schools, causing it to cost the user more Mana and physical energy. Alteration Magic also requires very precise phrasing; there are many runes consisting entirely of mathematical concepts, even including numbers, exclusive to the Alteration School. Because vagueness often leads to disastrous or at least useless effects with runes of this school, any spell that includes one Alteration Rune almost always has two or three more to make sure the spell has the intended effect.

True Schools
White Magic: White Magic is Mana in its purest form, only creatures of Demigod status or higher can normally use White Mana. There are no limitations to what spells can be created with White Mana, as it is basically all colors in one. White Magic also allows for unique spells and effects which are impossible to achieve with the other twelve schools, such as Lunar and Solar Magic. While this kind of Magic is normally limited to deity level beings, there have existed mortals capable of utilizing White Mana. However, such individuals are exceedingly rare. Rarely does more than one such show up every millenia.

Black Magic: Not truly a school like the others, Black Magic is nevertheless recognized as a form of magic. It is notoriously difficult and dangerous to use, as well as being severely taboo in most civilized communities. Black Magic is fed from the Warp itself. This has the most notable effect of strengthening a spell, and making Runes easier to form. It also takes a larger toll on the user’s body, increasing the risk of backlash. Black Magic kills the user over time, as the pure madness of the Warp slowly takes over their body: wrecking it to the point of decay. To those not prepared to wield the immense power, Black Magic can twist them into horrific unfeeling monsters -- capable of only hate, murder and sin.

There is only one way to be shielded from the negative effects of Black Magic. The caster must be a chosen of one of the Forces: Creation, Destruction, or Existence. Creation shields its chosen from the adverse effects of Black Magic, but if said magic is used for Destruction constantly, the protection is removed. Destruction overwhelms its chosen with Black Magic, binding their souls to the insanity itself: making them stronger and unforgiving. Existence will not shield its chosen from the madness of the Apex, but will stop them from decaying while also allowing higher tier casting.

When used in combination with White Magic, Black Magic can and will do incredible things. The limits for such use are endless, the power of everything at your metaphorical fingertips. However for those unsuited to wield such forces, the cost is as high as life itself. Black Magic is also unique in allowing for the user to travel backwards in time.

Spellcasting
The art of spell casting is divided into two areas. For many years, these were called the Physical and Spiritual realms, but a new metaphor has been adopted in recent years. The areas are now called the Pen and the Inkwell. This metaphor shows the caster as a calligrapher, writing runes in a flowing script. The Pen represents the physical side of spell casting, or the caster’s body itself. The Inkwell represents mana and power, and how it is used.

The ‘Inkwell’ comes in two varieties. Mana comes from two places, although a third is hypothesized. These two are called Leylines, and Nodes. Nodes are like oceans of magic, endless and immensely powerful. Leylines are the rivers connecting the Nodes. Because Nodes are so powerful, they require an extremely powerful mage to wield their energy. Leylines are much less powerful, and can be tapped by any unicorn.

First, let us look at a Leyline. A Leyline is a literal river of magic that runs between the Nodes. Nopony knows how the mana itself flows. Does it go in one way, or two? Does the magic continuously circulate, or is it created in the Nodes? These questions go unanswered to this day. Leylines are much weaker than Nodes and can be tapped by anypony. A pony that can tap into a Leyline is called a ‘Wielder.’ If you are a unicorn, then you are a Wielder! A Wielder taps into a Leyline, channeling magic out of the line and into a side ‘pond,’ or ‘Inkwell.’ This is the magic that is used for spellcasting.

Wielder magic is powered by the caster’s Inkwell. Because of the way Leylines work, only a certain amount of mana can be taken out of the river at one time. This means that for every spell you cast, you only have one Inkwell to cast from. A closer look actually reveals that a caster can only draw from one Inkwell at a time. Some Wielders can cast two spells at once, but both spells will draw from the same Inkwell. The same for a Wielder casting one big spell. She would only have one Inkwell.

Anatomy of a Rune
A basic rune has two parts: the form and the school. The form a rune contains the action which the rune is designed to enact. The school describes its magical nature, and influences the way which it interprets and carries out the order contained within the form.

Besides this, runes may also be attached to others as suffixes using proper modifications or “paired” with another rune and the usage of the combination rune. Suffixes can be used to add more detail or a modifier to another rune, while “pairing” causes the two runes to act out a single action together.

When a spell is cast, the runes are interpreted and their actions are carried out in the order they were drawn. Paired runes act at the same time, and on the same targets.

Certain runes do not have a school; these runes are referred to as common runes, and are generally used to describe the target, range, or area of influence of a spell.

Some forms are not compatible with certain schools. Attempting to draw a rune with the Restore form of the Destruction school, for example, will cause the spell to fizzle uselessly. Other combinations are simply not recommended, such as the useage of the Discord School with pretty much anything with explosive potential.

A rune may have no more than two suffixes, which altogether is counted as a single rune in terms of staying within the White Limit. In order to change a rune into a suffix, simply draw only the top-right corner and place it immediately next to the rune you wish to attach it to. The reason that only two suffixes are allowed is because only two suffix runes can fit immediately next to the same rune.

Paired runes count as two runes. To pair a couple of runes, draw the proper pairing symbol between them. Different symbols are needed to pair different schools together. As such, paired runes are generally uncommon and usually used only by higher-level casters.

Because of the complexity of forming spells and the chance that they may have unwanted effects, it is considered extremely dangerous to use any spell you have not practiced into instinct. Most unicorns design their spells during idle time and limit themselves to a certain selection of their favorites to ensure they can all be remembered. Faltering due to a loss of memory during casting can have drastic results, depending on context, and making a mistake can be worse. Accidentally breaching the White Limit will cause the spell to dissipate violently, while simply substituting the rune you want with a misdrawn one can have unpredictable effects.

When writing the composition of a spell, it is common practice to write each rune in the order they are drawn and separate them with commas. The written composition of a rune is like so:

School Action (Prefix 1)(Prefix 2)

If prefixes are not part of the rune, they are simply left out. To indicate paired runes, a dash is placed between the two runes of the pair.

This is an extremely wide variety of discovered runes as of now, making it nearly impossible for any unicorn to learn them all. Unicorns which do know a great number of runes generally spend so much time learning them that they never put them together into spells. These unicorns usually devote themselves to the discovery of new runes, a very dangerous field which relies upon intuition, experience, luck, and knowledge of other runes.

Rend
Spell that holds an area of targets in place, and then cuts them with shards the mage carries or summons and throws towards the targets. The shards are ignited by the spell to cause extra damage. Possible combinations of runes could be:

- Target Area, Destruction Ignite, Alteration Illusion-Alteration Root, Discord Move


 * In this iteration the mage carries the shards with her. After throwing the shards towards the target area, she casts the spell upon it. The Destruction rune ignites the shards as the paired Alteration runes hold any living targets in place with illusions. The Discord rune then grabs everything in the target area and moves it around wildly, resulting in a spinning fiery whirlwind of targets and sharp things.

- Target Area, Creation Summon(Sharp)-Alteration Combust, Harmony Freeze, Levitation


 * The pairing of the Creation and Alteration runes summon sharp, flaming arcane shards. The Harmony rune then “freezes” all physical objects in the target area, basically “stabilizing” them excessively. Finally. the mage uses simple levitation to shred them to pieces.

Mend
Spell that takes wounds and heals them.

- Alteration Grow, Harmony Return


 * This one is simple. First, the Alteration rune increases the growth speed of any living tissue. Then, the Harmony rune returns it to its “natural” state.

- Harmony Stabilize, Alteration Thicken, Creation Replace


 * Also simple, though more energy-consuming. The Harmony rune stabilizes the wounds on any living tissue as the Alteration rune speeds up clotting and prevents blood loss. Finally, the Creation rune replaces any lost tissue.

Invisibility
Turns the target or caster invisible until the caster stops channeling and the magic wears off.

- Alteration Opacity(Less), Alteration Illusion(Silence)


 * This spell actually contain four runes. The Opacity rune changes opacity, with the Less suffix rune attached to make sure it does it right. Then the Illusion rune creates an illusion, with the Silence rune being added as a suffix to direct the type of illusion that is formed.