Magic - Witchcraft 101

Magic

There are two types of magic in the world of Vallorus, Witchcraft and Miraculous.

Witchcraft

Witchcraft is personal magic powered by the energy of the person performing the magic. There is no no need for spells or rituals to get an effect. It is a matter of intent, will and energy to make something happen.

The energy comes from the witch's personal reserves. Depending on the amount of casting a witch performs and the energy required to get the desired effect a long session of casting will burn trough his physical energy reserves, his body fat, and then muscle. If you are not careful it is possible to cast yourself to death.

A person can not learn to be a witch, but must be born as one. The power gene is recessive so to be a witch, you have to receive the gene from both parents. The paired genes allows a person to project the power of his mind. Just having the paired genes does not make you a witch, there are two other genes involved luckily they are dominate and widespread in the population. The two genes govern what powers are manifested. The genes grant the powers of telepathy or telekinesis, because of this there are three combinations of powers that a witch can express: pure telepathic, pure telekinetic or full blooded witch with all the powers. Those who have pairs of the secondary genes show more power with the paired trait.

Those with only the power gene are more resistant to the effects of magic and more likely to sense when someone uses their powers close by.

A person with one or more of the trait genes and no power pair are sightly more resistant to that traits effect.

Mind Witch

Mind Witch , a witch with the Telepathic gene has the following powers:

1. Truth tell, the witch can tell when someone is lying.

2. Mind read, he can read the mind of someone near him. This is just surface thoughts.
3. Mind speech, he can project his thoughts to people near him.
4. Far talk, he can project his thoughts to another Mind Witch. The distance is dependent on the power and skill of the witches.
5. Follow me, increased charisma and leadership.

Fire Witch

A Fire Witch is a witch with the telekinetic gene. It may seem strange that the ability to start or control fire is part of telekinesis: but, the control of fire is telekinesis at the molecular level speeding up the molecular vibration until they become hot enough to ignite.

Fire Witches have to following powers:

1. Fires starter, by concentrating on a flammable substance the witch causes it to burst into flames. To do this both fuel and oxidizer must be present. This is why, even though gunpowder has been discovered, it is not in wide spread use because powder exploding unexpectedly, when a Fire Witch gets in range can be very damaging.
2. Flame Master , the fire witch can direct the the path and progress of the fire once started directing the hot gasses and sparks in the direction, he wants it to move.
3. Telekinesis, picking up an object and moving it with his mind. Force still equals mass times acceleration so the force need to move something is the same as if you picked it up and threw it yourself; therefore, no one ton boulders flying through the air, unless there's a downhill slope and gravity involved.
4. Air master, the witch can move air, direct wind and effect the weather. Most of the more spectacular effects take time and imaginative utilization of the current conditions. So no thunder storms on a bright dry day.
5. Earth Master, the western mountains which border the western side of the gullet are a volcanic range so there are great forces pent within the earth. Ground water moved to lubricate a point where a fault is locked to release a earthquake or much quicker to achieve a landslide produced from an unstable slope that was about to give away.

Full Blood Witch.

A Full Blood Witch has all the above powers plus one more:

Healing, through a combination of telepathy and telekinesis the witch can help the body heal it self. This is a delicate art requiring great skill, patience and training.

All forms of witchcraft require the personal energy of witch. Among the Children they don't say “He eats like a horse”; they say “He eats like a witch.” and of a fat witch they say “Is he lazy or is he planning some great work.”

Powerful witchcraft is not a thing of brute force and luck. It is made up of subtle uses of power and skill. No one has the power to ignite an entire bonfire at once, you have to focus on one small part, lite it, then quickly spread it to the rest. Or better yet if there is another flame source handy like a torch wrap the flame in a ball of stable air and fling that at the bonfire and start the fire, fire ball.

Force is produced by energy this is why it is more useful to accelerate an arrow fired from a strong bow than from a died start.

To become a proficient witch one must study, most learn the tricks of the trade. The more that you know about how things work more the powerful the effects you can create. Among the children, teenage witches spend 4 hours a day studying witchcraft while their non witch friends are working their assigned jobs.

There is strength in numbers, more than one witch cooperate to achieve an effect at the same time. The largest effective group that can work on one spell is 13, yes a coven of witches. The group has to be coordinated by a person with mind speech, usually a Full Blood if the effect is telekinetic.

An example of this, the breaching ballista used by the Children's legions. This ballista is a spider-silk torsion ballista that fires bolts with round steal heads to break down gates and hammer other fortifications. The ballista is used to fire the bolts at the gate while the coven guides and accelerates the bolt toward the target. A well practiced and coordinated team can reach supersonic speeds for a few shots before they are to tired to continue. This is usually enough to bring down most gates.

Training

It usually takes 2 years of training for a witch to reach a level understanding that the Guard will assign them as a century witch. Children raised and schooled in the district usual are knowledgeable enough to be assign to the legion after six mouths of training. A member of the Panther Tribes with their tradition of witchcraft usual take a year.