it seems as though truemagic is not a school of magic, but a different style altogether.
Close, but you may have also jumped a conlusion shark when you said 'truemagic", I suspect you meant to say True Name magic. There's no such thing as TrueMagic, given that magic of many forms exist, one is no less true than another. it would be like saying Robins are TrueBirds, and other birds like cardinals are not. They are all birds. It is True.
Having someone's TrueName is like having their cosmic IP Address. A programmer would see it as having the direct memory pointer to the memory space in reality that represents them. A physicist may see it as a verbal representation of the exact reference to an object as defined by quantum string theory.
The gist is, if you have their TrueName, you have them, if every sense of the meaning.
Casting a spell to manipulate a target normally needs a token, representing the target. Voodoo uses dolls for instance. You might use a lock of hair to find a missing child for example. This token is a representation of your target. The farther removed from actually being the target, the more energy required and the less precise and accurate the finding and delivery of the payload to the target.
A TrueName simplifies all of that. If you thought having a piece of dead hair which has been detached from the subject for minutes or more and has now gained experiences all its own made for a good targeting mechanism, you're in the "nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" category of magic user.
Once you invoke the subject's TrueName, you have your finger on them. It's like getting realtime positioning updates from Google on your iPhone, only better. It's like knowing she's going to say "Yes" before you ever meet the girl you're going to marry.
This is why we don't go giving out our TrueNames willy nilly. It's like handing out your credit card, home address, driver's license and key to the house all in one. Even your given name has some inklings of that power. It's why we're sometimes hesitant to give somebody our real or full name. It's because some little itch in the back of our mind doesn't trust this guy and knows we're about to have a Sharing Violation.
Luckily, for most humans, they don't know their TrueNames, or even that they have one. The jury is still out if this is a bug or a feature. To know your TrueName, you have to really know yourself. There are some people who are that deep, and though they may not be able to vocalize it, they know their True Self and thus have glimpsed their TrueName.
Outsiders, those not from the mortal plane, be it demons, fey, and all that other wierd stuff sit at a different level in reality. As such, they know themselves and their place in the universe and can see their own TrueName.
Knowing your TrueName means that you are manipulating those quantum string thingies. It means that you too can make stuff happen, what the humans would call Magic. Doing so ultimately means manipulating the universe from the point in space defined by your TrueName. As such, every time you do it, an observer MIGHT be able to glean your TrueName, if they were truly looking for it.
Outside, where things live longer than the fruitfly lifespan of humans, things work a bit different. Posession of a TrueName is like having a slave. If you have the will, you can make them do your bidding or suffer. This is why TrueNames are so closely guarded. To be enthralled because somebody has your TrueName is one of the most humilating positions to be in. It's a fate worse than sleeping in dog poo.
Now that you know a little more about TrueNames, here's a recap:
- don't share your TrueName, even with your girlfriend.
- you can use it to aim your spells with deadly accuracy.
- you can make your subject do your bidding
- you own their soul or essence.
- you can't recover a TrueName, once your enemy has it, make him dead before he sells it online.
