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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tsyr" data-source="post: 789209" data-attributes="member: 354">Since I don't use default DnD magic, this won't make as much sense, but...Magic is a cross between energy and the selective manipulation of reality. "Magic energy", called "mana" or "essence", flows across the world in ley lines and gathers in nexus points, but in and of itself mana is just... waste, basicly. It's the excess energy generated by everything... life, motion, etc. Basicly, anything has the innate magical potential to be or do many things... But since things only actualy do or become one thing, most of that potential is wasted. It just sort of floats about, generaly drifting towards one of the ley lines. "Magic", as such, is the manipulation of this raw potential energy to cause other things to happen. A good example I give new players is gasoline... You go to a pump, and fill your car. The gasoline is potential. You fill it a bit too much, and some spills out on the ground as you remove the nozel. That's wasted potential. If you formed enough, it would run through the cracks in the pavement and form little rivers and pools. You throw a match on the little pool of gasoline and it bursts into flames. That's magic. You scoop up some of the gasoline and use it to power something else, that's also magic.Most humans just can't do magic. It's just not possible for them, no matter how much they try. Some humans, however, can see this wasted potential, and can train themselves to do things with it. This rarely manifests "wild" or untrained, but it can. People who are born with the ability to do this, either through training or wild talent, are called she'vano, an ancient word that basicly equates to "child of the gods". The theory (No one knows if it's true) is that the few humans who can use magic were gifted, either by a god or by one of the other races, long ago, to be able to do so.  It runs in the blood, but it's not a fixed trait... it can lie dormant for generations, or manifest in every offspring. Among humans, different bloodlines have evolved... The Pernas bloodline is gifted at anything involving fire, for example, while the Irini bloodline is renowned for it's uncanny ability to shapechange - something that's very, very hard to do normaly with magic. Other humans - that is, not shevano - can't use magic proper, but they can, under certain circumstances, use a form of "low magic"... Rituals and so forth that have been noted to *normaly* have a certain effect, if performed at a certain time, in a certain place, etc. It's not reliable, or quick, but it sort of works.Other races have different amounts of magic ability... De'shanan are only skilled at certain types of magic, but highly skilled at those types. Wild elves use magicly almost instinctivly, but they can never advance very far or learn very much... a wild elf might know one trick very well, but probably nothing else. High elves and she'vano are almost equal in magical ability, except that the high elves lack the varried bloodlines, and all high elves possess the ability. Dwarves, like De'shanan, are only good at certain types of magic, but they are the undisputed masters at making magic consistant... Dwarves use ritual magic extensivly, and to much better effect, than humans.As for exactly how people manipulate it... It's a combination of two things. One is the ability to percieve the magic in the first place... except for rituals, you can't do magic if you can't feel the magic to work with. It would be like trying to make perfume if you had no sense of smell, sort of. The second part is a set of, for lack of a better way of saying it, mental muscles. They just don't exist in non-magic-users.</blockquote>

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