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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Idabrius" data-source="post: 4262549" data-attributes="member: 67832">Magical Theory:WE have all asked ourselves at one time or another “What is magic? Where does it come from?” The answers seem simple enough on the surface. A studious scholar can draw power out of the words written on a page; a not so studious one can learn secret forumlae from unkind beings. Yet, even the devotees of the gods have magic of a sort. It has long been my study to comprehend the relationship between magic of all kinds and to understand it in full. What, then, is magic?We two very distinct varieties of magic. That is, we have learned magic, which are made up of a series of gestures and words which call forth certain effects and we have granted magic which is given to us as a gift in response for certain services. There is a third type of magic, latent magic, which exists in the environment. The prime example of latent magic are the sickstones of Miles. We can begin to divide the practitioners of this art along a scale. On the one end lie the so-called wizards and magicians who practice a purely learned art. In the center lie the Sons of Mile or the Warlocks who know certain things but also receive others as boons for their service. On the far end of the scale are the clerics and divine warriors, who would have no magic where it not for the intervention of their patrons.We can now recognize learned and granted magics, but what defines them? What makes them different? The lines are blurrier than we might like to believe. For example, the pried who call upon the Sunwarden use commanding terms in their own tongue; is this a boon from their goddess or it is an energy corralled and marshaled by them the same as any spell a mage might know? This mystery is beyond us. Therefore, the terms of learned and granted magic are essentially useless. We must seek a different interpretation.This quest for an unorthodox view has led me to the belief that magic is truly separated not by its obtainment (learning against giving) but rather by its source. This is a difficult subject to broach, but my explorations have led me to the following conclusions. All magic called upon by the great races of today has a singular source: language. It is the mystic power of communication that can bring into effect such startling changes. While Dragons may be innately magical (and thus dangerous beyond belief) men and the like can only tap into that power when they express themselves in some means of communication. Once the communication is established (the definition), the words must be given some enforcement (the power). This is the crux of the problem.Clerics draw their power solely from their patrons. Even the simplest of magical intonations and prayers would be powerless where it not for the existence of, say, Minos or Pallea. Wizards draw their power from the environment itself; the world responds to their attempts at communication by altering itself to their words. The warlocks of Sargoth or of anywhere for that matter know many formulae like those of true wizards and they also draw their power from Outside influences. The powers of warlocks come both from learned sources and from beings that do not live within the Middle Kingdom.Magical language is thus an interesting notion to study. Clerical magics seem to stem equally from whatever language they are spoken in. A prayer is a prayer in any tongue. This is because the prayer may be understood by its enactor, which is a thinking being (a God or Goddess). However, wizards must use one of the ancient Languages of Power in order to achieve their effects. This is because there is no intermediary power to understand their words. Rather, their words must speak directly to the architecture of the universe itself.As a mage of no little merit, I feel my attention is best devoted to that type of magic. It may be that clerics and certain warlocks’ spells are worked the same way that our magic is, simply with an intermediary doing the final crafting. Either way, that is beyond my range of study. Rather, I meant to address the Languages of Power. These tongues were devised specifically to bring into the world certain powers and manipulations that we take for granted today. We have Labrynthine, the tongue crafted by the Eladrin, Wyrmspeak, that crafted by the Dragons, Æon, spoken by the giants, Venetic spoken by the dwarves, and Hidden Ugartic, that written language of the elves. These three Languages of Power are each designed in order to maximize the semantic tensions that present themselves between the signifier and the signified. The relationship between a signal such as a morpheme or word in a Language of Power and the concept that the signal refers to is often a complex one. No one signal or concept exists in the void, but must instead inhabit a perfectly harmonious network of meanings and signals with no imbalances.This is the reason that, say, Floresan, cannot be used to enact such spells. The language is riddled with alterations and loan-words, and meaning constantly shifts. However, the Languages of Power are static and unchanging in their relationships. The meanings have been perfectly carved and agreed upon and secured with the passage of time. That is why a wizard can only enact his great works with one of these ancient tongues today.</blockquote>

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