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Setting Elaboration

The dimension in which this game is set does not have any inherent magical properties. Therefore, anyone practicing magic is actually borrowing laws of physics from other dimensions. That said, very few wizards are actually aware that they are doing this; the art of the practice has obscured the power’s origin.
There are several dimensions from whence magic is being drawn. We’ve already seen two of them; one is full of dragons and the other has celestial beings. This does not mean these are the only two dimensions that are used as sources for magic, or even that the same spell draws from the same dimension each time it is cast.
The art of magic is divided into schools, which can each be classified by their primary energy source and primary element. Schools that have similar flavor are grouped into the same School District; a mage can more easily learn the practice of other schools in the district.
The first such district is Rend. It has four categories of magic: Prayer, Phantom, Scry, and Math.

Mages: Executing Magic by School (Part 1: Rend)
Prayer
Primary Energy Source: Void
Elemental Affinity: Cryonic
School District: Rend (+Phantom, +Scry, +Math)
Practitioners: Evokers
Prayer Magic is will given force by faith. Belief bends the rules of reality to make the impossible possible. Prayer Magic is most notable for its oral component; an incantation or ‘prayer’ is necessary to trigger the magic’s effect. The potency of Prayer magic comes from the evoker’s faith; the more belief that can be mustered the more potent the effect. This can make Prayer magic quite powerful, but can also be its downfall, as a crisis of faith effectively nullifies its effect.
Prayer magic achieved both offense and defense spontaneously as a gift from above.
Of particular note in this category is Mangetsu Zataka, a paladin dimensional traveler. The source of his prayer magic is the faith that his crusade will bear fruit. No dragons as of yet have utilized Prayer magic.
I assigned prayer magic to Zataka primarily because he was described as a paladin and prayer is the closest equivalent to divine magic in this setting.

Phantom
Primary Energy Source: Wood
Elemental Affinity: Cryonic
School District: Rend (+Prayer, +Scry, +Math)
Practitioners: Shamans
Phantom Magic is built on the principles of animism. Every object in the world is inhabited by thousands of tiny spirits. By communing with these spirits, a Phantom shaman can entreat them to act, thereby affecting a change in the object they inhabit. Phantom Magic also connects with the spirits of passed beings, meaning it gains powers in places of great spiritual energy like graveyards and holy grounds. There are also PINNACLE SPIRITS which act as ministers to the smaller spirits of individual objects. If a Phantom shaman can obtain the favor of such a spirit, their ability to commune with and control spirits under the pinnacle’s purview will increase greatly.
Phantom magic imbues a shaman with great power to manipulate the environment favorably. From an offensive stance, a Phantom shaman creates dangerous attacks by convincing spirits to behave in a manner which--while individually harmless--are fatal when performed in unison.
Currently only one character has expressed prowess in Phantom Magic: Granberia. She encourages the spirits of fire that linger in the air and in flammable materials to ignite, thereby creating great blasts of flame. Her prowess with fire specifically comes from her blessing by a flame pinnacle spirit SALAMANDER, with whom she made a pact at a very early age.
Likewise, Goldleaf practiced Phantom magic in his creation of a cone of cold. He entreated the spirits hanging in the air to rapidly decrease their temperature, thereby creating a blast of cold.
Granberia was assigned as a shaman primarily because her magic was based in animism. Goldleaf’s cone of cold was phantom magic because it involved both a vocalization and material components (offrendas). The cone of cold also could have been Prayer magic, but I felt in that case that Phantom was more appropriate.

Scry
Primary Energy Source: Stone
Elemental Affinity: Cryonic
School District: Rend (+Prayer, +Phantom, +Math)
Practitioners: Oracles
Scry Magic uses second sight to observe distant phenomenon, study the past, and predict the future. It is tactile; simply making contact with an object can trigger flashes of events long gone or events to come. Scry magic is difficult to master as a Scry oracle must learn to differentiate the past from the future. However, proper mastery of the discipline can be a tremendous boon.
Scry magic is inherently passive. To be used in combat, a Scry oracle must predict where blows will occur and then lure their opponent into the strike range of those blows. This severely limits the school’s access to elemental attacks, though a Scry oracle may use the environment and their predictions (or the spells of other wizards) to achieve similar results. This makes the discipline most effective in tumultuous areas, such as storms or crumbling structures. Alternatively, Scry magic can be used to prepare for a fight in advance, laying traps and arranging for convenient battle placement so that the outcome is more favorable (read: ret-con capacity)
Goldleaf is the only oracle thus far. As his primary specialty he is able to predict a multitude of incoming danger, though he has yet to redirect that danger to his own purposes.
As of yet, no dragon has performed Scry magic.
Goldleaf was categorized as an oracle by my discretion as TheDarkOne introduced him to identify magical phenomenon for the party. A seer seemed appropriate and allowed me to give direction to the chase for the Veridian Pearl.

Math
Primary Energy Source: Metal
Elemental Affinity: Incendiary
School District: Rend (+Prayer, +Phantom, +Scry)
Practitioners: Mathemagicians
Math Magic exploits improbable alternatives to nudge reality in the mathemagician’s favor. Its primary function is to make nearly impossible events guaranteed (law of large numbers) or to blur facts in the past with plausible deniability (the small chance that THIS actually happened).
Math magic has great utility outside of combat, and its most expressed form is that of retroactive continuity. It is limited only by the raw power of the caster: the more improbable the event that is changed, the more energy required to nudge it into plausibility.
The unnamed Gnomish innkeeper, who was intended to be a character for Ctrl-Alt-Delete to play, was a Mathemagician. He used his power once, to replace himself with a cardboard cutout when the pursuit of the ogres turned sour.
Additionally, D’Arsonius is a practiced Mathemagician and has used the ability several times against Granberia, first to release his other two pearls back into the wind and second to nudge facts about her past… though the latter might not have been math magic at all.

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