What is Arcane Magic?
Arcanite
Arcanite is an energy field permeating Lurra. The substance bearing the same name is its pure, condensed form. The field can be observed and studied, but its ultimate origin remains unknown. Scholarly explanations and religious accounts offer interpretations of that origin. Arcanite does not maintain the planet's gravity or keep the world in existence.
Veins and condensate
The field is uneven. Arcanite Veins are regions of stronger flow and concentration, making location important to magical practice, places of power and teleportation. Antetasin, the sacred tree of the High Elves, is associated with a notable concentration of arcane energy.
Condensed Arcanite can supply major rituals and magical devices. Its use requires knowledge and care; ordinary spellcasting does not require carrying the substance, and possession of it does not replace skill.
Reserve and control
A mage can draw on a personal reserve or directly on the surrounding field. The reserve offers speed and control, especially in combat. Direct drawing requires greater concentration and depends on local conditions; extended rituals can rely more heavily on it.
The reserve replenishes from the field, more readily during rest. Deliberate concentration can accelerate this within safe limits. A weak field slows recovery. Emptying the reserve does not automatically cause death or prevent further drawing from the field.
Capacity and control are distinct. Training improves control and efficiency and may gradually increase capacity, but neither grows without limit. Overload occurs when the caster handles more energy than they can safely control. Mild overload can cause pain, trembling and difficulty concentrating; serious overload can spoil a spell and injure the body; extreme cases can cause permanent harm or death. Ordinary casting need not cause injury.
Restorative elixirs
Elixirs can replenish a caster's reserve faster than rest by accelerating recovery from the appropriate source. A preparation can serve arcane, divine and nature practitioners without changing where their power comes from. It cannot restore a severed connection to a deity or nature.
An elixir does not exceed the user's capacity, increase safe control, or heal overload and other injuries. Repeated doses in a short period give diminishing benefits and strain the body. Drinking continuously cannot sustain endless spellcasting.
Magic in everyday life
Magic is known and recognisable without being an everyday service for most inhabitants. Villages do not routinely have their own mage. Cities offer specialists, constrained by price, availability and expertise; great centres such as Arvis concentrate academies and workshops without making magic accessible to everyone.
Powerful mages are few and politically significant. An ordinary practitioner cannot automatically decide a battle. Magical objects can be valuable tools and heirlooms; mundane medicine, crafts, trade and transport remain essential.
Matter and transformation
Creating permanent matter from energy is possible at great cost. Conjured food or water may save lives in an emergency, but supplying a city this way would be a vast undertaking. Temporary constructs, such as barriers or magical blades, are easier to create and do not automatically provide lasting raw materials.
Permanently turning copper into gold is an advanced operation whose ordinary costs exceed the value produced. It may have exceptional or scholarly uses, but is not a routine source of profit.
Teleportation
Long-distance teleportation uses prepared connections through nodes in the Arcanite field. A destination must be prepared or previously studied and attuned; its name and position on a map are insufficient. Cost increases with distance and mass. Regular bulk transport requires substantial infrastructure and skilled operators, leaving roads, ships and caravans essential.
A short blink is a separate, advanced technique. It does not require a prepared node, but reaches only a nearby, visible and unoccupied location.
Field disturbances can impede attunement, increase costs or prevent passage. Conditions can be examined beforehand, without guaranteeing against sudden changes. Maintained wards can block entry, exit or both, including short blinks; the cost increases with the protected area.
An ordinary failed attempt can leave the traveller in place, consume energy or cause overload. Forcing an unstable passage risks severe injury, disappearance or death.
The boundary of arcane magic
Arcane magic cannot heal or restore the dead to life. Creating matter does not provide a way around this boundary. Magical healing and resurrection belong to divine and nature magic.