Arcana

An arcanum is one of the many threads that binds the world together. A force, so to speak.

Common Arcana
Life, matter, forces, time, fate, space, mind and spirit all work as by the book.

Greater Arcana
Prime and death aracana exist as much larger forces than the other arcana, and could be considered greater arcana. They're considered inferior aracana by all mages.

Prime
Prime magic is the raw power of magic, but what is magic in reality? Magic is the go-to word, for the science fiction powers that are behind everything in the universe. Essentially, prime is the undercurrent that makes any magic possible. It's the undercurrent that carries the laylines through the world. This means, that prime is in practicality, the power of "creation" through enabling, and essentially also that prime magic could render any other form of magic (except one) completely pointless, because prime is raw magic, and with enough understanding of prime, a magic user woudn't need more magic.

The problem is that, while five dots of, for instance, life arcana represents master-level understanding of life magic, five dots of prime magic doesn't represent nearly the same understanding of prime magic, prime magic is simply much more powerful than other types of magic, and "level five" of prime represents roughly the same power-level of usefulness as "level five" of any given common arcana.

Prime magic has one inherent weakness. It's not suited for "unmaking". It cannot directly be used to destroy, but a clever mage can easily use it to indirectly destroy, how ever, one thing prime cannot do, is create the infamous "double negative" - see "death magic" further below for more information on that.

Disspelling magic with prime

Prime magic cannot unmake directly, so that essentially makes it impossible to disspell magic, but not in practically. In fact, prime is extremely useful in the art of unmaking spells, because it's very easy to indirectly use prime to simply render a spell harmless by changing the spell.

Creation with prime

No known mages have ever obtained a high enough understanding of prime to the point where they could use prime to simply dublicate other arcana. The gifted prime mage has the disadvantage that he still doesn't know enough about the other arcana to effectively copy them, but he can still try. Say a prime mage wanted to create a living creature. From his own point of view, he would succeed (possibly), in creating, say, a horse. But upon closer inspection, he might find that the creature he created actually doesn't look that much like an actual horse. What ever he ended up creating would certainly also look like a horse to bypassers, but to someone very familiar with horses, it would probably look wrong, because it's designed from the mental image of the prime mage, then there is the problem of keeping it alive, the animal, if the prime mage was very good, would probably have some properties similar to a real horse, but within weeks, the horse would likely die, due to having been inefficiently designed, or even worse, upon inspecting the horse, it might turn out it was no horse at all, but in reality just some weird animated object that behaved like a horse, but seems to have been made of clay. This is why most prime mages stick to creating illusions. When creating an illusion, the prime mage can succeed well enough that the illusion becomes reality to those who witness it.

Harming people with prime

Is it possible to harm people with prime magic? Of course it is! Prime magic can create a number of harmful effects. Please note that I wrote CREATE a number of harmful effects. Prime can also be used to change properties in a person, causing damage.

Initiate (●)
An Initiate of Prime, using the first level of mastery, can see resonance more proficiently than with any other spell. One can also detect and analyze enchantments in items, and see through illusions (depending on the respective skill level of illusionist and observer). One gains a limited ability to alter the properties of spells, though one must have knowledge of the effects being dispelled. Lastly, one can record one’s rotes in a grimoire, that the mage or another might use them.

Apprentice (●●)
An Apprentice of Prime has the power to bestow one’s resonance detection upon others. One may counter spells from any Arcanum, or create armor against enemy spells (though not against regular damage like punches, or guns). The mage’s aura may be altered, making one appear as something one isn’t, and one may create the dueling circle for the Duel Arcane, a ritualized form of wizardly combat. One may also cloak oneself from the mystical senses of other mages as one alters or examines their magic, and may activate Artefacts and imbued items without needing to fulfill their triggers.

Disciple (●●●)
A Disciple of Prime may bestow one’s shield against magic, or alter the aura of, other creatures. One may channel Mana directly from Hallows or take it from inorganic tass or enchanted items, or dissolve said tass. The mage’s power over dispelling increases, allowing one to selectively dispel magic from some targets while still keeping the spell active against other targets, fortify the souls of targets, making them more resistant to attempts at soul theft, and one can imbue spells into items or make weapons and equipment capable of affecting Twilight or Shadow Realm creatures. One may transfer one’s Mana to other living creatures, create wellsprings of power from the ley lines that straddle the Earth, or weave simple, immobile illusions. Finally, one may wield the raw energy of magic as an offensive weapon, blasting at her foes with Supernal fire, not even arch masters can withstand Supernal energy for long, unless they kill the mage channeling this power they will eventually be burnt to ash.

Adept (●●●●)
An Adept of Prime can change the properties of any spell encountered without needing to understand the workings behind it, rendering it useless, or taking control over it. One may reactivate the flow of Mana from dormant Hallows or suppress active Hallows into temporary slumber. One may bestow one’s perception of magic and the arcane upon even Sleepers at this level of power, allowing them to glimpse into the magical world without fear of invoking Disbelief. Mana can now be siphoned from the Essence of spirits, loci, and ghosts or pulled from regular, non-enchanted objects. The mage can now also create animated illusions, but it still needs to be actively animated by the mage; they have no free will or mind. Finally, one may create functioning illusory objects, weapons or armor, which affect the world like regular such items would.

Master (●●●●●)
A Master of Prime to create complex illusions with a semblance of proper function, such as “working” computers or convincing shock troops. One can now siphon Mana from unwilling mages or create one’s own temporary Hallow to draw power from. One can also expel Mana from a given area, creating a ‘dead zone’ in which magic cannot function, though this may endanger the lives of creatures within the zone.

Death
Death magic originates from the twilight zone. Many have often wondered what the twilight zone actually is, and it appears that the twilight zone is essentially "the spirit world equivalent" of parallel world that is "negative", though no one has ever been able to cross from the twilight zone and into what ever equivalent of our mortal world that they might have, but the geist (sin-eaters) claim that it exists and that they can access it.

Death magic is the equivalent of prime magic from that "negative world". It's the power to unmake. Death magic can observe the process of unmaking, but strangely, it can also "unmake the unmaking", and essentially halt destruction, or even reverse it, but death magic can never be used to strengthen something beyond it's original power. The most feared power of death magic is it's ability to cause the double-negative, namely undeath.

Death magic is otherwise very similar to prime, it's difficult to master.

Disspelling with death magic
It's possible to simply destroy a spell with death magic.

Creating with death magic
Death magic can be used to reduce any matter to ephemera, essentially "negative matter", and it can then be used to reshape ephemera into, practically anything, and truly powerul users of death magic have theorized that it's possible to even reshape ephemera into practically any material. Most who have claimed success at this have been proven to have used a combination of arcana to achieve the effect. Creation with death magic is commonly only possible by either invoking a double-negative, or by creating within the twilight zone.

Healing with death
Death magic can "unmake" damage, but it could never grow a limb that was never in existence, like life magic could, or at least no one has figured out how to do it yet. There is a theory, that, a death mage could create an arm from ephemera, and then "unmake" it into a real arm, and some have even succeeded in this, but the problem is attaching it to someone.

Initiate (●) The first level of mastery grants an Initiate of Death the power to see the impact of death in individual people, noting how many have died in that person’s presence. She can also see the manner in which a person or creature died, and exactly how long ago that was. The mage also gains the power to sculpt ectoplasm conjured by a ghost or other mage, examine the health of the soul, alter shadows to conceal herself or an object, or speak with the dead.

Apprentice (●●) An Apprentice of Death, with the second level of mastery, can bestow her perceptions of the weight of death on others. She can command shadows to move as though they were alive, even making them travel from their source, and can now create the substance called ectoplasm, an energy used in matters related to ghosts. It is at this level that the mage first gains power over auras, as she is now capable of suppressing them. She can cause physical objects, but not creatures, to decay, and can enhance her touch so she can interact with things in Twilight. Also, the mage gains the ability to summon ghosts, even against their will, and create soul jars, the vessels for soul trapping. Finally, she can leech the vigour from incoming attacks, rendering them useless.

Disciple (●●●)
The third level of mastery allows a Disciple of Death to force ghosts to do her bidding or raise zombies for the same purpose. She can heal the corpus of ghosts and create gateways into Twilight. Her shield can now be transferred to another. She can mystically destroy objects, shunt them into Twilight, or weaken the structure of objects already there. Her mastery over shadows extends to the point where she can make them from nothing, and she gains the ability to suppress her life signs and appear dead. Finally, she gains the power to convert the souls of the dying into Mana, and to sever the souls of Sleepers from their body.

Adept (●●●●)
With the fourth level of mastery, an Adept of Death gains the power to enervate her foes, sucking out their strength and rendering them weak and powerless. She can bind the recently dead into objects or places, dooming them to haunt these locations forever. She may also rot the living flesh of a creature, and create an intelligent, driven undead creature called a revenant. Also at this level are granted the powers to suppress the life signs of another, to shift into Twilight without a gate, to bind souls into a soulless person, or to destroy her aura permanently.

Master (●●●●●)
The fifth level of mastery gives a Master of Death the power to tap the souls of the perfectly healthy for Mana, to summon ghosts from the Underworld in order to gain their knowledge, or to bolster the power of ghosts already in the world. She may also steal years of life from Sleepers, destroy Mana whether it lies within an artefact, as tass, or even within a mage, and sunder any magic.