text | un: m.c.

[blackestwitch]

Two questions for you all. One of them minor but kind of personally important. The second more of an excuse for you to ramble at me.

Okay, first. How do people usually keep track of birthdays around here? Because I should be turning sixteen very soon, except now it's like May and I've lost a bunch of months. Do I have to do math to figure out when I turn sixteen or do I just keep saying I'm fifteen for another half a year? This is important. I could be driving.

Setting that aside for a moment, an open question. More of a request, really. Can you tell me about magic in your world? I always assumed magic was kind of a universal constant, but from what little I've learned, it seems like magic can come in many different forms depending on the world. So tell me about yours.

I'd be happy to answer any questions about my world's magic in return. I can't use it myself but I ran a podcast about it. Maybe I'll even compile the information I learn here into something like that.

Maddie out.

Comments

[nojohnyouare]

It's hard. That's happened to me, too. Though also with memory loss. It was November, then May, and I thought it was January. And then I missed my next birthday in stasis.

...A pattern?

Magic... I know some things. But knowledge is hard to come by.

[blackestwitch]

Okay that sounds like even more math.

So are you counting the days to figure out your age, or are you waiting until your actual birthday rolls around?

[honededge]

not sure i can weigh in on birthdays. never kept track of mine, personally. i guess if you wanted to be accurate you'd have to do the math, but if you just want to celebrate it i'd say go for it and assume the time has already passed on your homeworld.

as for magic, my world's magic is a bit fucky? there are multiple forms of magical energies and they all work differently. on top of that, only some people are able to use magic and i don't think anyone knows why? magic was gone in our world for a long time before the mana levels surged again and it reappeared in 2011. then people started goblinizing because of the increased mana levels and that was a world wide mess.

that paragraph probably raised some questions so like shoot if you're curious, but my knowledge is mostly limited to shamanic magic and totems.

[blackestwitch]

See, the thing is, I suck at math.

Also there's a lot to unpack in there. 2011? That's only like okay half my lifetime ago but still not that far back. And what is galvanized? Sorry my speech-to-text didn't pick that up right, you know what I mean.

voice

[fistsofchange]

There are sorcerers around occasionally. I don't know where they get their powers, but they're all kinda weird. They talk about destiny a lot.

[blackestwitch]

I know some old men like that. Destiny destiny power I'm better than everybody else.

text; elevencrows

[founderinglight]

Not going to be much help with the birthdays question, I'm afraid. I'm lucky I can remember mine, I've lost track of my exact age long since.

As for magic, in Eos it's largely linked to the bloodlines of two major royal families - my line, the Lucis Caela, and the Nox Fleurets of Tenebrae. They have a healing/purifying ability and the ability to communicate with the gods, hence their role of Oracle, and only one of them inherits that magic at a time? I'm not entirely sure of the details on their side; unfortunately none of them are here for questioning, so you'll have to bear with my best guesses.

As for us, we have a number of hereditary magical traits that are renewed by the covenant with the Crystal when each ruler takes the throne - the ability to use magic fades out only a few generations away, so none of the branch families have it. The primary ability is the Armiger, which allows for the storage of weapons and any number of other things, as well as the ability to warp (short-range teleportation via thrown object). We also have an ability called elemancy which lets us store and utilize elemental energy for explosive results, and a minor ability to create magical restoratives from regular drinks. Finally, a few members of the line have some ability with illusions - full-perception, not simply visual. I've only minor abilities in that regard, but that's more than most, the ability faded out somewhere around the fifth century?

We can also share a good number of those abilities with others, usually the family's sworn retainers. Each Armiger is only a single space linked to the original user, however, anyone else using it is pulling things in and out of the possession of whoever of the family they're sworn to.

Outside of that, magic is very rare on Eos and the average person will not encounter it. The other overt manifestations are the gods themselves - there's six of them, they're very real but usually best avoided by mortals - and the Starscourge, which is a strain of evil magic malaria that turns the people it kills into darkness-related monsters called daemons.

There were once other forms of magic, but most of them were dying out even before I was born. We also have magitek, which uses the same sort of elemental energy that my family uses for elemancy to power all sorts of machinery.

If you want to know anything in more detail, feel free to ask. Though I can't guarantee having answers for anything save Armiger questions.

[blackestwitch]

So there's actually not a whole lot of magic in your world, then? Two families and whoever you share it with. Plus gods and starscourge. I'm not going to question how my speech-to-text actually had that in its database.

Magitech I'm familiar with, at least. I'm not sure about using elemental energy, but merging magic with technology isn't unheard of where I'm from.

text;

[kingshaming]

Oh, you can just share your abilities with your retainers? Gods, that would have been a useful skill to have with my own.

[ If he could give Laslow and Peri the ability to use Dragon Veins even for a short time...]

text; darkwings

[thoroff]

You could have mentioned that you can share your abilities before I manifested my own storage magic partly out of subconscious jealousy, you know.

un: kana

[cyclicalconcept]

I don't have a birthday, not really. I wasn't ever born.

I don't know if I should explain fully on here. It's a long, terrible explanation. Even in the new universe.

[blackestwitch]

Are you Jesus? Wait no, he has a birthday. It's Christmas.

But seriously, you don't need to explain anything you're not comfortable with. I'm just curious. That's no reason to make you uncomfortable.

[letsplayer]

honestly as long as I have my birthday once per year per dimension I don't sweat it too much

[cyclicalconcept]

I guess this is why it's a good thing I don't have one. It must get confusing as to how old you actually are.

[blackestwitch]

One vote for waiting for my birthday to roll back around, then.

Which is, I suppose, the option that makes most sense. Otherwise I'd need to do a bunch of math and, like, get a new astrological sign? I'm not sure what I'd do if I wound up being a Gemini.

[have_hat_will_travel]

... Never really thought about that. Though what does your age have to do with driving?

[Cultural disconnects.]

Magic... I can talk about more, but it's definitely not super-consistent between worlds - or for my world, even within it.

[blackestwitch]

You can only drive when you're 16.

But sure, tell me more about magic in your world. It can be the cliff notes version if you want.

text;

[kingshaming]

Hm, I haven't been here long enough to know how they take note of time passing. My own birthday is during harvest time, so I'd mark it based on that but...

[The station and fissures make that awkward]

Well, as for magic, it is relatively common where I'm from- most people are at least capable of casting spells, and only lack the training. Though there is some natural talent to it as well- for example, I personally am rather lacking in magical talent, but my siblings are much more skilled. We usually use items to focus specific spells- tome for attacks, staves for healing or various non-attacking effects.

There's also dragon magic, which only those with dragon blood can use. It involves manipulating the natural ley-lines of the earth and is much harder to predict and categorize.

[blackestwitch]

So you have defined attack spells, then. That's interesting. Most people in day to day life wouldn't need spells specifically for attacking others.

Also, you have dragons? That's cool. I've never seen a dragon before.

un: purrsonafied

[beguiledcard]

Give yourself a new birthday while you're here.

[ SIMPLE!!! ]

For example, I just handwaved the difference. I went with April itself being the general time I turned seventeen, since mine is early April back home. In my case, though, there really isn't many months separating me from here and back home.

[ He's shrugging over here. His birthday is far from a big deal. ]

As for magic, the closest thing you get in my timeline's version of Earth, is the stuff magicians do.

Probablecaws

[foolishjustice]

Then why is this the first time I'm hearing about this, dear?

[blackestwitch]

First off, just an FYI that Siri has problems reading your username. Person if eyed? Or maybe I just don't get it.

Anyway, my birthday is towards the end of the year, but it was almost there before I came here. And now it's May. So either I have to wait the rest of the year or finagle it somewhere sooner.

[bulletnews]

I've mentioned to a few people before that for my world it seems to vary from person to person, and even the ones that get really into magic at a high level all have completely different specialties.

Out of those four...
- Marisa deals largely in magic that produces a lot of light and heat. Stars, giant lasers, blowing things up, that kind of thing. It's not especially elegant, but that's just who she is.

- Patchouli is a talented elementalist; she uses a five-element system of fire, water, wood, earth, and metal with sun and moon "elements" as addons. She understands the interactions between them well enough that she can combine them very effectively, but she's so into magic that despite being a youkai she's physically weaker than many humans.

- Alice uses magic to manipulate dolls. She's got a big research project going on to create a fully autonomous doll with magic only, and not letting it turn into a tsukumogami, but it's been going on for years.

- Byakuren supposedly specializes in body-strengthening magic, but I've never seen it. Supposedly it's extremely complicated, and I'm also not really sure how you'd work something like that into the way we conduct duels.

Beyond that, most youkai have magical powers just because they're youkai, but even within the same species there are some variations. There aren't any crow tengu that can keep up with my speed or wind control, for instance. And pretty much anyone can shoot magic.

[blackestwitch]

Everybody having their own magic specialty is a lot like how magic works in my world. The big variation in monster magic, too. It sounds like we actually have a lot in common.

Un: konawa talimo (text)

[dragonmouth]

I wish I could tell you, myself. This world uses a different calendar from mine.

Back home everyone had a particular gift passed down from one of their parents. I happened to have inherited mine from my mother, but it's really a toss of a coin which one you get.

Other than that, you'd have to either consort with spirits or make use of whatever objects they felt like enchanting.

[ There were also potions you could make, but no one really considered that magic since it was solely for medicinal shit. ]

[blackestwitch]

You're the second person I've met whose world's magic is tied to bloodlines. That doesn't seem to be very common.

What are these magical powers like?