Sabriel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bindsthedead) wrote2015-02-26 09:46 pm
bindsthedead) wrote2015-02-26 09:46 pm
So, who wants to play with magic?
Or where Sarah rambles on about Charter magic.
What is it? Charter magic is the major magical system of Sabriel's canon. Unlike magic in a lot of worlds, inherent talent isn't required to use Charter magic. Though certain bloodlines have much greater power in it than normal folk, a sufficiently trained Charter Mage can baptize anyone with a Charter mark, a faint mark on their forehead that symbolizes their connection to the Charter.
Who can learn it in Mask Or Menace? Anyone who isn't undead and has at least one open power slot (Or if your character has three full slots, you can swap out one for Charter magic)! You need to post to the canon/power update post to ask for approval, and your character will be limited to five spells. Please note that Charter Magic is really not compatible with technology- cast a spell on a device and it will break, and simply using a lot of magic around technology will cause it to shut down. ("Technology" here including not only electronic devices, but also guns and internal combustion engines. Clockwork is rather resistant to this effect, and can actually be easily integrated with Charter Magic). So cyborgs and robots are likely to run into difficulty, unless they can use a human form.
What your character will experience when they use it Using Charter magic means reaching into the Charter and drawing out symbols- simple spells may involve a single mark or a handful, and be quickly cast, but some powerful spells can include hundreds or thousands of marks. This explains it better than I can.
Consequences of screwing up or getting overambitious with Charter magic can range from singed fingers or an uncontrollable spell for normal magic to being exhausted for several weeks with a badly burned throat (And if the individual in question wasn't a massively powerful mage to begin with she probably would have died) or being struck blind and dumb for the rest of their life in another case of an attempt at powerful spell going horribly wrong.
Please remember that Charter magic is not a psychoactive thing. While attempted spells may go awry, stuff won't suddenly burst into flame because a character gets scared. (In other words, you can't use Charter magic unconsciously, it has to be a deliberate effort, though characters who practice enough could learn to use it on reflex.)
Another thing- Touching a baptismal Charter mark lets the mage touching it determine if it's genuine/uncorrupted (if it is, they can feel the Charter through it), and get a sense of how powerful a mage the person they're touching is. Charter Mages can combine their abilities, if they're touching each other, allowing them to cast a spell with more power than any one of them could handle individually. How it feels is described a few times in the series.
In Sabriel
Sabriel felt the familiar swirl of energy, and the feeling of falling into some endless galaxy of stars. But the stars here were Charter symbols, linked in some great dance that had no beginning or end, but contained and described the world in its movement. Sabriel knew only a small fraction of the symbols, but she knew what they danced, and she felt the purity of the Charter wash over her.
In Clariel, to give you an idea of how a less experienced mage describes it.
It was like falling into deep water. All of a sudden, the world ceased to exist. She was surrounded entirely by Charter marks, brilliant, shining, blinding marks that swirled and swam all around her, through her and inside her, marks that she did not know and felt she could never know, thousands, tens of thousands, millions of Charter marks-
In Goldenhand through the eyes of someone who's just received the mark.
"It is like swimming in the high lake," she said, grinning, her teeth white in the darkness. "The shock at first, the sudden cold, then it comes all around and you know what it is to be alive and you go under and it is so smooth and clear and it seems to be forever and it is not cold, but warm..."
And a different character, later in the same book, that shows what it's like to reach into the Charter deliberately, rather than just touching a mark.
A single Charter Mark blossomed in Lirael's mind. One small mark, an everyday mark, nothing in itself, one used for joining other marks together. But Lirael welcomed it joyfully, and then another followed, and another, and there was a trickle of marks, all ones she knew, and more and more came, until the full flood returned and she felt the ocean of marks, the multitude, more than could possibly be known crash down upon her and flow through every part of her being.
List of Charter spells [Incomplete! If you have an idea for something you want to learn, talk to me, and we'll figure out if it makes sense!]
Basic Spells Easy stuff!
Conjuring lights: An extremely simple spell. Conjures a light of variable intensity. The mark can be engraved into an object to make a permanent light, or simply used as a temporary flashlight. Make it bright enough, and you could temporarily blind someone with it.
Lighting a fire: uses two marks. A yellow flame forms on the tip of a character's finger, not burning the skin, but easily setting any flammable materials it touches alight.
Drawing water out of the air: The caster traces the marks for the spell in the air and cups their hands below it as the marks turn into water/water condenses around the marks and drops down into their hands. Most effective in humid environments.
Spell of the silver blades: Pretty self explanatory! Conjures three silver blades that fly forward with considerable force (enough to put fist-sized holes through an animated corpse and reduce a piece of lumber to wood chips) and vanish once they hit their target. The incantation (often shouted) is "Anet! Calew! Ferhan!"
The Final Rites Not a spell that's likely to see much use here, but Sabriel's likely to insist her students learn this on principle. It's a spell that has one purpose- cremating a corpse. It requires four marks- fire, cleansing, peace, and sleep, and will burn a body to ash within seconds.
Recording spell: Consists of three marks placed on a solid object. After tracing the marks, the caster places their hand on them, and sound is recorded for as long as they're touching the marks. After that, the recording cannot be altered in any way, and will be played back whenever a mage touches the marks. This spell will linger for as long as the marks are left intact. It can also be cast on a piece of paper!
More advanced spells And also suggestions for other stuff/ general suggestions for things characters might want to do, or things that have been described in canon but haven't had particular spells described.
Diamond of protection: Sabriel uses this spell a lot- it's good if you're staying in one place for a while and want to be shielded. four marks are drawn- one at each point of the compass. Once the four marks are completed, lines of light run between them, surrounding the area inside in protective magic- it's possible to protect a small campsite with a single diamond. It's impossible to enter from outside- or to physically or magically harm those within, and leaving the diamond from inside breaks the spell.
Battle Magic: Not just fireballs, lightning bolts, and other offensive spells, but also anything you'd cast quickly in a fight- shields, arrow-wards, and spells designed to blind and immobilize opponents are also considered part of this category. Each spell learned in this category takes up a separate slot.
Healing: Pretty self explanatory. Charter Magic can't heal people completely, or instantly, but it can bring people back from life-threatening injuries, heal broken bones, close wounds, deal with fever, and pull poison/drugs out of the body, as well as help prevent infection. Charter healing spells linger- with a burst of initial healing followed by a period of slower mending as the spell finishes its work. During the period of slow healing, they can be disrupted by excessive physical activity, causing wounds to reopen, as an example.
Item enchanting: Ranges from imbuing weapons with spells that let them hit things ordinarily weapons can't damage, (like spirits) or inflict serious damage to the undead to making swords sharper and arrows more likely to hit their targets to large projects like creating servant constructs or powerful magical weapons and devices. Charter magic can mesh with clockwork and possibly steam, but trying to mix it to electronics won't work.
Binding/wards: Used in canon to imprison monsters or restrict their powers- or keep them out of places. Often seems to involve long chains of symbols, or 'Master Marks' that are so powerful they can kill or seriously harm the caster if used without proper precautions. Bindings seem to be one area of Charter Magic that often uses physical components- specially enchanted swords and wands used to channel the spells, and containers made of specific materials to trap creatures in. Wards are used to keep monsters out, and to protect the people inside from magical and physical attack.
Memory Alteration/Mind Magic: Charter Magic can be used to suppress memories, and insert a plausible fake one in place of what was suppressed. Suppressed memories can be returned though, either due to the spell being removed, or because the person truly needs to remember what was suppressed. Charter Magic can also force people to fall asleep, and seems able to calm down agitated people, but this isn't an area that the books really go into.
Weather magic: By using whistled Charter Marks, mages can control the direction and intensity of the wind, as well as create (and presumably disperse) storms, although this seems to be partially reliant on having enough moisture in the air to work with.
Illusion/disguise magic: Lets an individual appear to be someone else. This is an illusion/glamor, not true shapeshifting. There are also references to spells that conceal people, or let them remain unseen.
An individual mark may be used in several different spells- for example, both the final rites, the spell to start a fire, and several battle magic spells all use the mark for fire, but it's used in different ways.
And if your character does end up learning Charter Magic, please fill out this form and paste it into a comment!
What is it? Charter magic is the major magical system of Sabriel's canon. Unlike magic in a lot of worlds, inherent talent isn't required to use Charter magic. Though certain bloodlines have much greater power in it than normal folk, a sufficiently trained Charter Mage can baptize anyone with a Charter mark, a faint mark on their forehead that symbolizes their connection to the Charter.
Who can learn it in Mask Or Menace? Anyone who isn't undead and has at least one open power slot (Or if your character has three full slots, you can swap out one for Charter magic)! You need to post to the canon/power update post to ask for approval, and your character will be limited to five spells. Please note that Charter Magic is really not compatible with technology- cast a spell on a device and it will break, and simply using a lot of magic around technology will cause it to shut down. ("Technology" here including not only electronic devices, but also guns and internal combustion engines. Clockwork is rather resistant to this effect, and can actually be easily integrated with Charter Magic). So cyborgs and robots are likely to run into difficulty, unless they can use a human form.
What your character will experience when they use it Using Charter magic means reaching into the Charter and drawing out symbols- simple spells may involve a single mark or a handful, and be quickly cast, but some powerful spells can include hundreds or thousands of marks. This explains it better than I can.
Consequences of screwing up or getting overambitious with Charter magic can range from singed fingers or an uncontrollable spell for normal magic to being exhausted for several weeks with a badly burned throat (And if the individual in question wasn't a massively powerful mage to begin with she probably would have died) or being struck blind and dumb for the rest of their life in another case of an attempt at powerful spell going horribly wrong.
Please remember that Charter magic is not a psychoactive thing. While attempted spells may go awry, stuff won't suddenly burst into flame because a character gets scared. (In other words, you can't use Charter magic unconsciously, it has to be a deliberate effort, though characters who practice enough could learn to use it on reflex.)
Another thing- Touching a baptismal Charter mark lets the mage touching it determine if it's genuine/uncorrupted (if it is, they can feel the Charter through it), and get a sense of how powerful a mage the person they're touching is. Charter Mages can combine their abilities, if they're touching each other, allowing them to cast a spell with more power than any one of them could handle individually. How it feels is described a few times in the series.
In Sabriel
Sabriel felt the familiar swirl of energy, and the feeling of falling into some endless galaxy of stars. But the stars here were Charter symbols, linked in some great dance that had no beginning or end, but contained and described the world in its movement. Sabriel knew only a small fraction of the symbols, but she knew what they danced, and she felt the purity of the Charter wash over her.
In Clariel, to give you an idea of how a less experienced mage describes it.
It was like falling into deep water. All of a sudden, the world ceased to exist. She was surrounded entirely by Charter marks, brilliant, shining, blinding marks that swirled and swam all around her, through her and inside her, marks that she did not know and felt she could never know, thousands, tens of thousands, millions of Charter marks-
In Goldenhand through the eyes of someone who's just received the mark.
"It is like swimming in the high lake," she said, grinning, her teeth white in the darkness. "The shock at first, the sudden cold, then it comes all around and you know what it is to be alive and you go under and it is so smooth and clear and it seems to be forever and it is not cold, but warm..."
And a different character, later in the same book, that shows what it's like to reach into the Charter deliberately, rather than just touching a mark.
A single Charter Mark blossomed in Lirael's mind. One small mark, an everyday mark, nothing in itself, one used for joining other marks together. But Lirael welcomed it joyfully, and then another followed, and another, and there was a trickle of marks, all ones she knew, and more and more came, until the full flood returned and she felt the ocean of marks, the multitude, more than could possibly be known crash down upon her and flow through every part of her being.
List of Charter spells [Incomplete! If you have an idea for something you want to learn, talk to me, and we'll figure out if it makes sense!]
Basic Spells Easy stuff!
Conjuring lights: An extremely simple spell. Conjures a light of variable intensity. The mark can be engraved into an object to make a permanent light, or simply used as a temporary flashlight. Make it bright enough, and you could temporarily blind someone with it.
Lighting a fire: uses two marks. A yellow flame forms on the tip of a character's finger, not burning the skin, but easily setting any flammable materials it touches alight.
Drawing water out of the air: The caster traces the marks for the spell in the air and cups their hands below it as the marks turn into water/water condenses around the marks and drops down into their hands. Most effective in humid environments.
Spell of the silver blades: Pretty self explanatory! Conjures three silver blades that fly forward with considerable force (enough to put fist-sized holes through an animated corpse and reduce a piece of lumber to wood chips) and vanish once they hit their target. The incantation (often shouted) is "Anet! Calew! Ferhan!"
The Final Rites Not a spell that's likely to see much use here, but Sabriel's likely to insist her students learn this on principle. It's a spell that has one purpose- cremating a corpse. It requires four marks- fire, cleansing, peace, and sleep, and will burn a body to ash within seconds.
Recording spell: Consists of three marks placed on a solid object. After tracing the marks, the caster places their hand on them, and sound is recorded for as long as they're touching the marks. After that, the recording cannot be altered in any way, and will be played back whenever a mage touches the marks. This spell will linger for as long as the marks are left intact. It can also be cast on a piece of paper!
More advanced spells And also suggestions for other stuff/ general suggestions for things characters might want to do, or things that have been described in canon but haven't had particular spells described.
Diamond of protection: Sabriel uses this spell a lot- it's good if you're staying in one place for a while and want to be shielded. four marks are drawn- one at each point of the compass. Once the four marks are completed, lines of light run between them, surrounding the area inside in protective magic- it's possible to protect a small campsite with a single diamond. It's impossible to enter from outside- or to physically or magically harm those within, and leaving the diamond from inside breaks the spell.
Battle Magic: Not just fireballs, lightning bolts, and other offensive spells, but also anything you'd cast quickly in a fight- shields, arrow-wards, and spells designed to blind and immobilize opponents are also considered part of this category. Each spell learned in this category takes up a separate slot.
Healing: Pretty self explanatory. Charter Magic can't heal people completely, or instantly, but it can bring people back from life-threatening injuries, heal broken bones, close wounds, deal with fever, and pull poison/drugs out of the body, as well as help prevent infection. Charter healing spells linger- with a burst of initial healing followed by a period of slower mending as the spell finishes its work. During the period of slow healing, they can be disrupted by excessive physical activity, causing wounds to reopen, as an example.
Item enchanting: Ranges from imbuing weapons with spells that let them hit things ordinarily weapons can't damage, (like spirits) or inflict serious damage to the undead to making swords sharper and arrows more likely to hit their targets to large projects like creating servant constructs or powerful magical weapons and devices. Charter magic can mesh with clockwork and possibly steam, but trying to mix it to electronics won't work.
Binding/wards: Used in canon to imprison monsters or restrict their powers- or keep them out of places. Often seems to involve long chains of symbols, or 'Master Marks' that are so powerful they can kill or seriously harm the caster if used without proper precautions. Bindings seem to be one area of Charter Magic that often uses physical components- specially enchanted swords and wands used to channel the spells, and containers made of specific materials to trap creatures in. Wards are used to keep monsters out, and to protect the people inside from magical and physical attack.
Memory Alteration/Mind Magic: Charter Magic can be used to suppress memories, and insert a plausible fake one in place of what was suppressed. Suppressed memories can be returned though, either due to the spell being removed, or because the person truly needs to remember what was suppressed. Charter Magic can also force people to fall asleep, and seems able to calm down agitated people, but this isn't an area that the books really go into.
Weather magic: By using whistled Charter Marks, mages can control the direction and intensity of the wind, as well as create (and presumably disperse) storms, although this seems to be partially reliant on having enough moisture in the air to work with.
Illusion/disguise magic: Lets an individual appear to be someone else. This is an illusion/glamor, not true shapeshifting. There are also references to spells that conceal people, or let them remain unseen.
An individual mark may be used in several different spells- for example, both the final rites, the spell to start a fire, and several battle magic spells all use the mark for fire, but it's used in different ways.
And if your character does end up learning Charter Magic, please fill out this form and paste it into a comment!
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Player Name: Stacey
Character Name: April Ludgate
Spells they're learning: Starting out with conjuring lights/lighting a fire, then see if Sabriel is willing to keep teaching her before talking about more?
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EDIT: Also, since characters are being limited to five spells, I'm willing to skip some of the 'learn basic spells first' part.
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Player Name: SJ
Character Name: Winry Rockbell
Spells they're learning: Let's start with the lights and fire, and work up from that?
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Character Name: Hope Summers
Spells they're learning: Light, drawing water from air, battle magic, and healing, and then illusions would fit in really well for something I want to do with Hope eventually but that she hasn't worked up to in-game (making an actual superhero identity not tied to her, and masks are not actually an effective disguise at all)
Hope only has one power (her canon one) and aaaah I love these books so THIS IS EXCITING.
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But YESS I AM SO GLAD THAT PEOPLE HAVE READ THE BOOKS AND LOVE THIS IDEA
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HMM I will have to think of specific battle-magic things, then.
I still need to read Clariel but I have read the first three several times over!
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Player Name: Liz
Character Name: Knock Out
Spells they're learning: Healing, light, and fire would interest him the most... and i'll leave the last two as a vague shrug for now!
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does he have to ditch the suit outright to use the magic or would more regular maintenance be a solution?
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Player Name: Lady
Character Name: Tailgate
Spells they're learning: Conjuring light and illusion magic would be great
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Player Name: Auste
Character Name: Kay Faraday
Spells they're learning: Conjuring lights, battle magic, healing for now. I'll think of the last two later on.
OH MAN I remember devouring these books when I got them, even though I read them out of order (Lirael and Abhorsen first).
someone app a Free Magic sorcerer HAHAHA or one of the Bright Shiners - well, those with enough canon material anywayno subject
I would give anything for a Moggetno subject
I love Mogget. No lie.no subject
Character Name: Bart Allen
Spells they're learning: Healing, illusion, conjuring lights.
Healing is the big thing he'll want to learn, the other two are literally just for his own amusement.
reposting from the right account
Re: reposting from the right account
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Character Name: Ken Kaneki
Spells they're learning: Healing, Binding/wards, Illusion/disguise magic
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Character Name: Toothiana
Spells they're learning: she's particularly interested in healing. She could pick up drawing water from the air and spell of the silver blades maybe?
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Character Name: Touka Kirishima
Spells they're learning: Healing, Diamond of Protection and Illusion/Disguise for now!
... sorry, as i was submitting my power update i changed my mind as to what i wanted him to have
Character Name: Adam Parrish
Spells they're learning: → Diamond of protection:
→ Healing.
→ Weather magic.
→ Illusion magic.
→ Wards
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Character Name: Felix
Spells they're learning:
1. conjuring lights
2. diamond of protection
3. healing
4. illusion/disguise
5. memory suppression