Magic Users

[The City]

Magic Users

Overview

• Magic Users comprise only about 1-2% of the human population
  
• Of those with the ability, they must be taught how to use their powers
  
• Those without training can go their entire life without knowing they can perform magic.
  
• The magic users who intuitively learn to use their powers rarely reach any visible level of control over their abilities and often can lead to them killing themselves or people around them.
  
• Magic users are channels of magical energy, but not the source of it themselves.
  
• The source of a Magic user's ability to channel magic is sourced from their souls.
  
• Study and Practice hones a magic user's skill and dexterity with their power, but does not affect their strength level.
  
• Magical strength is mostly inherited, but there are instances when this is not the case.
  
• There are many kinds of magical disciplines, depending on what kind of culture it was formed in. Each discipline has its own set of rites and rituals, specialties, strengths, and limitations.
  
  
• Vampires and Werewolves cannot become magic users, and magic users who are infected by either race will lose their ability to perform magic.

*we encourage heavy research into occult lore for magic users, and won't be accepting anything much too Harry Potter-ish, or anime-ish.

Powers and Abilities

• Magic Users basically can divide their powers into three categories: Spell Casting, Potion Making, and Divination.
  
• Spell Casting: Magic users employ a variety of methods to channel their spell casting, such as verbal, somatic or ritualistic. Spellcasting is basically manipulating the magical energies to produce desired results
  
• Potion Making - Magic users are also known for the crafting of potions that have a variety of effects as supernatural as spell casting. Magically working potions can only be made by mages, not by any other races.
  
• Divination - Magic users are also known to employ magical methods of divining the future, searching for lost objects, missing people, or locating magical disturbances. Commonly used apparatus are crystal balls, tarot cards, or cosmology.
  
• Magic users, practice in a single magical discipline their entire life. Juggling two would be nearly impossible or a person will only reach a mediocre amount of skill in both. However there are those who are talented enough to be able to accomplish such a feat.
  
• Magic users sense each others magical auras and strength, but can also consciously choose to hide it.
  
• Magic users are often employed by other races to create for them, magical weapons or equipment.

Weaknesses

• Apart from their ability to perform magic, they are completely human
  
• The larger the effect of a spell the longer the prep time or the heavier the requirements. Balls of flame, magical sources of illuminations, or small feats of telekinesis, can be cast with uttering a single word or performing a single gesture. But extremely powerful spells are usually time-consuming and have many prerequisites.
  
• Magic also requires some form of evocation or channeling, meaning it cannot be done mentally.
  
• Magic users also make themselves quite vulnerable during the process of spell-casting as it takes time to cast spells. Simple spells might take an entire sentence to initiate, while extremely high-leveled spells might take very tedious preparations and may even require specific calendar dates.
  
• Mages aren't very skilled physical fighters because every second spent training in the use of weaponry is a second lost to studying magic.
  
• Magic also takes a similar toll of both mental and physical exhaustion on the part of the Magic user. More advanced spells require more energy and logically maintaining spells also continuously deplete energy from the Magic user.
  
• Spells also require concentration and skill on the part of the Magic user. Failure in either -or both- can result in devastating consequences on part of the spell caster.
  
• Whenever an magic user over exerts themselves magically, they have the risk of reducing themselves into a normal non-magical person.
  
• Sometimes something more dramatic happens, that when they really overreach to the point that they use so much magical energy than their bodies can contain, they are then consumed by it and burn from the inside out in a magical flare.
  
• For those who survive the burn out, they tend to have a 90% success rate of going insane.

[Crisis]

Magic Users - Extended Lore

Overview
Not everyone has the ability to perform magic. Most men and women cannot use it at all; of those who can, most must be taught to use it to varying extents, and can go their entire lives without even knowing they can use magic. Although, some individuals are natural Magic users and can perform magic without ever having previously studied it. They may not even know they are using magic to do things, they just know that sometimes, "things happen" when they want them badly enough. This however is crude and often dangerous magic. Without some form training, these individuals will rarely reach any visible level of control over their abilities and often can lead to them killing themselves or people around them.

Essentially, Magic users hone their powers through study and practice. Magic users are not born equal--some are more skilled in using magic or can handle more of it, than others. Of course, with practice Magic users can learn to grow in their power, but each has their own limits and it is never an equal race. Some speculate that potency in magic is inherited, and for the most part it is, but sometimes offspring can display abilities lesser or greater than that of their parents. Sometimes two magical parents can also produce a non-magical child or the other way around with two non-magical parents producing a child capable of utilizing magic.

Magic exists in almost every culture in the world and as such, almost every culture in the world also has its own form of magical discipline. Magic users essentially started out as shamans or spirit guides, but these grew into extensive disciplines that have become extremely varied and multi-cultural. To the ignorant man, it is all just one big thing. But true practitioners are able to distinguish the rites and rituals from each other with relative ease. Each discipline has its own set of rites and rituals, specialties, strengths, and limitations.

A magic user should also not be believed as being the source of their own power, they are channeling conduits which derive their power from other sources such us higher entities, ley lines, magical nether, or some such. The source of a Magic user's ability to channel magic is bound to their souls, and their strength depends on how much magical energies their soul can handle. Because their power is tied to their soul, magic users always stem from the human race. Vampires cannot be Magic users as they are technically soulless, Werewolves gain an animalistic taint on their soul and therefore cannot cast spells either. A Magic user who is turned into a werewolf or a vampire will lose their abilities.

Magic users are able to grant themselves or others supernatural powers via their spells, potions, or magically created weapons and artifacts. However, these come with limitations and often its own dangers. Some gifted individuals are actually given their powers by a magic user.

Powers and Abilities
The powers of the Magic users are broad and the possibilities infinitesimal. It all boils down on the skill and knowledge of the Magic user in question But of course limited to human error, memory capacity, and situational constraints, magic users don't always have a spell to aid them at every single occasion. Magic Users basically can divide their powers into three categories: Spell Casting, Potion Making, and Divination.

• Spell Casting - There is a long history of alleged spellcasting activities in most human societies, such as forms of curses, blessings, rain dances, or trinkets for protection. Magic users employ a variety of methods to channel their spell casting, such as incantations, talismans, runes, hand seals, candles and more. However, these methods can be compressed into either being a verbal component, somatic component, or material competent. In many ways a Magic user is actually bound to their spell casting rituals and has that particular disadvantage to gifted humans and entities who merely "point and shoot". The more complicated the effect of the spell, the more complicated the ritual required. Spell casting is essentially the manipulation magical energies to produce desired results. These results may not necessarily even follow the laws of physics or what is naturally believed as "reality". They can range from wielding the elements, to influencing emotions, to invoking other worldly spirits.
  
  
• Potion Making - Magic users are also known for the crafting of potions that have a variety of effects as supernatural as spell casting. Sometimes, these potions are even required for specific spells to work. The brewing of potions isn’t just as simple as mixing different ingredients into one big vat; it always requires the channeling of magic at some point. As such, a normal human can mix all the ingredients and follow the recipe for a potion to the letter, but it would not have the magical properties a magic user’s potion would have.
  
  
• Divination - Some Magic users are also known to employ methods of divining the future, such as crystal balls or tarot cards. Used in various forms for thousands of years, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how an individual should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency. This is more of a communing with the essence of magic or higher spirits to receive clues about the future or some form of guidance. Although, there are some magic users who have prophetic visions of the future, it should not be confused to be a product of their being a mage. This is essentially a gift, thus considering them as a gifted in that regard rather than a magic user. They can also use divination to find magical disturbances, people or objects.

Most Magic users, practice in a single magical discipline their entire life. One discipline is already difficult enough to master, that juggling two would be nearly impossible or a person will only reach a mediocre amount of skill in either. However there are those who are talented enough to be able to accomplish such a feat, but they are rare among the already small population of magic users.

Magic users also have the natural affinity to sense each others magical auras and correspondingly their strength. This is an easy way to judge among their ranks who is more powerful. Correspondingly, it also makes it impossible for Magic users to sneak up on each other, without first hiding their magical presence. Some Magic users develop this skill to such a degree that they distinguish magical auras from person to person, or sense other magical auras despite being hidden. Different magical disciplines also tend to leave different traces on a magic user's aura, so for a talented magical sensor, they can also pick up on this.

Magic users are also often approached for the purposes of gaining supernatural items, weapons or equipment. Using spellcasting, potions, or a combination thereof, mages are the only individuals who have the power to enchant objects and grant them magical properties. Some angels, demons, or entities can actually do this as well, but they are more difficult to come by than a freelance magic user offering to create magical bullets or rune-inscripted whatevers for a price.

Weaknesses
Despite their power, Magic users are still human. They are as physically strong as average humans and will get more strength proportional to the amount of muscle mass they develop. They same goes for their speed and physical stamina. Without healing themselves, a Magic user will recover at a normal human rate, possibly even slightly slower as their magical energies would also feed off their body. Even with healing spells, such things as lethal injuries exist for Magic users.

Magic users are slaves to their rituals. That is, when casting their spells...the larger the effect the longer the prep time or the heavier the requirements. Balls of flame, magical sources of illuminations, or small feats of telekinesis, can be cast with uttering a single word or performing a single gesture since they're quite small. However, a quickly cast fireball (magic missile or what have you) will probably have enough concussive force to throw a man off his feet, but it surely won't pierce through tempered steel or a wall of stone. For a magic user to perform a large feat of magic, would require them to charge up the spell with longer incantations, more gestures required, or perhaps some prerequisites like rune writing or some such. Magic also requires some form of evocation or channeling, cutting a Magic user off from their channeling method, like gagging a verbal spell caster, will effectively render them useless.

Magic users also make themselves quite vulnerable during the process of spell-casting as it takes time to cast spells. Simple spells might take an entire sentence to initiate, more than enough time to be shot through the head, while extremely high-leveled spells might take very tedious preparations and may even require specific calendar dates or lunar phases. This severely lessens their versatility on the battle field. As such, most mages employ magically enchanted weaponry, pre-made spells, or magical servants. This essentially reduces mages to tactics such as hiding behind barriers or fighting from a distance. Although some mages have also taken the time to become more martial it is considered a waste of time since every second spent training in the use of weaponry is a second lost to studying magic.

Using magic also takes a similar toll of both mental and physical exhaustion on the part of the Magic user. More advanced spells require more energy and logically maintaining spells also continuously deplete energy from the Magic user depending upon the potency of the spell. Spells also require concentration and skill on the part of the Magic user. Failure in either -or both- can result in devastating consequences on part of the spell caster.

Whenever an magic user over exerts themselves magically, like attempting something that they don't have sufficient strength for, they have the risk of burning out the talent within them. This means they effectively risk reducing themselves into a normal non-magical person whenever they over-step their abilities. Sometimes something more dramatic happens, that when they really overreach to the point that they use so much magical energy than their bodies can contain, they are then consumed by it and burn from the inside out in a magical flare. For those who survive the burn out, they tend to have a 90% success rate of going insane.