Spell Magic - Ritual

The different types of Spell-based magic are so varied that it would be impossible to list. In general however, the main two distinct types of Spell magic are Ritual magic and Book magic.

While rituals are obviously detailed within books, they are to be performed at length, often by multiple people at once in a cooperative setting. Book-magic is very frequently so specific to the user that they have written all their own spells and only stand a small chance of teaching those spells to others.

Ritual Magic – with the use of many components such as candles, blood, singing, elaborate sigils and the like, ritual magic is difficult to learn but extremely rewarding. The rituals can be as simple as lighting a single candle and blowing it out, up through a month-long ceremony of applying blood from fresh lambs onto a particular item and then exchanging a living organ from the caster to preserve it for another decade.

Most ritual magic is performed in the Summoners and the Necromancers realms. Both of them have wildly different expectations of what the end results will be, and far more Summoners would use simpler spells than those complicated ones in the black realm.

It is forbidden across the world to utilize any person unwillingly in any ritual. The political nightmares caused by this in the past have led to an across-the-board decision by all realms to outlaw it. That doesn’t mean it does not happen, but it certainly is not something that any normal traveler needs to worry about these days. That aspect – using an unwilling subject – applies only to Dragondeep people, and stops legally at the boundary between worlds or dimensions, which is where the Summoners grasp for their pets.

Summoning magic is something which is strongly akin to Psionic use, however the Summoners themselves are attuned to the attendant rituals they use, even if the magic can be ‘proven’ to be Psionic. It’s a matter of perspective, and they believe they are doing only rituals no matter what those pesky Jewel Witches think. To bring something from another world, or even across the room, requires a precise knowledge of opening and closing the portals between. Space means nothing to a Summoner. However they also have need of commanding the creatures and people they bring, willing or unwilling.

Every Summoner knows that they must have their protective spells in place long before they actually bring anything through, and it is exceedingly rare (though well documented as having happened) that there are accidental summonings without such things. Supplies for the Summoners and Necromancers workings are commonly sold by those outside the community, as many of the substances and crafted items come from far away. They believe that it is better to be contributing to a massive world economy than to be entirely self-sufficient and isolated, even if they could render their own tallow candles or extract salt from their nearby sea themselves.

Death magic, that performed by the Necromancers to reanimate or extend a life, is in and of itself much more complex than merely finding a dead body and causing it to move. Some of their spells are that simple, but they aren’t meant to last and are never used to do anything of great importance. Having a zombie fall to pieces just as its serving the visiting royalty their dinner is just out of the question. The more effort put into a ritual for such a thing, the better the results.

Ritual magic can exhaust the caster and their group, can backfire on a single person much more easily than one done by a team. Most Summoners as well as some Necromancers hire other non-participants in their rituals in order to make sure that if one of them happens to fall while casting, at the very least whatever it was that was being worked on doesn’t get too far before it’s put down.

Any number of different skills can go into Ritual magic: sewing, singing, dancing, sex, even playing chess or cards. As well, dozens if not hundreds of ‘standard use’ components are found at Ritual sites. Bodily fluids dominate spells that bind living things or command a specific person (voodoo dolls, binding demons), though blood is not often the best choice in liquid. While lesser elements like salt, sand, pure water, or even ‘sunlight’ can aid in informational spells or locational work.

The Ritual itself is what triggers these spells to work – thus if even one portion of the whole is off by a little bit, the results can be quite different from expected, when there are results at all. Sure, you managed to summon something. But you didn’t necessarily mean to use chicken blood, instead of lizard blood, and thus you got a much more advanced form of Daemon on your little salt circle on the floor than you ever could control…