The study of magic has been standardized into ten discrete ‘schools’ of magic. They are the schools of Alchemy, Astrology, Divination, Elementalism, Geomancy, Healing, Illusion, Runes, Warding, and finally the forbidden school of Conjuring.
School of Alchemy: A school of magic dealing with the combination of simple reagents into more complex compounds. It is among the most common schools of magic. In some universities its study is subdivided into the Minor School of Transmutation; dealing with inorganic reagents, and the Minor School of Herbalism; dealing with organic reagents. The patron goddess of this school is Orphia, goddess of art and creativity.
School of Astrology: The rarest school of magic, dealing with the study of spheres beyond the material. The study of astral spheres is very tightly controlled, as such knowledge can be used for forbidden summoning rituals. However, the spheres also exert a subtle influence on any working or sending from any school of magic. For this reason, most universities post regular astrological forecasts for their region, and independent research on the topic is strongly discouraged. The patron goddess of this school is the Veiled One, goddess of death and eternity.
School of Divination: A school of magic dedicated to perceiving events even when displaced from their occurrence by either time and/or space. It is not an uncommon subject for study, but it is unusual in that it is the only school of magic in which the majority of practitioners are female. This school can also be used to communicate across far distances, but attempts to contact or interfere with the past are almost always fatal for the magician fool enough to try. The patron goddess of this school is Queen Luna.
School of Elementalism: A school of magic dedicated to the understanding channeling of basic elemental forces. Because of its practical uses in warfare, students of elementalism are often sought after by princes as battlemages. The school is relatively uncommon, but because of the lack of subtlety in their spells, elementalists often have an outsized place in the imaginations of the common classes regarding wizards. The patron god of this school is King Helios.
School of Geomancy: A common school of magic, but one often viewed as superstitious and backwards by many urban scholars. Geomancy deals with the understanding of the earth and natural cycles, and slowly altering them to increase fertility, bring rain to parched ground, etc. Because its workings are so subtle, and occur over such long periods of time, many wizards deride the school as hedge magic performed by local witch doctors and wise women. Regardless, peasant farmers swear by the rituals. The patron gods of this school are the Earth Mother and Sea Lord.
School of Healing: An extremely common school of magic which studies the bodies and humors of both men and animals. The name is something of a misnomer, since the same spell which may cure a man with a certain ailment by rebalancing his humors, might cause a healthy man to suddenly lose balance and fall ill. Colloquially, spells that sicken or harm a subject are sometimes referred to as the School of Harming, but the separation occurs only in the intentions of the wizard, rather than something intrinsic in the spells themselves. The patron god of this school is Vedio. However, the spirit of Affliction is often invoked by the Poisoner’s Guild when they twist this school for their own purposes.
School of Illusion: An uncommon school of magic dealing with the perceptions of living creatures and how to manipulate them. By the nature of their studies, illusionists are often feared and mistrusted by most common folk. Illusionary magic also includes the practices of hypnotism which are tightly controlled. Any attempt to directly dominate the mind of another through magic is dealt with very severely by law enforcement in most human lands, and yet the lure of love potions or other erotic bonding magic always draws those susceptible to temptation. Although the school of magic is not outright heretical, most wizards brought up on criminal charges of black magic come from students of this field. The publicly accepted patron goddess of this school is Francisa, the goddess of charity. However, some claim that this is merely a guise, and that many, if not all, illusionists secretly venerate the heretical God of Loss.
School of Runes: An uncommon, but useful school of magic which delves into the fundamental mathematic, alphabetic, and symbolic principles which underpin all other arcane sciences. In universities most teaching is done with well-known rote signs, and some wizards go their whole lives without studying the secrets of runes. However, this school is necessary both to dismantle another spell safely, as well as to develop novel rituals. Good knowledge of this school often leads to a deeper understanding of magic in general, and allows the practitioner to weave bespoke variations of even common spells. The patron goddess of this school is Thesmos, goddess of reason and learning.
School of Warding: A common school of magic dealing with the establishing of wards and barriers for safety, comfort, or organization. The study of warding also includes the study of travel across barriers. Practitioners are highly sought by princes for the designing of fortifications, vaults, palaces, roads, tunnels, and bridges. The patron deity of this school Bellus, the god of wealth, and commerce.
School of Conjuring: This school is banned under Imperial law, and on this point the human successor kingdoms are in complete accordance with the Empire. Practitioners of this school are almost always burned as witches, whether they have signed a contract with a demon or not. This school of magic is still studied openly in distant places, and of course, is practiced in secret everywhere. It deals with the summoning of non-corporeal entities into the material sphere to bind them for service. Common speech refers to any item with a spell placed on it as ‘enchanted’, but under it’s true definition, enchanting refers only to the binding of astral spirits into ritual fetishes. Because the summoned beings come from beyond the barrier of physical reality, the act is always one which comes with potentially disastrous consequences. This school is considered black magic, and thus has no patron deity. However, because of its association with witchcraft, many consider the Fiend to be the de facto sponsor of any studies into conjuration.
An excerpt from Introduction to Secular Arcane Theory by Stuart Halsey. Published by the Queen’s College at Fermont Press, 1499 ME.
The occult sciences have taught us that all of creation is comprised of six dimensions, four spatial and two temporal. Of the four spatial dimension we are capable perceiving only three- those being length, height, and depth. The fourth spatial dimension cannot be seen directly, and can be detected only by its secondary effects upon the environment.
Of the two temporal dimensions, our minds are typically capable of perceiving only one. That is to say, we remember the past. The second dimension is seen only in flashes by the majority of the population- perhaps you yourself have had the curious experience of ‘remembering’ an event even as it happens. Under normal conditions this future sight is severely limited to only a bare instant ahead of the present, unless augmented by magic. We shall not touch on the topic of spontaneously occurring – or divinely inspired – prophetic ability in this work, as they are poorly understood, and to date there has never been a rigorously tested and documented case.
Occult sciences run along all six dimensions. However, it is the fourth spatial dimension – and to a lesser extent, the temporal dimension of ‘anti-time’ – along which the traditional acts of wizardry most often run. For it is only through magic that most people can perceive, if only for a moment, the true immensity of creation. I shall present an example which teachers have used in first-year classrooms since time immemorial.
Fae-light is an unnatural color, existing between green and yellow on a spectrum, and yet it cannot be seen by human eyes except in twilight between day and night. Divine-light is an intense color of white-blue which can be seen only by elves. However, by growing a crystal prism with unique fourth dimensional geometry, both forms of light may be seen at any time by looking through it. (We shall explore the growing of these crystals in chapter 4.) That which should be impossible within a three dimensional spatial environment, is made possible through careful manipulation of the 'hidden dimension' in space. No doubt students reading this work have already been amused by such simple experiments in their own childhood classrooms.
Often, unfortunately, the lines of these ‘hidden dimensions’ are opaque in how or why they function. It's through the 'hidden dimensions' that the forces many of us have traditionally known as the Divine Emanations radiate. Ancient tomes of magic list spells only by a rote list of actions with a known consequence, but little thought was put into which actions were magically active and why. Small wonder then that superstition so flourished in our trade before the scientific revolution and dawning of the empirical method.
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