According to Pyrus, there is a sort of magic even older than The Aulva inherent to all life, and indeed some ancient myths support this thesis. The story goes that in the beginning all was chaos, but the chaotic unmoored atoms of the world sought an escape to their sorry state. They made an accord with one another, the first accord, to behave in the logical structured way we now know the world to behave. This first magic that made the world is the root of the fabric of reality itself. Pyrus is certainly correct that there is an inherent power in constraint, and mortals have been using the magic of oaths and accords for all of recorded history.
Law magic draws on a unique and inherent power of the world, and many applications do not require very much magical energy at all, drawing on the inherent power of constraints one places on oneself. In other words, the power fueling law magic is created by giving something up, and often requires little to no other power source to right the balance.
Contract Magic
The subdiscipline of law magic most pioneered by Pyrus, contract magic encodes the power of an accord into precise terms. A contract allows for magical effects that are greater than the sum of their parts. With very little magical energy, but the consent of all parties, a contract can inflict powerful, destructive magic or curses on individuals who breach a contract. Contract magic can also enhance the capabilities of individuals acting to fulfill agreements.
Mortals can take power for themselves by making bargains with demons, angels, fae, and many more otherworldly entities. Things are rarely given freely with contract magic, of course.
All across the nation of Atnia is a grand contract, to which mass consent has been negotiated, manufactured, or coerced. The power of this is laws that objectively stand, and retaliate against those who break them in a variety of ways. Most commonly, the laws simply mark a lawbreaker for arbiters to find and sort out, but in the case of special government buildings or particularly heinous crimes laws are sometimes automatically punished. The laws of Atnia are currently broken after the apocalypse, nonfunctional in many places, and malfunctioning in others.
Spell Examples
- Binding contract
- Trespasser ward
- Alarm
- Local law
Oath Magic
A contract with oneself that needs only conviction to be cast. Another of the oldest forms of magic. A binding oath that a mortal truly intends to uphold has power in itself, as that conviction can generate minor or even great magical force based on its severity. Breaking an oath sworn like this has more than just social consequences, as the betrayal of self invites a curse.
Spell Examples
- Knightly oath
- Sworn quest
- Vow of poverty
- Vow of honesty
Glyph Magic
Pyrus was not only a student of law, but of language and mathematics. He spent much of his life attempting to create a pure mathematical language that could express ideas and accords in pure logic. In the production of this language he learned to encode spells in magical glyphs. He believed this to be proof of the perfection of his language “True”, but in reality there are occasional instances of cultures producing glyph magic throughout history. To encode magical power within a glyph one needs only to create a symbol or sequence of symbols that can only refer to the spell being cast and nothing else – no simple feat, and Pyrus’s attempts to create an unambiguous logical language (however futile they were at true perfection in this task) certainly aided in this endeavor.
Glyph magic does little on its own, but when combined with other forms of magic can create delayed or triggered spells encoded in text. Pure glyph magic can create text that when read immediately imparts knowledge on the reader, after which it erases itself from the page leaving it inert.
Glyph magic is also the basis for The Inkbloods’ power.
Spell Examples
- Explosive glyph
- Protective glyph
- Summoning glyph
- Triggered spell
- Magic tattoo
- Glyph of knowledge
- Tome of knowledge