Magic/Sorcery is … many things all rolled up into one. Interesting, cross-shadow travelers seem to have found a corrolation that time moves faster in placess with less of it. Also, it tends to be anti-entropic. The longer that something waits to be used, the greater the power, or the greater chance it will just go “boom.”

Power Words

The use of a quick word (or guesture, or both) to achieve a specific effect. Sometimes it needs the name or description of the target to be part of the casting, but often the guesture is enough to localize it. Most people with this power have five of them, but they might be collecting a larger set. They depend on an accessable power source, most shadows have enough magic inherent in them to pull it off. Some travelers who use Power Words, but nothing else will also carry with them a magical battery, so they don’t have to worry about a local power source.

Spell Using

This basic skill allows you to use learned (by rote) spells or those from a grimoir, or handed over from a teacher at the time of casting. Those posessing this level of spellwork could also band together for greater pre-scripted rituals, or, if lead by someone who can do the greater weaving, crafting each part for them in the ritual to great effect. Magical workings of this sort seem to be multiplicitve rather than additive in nature. Known spells, that are designed to be racked can be, providing power is extant to be pulled upon. Batteries can be created, if that ritual is known, as well. Rituals to rack or create batteries or enact spells are particularly built, so there is a certain amount of “needing to get it just right” to avoid catestrophic failures, which are often out of proportion (multiplicitave) with the actual desired result. One greater mage observed, “Magic likes to flow, and constraining it into a spell or working tends to build pressure quickly.”

Many of the “racked” spells are there, waiting for a lynch pin to be released, so that the spell can be released. But they are actively constrained, as they tend to be anti-entropic in nature, which means they could go off unexpectedly. This is why many sorcerers have been taught to use and review their spells often, to avoid such circumstances. Since multiple things can be racked in the same object, using one of the spells racked there tends to relieve the pressure for all.

Spells of this sort come in all shapes and sizes, defensive, offensive, of great consequence, or small. Their linch-pins could be mames, times, circumstances, directions or the like. For example, a “bag of wind” might have a lynch-pin of being opened and pointed in a direction. A love potion? Being swallowed while staring at the target of desire, or saying the name of the desired target. A healing potion? Being in contact with a wound, being in contact with blood. A health tonic, or energy potion? Might simply be it’s consumption. A flaming sword? Being drawn from it’s sheath. A bullet-proof shield? The waving of the bracelets in the direction of the bullet. A voodoo doll? The bit of organic matter of the individual that the connection is made to. The examples are numerous and varied.

Some spells are not as clean as others. For a while there was a bunch of mages teaching their apprentices spells that actually created batteries for the teachers, as part of whatever spell that was being created or hung, so that the teachers always had a pile of spell-batteries to draw from. And, of course, their students graduated and went off to teach their own students, and … more batteries for the original teacher.

There doesn’t seem to be a limit to the number or complexity of the rituals, which is why Great or Grand Grimoirs are often sought, since they can give great power and flexibility to anyone at this level. And, since, of course spells of this sort tend to go boom when done wrong, they are very carefully written down, so that when the author wants, or needs to go back and use them, they are correct in every nuance, to avoid the potential boom.

Spell Crafting

This more advanced form of sorcery is a (partial or full) understanding of the way magic works, and the ability to craft great workings, orchastrate a number of basic ritual magic users into creating something greater, and (carefully) explore new spells into existence. Classic alchemy falls under this, as well as those leading big ritual magics.

Being able to connect some of the building blocks from the spell using level, to create something new, is not as simple as putting lego blocks together, or cutting snippets of code together. It is a lot more complex, and variable than that. And often more fatal, or at least more explosive. The successful folks who manage this often can save villiages, rout enemies, or other great workings. The non-successful folks are often where toxic mageworks need to be cleaned up, possibly even centuries later. This is why wards are important, the greater the working the more fragile, and one interjected note out of tune could cause everyone to have a really bad day.

This level also allows for the modification of known spells (carefully, and with gentle experimentation) like changing lynch-pins, or shaping say an area effect to a cone effect or the like.

Manipuation of Forces

This level of sorcery are for those great and all powerful individuals who can reach out and bend the flow of magic to their will and whim. These are folks who can tap into your spell, and pull the very power from it, short it out, use it to power their spells, or even, without blowing themselves up, come up with a new spell on the fly. This, of course, is a very selective power, since you have to know your shadow’s magic very intimately, and understand it’s flow, balance, and how it works all the way down and all the way up. Usually takes a lifetime (or longer) of study. Litches (who are already dead, so don’t mind having a spell go awry and pull all the life out of everyone, and have many lifetimes worth of time for experiment and study) are often good teachers (if you can pursuade them to teach you) this skill.

New Horizons

The ability to read a strange place, most often a different shaodw or real place, or someplace that has different rules about how magic works from where you learned it. Being able to both use the magic of this new strange place (if it has any), and/or be able to use or create batteries that will work in this place and other places successfully. This also gives you the ability to read what the local magical “tags” (as it were) are, to be able to make this place you’ve never been to before one of the places you know as a “here” or “there”. You need the Manipulation level ability already to be able to learn this.

While many (most) basic spells are simple enough to (most of the time) be able to be encanted locally, and therefore work locally, this is not a sure thing. Batteries that are not compatable with the local magic might simply not work, or, worse, if tapped discharge disasterously. Someone who can read a place would know that (although they might not be able to adjust an existing spell, depending on their manipulative skill) and be able to make recommendations, after watching a particular ritual.

Cross Shadow

So, you need to cause a rain of frogs across three shadows all at once. Or create a stream of locusts that will pour forth from your monolith, and cross shadows seeking out an individual or a circumstance. Or want to be informed when your name is spoken anywhere in shadow. Or especially open a scrying connection from wherever you are to wherever your name is spoken, with just the speaking of your name as the lynchpin, with no “here” or “there” built into it. Or there is a plague of deamons across all your potential shadow paths and you wanted to us the Patented Ilk Deamon Melt spell for, say, named and numbered shadows. This is the skill you would need. This is different from the shadow read ability, since you could have been handed the codings for those various shadows, but most people who are interested in this, also study for the shadow read exam as well.

Gates

Gates are the way a mage can get around quickly, and cleanly. From one known place to another known place. Most gate spells learned are learned with those known locations coded in, and a lynch pin of a word or phrase that kicks off the connection for a limited amount of time, or number of transits. These are accessable to any Spell User. The distance that a gate reaches is often just a matter of power.

Some, greater gate spells can have the “here” and “there” be additional lynch pins, but knowing the “here” and “there” is often a complex thing, and that information is guarded, and passed down from mage to mage. This is accessable to the crafter, who can (carefully) craft or graft into the spell the “here” and “there” elements, when it is being cast, or used. They could also, most likely, watch a gate spell be used and recreate it successfully.

Those who can manipulate the pure spell elements can take an existing gate (or the residue of a gate that just was, if they are really skillfull) and read out of the spell the “here” and “there” so the gate could be traced, recreated, or even reversed.

Being able to discover the way to code a “here” is a complex magical read of the entire place. Those with the ability to read a place are capable of encoding a “here” into either a crafter-level hung spell, or created on the fly gate spell.

Name Magic

Certain mages have been known to use “name magic” since that is their initial paradigm. Because said individual is such a strong user (Caelin) even if something didn’t have a “True Name” before he tried to use it, it does now, and he tends to know it.

Other Magic

There are many approaches to using magic. Perhaps, even as many as there are or ever have been high-level practitioners. If you have a particular focus, or understanding of your magic or sorcery, talk to the GM and we can see about working it out.

A Magical Place

A squiggle of magic is the Spiral, located in Cobalt, but according to Ferethyn (http://web.mit.edu/~dskern/www/amber/log001107.txt) it is not the Pole of magic.  Walking the Spiral is not required to become a mage, but it allowed access to a great power source for mages. Interestingly enough Ferethyn’s Ways is another place that is curdled out of magic, and might be considered a squiggle of it, and not the Pole. There are others.