THE
ART
OF LIFE
MAGIC
("BROWNIE
MAGIC",
"WOOD
MAGIC") |
As the name suggests, the practice of Life Magic gives the wielder control over anything that lives: plants, animals, birds, fish, everything from the tiniest squiggle in the sea to an ancient elf. Where life is abundant and thriving it is extremely powerful, whereas in barren or desert areas where there is little to fuel it, it can be terribly draining on the mage. Also called “Brownie Magic” among other races in Sarvonia and “Wood Magic” by the Memnoor Brownies of Aeruillin, it is most famous and prevalent as a healing magic, but it can also be used to manitpulate and control the growth, looks and behaviour of any living being. Perhaps before going into the depths of the theory it would be helpful to share the definitions of a few common terms: (these are taken from the ever-popular student guide “rrah rraoooaooo” [lit: “Life Magic for Little-Brained People”]):
Being: anything which lives and produces lifeforce of its own accord i.e. animals, birds, fish, plants and insects.
Lifeforce: a source of energy which living beings need to move, think, grow, heal or repair themselves and make more beings. It is invisible to the naked eye, but a life mage can learn to sense it.
Lifemage: One who has learnt to manipulate this lifeforce. In the Brownie Vale this title is only be used for someone who has gone through a 15 year apprenticeship, but elsewhere it is applied to anyone with a little knowledge and a few party tricks.
The lifemage
can draw this “lifeforce” from other living things and channel it into another
being, imbuing them with strength and vitality, or they can manipulate this
lifeforce within a being, allowing them to change aspects of its personality or
even its appearance.
The Birni Kingdom (15,000-10,000 b.S.) was a
lost golden age for this magic. The mages of those times
were able to grant life to something which was not living, or rip the life out
of something which was, but these secrets were lost with the break-down of the
Kingdom. This is not only because those records have lain buried in a forest
infested with dark elves, deep in the ruins of an ancient empire. Most
Brownies believe that the
Birni abused the magic by giving life to things
that shouldn’t have it, and that the Birni
Kingdom’s rapid demise was a punishment for this from their spirit gods.
Therefore the techniques that are believed to have caused this have been left
“lost” and there has been no official attempt to reinvent them. Whilst Life
Magic could be used to heal a dying being or to drain one until they did, they
no longer have the power to directly cause death or bring life: that line cannot
be crossed.
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Prevalence.
Among the Brownies. In the
Santharian Kingdom at least, life magic is
most often associated with
Llaoihrr Brownie Vale in Southern
Santharia. Their largest city-settlement is based inside a huge
magically grown pine, riddled with
Brownie-sized holes and passageways and kept
alive with their Life Magic expertise. A little distance away from this tree the
life mages have their own small settlement, where new
Brownies can be trained without putting the
rest of the population in danger. Simply looking at the area will give a few
clues as to why - the Sikel Trees that surround it vary hugely in size, some
towering over their neighbours whilst some are only as big as two or three
Brownies. Branches and leaves form distorted
shapes too, none quite the same shape or shade as another.
The magic is also practiced by the
Memnoor Brownies living
inside the Void in southernmost
Aeruillin, where it is named “Wood Magic”. Although this barren desert means
that there are less available sources of lifeforce, it can be just as impressive
there as in the woodland. Under the hand of a
Memnoor life mage a field
of wasted crops can swell and flower, turning the dull sandy expanse into a
sudden blanket of lush colour. It is used in a very similar way as by the
Llaoihrr, predominantly for
healing and manipulating the growth of plants.
Some of the Aohu’o groups
who live scattered over the Sarvonian continent
have also retained and improved certain basic spells, maybe a few healing
abilities or certain ways of controlling animals. These abilities are seen to be
a result of certain rituals rather than as a system of magic,
but an experienced life mage can recognise them for what they are. As these
groups vary immensely from one to the other, it would be impossible to describe
the Life Magic skills of each one here.
Among other Races. It is rare to find a non-Brownie
life mage, but not impossible, as any sentient being could learn it if they had
the will and the teacher. It is felt by many people that the
Brownies have some sort of natural affinity
for this magic, that something in their make-up makes
them particularly attuned to it. According to common mythology the
Brownies were made from the bark of the Tree
of Life, and this is thought to have made them naturally skilled with plants and
Life Magic. Other races learning among the
Llaoihrr do have more
trouble learning than Brownies, but this
could be caused by adjusting to the Brownie
way of life rather than a lack of magical talent. They
typically struggle with the language, the food, the structure of the day and the
fact that all their new classmates are 15
nailsbreadths tall, among
other things.
The only place on the Sarvonian continent
where one can gain a full and thorough course of study is at the
Council Tree settlement in the Vale of
Brownies. Here, the training to become even a moderately competent life mage
takes the same as any other apprenticeship: 15 years. That is a long time to
live in a city where you are too big to even fit through the gates and require
ten times as much food as anyone else. Permission from the
Brownies to stay that long in their city is
also be extremely hard to come by, probably only given if the person or their
family has good connections with the
Llaoihrr already and if the
training will actually benefit the tribe. If the applicant is only going to
leave and never have anything more to do with the clan after their
apprenticeship, then there is very little incentive for the
Llaoihrr to accept them,
especially as many Brownies are very wary of
Bigfolk, even in this modern age.
The Memnoor are far more
accepting of new mages, and anyone of any race is welcome to join their school,
as long as they pull their weight in the settlement throughout their training.
The only issue is their location. Deep in the southernmost reaches of Aeruillin,
they live on and around the edge of the
Void itself, a series of isolated settlements that rely on
magic to survive. The long slog through inhospitable,
sand-covered country is a real test of dedication for potential students.
In reality most Santharian non-Brownie
life magi are humans of the Helcrani
tribe, or other inhabitants of Milkengrad,
where the ever-inquisitive Milken Brownies have lived for generations. Other
Brownies have a much easier time being
accepted to study at the Council Tree,
as they require only a “normal” amount of food, can be housed relatively easily
and just aren’t so scarily big. As the
Milken live alongside (or
underneath) the Helcrani, some of
them have passed on a little of their knowledge. These
Milken will never be the
same as a Llaoihrr teacher
who has studied Life Magic for thirty or forty years, but you can find
Helcrani with a good knowledge of
basic healing techniques and some skill with plants.
Concept. The
Brownies say that every living thing
possesses something called “lifeforce”, a source of energy which they need to
move, think, grow, heal or repair themselves and make more things: all the
activities that distinguish them as living things. Although it is invisible to
the naked eye, a life mage can learn to sense it. When explaining it to a
non-life mage they usually describe it as moving waves or lines that circle and
entwine the being’s physical body. The lines move through the body as if it
wasn’t there at all, but always clearly belong to it, making an ever-moving,
ever-changing pattern around it.
Although many actions deplete being’s store of lifeforce, nature gradually but
constantly replenishes it, so it doesn’t vary too much in day to day life unless
the being is tired or drained from lack of food or
water. A life mage can take lifeforce from
another being into their own body’s store, artificially replenishing themselves.
They could also take lifeforce from their own store and give it to another
being. Notice that the lifeforce always has to be travelling between their body
and another being’s; they cannot transfer it between two separate beings. Nor
can they take lifeforce from one being whilst giving it to another at the same
time – the two actions each require their full concentration.
Lifeforce is homogeneous: the energy itself doesn’t change from being to being. A tree’s lifeforce is the same as a human’s, or a shir’s, or any other living thing. The two things that do distinguish one being from another are the amount of lifeforce they have and the way it moves around their body. These are summed up nicely in the definitions from “Lifemagic for Little-Brained People”:
Lifeforce store: refers to the amount of lifeforce the being would usually hold within and around its body. This affects the limit of how much it can take before it begins to suffer adverse effects.
Lifeforce flow: is the speed and complexity of the lifeforce’s movement around and through its physical body. The greater the intelligence of the being, the faster and more complex the movement.
The normal amount of lifeforce that a being stores is the easier of the two to
manipulate, and is the first thing a life mage learns to sense. Generally,
larger beings with a longer life span will produce and store more of it than
smaller, shorter-lived beings. So a huge tree that could live for hundreds of
years would have far more than a tiny
jeshanna lily. Strangely, sentient beings do not follow this rule: all have
far larger Life Magic stores than would be expected for their size. Still,
larger races do naturally have more lifeforce than
Brownies. The few non-Brownies
who do become life mages find they can work more on their own than their
Brownie counterparts, as they have larger
resources within their own bodies.
The way that the lifeforce moves around the being’s body is often called the
being’s “flow” of lifeforce. According the
Llaoihrr Brownies this flow
around the body is the being’s spirit, the part which gives it its identity and
produces more lifeforce. Beings that move and think little, like trees, have the
simplest flow, and the more intelligent the being the more complicated this
becomes. Although in terms of physical structure plants are just as complicated
as sentient beings, the speed of the lifeforce flow is affected by the speed and
complexity of their reactions. A plant would change the direction of its growth
to take advantage of sunlight or
water, but it does this very slowly and
fulfils very basic needs. A creature that can learn to avoid a certain place
because a predator lives there, or learn to associate a certain smell with large
claws is reacting on a higher level. A sentient being who constantly makes
decisions based on wants, fears, potential reactions of others, and long-term
benefits or problems is reacting with the highest intelligence and would have
the most complex flow of lifeforce.
Some life mages say that sensing a being’s lifeforce flow is like watching their
thoughts whizz around them, although in truth it is even more complex, as the
overall pattern also determines their permanent attributes, like appearance and
personality. The lifeforce of trees and plants much easier to manipulate than
anything else’s, because the lifeforce moves in far more predictable ways:
slower and smoother, with few spontaneous changes of direction. It’s hard to
siphon off lifeforce when it is wiggling around as much as a
Brownie’s or
human’s, changing direction and density with every new thought that pops
into their head. Manipulating the speed and direction of this flow is something
only experienced lifemages are able to achieve.
Ximax mages would call a beings lifeforce flow
its cár’áll, and say that the
Brownies were somehow able to encourage it
to warp itself into different formations. Although the key to life remains a
mystery, they do notice that living things tend to have a fairly even balance of
the four types of ounia and there is some speculation that this balance is what
allows the Brownies to manipulate it. By
temporarily tipping the balance, the Brownies
can cause one type of ounia to momentarily rule over the others, and if they can
do this in a precise enough spot, they can have minute control over the being.
For example, if they could locate the part of an animal’s brain that deals with
fighting and protecting its territory, they could tip the balance of spiritual
ounia so that fire ruled for a moment, and
cause the animal to lash out in anger. This model doesn’t really explain how a
life mage infuses their patients with lifeforce from other beings around them,
although some Ximaxians speculate that this
transference is caused by the life mages are creating xeuá links between
themselves and another cár’áll.
Other mages argue that there is some unknown aspect of living things which
simply doesn’t come into the Ximaxian
magic, some extra factor that makes living things aware
of their surroundings and of themselves. Ximaxian
magi have explained a similar phenomenon in their writings on the Sentences of
Will for example, considering the possibility of a transcendent “Willpower” that
goes beyond the cár’áll. This would be in keeping with
the living “spirit” which most
Llaoihrr Brownies believe in, but there is little solid evidence to support
this theory. It could be this self aware part that the Brownies are
communicating with – they can somehow “speak” to the part of a being that
dictates appearance or behaviour, and convince it to do something different
instead.
Another common argument made by some Ximaxian
magi, based on the ability of a life mage to permanently change a being’s
appearance to a significant degree, is that that Life Magic is a form of raw
magic, and is therefore subject to far fewer restrictions than other forms of
magic.
Basic Effects.
(For specific spell examples please see “Life Magic Spells from the Llaoihrr”)
If the lifeforce is being used up quicker than it can be replenished then the
being becomes tired and weak and could eventually collapse. This might happen
naturally if they were ill, or couldn’t find enough food or water over a number
of days. If there is surplus lifeforce, on the other hand, the being can become
restless, fidgety and unpredictable, eventually turning aggressive or insane.
These effects are not permanent; they only last until the body has time to get
its lifeforce store back to normal levels, which could take anything from a few
hours to several days. A life mage can take lifeforce from one being and give it
to another to do this quicker than would normally happen naturally. This could
give a sick patient the strength to fight off the disease, or could calm down a
bull driven mad by separation from his herd. Equally, an aggressive mage could
cause a debilitating exhaustion or a mad rage. Some experimental and suitably
determined students have even discovered that certain plants and fungi can be
made to spontaneously combust if given enough lifeforce in a short enough space
of time. They need to be dry enough to catch fire first though, or have sap
prone to catching fire, like some pine trees.
However, there are limits to the amount of lifeforce that can be given or taken
away from a being, and limited affects as well. Life cannot be granted to the
dead by this method, nor taken from the living. The common analogy given to new
students is to think of the lifeforce as a series of very springy strings that
always try to spring back into their original position. The more you pull or
warp them, the more they resist you. They are also extremely strong – too strong
for a life mage to break. If too much stress is put on them the body simply
shuts itself down, falling into a sleep from which it cannot be woken until the
body has repaired the lifeforce. In practical terms this means that a life mage
cannot kill outright, although if they repeatedly attacked a being they could
keep them in this sleep until they died from lack of
water or food.
For some unknown reason, Redbark Brownies do not suffer the same side effects
from low or high levels of lifeforce as everyone else. The normal effects are
muted, hardly noticeable to someone who wasn’t looking for them. The Redbark
might feel slightly tired where another would already be too drained to
concentrate, or experience an irrational wave of anger where another would
almost be foaming at the mouth. However, they cannot escape the two breaking
points at which their body cannot function: they will eventually collapse from
exhaustion if they run out of lifeforce, or from shock at over activity if they
have too much. This increased flexibility with their lifeforce is an innate
ability in Redbarks, but it can be attained by anyone else through daily
practice over a number of years. In the past this was thought to mean that
Redbarks were destined to be life mages, and it is still the reason they are
considered naturally talented in this area.
Manipulating the flow of lifeforce can have far more varied and strange effects.
According to Brownie Spirtism this flow
makes up the being’s “spirit”: the part which departs the body after death and
is reborn into another one, taking with it all the knowledge on how to grow and
act and all the instincts which animals are born with. Whatever you believe, the
fact remains that if this flow is altered in certain ways, the being itself will
change too, either in appearance or in behaviour. If you know the right way to
manipulate it you can change the colour of a bird’s plumage, make a tree’s
branches grow into a heart shape, direct a person’s body to fight the source of
a disease, or convince a vicious dog that it’s a calm playful puppy. Of course,
this requires prodigious skill and practice, as well as days or weeks of
repetitive work to make any changes permanent.
Techniques of the
Life Mage. In order to be able to take advantage of the effects
that can be caused by lifeforce, the life mages have developed three specific
techniques for manipulating it.
Manipulation between Two Separate Beings (or “Transferring
Lifeforce”). The first thing that any new mage learns is how to sense the
lifeforce that flows around and within the bodies of various beings. They study
the lifeforce of various different beings in preparation for learning to
manipulate them later on, learning how it flows and which parts will respond
most easily to manipulation. They also practise breathing and meditating
techniques which slow down the flow of their own lifeforce, which will make it a
lot easier to deal with later on.
They are taught to find a suitable point on another being’s flow in order to
divert another being’s lifefore into their own store, and how to judge how much
they can safely add or remove from their own store without suffering dangerous
side effects. As they practice they learn to control the side effects of an
imbalance of lifeforce and their bodies become conditioned to them, so that they
gradually suffer less and less. A committed life mage, or student of the magic,
should, after a few years of practice, only feel when their life force store is
really low or really high, as a Redbark Brownie
naturally would without practice. Around this time, and with considerable care,
they begin to learn how to siphon off the lifeforce in their own stores into
another being.
At this point they are working only with their own lifeforce and that of plants,
and it is common to see a group of young apprentices traipsing out to sit beside
the rushing waterfall, each carrying an acorn cup of soil which contains a small
and extremely mutated little plant. As mentioned before, plants have a slower,
steadier flow of lifeforce and therefore it is easier to manipulate, but this
doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes, sometimes replicating very advanced
techniques completely by accident. This is why they are kept away from the rest
of the Brownie population, and always fairly close to some very advanced mages
who spring into action whenever anything goes wrong.
Although the mage’s own lifeforce flows quicker than the plants’ they are able
to slow it down somewhat through meditation, making it much easier for them to
manipulate The lifeforce flow is always changing and moving, so maintaining the
right point on a being’s lifeforce flow and channelling it into or out of one’s
own body requires full concentration. Any distractions can cause a mage to loose
sight of the point on the other being’s flow, so it is fairly impossible to
simultaneously channel lifeforce into your body and out at the same time. The
mage must take lifeforce from one being into themselves, stop, and then channel
it out into the target being. The amount of lifeforce the mage can manipulate at
one time is therefore limited by the size of their own store as well as the
amount of time they have to repeat the process. Working together as a group is
the one way you can get over this issue, as then the mages can combine their
lifeforce stores to create one common, larger, store.
The flow of lifeforce doesn’t only differ between species, it is also different
for each individual thing depending on personality and appearance. A bluebark
will have a different flow to a greenbark and a male ferret will be different to
a female one. However, the flow is similar enough between creatures of the same
species that if a life mage is used to working with giant rats, for example,
they are not going to have much problem with mice, kuatu or any other rodents.
If the same mage tried to siphon off lifeforce of a horse, however, it would
take them a bit longer to locate the correct point to manipulate. This means
that even a fully qualified
Llaoihrr mage who has completed the 15 year apprenticeship still won’t be
really speedy with all beings. Most mages choose an area of specialism to limit
the number of different types of being they need to be familiar with.
Manipulation en Masse. The
Brownies have also developed a meditation
technique that allows them to temporarily combine their stores of lifeforce for
a short period of time in order to be able to deal with much larger amounts of
it. If one lone mage tried to deal with large amounts, they could suffer serious
side effects, so sharing the burden is far safer and allows them to deal with
far greater amounts of lifeforce than they could alone. If four or five mages
work together then they can each leave one at a time to replenish their
lifeforce from whatever beings are nearby, or a couple could channel lifeforce
into the shared “store”, whilst the others were directing it out. In this way
there can always be a constant flow of lifeforce into the target being, speeding
up the process.
This is extremely difficult to do, as it requires all the mages’ minds to be
completely in tune with each other, concentrating on combining their lifeforces
whilst still sensing the point of manipulation in the other being’s lifeforce
too. Practice is the key, and young mages are not expected to have much success
until they’ve been studying for at least five years.
Llaoihrr students who wish
to pass their apprenticeship must show they are able to use this technique among
a medium-sized group of about twenty mages taken from their classmates, who they
know quite well and are used to working with. Generally the longer a group has
worked together the easier the process is, as they can develop a routine and
rhythm to their work which everyone gets used to.
When a group of mages are successfully combining their lifeforces, they appear
to a life mage’s senses as if they are one creature with several bodies: the
different strands of lifeforce flow around and within the whole group as if it
was one body. It may be possible to pick out which strands belong to which mage
if you knew them well but by noticing the characteristic pace with which the
strands of lifeforce moved and changed direction.
Manipulation of the Lifeforce “Flow”. Manipulating
the flow of Lifeforce is something not taught until a mage is competent with the
first two techniques, because it is an extremely delicate operation which takes
a lot of experience and knowledge of how the lifeforce works. Not even
Llaoihrr apprentices have
to be able to do this to pass their exams, although all will know the theory.
The mage must be experienced enough to be able to clearly sense every movement
of the lifeforce even before they begin to learn how to recognise which sections
affect which parts of the body. This is what makes it such a time-consuming
venture – the mage needs to locate the precise area they want to manipulate
before they attempt it. Remember that this section would probably be moving as
they tried to locate it, possibly quite fast if the animal was alert and
fighting in battle, as the speed of the lifeforce flow will increase as its
reactions become more rapid.
Most simply a being’s lifeforce flow can be gradually slowed down to allow for
easier manipulation of the lifeforce. This will also often slow down an animal,
as its body won’t react quite as fast as it normally would. It can be quite
confusing or disorientating. Equally, quickening the flow might make something
more agile and more aware of its surroundings, or a mind more focussed on its
task.
Once a mage can do this, they begin to learn which parts of the flow control
what, and can manipulate a being even more specifically. Using this knowledge to
compliment the basic technique they already know, they can influence or control
the reactions of specific parts of the body. They could slow the flow to a
predator’s eyes for example and cause their vision to blur, or slow it to the
legs so that they can’t react quite in time to prevent the creature from
stumbling. However, because the lifeforce flow is so complex this takes time.
Even if the mage is extremely competent with manipulating the species they wish
to influence and has practiced this particular spell many times, they will still
need several uninterrupted minutes where the being is close by and moving in a
way they can predict. A fully qualified
Llaoihrr mage after 15
years of apprenticeship would probably take between a quarter and a half-turn of
the hourglass to do the same task.
Mood and temperament change so often day to day and vary depending on season,
weather, setting, time of day. These do not resist manipulation as the body is
used to these changing and can therefore be altered relatively easily. Something
more permanent, like appearance, or even the personality of an animal, needs a
different technique. Whereas before the mage was simply enhancing or diminishing
the creatures natural processes, this actually goes against nature, which would
normally return the lifeforce back to its original state over time. It is often
necessary for the mage to repeat the manipulation many times in order to make an
effect permanent. Back in the time of the Birni
Kingdom, mages would not expect to be able to achieve significant results
until they were over a hundred years old, but then they had the secrets of
immortality to play with. These days it is possible, if a mage concentrates
their studies on one species: birds, canines or rodents for example, to learn to
change things like fur colour or eye colour with a degree of accuracy. Plants
are simpler, and life magi have been known to study obsessively to be able to
increase the potency of a fruit or seed made by a particular tree, or to subtly
change the structure of a plant to make it harder for pests to eat.
History. According to
popular legend the Brownies came into being
when the Tree of Life was hit by lightning. Pieces of the bark splintered from
the trunk and became the first of the Brownie
race, who were infused with its magic. They tamed this magic, learnt how to use
it, and so became the first life mages. The Memnoor still call this magic “Wood
Magic” because of the belief that it came from the Tree of Life.
The first solid records of this magic being practiced date from the
Birni Kingdom; a
Brownie community who lived in the
Paelelon Forest from 15,000 b.S. to about
10,000 b.S. They did amazing things with the magic every
day, even making wooden coins that would never decay by "tying off" their
lifeforce, or reanimating the tail of an animal on a fur coat so that it moved
when they walked. They were able to slow or completely halt the aging process,
giving really talented mages an infinite time to improve their skills. It is due
to their remarkable abilities that these magically
preserved scrolls survived inside a hollow tree called the Everbark for
thousands of years.
No one is really sure what happened to cause the
Birni Kingdom to collapse the way it did, but many
Brownies believe that it was a punishment
from the spirits for meddling too much in the natural make up of the beings
around them. The survivors of this great disaster were scattered and lost,
either fighting for survival in small, hidden settlements, stealing like vermin
or being kept as pets. During this period, aptly named the "Harsh Years", a
great deal of their magical knowledge was lost.
Magic was never banned as it was in a lot of other
races, but without the close-knit community students were unable to spend hours
studying and learning it and the secrets were gradually scattered and forgotten.
The documents describing Birni Life Magic were
rediscovered inside the Everbark by the Brownie
hero Keekoo the Deliverer around 4020 b.S.
whilst he was searching for other free Brownie
tribes. The Everbark is a magically preserved tree in
the Paelelon Forest, a relic of the old
Birni Empire and a goldmine of
magically preserved documents dating from that time. He
spent several years reading and looking through those scrolls, finally selecting
those that would be most useful for the new
Brownie civilisation he longed to build. The information he discovered there
allowed the Brownies to learn how to use
life magic once more. However, there are certain glaring holes in our knowledge
of this era and particularly its magic. No modern life
mages can give life to something that isn’t alive, or kill a being outright,
although we know that this was possible in the
Birni era. It has been suggested, and much denied by most
Brownies, that
Keekoo consciously decided to leave these
records behind, perhaps to prevent the life magi from ever becoming so powerful
again.
When the new community of free Brownies rose in the
Auturian Forests they did so with
life magic on their side once more. After a few years
Keekoo sent off different colonising parties
to all ends of the world, and these took the knowledge with them. Five and a
half thousand years on, the situation has naturally changed. Whilst life magic
has thrived in the Llaoihrr’s
secluded Vale, the scattered
Aohu’o seem to have forgotten most of it and the
Memnoor have gone on to
develop other complimentary streams of magic as well. The
Milken Brownies of
Milkengrad have not used it for
generations, but the last hundred years have seen a revival of it, with
Milken travelling to the
Council Tree to learn under the elders
there.
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