Underhill Magic

Magic in Underhill and among the people there comes from a combination of factors. Their atp molecules are in overdrive, producing much more energy for the mage to use than the average human. This is a permanent change that happened to nearly everyone who was born and is descended from the Fae. The quartzite crystal found on Underhill expands this, increasing someone's energy to a degree related to how much of the mineral is in their body. The Provatio plant, one of the strongest carriers of the Ambrosia compound, seems to draw a lot of this mineral out of the ground and water, and it is thought that the mineral is key in the production of Ambrosia itself. On Earth, the fae can use other stones, gems, and especially crystals to magnify their power, but they grow and drink ambrosia heavy plants imported from Underhill via the Dwarves in order to the keep their magic strong. The atp molecules in their blood will still give them significant power, but they can produce illusions of grand palace (with the aid of ambrosia in the body of the victim) a lot faster than actually building those same grand palaces. The strongest fae are the ones who return to Underhill regularly, and then the ones who live there full time and only visit earth occasionally.

There are other results of the mutations that happened after the Gene Bombs. Many Changed came to Earth before their bodies were done adapting to the changes. Sometime their children fused with local animals, producing shapeshifters. Sometimes the babies were born with the effects left over from the Constitution gene mix, and some with that set of genes got taller and became giants (hidden Nephilim story there, probably not going to be mentioned).

Others had bits of the Psyche mix, bore children with baseline humans, and spawned lineages of seers, or of telepaths. Still others became linked to the plants of Earth and found ways to use them to focus magical energy, spawning the old witches. The variety is as endless as the people they lived among, and quite frequently the Changed picked up the 'magic' of whatever local people they settled near and made it a practical reality. This happened even as some of them stepped into the roles of already established gods and spirits.

Magic tends to manifest as heat, or fire, in a budding mage. It is excess energy being directed elsewhere by the mind. Or, in the case of shifters, it manifests as their first shift. Otherwise, it shows by how its directed. For Orks, they direct it into elemental magic, primarily water, fire, and earth. Linked to the plants of Underhill, some tribes have a connection to the Grove, and are plant mages. Others live near volcanoes, and have learned to channel fire and earth.

The Dwarves are the only group that is largely magicless, but they were not able to entirely avoid the Gene bombs either. Some were detonated on or near the old mining settlements where the Neutrals hid, and so they had to learn to adapt too. They have the strongest fire and earth related magics, to help with smelting and tech creation and armor/weaponry creation. The animals were affected. Some of them can shapeshift. Some fused with humans. Some mutated into other things. Their magics are smaller, or larger and more destructive, depending on the animal's inclinations.

For the Changed, they developed their magics mostly around humans, and I've covered how they took on aspects of local custom and ritual. This includes occasional blood magics.

Magic is fueled by the energy within a user, by the increased intake of either ambrosia or the crystal mineral, either separately or together.

Magics users are called many things. Shamans, bloodwielders, shifters, and other things, depending on the usage, culture, and form that their magic use takes.

Sometimes a mage can be forced into being, given enough of the mineral or enough Ambrosia. But there has to be an aptitude for it in the first place. A baseline human can't be forced to have magic, although they will probably get very high off the Ambrosia.

Magic is inherited. Or the ability to present it can be inherited. Most of the population of Underhill and it's companion planets and satellites have latent genes that may express themselves as magical abilities. What those abilities may be will depend on the race, the cultural affinity, and the amount of ambrosia and mineral that a person can convert to power. Sometimes it runs in especially strong family lines, most of which have already ended up in power as Elves or Fae, or as shamans among the orcs, or as metalmages among the Dwarves. For example. Up on the Jörmungandr, depending on how close to nature the scale is kept, it can manifest as natural magic, or as a sort of cybernetic interface.

Not everyone among the people can use it though. Some have the aptitude, but very little ability, hedgewitches and so forth. Some have just enough to kept them healthy and living longer than average (elves are long lived, as are orcs and Dwarves, although few have seen thousands of years yet). Others can take their aptitude and maybe, maybe direct it by means of focusing spells and tools.

Magic power can be siphoned off if someone knows how. It is, of course, unethical, and not taught on purpose. But energy is energy, and some have found ways to pull that energy out of a person and into a storage vessel. The use of crystals to store and expand energy is one of the few ethical ways to remove energy, but it must be done by consent, and for the mage's own use (or sometimes it's sold as a self-contained spell for someone who can't work magic).

A person's abilities are capped by how much energy they can store internally (and on their person) and their imagination. It is power married to will, either focused by the mind alone or with tools and trappings that are known to be conduits for certain kinds of energy. The strongest can cast several major spells at a time. The weakest can use focusing tools to cast smaller spells. It's as much how the mind is applied to the task as it is how much power is available…up to a point. Shapeshifters use all their energy for changing shape, and can't do it more than once or twice a day. They'll always need food. Shapeshifters on earth don't have the advantages of Ambrosia or the mineral to boost them, so they are more limited, and need more food to recover. A magic user can be outwaited, if possible, until they run out of power. You can also find a way to reflect spells back at them. Depending on the flavor of magic user, you can use opposite magic against them. Or just attack them physically. Or, if it's a magical creature, they'll often have a specific weakness, or a pattern to their magic that can be escaped. It's very individual.

Incorrect magic use, aside from the stealing power or using others for blood magic, is pretty much anything that'd be wrong or selfish in normal life. There is no self-regulation of the magic, the power is ethically neutral for use.

If a user lets too much power build up in them, they might start setting things on fire around them, or causing accidents. Practice bleeds of some of the power, storing it in crystals does the same. An obese magician is one who has less innate power than he thinks, and over eats to compensate for what is not being used. A magic user who doesn't have enough food/ambrosia intake is one who is in danger of burning themselves up with power from within.

Magic is use neutral too. It can hurt, heal (generally it does this on a low level for an individual anyways, but only Healers can direct it out to another person. It can destroy or grow, depending on the will of the user.

The magic groups or societies tend to be limited to races and locations of living. Land-Elves have their own group of users, Sea-Elves and Merfolk another in Atlantis, the Orks have their network of shamans, and the Dwarves have their guilds of metalmages. And so on for the cyber-mages up on Jörmungandr and the Terraformers on the moon.

The hierarchy of magic depends on which group and culture is in question. As a general rule though, greater ability to manipulate greater power stands at the top of any ranking, although longevity and accrued wisdom tend to win out just as often, especially among Orks and Dwarves.

Users can't generally be recognized by any special mark, unless it's an Ork shaman, one of the Grove intermediaries, or a guilded Dwarf smith.

Users of each race/culture's magic have their own individual customs, usually related to how they use magic. Some powerful elves build up great stores of powered crystals. A Dwarf smith might keep a bit of metal on hand, always pliable, to test a student's ability to handle it. An Ork shaman is hung about with plants and bits of wood, and a Grove shaman is greener than the rest.

The magic can't be seen except by certain magic users. Not all see. Most feel. When in use, it's visible marks depend on the kind of magic and the strength of the user. Weaker magic is less likely to be visible. A strong user can cast spells without showy fireworks if they're not wanted. It's the middle grade, and some of the plant/mineral based magics that will give off light.

A strong magic user can do multiple things with their magic. Either by power level or training. If the users is one of the magic creatures, either animal or one of the human hybrids, they're more likely to only have one thing they do with their magic. Lure men with their voices, for example. Or shapeshift.

Since magic, even the shamanistic magic of the orcs, is internal to the user (except in the case of the Lay Lines), it's not drawing on any natural forces in the world, so it can't throw much out of balance. It has, in fact, been used to help stabilize the Changes in the people and the world.

There's no way to truly do magic without using a power source of some kind. It can be banked, in the case of crystals, and used later, but power is always needed, or it won't work. Blood magic can sometimes get around low power levels, but it doesn't make a non-mage a magic users.

Things like personal flight burn too much power to be feasible. Transforming from one sex to another isn't possible. Illusions can hide a face or give a different appearance, but growing anatomy that wasn't there to start with won't work. Regrowing limbs won't work either, unless someone has Constitution blood in them or is a shapeshifter. Spacewalking without a suit is a waste of power too, when a suit can be used.

Raising the dead is forbidden by many. What the Orks do with their bodies, creating druids, is seen as heresy by many of the elven races, and is looked at askance by others. It skates very close to necromancy. The dead, if they come back, don't have personalities. They are puppets.

Forcing someone with mind magic is forbidden. What Jossa and Delfi can do is anathema. Putting someone's mind into a dragon or another object without consent is forbidden. Otherwise, many of the cultures make up their own rules for what is allowed and what isn't.

Items needed to use magic vary from magic system to magic system. Crystals and gemstones are nearly universal. The Dwarves use hammers and other tools to focus, along with engraving and wirework to set the spells, even folding them into 'damascus' steel. (Dwarves did some of the original Damascus ironwork and taught humans?). Orks are shamanistic. Elves will use whatever comes to hand. Plants and crystals and innate trained power (elves are the most flexible, their uses depending on if they are Land, Moon, or Sky Elves).

There are some mages for hire, but not many. Shamans use it, the metalmages among the smiths do as well as the kings and queens of the Dwarven halls (part of the requirements to rule is to be a metalmage that is smith trained-basically a magical engineer who can keep the mountain from caving in). The elves with the most power rule their territories, while those of lesser use the magic they have in the way they can. For those who don't have enough magic to do for themselves, and for the humans who are brought to Underhill and Jörmungandr, magic must be begged, earned as a favor, and only very rarely paid for.