On the Nature of Magic, and the Laws by Which It Operates

Now, Your Grace, we must read some theory.

I know full well that you do not see much point in it. My last book, after all, you used as a doorstopper. Let me try again, because it is important that you understand this:

In the same way that there are limits to what a man can do by himself . . . in the same way that footsoldiers and pikemen alone cannot stop a charge of knight . . . in the same way that you must balance the natures and egos and abilities of many people around you to make Daub work, so, too, does magic have its own difficulties and limitations. If Your Grace is to govern magicians, you must understand the constraints under which we operate. This not just to improve your understanding of theory, but so that you know what you can get out of someone and what you cannot.

There are reasons why a single magician cannot wave his hand and have a castle constructed overnight. There are reasons we cannot stop death, or explode an army with our minds alone, and why we hunt necromancers.

All magic is subject to certain rules. These were first set down in the Sutras of the Temple of Eighteen, presumably by the first generation of their Litanies. After centuries of experimentation, almost all institutions - with the possible exception of madmen like the Iron Pagoda and the Order of the Sound of One Hand Clapping - have agreed that these fundamentals hold true:

Principles that are Well Understood

1) The Principle of Equivalent Exchange, or the Fire Sutra

Every working has a cost. This cost cannot be eliminated, only changed from one form to another. Vedics, for example, make wards with herbs and materials; these rot and wither rapidly, and thus their wards have to be maintained by constantly sacrificing groceries.

For many magicians, the cost comes from themselves. Many low-grade Primals, for example, eat more than what a normal man would - this is probably why your kings and knights are so fond of feasts. This is also why young magicians might be full of fire and frenzy, but they grow old before their time, wnd why even very powerful Paragons walk slowly and hesitate to throw magic as one would arrows. Many of those who sit at the heights of power tend to acquire a certain instability of body and temperament - one of my Professors at Taprobane, arguably the greatest frost magician in the world, was little more than a brain in a vat. Those who carry heavy burdens walk unevenly, as they used to remind us.

Much of the Patternwork of a Singhapura-style Ritual goes into handling these costs. It may be that to heat something up, something else might have to become cold (this is used in the baths that nobles favor so much). It may be that the spell-plates themselves corrode rapidly and must be replaced. Our ability to measure these costs and shunt them around has improved greatly. Even so, the Burden, or the Price, as some call it, must be borne and paid. Thus there are certain things you cannot demand for love or money; there are certain acts that, though it may seem trivial to you, would be a death sentence. Consider who you command and what they pay.

2) The Principle of Least Resistance, or the Water Sutra

Magic moves by the path of least resistance. A magician who has not thought carefully through her workings will find that even when they function, they will do so by unpredictable paths, often at great injury to others. This is similar to a leader ordering a general to capture a town or city, without thinking through the consequences. This is why us Ritualists have some dislike of Vedics and Bards and the like; there is a certain sloppiness to their approach, and a lack of understanding of cause-and-effect, that makes them unreliable even when allied.

Your Grace should take care that the magicians she employs are wise, above all else. Bold moves might look like the key to greatness, but in this business surges of brilliance and power often leave behind devastating consequences. The Great Northern Waste is always a good reminder.

3) The Principle of Differential Permeability, or the Iron Sutra

For reasons as yet unknown to us, magic has three odd affinities.

One, very few types of magic can directly interfere with a living being’s body. This is why you do not see magicians immolating one another with a thought. Where you hear such tales, it is always an effect of magic; perhaps wind splattering a poison on skin, or superheated air rushing to someone’s face. Unfortunately, Galdors and Bards seem to bypass this limitation, as do many entities both divine and daemonic.

Two, magic is repelled by certain subtances. Salt is well-known; but most metals are far less permeable, as we say. Lead is by far the least permeable metal; this is why many of Singhapura’s anti-magician units bear shields with thin sheets of lead between the layers. Certain alloys of steel, in particular, are also exceptionally durable magical deadeners. This is why a heavily armored knight, whatever his other limitations, remains an effective figure against the many sorts of magical practitioners. However, as the North discovered in its clashes with Singhapura forces, the same is not always true for the ground under said knight’s feet, or the air he breathes, and so on . . . your Grace’s Charter Knights should bear this in mind when they are deployed.

This is also useful. For example, spell-plates are commonly cast and chiseled out of bronze or thin steel, because once made, it is far more durable than the equivalent carved on wood or leather. The armor of Haugris Arbiters is nearly impenetrable by anything short of seige weapons. However, such feats take both extraordinary effort and control, so much so that it is much cheaper and more effective to send adventurers into the Waste to hunt down Relics; this limitation is directly a boon and a weakness to the economies of both Daub and Wattle.

No-one has yet managed to make lead work with magic, but there are many techniques of inlay, plating, casting, and so on . . . there is a reason that foundries and metalworkers hold as much power as they do in both Singhapura and Ealdorfold.

Third, much of our magic weakens significantly over running water, deserts and volcanoes. Some say that this is because such places lack the necessary energy, but the more modern intepretation is that large volumes of fluids (and fine sand can act very much like running water) diffuse workings. This area is being actively explored at both Taprobane and the Iron Pagoda.

4) THe Principle of Traceability, or the Graveyard Sutra

Magic leaves traces. Even simple magics leave behind traces of their intent, like a smell in the air that lingers. The most powerful workings can take decades or centuries to fully disspite, even after the working has been terminated. Generally, the more structured the magic is, the more “bones” remain - powerful investigators of the Compliance Division can even reconstruct partials, or fragments of workings, for later analysis. These traces are often corrupted by other magic, so areas where large, powerful workings have repeatedly been flung around - ie: battlefields - have a tendency to condense into a miasma (“the graveyard”), a sort of ephemereal hell.

Graveyards, if left unchecked, become blights very similar to the Great Northern Waste - this last part was proven relatively recent in Singhapura history. Unfortunately, the only known way to disperse a fully fledged graveyard is to have people actively moving through and settling in it (and presumably surviving long enough to do so).

Research into this has also led to the observation that people - or at least, anything posessed of self-awareness - slowly breathes in trace amounts of magic and returns it to the world, cleaned somewhat of terrible effects; certain magicians can work Rituals that enhance this process, at the cost of great trauma to whoever has to endure the process. This is why the Sin-Eater Legions exist. Sin-Eaters are honored as heroes in Singhapura - the penalty for striking one is death, even to nobles - but each soldier is given a ceremonial burial before they march out, because very few ever return alive and sane.

Principles that are held to be True but are Difficult to Prove by Observation and Evidence

5) The Narrative Resonance Hypothesis, or the Heart Sutra

This is the idea that magic responds to a compelling story, and that the power to move hearts might itself be a form of magic. Or, as my colleagues used to say, bullshit plot armor. No serious modern practioner takes this seriously.

The mechanisms of how this happens are very widely disputed, even by those who hold it to be true. After all, what a story is can differ so widely according to the time, the place, the culture, and even other circumstances. For example, take the tradition of gremling death poems. To them it may be a moment of great clarity, and a powerful story being written at the moment of someone’s death; to us it might be complete nonsense.

This hypothesis remains unprovable, because there are simply too many variables to test a story coming true. The Hasselbad School of Rhyme is the most obsessed with this; one of their more far-fetched ideas is that the entire world is some kind of cosmic stage, and that many of the great and the powerful are simply roles played endlessly; Your Grace will understand immediately how ridiculous this is.

6) The Observer Effect, or the Mirror Sutra

This states that what a magician believes and understands shapes what his magic can accomplish. Let me try for a practical example: a man raised in forests who has spent his life attending to plants will do better with that kind of working than a novice reading about plants in a library.

This is . . . perhaps bordering on common sense, so much so that a lot of us regard it less like a principle of magic and more like a fundamental observation of every sphere of effort.

7) The Principle of Causality, also known as the Wheel Sutra

This states that the universe has a natural tendency of motion (or, as my Professor used to say, the arrow of time goes in one direction). This applies to all phenomena. Reversing this motion is said to be exponentially costlier than aiding it.

We have some evidence for this Principle. For example, making a fire burn hotter is easier than making it colder. Thus, cold blue flames are considered a classic way of warning someone that you are a powerful magician with exceptional control. Living things resist death; healing is much easier than killing directly with magic. Dead things resist return; necromany consumes so much energy and is so inefficient that catastrophe is almost inevitable. However, we cannot conclusively prove this theory. Not only because it would involve many heretical exercises, but also because we do know of certain workings that function within very predictable parameters despite this Principle suggesting otherwise.

The lesson for Your Grace is this: those rulers who accomplish great things through the deployment of magic tend to be the ones who understand the nature of the world and ask for changes that are broadly in accord, rather than against it - not too different from the task of politics and administration.

In Conclusion

These six principles or sutras are the walls of the room within which all magic operates. Most practitioners cannot overcome them at all. The few who can are generally beyond the human; either gods, daemons, or beings of another order. For the purposes of governing Daub, Your Grace can dismiss such exceptions - the response to such things is far beyond what policy can handle.

For decades, the Taprobane Imperial University has worked diligently on a grand unified theory that ties these principles together. However for now, it still is very much a work-in-progress, the realm of old professors and foolish young students and heated arguments among faculty. In the practical world, it is safer to use the tried and tested.

Folio VI · Of Magic

Transcribed by Victor Konara