On Conjury
Jan. 7th, 2019 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
contrarianarchon[insert usertag here] Fibboncci-Reminder's latest worldbuilding post reminded me to some small extent of my own magic system; Conjury, So I'm writing a post about it.
Conjury is, in one slapdash assignment of traits to magic systems, the external contractual magic. That is to say, it's the magic of well-defined, bound, effects of great ease-of-use and power, produced external to oneself. This system of assignment, like many in the Four-arts universe, is kinda wrong. Conjury is actually two kinds of magic; Portal Magic, and Contract Magic. Both are needed to achieve the core purpose of Conjury, which is to summon spirits, and bind them to yourself, and build the relationship between summoner and spirit to power great effects.
Portal magic is perhaps the more obscure of the two magic systems; it's complex, obtuse, and a conjurer could (and indeed, most do) get away with using it a mere handful of times in their entire career. The core principle of Portal Magic is to open a gate between the is and the is not; specifically, between the true universe which is illuminate by the combined light of all souls, and the void, which is all the possible things which are not so illuminated (and, at least conceptually, contains all things). Normally, conjurers open such a gate only momentarily, and bring through some spirit, which they form a contract with; the spirit is kindled by the summoners soul, and in exchange will aid them in their works. However, it has several other uses; the magic can be used in reverse by a ensouled being who is in the void to return to any place in creation, allowing for very fast travel in exchange for tremendous risk. Additionally, spirits or conjurers who bring souls or ensouled material (which includes everything in creation; even the earth and air have faint, limited souls) can carve out other-worlds far from the reach of any who have not mastered these obscure arts; traditionally, the ancient worlds of long-freed groups of spirits are called spirit worlds, and vaguely resemble the afterlives of myth, while the ever-changing homes of mortal mages are called sanctums. These worlds can hypothetically follow any law; in practice they try to be as much like the real world as possible, in order to most efficiently feed off it's energy. (Worlds created because a single person fell into the void tend to have a alice-in-wonderland cast to them, as they try and mimic the person whose soul powers them and their idiosyncrasies).
On the other hand, Contract Magic is somewhat better known, since it can be used in a multitude of different ways. All form the same basis; by making a occult contract with some entity, you can derive some power (in the form of specific discrete effects akin to a single spell or superpower). The things which you can make a contract with are as follows. A tool or item, allowing for a discrete effect. Highly limited (by the item, available power, and your ability to formulate it), but otherwise quite simple, and produced many iconic and blatantly magical effects. These effects almost always die with the one who made them, but if they choose to invest their soul into this item, it's power might persist (but a conjurer has but one soul, and they almost invariably give it to a favored spirit). You might make a contract with another human being (or group of human beings), which seems at first a good way to create a deal which grants power to it's adherents, but which causes unnatural bleed of thought and personality between contractees. (This can and has been used to create hiveminds, usually the the disgust of the public). Lastly, you might contract with yourself. Which is a terrible idea. This works in a manner similar to alchemy, assigning you some taboo in exchange for superpowers. The taboo and powers are much more concrete than the Alchemic equivalents might be, which is your only slim advantage (and just as often, a disadvantage). Everything else is disadvantage; this method binds your soul, locking you out of using *any* other magic for the most part; a minor power might eat only 30% of your potential. It's an inefficient but quick source of power.
The best things to make contracts with a spirits! Spirits have the best powers, use them the most efficiently, and in the long-term, they'll be the easiest thing to get soul-power into. But you have to have a meaningful bond with them; this is a specific limited case of the power of friendship. A spirit can theoretically power themselves through similarity to the person whose soul this once was, but it's a trifle compared to the power of a close bond between summoner and summon. Most conjurers, therefore, stick to lifetime contracts with a tiny number of spirits, 1 to 6, and hope to use those spirits powers in effective ways. The Summoning of your first spirit is a major moment in your career. Being a good summoner includes being able to juggle a bunch of close relationships with spirits as one of it's core functions; the reason Solomon is so assuredly the best summoner the world has ever seen is that he could juggle 72 such relationships, each of epic intensity and depth, and run a nation at the same time (And this was before it was possible to reliably summon humaniform spirits or spirits of specific personality traits; only the guarantee that they'd be human-shaped enough for a deal to be possible and a vague specification of themes).
Uh, I'm pretty sure I missed about 60 points of various importance in that, so please do ask questions if you're confused, startled or interested in the implications of anything!
Conjury is, in one slapdash assignment of traits to magic systems, the external contractual magic. That is to say, it's the magic of well-defined, bound, effects of great ease-of-use and power, produced external to oneself. This system of assignment, like many in the Four-arts universe, is kinda wrong. Conjury is actually two kinds of magic; Portal Magic, and Contract Magic. Both are needed to achieve the core purpose of Conjury, which is to summon spirits, and bind them to yourself, and build the relationship between summoner and spirit to power great effects.
Portal magic is perhaps the more obscure of the two magic systems; it's complex, obtuse, and a conjurer could (and indeed, most do) get away with using it a mere handful of times in their entire career. The core principle of Portal Magic is to open a gate between the is and the is not; specifically, between the true universe which is illuminate by the combined light of all souls, and the void, which is all the possible things which are not so illuminated (and, at least conceptually, contains all things). Normally, conjurers open such a gate only momentarily, and bring through some spirit, which they form a contract with; the spirit is kindled by the summoners soul, and in exchange will aid them in their works. However, it has several other uses; the magic can be used in reverse by a ensouled being who is in the void to return to any place in creation, allowing for very fast travel in exchange for tremendous risk. Additionally, spirits or conjurers who bring souls or ensouled material (which includes everything in creation; even the earth and air have faint, limited souls) can carve out other-worlds far from the reach of any who have not mastered these obscure arts; traditionally, the ancient worlds of long-freed groups of spirits are called spirit worlds, and vaguely resemble the afterlives of myth, while the ever-changing homes of mortal mages are called sanctums. These worlds can hypothetically follow any law; in practice they try to be as much like the real world as possible, in order to most efficiently feed off it's energy. (Worlds created because a single person fell into the void tend to have a alice-in-wonderland cast to them, as they try and mimic the person whose soul powers them and their idiosyncrasies).
On the other hand, Contract Magic is somewhat better known, since it can be used in a multitude of different ways. All form the same basis; by making a occult contract with some entity, you can derive some power (in the form of specific discrete effects akin to a single spell or superpower). The things which you can make a contract with are as follows. A tool or item, allowing for a discrete effect. Highly limited (by the item, available power, and your ability to formulate it), but otherwise quite simple, and produced many iconic and blatantly magical effects. These effects almost always die with the one who made them, but if they choose to invest their soul into this item, it's power might persist (but a conjurer has but one soul, and they almost invariably give it to a favored spirit). You might make a contract with another human being (or group of human beings), which seems at first a good way to create a deal which grants power to it's adherents, but which causes unnatural bleed of thought and personality between contractees. (This can and has been used to create hiveminds, usually the the disgust of the public). Lastly, you might contract with yourself. Which is a terrible idea. This works in a manner similar to alchemy, assigning you some taboo in exchange for superpowers. The taboo and powers are much more concrete than the Alchemic equivalents might be, which is your only slim advantage (and just as often, a disadvantage). Everything else is disadvantage; this method binds your soul, locking you out of using *any* other magic for the most part; a minor power might eat only 30% of your potential. It's an inefficient but quick source of power.
The best things to make contracts with a spirits! Spirits have the best powers, use them the most efficiently, and in the long-term, they'll be the easiest thing to get soul-power into. But you have to have a meaningful bond with them; this is a specific limited case of the power of friendship. A spirit can theoretically power themselves through similarity to the person whose soul this once was, but it's a trifle compared to the power of a close bond between summoner and summon. Most conjurers, therefore, stick to lifetime contracts with a tiny number of spirits, 1 to 6, and hope to use those spirits powers in effective ways. The Summoning of your first spirit is a major moment in your career. Being a good summoner includes being able to juggle a bunch of close relationships with spirits as one of it's core functions; the reason Solomon is so assuredly the best summoner the world has ever seen is that he could juggle 72 such relationships, each of epic intensity and depth, and run a nation at the same time (And this was before it was possible to reliably summon humaniform spirits or spirits of specific personality traits; only the guarantee that they'd be human-shaped enough for a deal to be possible and a vague specification of themes).
Uh, I'm pretty sure I missed about 60 points of various importance in that, so please do ask questions if you're confused, startled or interested in the implications of anything!
