Spell (Lorica)

The Spell
Magic in Lorica isn't cast the way you might be familiar with. There is no inherent concept of "spiritual force", "chakra", "mana", "limit break", or "colors of magic" (black vs. white, green vs. red vs. blue). Remember, Lorica is not a game, and it certainly is not about being the most destructive entity. Spells that are simply "more powerful" don't count for anything.

There is an infinite variety of possible spells available, all depending on how you design it. In turn, how you design a spell depends on what you know about magic and what you're capable of doing. In turn, you add to what you know about magic by:


 * 1) making new spells by yourself;
 * 2) learning from or interrogating others;
 * 3) reading sources of information (such as a journal), NOT by casting it over and over again or "gaining experience".

Learning by failure is very slow and incredibly tedious (not to mention confusing and unenlightening at times), but it is infinitely safer than learning from other sources (which have a good reason for keeping their knowledge secret). Until you reach a certain level of understanding about how magic works on a fundamental (ie. molecular) level, you won't be able to comprehend the processes and results of more complex magic going forward. However, if you do manage to get someone to explain things to you, you can seriously jump-start your career as a spellcaster. The problem with this method is that the higher up you get, the harder it is to find someone who knows even more than you, and the more dangerous they will be.

A spell is called a spell (spela) because in designing a spell you have to "spell it out". There's a good reason for this: it's not easy to create a spell, even one that may seem basic, as you'll see below. If you're not literate (which many people aren't in olden times), you'll be hard put to make progress and will instead end up messing up and confusing yourself. A spell is cast (aplica) in the sense of throwing or directing them. A particular casting of a spell is called an instance (instancia). A person who casts a spell is known, of course, as a spellcaster. Equivalently (in Lorican), a person who uses magic (magia) is known as a magiar or magiara), and commonly called a mage.

The variety of spells in Lorica - as far as humans can access them - can be imagined as nodes on a technology tree. Amateurs start at the trunk of the tree and progress upward and outward, gradually learning more about magic. Thus they are able to increase the diversity of the spells that they are able to cast, and do so exponentially faster with each new discovery. In order to cast truly wondrous spells, however, you'll need to get to most of the branches on the tree, a process that is nigh impossible to master for any one individual even with the best of tutelage. Usually, individuals in the maging profession can only hope to make a minor contribution or two to the branch of magic they study in; for the more complex magics, collaboration and specialization is key.

Lorican Magic has its disciplines, but it's not like spokes on a wheel. Rather, it is more like the school grades in education: completing each grade is necessary before you can advance, and each grade up corresponds to an ever-enlarging set of possible spells. As a direct consequence, each grade also corresponds to a distinct set of characteristic spells which in turn gives it its own "discipline". Before you can progress to the next discipline, you must first become well-versed in your current discipline.