Introduction

At the core of the magic system that is aasiurmancy sits aasiur, the very building blocks of life in the Vast Infinite. Every living creature, the three modern mortal races included, as well as most of the world itself are composed of aasiur.

However, the aasiur that forms life is not the aasiur that can be conjured and shaped by mages. Not even the Novhar, with all their aasiurmantic mastery, were ever able to manipulate the physical aasiur of the Vast Infinite’s multiple planets. Only aasiur taken from the Gnostic Planes can be wielded.

Unshaped aasiur can only be seen by mages and is described as being billions of intangible points of light all interconnected with one another. Once shaped by the mage, the aasiur takes on a new appearance (for example, a pyromancer’s flame or a thundermancer lighting bolt). Shaped aasiur, when manifested in reality, is perfectly visible and affects any reality it interacts with. Aasiurmantic fire burns. Aasiurmantic water drowns. Aasiurmantic lightning electrocutes.

Branches

The aasiur that is plucked by mages from the Gnostic Planes can be shaped in nine distinct ways. Because each mage, when they awaken to their power, is instinctively and unconsciously tethered to one of these variations, there are nine recognised branches:

• Pyromancy—the ability to manifest fire in its myriad forms.
• Thundermancy—the ability to manifest lightning, which is often used to power thunderships.
• Aquamancy—the ability to manifest water.
• Geomancy—the ability to manifest stone and earth.
• Aeromancy—the ability to manifest air.
• Shadowmancy—the ability to manifest shadows that can be used to cloak and conceal oneself.
• Solarmancy—the ability to conjure light.
• Idomancy—the ability to fold reality over itself to travel short distances.
• Worldstriding—the ability to carve into being a portal that connects two locations (one of which must be the mage’s current location, and the other must be somewhere familiar to them).

Immortality

By mastering all nine branches, an aasiurmancer obtains true immortality. The ruling class of the Drasken Empire is almost entirely immortal due to that nation’s championing of magic, and some of its oldest members were alive at the time of the Novhar, more than twenty thousand years ago.

By mastering a single branch, a mage extends their lifespan by a decade or two. That extension increases with the more branches they learn, though most Drasken mages who dedicate themselves to chasing immortality can go from one branch to nine in the span of about twenty years.

Who can perform magic?

Technically, every mortal is capable of aasiurmancy if they are able to view the process in abstractions and sever themselves from their physical body long enough to pass through the Shroud. The children of mages are far more likely to experience the proper ‘awakening’ that occurs around adolescence, lending credit to the theory that there is an inherited component. Though the child of non-mages won’t have this same outburst in their teenage years, there is nothing stopping them from attending an aasiurmantic college and unlocking the latent talent for themselves.

The bias against magic in the Imperium and in the Empire of a Thousand Kings has essentially bred aasiurmancy from all their bloodlines. Citizens of those nations would have a much harder time reaching the Gnostic Planes, even if it wasn’t illegal in their countries.

What are the limits?

Mages each have their own specific limits depending on their physical, metaphysical, and mental strength. Try to conjure beyond your strength, and you risk driving yourself mad. Try to pull more aasiur into yourself in order to wield it in the physical world, and you risk being overwhelmed and having your mind and soul dissolve into the Gnostic Planes, leaving your body an empty husk back in reality. Try to exert more aasiur on the physical world than it can handle at any one time (such as during a battle between multiple mages all conjuring at once), and the fabric of the world itself literally thins. The Gnostic Planes begin pressing in from beyond the Shroud in a destructive and dangerous anomaly that only grows bigger the more aasiur is conjured in its vicinity.

There is also the matter of the Valhir, the semi-mythical children of Novhar-mortal unions. These specimens were believed to possess no feasible aasiurmantic limit due to their dual parentage. However, there are no records of any living Valhir in the current age, and with the Novhar extinct, they are only ever theoretical.

The Gnostic Planes

“They are everything and nothing, one aspect and all aspects, concrete and abstract, independent and dependent, separate and joined. It is impossible to know for certain their most basic nature.”

Occupying separate planes of existence from the physical planets of the Vast Infinite, the Gnostic Planes are the names given to the source of all magic. Though aasiur exists in the physical world, it is only the ethereal aasiur pulled from the Gnostic Planes that can be manipulated by mages.

At its very core, aasiurmancy is about using the aasiur that exists outside of Eld to physically manifest imagined abstractions in the real world. All of this aasiur comes from the Gnostic Planes, an intangible, non-physical reality that sits beyond the Vast Infinite but is irreversibly connected to it.

The melding of the Gnostic Planes with the Vast Infinite 800,000 years ago resulted in the ability by mages (both Novhar and mortal) to manipulate and manifest it. Before, the Planes had been unreachable. It was only the presence of the Novhar, the first living creations to occupy the Vast Infinite, that the Gnostic Planes were drawn inexorably towards the physical worlds. This impending collision of the ethereal with the physical resulted in the creation of the Shroud, a metaphysical boundary between the Gnostic Planes and the planets of the VI. The Shroud exists at all points on every planet in the VI, but can only be seen and interacted with when a mage enters the trance required to reach their desired Gnostic Plane. Only through this interaction can mages gain passage through the Shroud.

The Planes themselves are thought of as disparate. They are not alternate versions of the physical plane, nor can they be compared to one another. They cannot even be mapped out in relation to one another. Some philosophers and accomplished mages theorise that they are reflections in multiple mirrors: each one is an echo of the same thing, but seen from a different angle, and so therefore a different aspect of the same subject. Some scholars even go as far as claiming the Vast Infinite itself is just another one of these aspects, albeit more substantial than the Gnostic Planes, as well as much larger and more definitive.

Even though the planes cannot be mapped, it is known there are at least separate parts of it, if not wholly individual domains, like continents on a world map. Though the Gnostic planes aren’t definitive, there are definable characteristics that are used to categorize them. Each individual Plane is linked to a corresponding branch of aasiurmancy, giving rise to 9 recognisable Planes. At the time of their awakening to latent aasiurmantic abilities, young mages will automatically ‘anchor’ to a specific Plane. Though they can branch out and grow accustomed to all recognised Planes, this first Plane will always be the easiest for them to reach.

Conjuration