Magic-Schools

Magic in Aethelgard is organized into distinct schools, each with its own philosophy and practitioners. The classification system dates back to the First-Empire’s Mage-Conclave, which formalized the Seven Schools approximately 2,000 years ago.

The Seven Schools of Magic

Evocation

Manipulates elemental forces — fire, ice, lightning, and earth. Practitioners are often battle-mages.

Focus: Direct elemental manipulation and combat applications
Reputation: The most martial school; Evokers serve prominently in the Valorian army
Rivalry: Frequent philosophical clashes with Abjuration over whether magic should create or destroy

Abjuration

Protective magic that creates barriers and wards. Highly valued by royal guards.

Focus: Shields, counterspells, protective wards, and binding rituals
Applications: City defense, dungeon containment, sealing dangerous artifacts
Notable use: The Ward of Valoria-City — a permanent abjuration lattice protecting the capital from magical attack

Transmutation

Changes the physical properties of matter. Popular among crafters and alchemists.

Focus: Altering form, composition, and properties of objects
Applications: Alchemy, metallurgy, construction, medicine
Ethics: Heavily regulated — transmutation of living beings is banned in all civilized lands

Divination

Seeks knowledge through magical means. Practitioners serve as advisors to rulers and merchants.

Focus: Scrying, prophecy, remote viewing, and truth-seeking
Limitation: Divination fails entirely within five miles of the Great-Rift
Political role: Diviners hold advisory positions in most courts, though their reliability is often questioned

Necromancy

Manipulates life and death forces. Strictly regulated, often associated with forbidden cults.

Focus: Life force manipulation, communication with the dead, soul binding
Legal status: Banned in the Kingdom-Of-Valoria; tolerated with heavy restrictions in the Dwarven-Holds
Controversy: Necromantic healing (restoring life to the recently dead) is considered ethical by some practitioners but condemned by the Sun-Temple

Illusion

Creates false perceptions. Used by spies, entertainers, and military strategists.

Focus: Glamours, phantasms, invisibility, and mind-affecting enchantments
Dual use: The most socially versatile school — Illusionists work as court entertainers, military scouts, and intelligence operatives
Regulation: Illusion magic used for fraud carries severe penalties in all kingdoms

Conjuration

Summons creatures or objects from other planes. Dangerous and requires extensive training.

Focus: Summoning, teleportation, planar travel, and creation from nothing
Dangers: Improperly bound conjurations can escape the caster’s control, sometimes catastrophically
Famous disaster: The Siege of Aldara (near the Library-Of-Aldara) (2,100 years ago) — a conjurer’s failed summoning destroyed an entire wing of the Library

Magical Practitioners

Wizards

Study the Weave through books and research. Most common in urban centers. Wizards undergo formal training at academies and are expected to master one school before branching into others. the University of Valoria is the premier institution for wizard training.

Sorcerers

Born with innate magical ability, often from drow or other bloodlines. Sorcerers do not study — their magic flows naturally. This makes them powerful but unpredictable, and many kingdoms require sorcerers to register with local authorities.

Warlocks

Make pacts with powerful entities, sometimes dark deities. Warlock magic is granted rather than learned or innate. The nature of the pact determines the warlock’s abilities and often their moral alignment. Warlocks are viewed with suspicion in most civilized lands.

Druids

Draw power from nature, found in the Eternal Forests and the Wildlands. Druids reject the Seven Schools framework entirely, considering their magic to be a partnership with the natural world rather than a manipulation of arcane forces. The Circle-Of-Elders maintains druidic traditions among the elven enclaves.

School Headquarters

Each of the Seven Schools maintains a headquarters, though several have been relocated since the Cataclysm:

School	Headquarters	Location
Evocation	The Crucible	Valoria-City
Abjuration	The Bastion	Fort-Sentinel
Transmutation	The Workshop	Dwarven-Holds (Khazad-Dûm)
Divination	The Eye	Valoria-City
Necromancy	The Ossuary	Unknown (rumored: eastern Wildlands)
	Illusion	The Masquerade
Conjuration	The Circle	Valoria-City

School Rivalries and Alliances

The Seven Schools are not monolithic — internal politics and inter-school dynamics shape magical policy across Aethelgard:

Evocation vs. Abjuration: The oldest rivalry in the school system. Evokers argue magic should project power; Abjurers counter that preservation is the higher calling. This philosophical divide manifests in resource disputes — both schools compete for the same Rift-Shard allocations and University funding
Divination and Illusion: An unlikely alliance. Diviners rely on Illusion techniques to protect their scrying channels from counter-detection, while Illusionists use Divination to study how perception works at a neurological level. Their cooperation produces some of the most sophisticated intelligence tools in Aethelgard
Transmutation and Conjuration: These schools share a creation-focused philosophy but diverge on ethics. Transmuters alter what exists; Conjurers bring in what doesn’t. Their joint research on material planar boundaries has yielded advances in both fields, though a Conjuration accident at the Workshop killed three Transmutation scholars two decades ago, straining relations
Necromancy’s isolation: No school allies with Necromancy. Even Illusionists — who share Necromancy’s reputation for moral ambiguity — maintain distance. The Necromantic Ossuary’s unknown location reflects both the school’s outcast status and the genuine danger its practitioners pose

Wild Magic and the Unaligned

Not all magical practice fits the Seven Schools framework:

Rift-Touched abilities: The Rift-Touched wield wild magic that no school can replicate or fully explain. Their innate connection to the Great-Rift produces effects that cross school boundaries — a single Rift-Touched individual might spontaneously generate fire (Evocation), heal wounds (Transmutation), and see the future (Divination) in a single uncontrolled surge
Elven druidic traditions: The Elven-Enclaves practice magic predating the school system entirely. Elven spellcasting is intuitive rather than formulaic, rooted in the Long Memory and seasonal attunement. The Moon-Circle draws partially from this tradition, creating tension with the University’s more rigid approach
Dwarven lithomancy: The Earthbound-Order’s stone-singing defies school classification. It involves warding (Abjuration), material alteration (Transmutation), and what might be communication with geological memory (Divination), yet it is taught through oral tradition rather than academic study
Orcish shamanism: The Ash Speakers of the Wildlands practice a form of magic attuned to death and rebirth that superficially resembles Necromancy but operates on fundamentally different principles — their magic draws from the land’s memory rather than individual soul manipulation

Training Hierarchy

Each school maintains an internal progression system, though the specifics vary:

Apprentice: 2-5 years of foundational study. Apprentices learn theory, basic cantrips, and safety protocols. Roughly half wash out before advancement
Journeyman: 5-10 years of practical application. Journeymen are assigned to field work — city defense for Abjurers, military service for Evokers, court advisory for Diviners
Master: 10-20 years of specialization. Masters develop original techniques and may take on apprentices of their own. The title carries significant social status in Valorian society
Archmage: The rarest distinction. Only 3-5 Archmages exist across all schools at any given time. They set policy, advise the Crown, and have access to classified magical research. Archmage-Seraphina-Dusk is the current Divination Archmage

Political Influence

The Seven Schools wield significant political power despite — or because of — the regulatory framework governing their practice:

University control: The University-Of-Valoria serves as the academic home for most schools, giving it enormous institutional influence. The Chancellor position rotates among school representatives, creating a complex political calculus
Crown dependency: The Kingdom-Of-Valoria relies on school-trained mages for city defense (Abjuration ward lattice), intelligence (Divination scrying), and military operations (Evocation battle-mages). This gives the schools leverage in budget negotiations
Sun-Temple friction: The Sun-Temple views the schools’ autonomy as a threat to its monopoly on divine authority. Theological disputes over the source of magical power — Weave-derived (academic view) vs. deity-granted (religious view) — simmer constantly
Dwarven parallel: The Dwarven-Holds maintain their own Transmutation headquarters (The Workshop) in Khazad-Dum, independent of University control. This arrangement reflects dwarven pragmatism — they value magical services but refuse to subordinate their institutions to Valorian academic authority

First Empire Origins

The school system originated with the Mage-Conclave approximately 2,000 years ago:

Standardization motive: Before the Conclave formalized the schools, magical practice was chaotic and often dangerous. Mages competed for territory, students, and resources with little coordination
The Seven Framework: The Conclave’s classification was pragmatic rather than natural — the boundaries between schools are somewhat arbitrary, and many spells could be classified under multiple schools. The framework persisted because it proved useful for training and regulation
Conclave oversight: The Mage-Conclave maintained authority over all seven schools, classifying spells by danger level and enforcing the prohibition on certain techniques (particularly Necromantic soul binding and Conjuration planar breaches)
Post-Cataclysm adaptation: When the Cataclysm destroyed the Conclave, the schools survived as independent institutions. The loss of central oversight led to centuries of inter-school rivalry and occasional open conflict during the Mage-Wars

Current Tensions

Several issues threaten the school system’s stability:

The Necromancy question: Should Necromancy remain one of the Seven Schools? Its practitioners argue that life-force manipulation has legitimate medical applications. The Sun-Temple demands the school be abolished entirely. The University refuses to take a position, fearing precedent
Rift-Touched integration: Some progressive scholars advocate teaching wild magic alongside the Seven Schools. Traditionalists argue this would undermine the entire classification system and potentially introduce uncontrollable variables into the University’s training programs
Wild magic classification: The Seven Schools framework cannot adequately describe wild magic phenomena observed near the Great-Rift. If wild magic operates on different fundamental principles, the entire school system may be incomplete rather than comprehensive
Declining enrollment: Fewer students are entering the schools, particularly Abjuration and Conjuration, which require the longest training periods. The University has considered offering accelerated programs, which existing masters view as diluting quality standards

Open Questions

Is the Seven Schools framework a true description of magical reality, or merely a convenient organizational tool?
Could the schools be reformed to incorporate wild magic, druidic traditions, and lithomancy without collapsing the classification system?
Why does Divination fail near the Great-Rift, and what does this reveal about the relationship between school magic and wild magic?
What happened to the Necromancy school headquarters, and could its return reshape inter-school politics?
Are there magical traditions outside Aethelgard (beyond the Azure-Sea) that use fundamentally different approaches?

Quartz 4

Explorer