Dendum's Guide to Magistar Terms
Title: Dendum's Guide to Magistar Terms
Author: Dendum
Dendum's Guide to Magistar Terms
(and other crazy wizard words)
Introduction
If one has ever listened to a Magistar from the Empire talk for an extended period of time, it is easy to assume either they are crazy or you are crazy. They use so many words that are foreign to the ear one may assume they are speaking another language. It is not so! They are just a type of people who are obsessed with arcane and strange things and so make names for things that other people wisely ignore. Below is a collection of terms one may find wizards in the west using.
Be warned, many of these kind will dissect a flower into parts, and then dissect those parts into smaller parts and you will quickly find while they have an abundance of words what they describe no longer resembles a flower at all but rather a strange idea of a flower that is divorced from all wisdom and reality.
Plinite
Plinite is a magical rock formed by killing an elemental and condensing it into a power source. It is rumored that the Empire scours its lands for this substance going so far as to harvest free elementals. Why? Who knows!
Icemule once hunted a giant mountain of an elemental and used the Plinite made to power an airship that could make the journey to the Hinterwilds. There is naturally forming Plinite near the landing and found in the Elemental Confluence.
Plinite looks like a crystal but often glows with an inner light. It is known that the larger elementals often create larger, and more powerful, crystals. It is also known that you can sometimes split the largest of these and still have two powerful crystals.
Once a giant shoved a punch of Plinite into its body and grew in size and power standing some three hundred meters tall. It is not known if just anyone can grow that tall shoving magic crystals into their body or if this had something to do with giant's being naturally connected to the elements.
Like many explosive powerful things, this was discovered by Burghal Gnomes.
Mana Storms
Mana Storms, also called Flow storms or giant pain in the backsides, are where magic has gone crazy. Portals and crazy creatures, time acting stange, odd visions and loud noises....all of these things are common near Mana Sotrms!
Some Magistars like to study these things because of all the power contained inside of them. Why? Who Knows! Magistars are crazy.
Valence
A Faendryl word, Valence is sometimes used to refer specifically to other places that demons come from and other times it is used to refer to any place at all that is not Elanthia. But not the homeworld of the Aelotoi, for whatever reason that is not another Valence but another type of thing entirely. Also the Elemental Confluence is sometimes called another Valence but often is not called another Valence. Why? Who knows! Magistars are a confusing people.
The Faendryl have an entire group who do nothing but map out other Valence...probably looking for another potential home in case they lose another city.
Chronomages/ Temporal Magic
There exist within the world a group known as the Chronomages, Some know them as easy, but expensive, providers of transportation. They are also a collection of powerful keepers of time magic.
They are no always good at keeping time magic however and there are several Magistars who have moved around through time mucking around with things. This is Temporal Magic, mucking around with time. However thankfully it appears that all the things they are planning on doing, they may have already done, so there is no use worrying about it.
The Magistars Raznel and Pylassar were particularly known for either meddling about in time or getting stuck outside of it. Why? Who knows! Magistars are crazy.
The Bleaklands
Also known as the Bleak, Chaston's Gift, Bane of Talador, the expanding death...or any other number of things. The Bleaklands use to be a place called Talador until an imperial prelate and a former imperial magistar decided to try and blow up the capital of the Empire but instead managed to blow themselves up, and an entire barony along with them. The Bleaklands are expanding, they are dangerous, and they are full of mutated and evil things. It is said the Bleaklands may actually represent a tear in our world to another darker place, the Shadow Realm.
The Shadow Realm
The Shadow Realm is another place, sometimes refered to as another valence sometimes as a plane...it depends on which Wizard you are talking to at any given moment. A great evil called Althedeus either created it or inhabited it. It is full of demons and undead and strange Shadow Creatures that are neither of these things, or both. The Shadow Realm often appears to be made of living tissue and sinew. Trees will look like bones, land like flesh, water like blood.
It is not a good place, it is not fun to visit, it serves no purpose other than to corrupt.
Althedeus
A dark creature formed during the war between Drake and Ur-Daemon. Some thought it was an Ur-Daemon but others think it was created from the horror of the war and is something else entirely. It manifested as an island made of blood and flesh and bone and generally just wanted to destroy everything. It was killed. Some remnants of its attempt to consume the world can be seen in the form of Blood Trees found in the north.
Some rumors are that others have attempted to assume the power once wielded by Althedeus. Mostly crazy human magic users.
Blood Magic
Magic that sacrifices life to make spells stronger, not to be confused with using the blood of dead things...this is called necromancy....or the act of creating meals from dead animals...this is called cooking.