Magic of Arvalan
It’s magic; it just does things, right? Well, yes and no. Magic follows rules, as with all natural things. Pure untapped magic flows across the plane, invisible to most, in river-like movements. These magical pathways are classified by the amount of energy within. The one most people tap into is called a Stream. These exist as smaller flows that provide an appropriate amount of magical energy for a standard caster. Using a stream with too much magical energy does not empower the caster unless they take precautions (could be represented as a Focus Action spell cast, Heightened Invocation, and more) but instead can harm or hinder the spell casting just as similarly as tapping into one too small for what is needed.
The full list of classifications are as follows: Drought, Trickle, Stream, River, Magway, and Rapid.
A Magical Drought exists as a section devoid of all magic. Unless specialized magical gear carried into the area has the ability to store magic itself -- and thus limiting uses, magic users of all types cannot cast any spells. These rare items cost far more than even kingdoms due to the rarity of the materials needed to craft them.
Magical Trickles typically inhabit locations around areas of droughts, but they also exist on their own in places where magic thins. Using this magic to power a spell strains the user, making it harder to do so. Depending on how weak the trickle is, the more strain put upon them. Mechanically, this is represented through Disadvantage equal to the minimum power level of the ability, but a Narrator may increase this negative.
Magical Streams flow everywhere there isn’t a River, Magway, or Rapid, but they dance around these higher powered sections, allowing people to tap into them when on any of them. This magical flow courses across all of the plane where the others do not exist or cease existing. Most mages pull exclusively from this flow only.
Magical Rivers are denser than that of streams, flowing wider and faster. These streams support higher density magic objects mostly, providing routes for smaller airships and vehicles. While not as plentiful as Streams, Rivers are the second most common. These tend to flow like windy roads through a country side: a bit bumpy and calm. When a mage tries to pull from a River mechanically, it is like using a power washer to clean your glass plates. Because of this, only certain actions can pull from this to allow for precise focus. Actions that call on this stream will always take longer than normal (Focus Action, Heightened Invocation, and so forth). Furthermore, attempting to pull from a river invokes disadvantage equal to minimum power level of the ability.
Magways are the third most common type of flow and serve as the main pathways for large ships. While ships can sustain themselves without these magical flows, it helps conserve power, preferring to only jump Magways when necessary. Diesel engine ships tend to take any routes, but have to make frequent stops to refuel. A mage cannot directly pull from a Magway by themselves without being torn asunder.
Lastly, Rapids are chaotic streams of magical overabundance. In inverse to Droughts, this flow type exists of pure magic. Going through these storms bears the equivalent to sticking your arm in the mouth of a bear. You will likely die. These magical storms are so thick you can see them with the naked eye. They look like a thundercloud, but sparks out magic. A skilled pilot could manage to go through a storm, but would risk their life and everyone in the ship’s.
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Teleportation
Teleportation is an extremely useful bit of magic that puts a large amount of strain along the magical flows across the plane. Typically, it doesn't cause any issues unless heavily abused to transport massive amounts. However, portals, stable areas of teleportation are more magically intensive and are far more disruptive to the magical flows. Despite this, most capital cities besides Ol'koon hold open a portal to allow individual person travel. This is regulated to ensure nothing breaks and limits individuals to their person and the items they can carry on them. Small vehicles or animals like a motorbike or horse can go with, but not a full motorized carriage. These tend to be limited to political use and use of the League of Adventure, who provides the means to sustain the portals.
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Limitations of Magic
Just because Magic exists doesn’t mean everything is possible. There are a few limitations that exist beyond just the mechanics of Open Legend. These limitations are the following and more may be added as they are remembered.
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Time Travel: This is a narrative thing and should be left to the control of more powerful beings on very rare cases. Player characters will not be able to time travel.
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Planar Travel: Planes are very separated from each other. But, there are areas of weakness that allow transit. This requires assistance in that fashion so players can’t reliably access other planes. These should be left to Narrator decision. Unlike the others, this one may be superseded once for backstory purposes to explain how a creature from another plane arrived.
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Dimensional Travel: Multidimensional Theory is really cool, but this is something that should be left to narrator control and requires a kind of power that players don’t normally have.
Non-Magic Magic
Non-Magic Magic? What kind of heresy is this! Simply put, these are extraordinary abilities so similar to magic that magic is how they are often described. These things tend to still fall within the same rules of magic and mimic many characteristics but often differ in just simple ways. The most famous of these is alchemy which often does work in combination with magic, but usually not at the time of use but creation.
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Manipulating Soul Energy
Woah man, that just sounds edgy right there in the name! But in reality, it isn't. The closest thing in our world would be something called Chi or Ki. The first noted use was within Lu'ryl, but the Rane and other Beastmen began to develop it later without contact between each other. That is not to say other races cannot learn it now, as the teaching of Soul Manipulation, often referred to as Enlightened Martial Arts (though not limited to just martial arts), has spread across the islands. Soul Manipulation derives from a extraordinary or magical ability to manipulate the energy within a person's being. While some may be born with a gift towards this ability, it always requires training for finer control. The diversity that can be unlocked with this training style is immense, but a few examples can include shapeshifting, gaining spiritual limbs, pushing the body beyond normal limits, defying gravity, converting the energy into another energy, and much much more.
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Alchemy
The primary use of Alchemy is turning something in an abundant amount into something that is less abundant, such as stone to iron, iron to gold, gold to gemstones, and so on. The most major creation of alchemy is Fuel for diesel engines, using dead plant life. While many forms of alchemy are quite time consuming, they usually can be stored and used later through ingested solutions, injections, and pastes and creams. Instant alchemy requires magic to make, but a prepared alchemist can be just as effective as an instant alchemist (with the only real difference being flavor).
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Classifications of Magic
All magic comes from the innate magic of the plane. Whether this power to manipulate the magic in one way or another is granted by a God, Nature, Self-Taught, Accident, Bloodline, or more doesn’t matter. All magic manipulates this force. It is what got you the magic that differentiates the appearance. However, some magical styles have been separated from the rest. These can be combined together or be separate. An incomplete list of example specializations are below.
Naturalist: A magician that harnesses the power of nature and can control the aspects of it to do great effects. This can be from using vines to bind others to shifting into animal forms to fight. They are aspects of nature over anything else.
Priest: Devouts of their faith, Priests tend to emulate the core aspects of that faith for the most part. A priest of the Harvest Wolf may seem similar to a Naturalist where a Priest of Kulna may instead appear to be a Lavamancer. They tend to wear robes with the symbols and colors of their god.
Elementalist: Master of an element, Elementalists take to the extreme of focusing in on Fire, Ice, Electricity, and Earth. Some have practiced other basic energies like sonic or pure Energy. The control an elementalist has over their element is usually not surpassed by many.
Illusionist: Perception of reality can be altered and to an Illusionist, this is what they excel at. While they cannot change reality, they can change how another perceives it, hiding something in plain sight, disguising a door as a brick wall, or otherwise changing how one thing seems to exist.
Healer: Sometimes also Priests, Healers tend to focus on making people healthier. Typically this is done by controlling aspects of life and death and manipulating them in or away from a patient. While many focus on preserving life, they also tend to control whether you live or die, so be nice to them!
Guardian: A magical protector. These may be people who serve in the frontlines and use their magic to shield others from harm, or they may be people who stay in the back and use barriers, shields, and defensive magic to ensure people are safe who do run in. In either case, they ensure you survive but generally not by healing.
Chronomancer: These are not people who hop between time to time and do as they want, but instead they control areas of time. This can be manipulating their time to act faster (Haste Boon) or slowing time for others (Slow Bane). They cannot break time, but there rests a bit of wiggle room in the aspect of time and that allows them to alter it on a small scale.
Summoner/Necromancer: Conjurers of lifeforms out of basic material, clockworks, dead bodies, or magical essence, summoners and necromancers rely on these puppets to do their bidding for the most part. While summoners may have some control over energy types and a necromancer over life and death, it is often not the focus.