Magic Basics

Magic

In the Phoenix World, magic works using Medium Stone, typically abbreviated as Medstone. In this document we will summarise the basics of how Medstone and its use works, as reference to be able to easily write about it in typical scenarios.

Use

Everyone can use magic in this setting, though not everyone is equally suited to all magics and some people may indeed be worse at it entirely. Training is still important, especially if you want precise and more potent/efficient results. Training and studying to use magic mostly involves focusing to direct the magic to give you the desired result (rather than something that vaguely reminds it); as well as aligning your mindset with that required of the particular type of magic being invoked or the Medstone implement you are handling.

To use magic, one needs to handle a Medstone implement (contact or eyesight might work depending on circumstances as well, but we might need to define the rules further for this, especially if the handling of the implement is contested) and direct it to desired effect. A mental direction is enough since the Medstone already operates as a medium channelling the magic, but the use of speech, motion or other forms of expression may help the magician focus on their intended outcome. Magic activation is intentional, so maybe some sort of mental reaching out is necessary (though to what exactly can be defined further; does the wielder sense the presence of the power they’re reaching out to?). It is generally believed that a living human (sentient) agent is required to set forth the magic, however Youmoto engineers are stretching the limits of this by various attempts of automated and remote use of Medstone in their technology.

In standard Magic Theory, it is believed that the required elements for magic are Agent (Human), Direction (Thought), Medium (Medstone), Source; the combination of which brings forth Effect. Both Source and Effect are sometimes identified with “Magic”. What the actual Source of magic is, though, is highly disputed and unclear. Typically Medstone is not considered the Source, though that’s perhaps not entirely ruled out.

Types of Implements

1. Raw Medstone: Medstone in its natural unpurified form, it is not aligned with any particular kind of magic and thus can be used for any of it, however, it can be chaotic, uncontrollable and inefficient.
2. Refined Medstone: Purged of impurities and rendered into a specific shape and form, it is more orderly than Raw Medstone. It can still largely be used for most types of magic, but the way in which the refiner chose to purify and shape it, direct it towards a preference of some magics over others.
   1. Staffs and wands: Very commonly craftsmen of the medieval kingdom put Refined Medstone at the top of their staffs, creating an implement that possesses the versatility of Refined Medstone, but becomes more potent by using the long cylindrical shape to more efficiently channel and direct magic. They are not however considered complete Medstone Tools, so they are often treated as something of an in-between. Wands are for the most part miniature versions of staffs that are more easily carried or concealed, but some craftsmen also use the smaller size to construct the entire thing out of Medstone.
3. Medstone Tools: With Refined Medstone at its core, such a Tool is given structure that dedicates it to a much narrower purpose, thus resulting in the most potent of effects. It’s much more difficult to get an undesired outcome out of a Medstone Tool, since the design of the craftsman is already embedded in it, guiding the magic. It’s also difficult to get it to do something it wasn’t designed for, however. How restrained in purpose the Tool is can vary depending on its construction. Thus there can be a Tool built for producing flames, but the manner of the flames’ motion or their temperature or colour is still dependent on the wielder; or a Tool can be built which has been designed to shoot three greenish fireballs from the back of the user, and the wielder would be hard-pressed to get it to do anything that far departs from that concept. Such specification would probably require a much more complex and cumbersome design.

The exact process of refining Medstone and creating a Tool is debated among the different traditions of craftsmanship, but most scholars typically describe at least these components as necessary for the structure of a Tool:

1. Medstone (for obvious reasons)
2. Container (so that magic doesn’t seep out)
3. Content/Decoration(?) (to specify the purpose)
4. More, if we can think of something?

In some traditions an Index (to direct the magic outwards or towards a target) is also commonly considered as a fourth or optional component.

These components can be rudimentary and even symbolical, however the effectiveness and clarity of the Tool’s magic depend on how well-integrated the components are and how well the complete design represents and aligns itself with the desired magic. For instance, one could draw a circle in sand add some medstone and a leaf inside, maybe a stick as an index and use that as a Tool for leaf magic. Naturally such improvised amateur design can only lead to improvised amateur magic. But it may yet work.

Form

Raw Medstone can be found in a number of states: ashes and grey pumice-like (or sometimes charcoal-like) stones are the most common state Medstone is found in. The stones are often covered in or embedded in ash, and their composition is often not uniform, with parts easily crumbling into dust and ash. Other rarer forms of Medstone may include crystals or volcanic glasses like obsidian, formed either during the cataclysmic events of the volcanoes’ eruption and their outpours’ clash and union; or while buried in soil under the pressure and temperature found therein. Some of these may be more readily found at the volcanic sites that produced them. These materials may not be identical to the known ones they are compared to, due to the unique composition and impurities that make it Medstone in the first place, but they might be similar.

Refined Medstone is usually in stone, gem or glass form; either refined from that state into a more purified form, or solidified from ash form.

Medstone Tools use Refined Medstone in the above-mentioned forms, but they also somewhat more frequently use other types of a more elaborate nature: Ashstone dissolved in liquid solutions and potions, metal alloys enriched with Medstone, plastics, rubber or other synthetic organic materials created using Medstone as a component, silicon enriched with traces of Medstone for use in electronics(?) and more.

Name

Alternative names for Medstone are Magistone, Ashstone, Ashes, The Devil’s Ash. The different names aren’t entirely region- or form-based, but different terms may be more common in different lands (there’s also the issue of different languages), while “Ashes” and “Devil’s Ash” are much more common in the Medieval Continent and when referring to Medstone in its ashen form.

For the purposes of writing Medstone and Ashstone are probably the most neutral and you can for the most part use the terms interchangeably.

Composition

Medstone was created when the ash clouds of the two Major Volcanoes joined and their essences combined. Thus Medstone has two primary parts (Black Oil, Yellowstone), though they are at this point mixed, indistinguishable and inseparable.

In terms of its actual chemical composition, I am not willing to narrow it down to something specific here (it’s likely not fully known in the story either) and it probably varies to some extent, however it probably typically contains at least some of these: elements typical of volcanic ash and gases, elements typical of stone and organic materials (likely more complex than one would expect from just oil). Sometimes some components will be in crystal form.