Enchanting

From The Coursebooks Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

In simplest terms, an enchantment is a thing spelled. A permanent or temporary spell, woven over an object, place, or even a person. Most enchantments are invisible, though some produce a faint aura or other visible light. Some enchantments are done with a particular magical language that is designed for this purpose, and the letters and words form runes either magically inscribed or directly etched. Tattoos can be used to place enchantments on people, with the back being a popular canvas. These enchantments, however, can be disrupted by simple changes in the wearer’s body. Weight gain or loss can change the dimensions of the tattoo, thus disrupting the enchantment.

Enchantments differ from spell forms in one very key way: they do not require ‘activation’. A spell form must be activated by a mage, but an enchantment can be activated by anyone, or is constantly active. Making enchantments is done in one of two ways. The first is a type of enchantment that draws in power to run itself. These can be problematic for long-term use as they can be shut down simply by starving them of power.

The second is to actually add all the power the enchantment will ever need directly into it while making it. This sort of enchantment is much more popular for the ‘always working’ ability, though making them can be extremely difficult. The Tower H. culture, a legendary group of enchanters from the early First Chaotic Period of the Mage Wars, were pioneers in this type of enchanting, and made it much easier with a system of staged enchanting. Essentially, they would enchant items for making other enchanted items. A system of combining smaller enchantments to build larger ones allowed relatively weak mages to produce extremely powerful enchanted items.

A hybrid form of the two types of enchantments exists, though this cannot really be considered a separate technique since it really consists of combining different types of enchantments.

Detail

Enchanting is a type of magic used in the creation of Magical Artifacts and other enchanted items. Enchanting was very widespread(nearly industrial) during the Mage Wars and has seen continued usage throughout the Ages of the Alliance. Enchanting relies heavily on Magical Materials to create the best effects, but can be done with reasonably mundane supplies. Creating permanent enchantments is considered the most challenging element of the craft, temporary effects are relatively easy to produce.

Forms of Enchanting

  • Basic Enchanting - consists of simply casting a magic spell on an item. This is relatively simple for a skilled mage in the right discipline, but very challenging to make the spells last. Modern, industrially-produced goods are particularly challenging to spell this way, hence even in the Mage Wars this method was relatively uncommon.
  • Alchemical Enchanting - involves using alchemical processes to produce a magical item. There is some overlap with this and ritual enchanting since most alchemy has ritual elements. With proper care alchemical enchantments can be applied to items which did not otherwise include an enchantment.
  • Ritual Enchanting - involves following specific ritual processes while making an item. As such the item has to be made entirely by hand and following very specific steps. This can mean doing parts of the process at specific times of day or otherwise specific conditions, stipulating what hand has to be used, and even what materials are used to prepare others. The advantage to ritual enchanting is that the enchanter need not know any actual magic themselves, and can produce an enchanted item simply by following a process.

All three forms overlap heavily, with ritual and alchemical being virtually mutual. The most powerful magical items require a combination of all three forms.

Known Rules of Enchanting

  • Capacity - any article that is to be given a permanent enchantment has a specific "carrying capacity" based on size, type, and quality of materials. The quest to increase a given items' capacity is a key cornerstone of many enchanters.
    • Capacity goes up dramatically when more powerful Magical Materials are used. An item made from Orichalcum can be enchanted many orders of magnitude more than one made of even the highest-grade steel.