The Other-Lands: An Introduction

 Beyond the Gloaming Veil, Beyond the Wall of Sleep

Past your daydreams and nightmares, past your dreams so deep

Over the moon and half past Saturn, through the looking glass, straight on til morning

A land not of field and heat, particle and wave, matter and energy, but of Story and Song, Sigil and Symbol, Meaning and Message, Weal and Warning

Elsewhere lies these Lands-Another, For space and time do not rule these lands, merely brush against them flirtatiously.

 

    Readers are familiar with the waking world, and at least passingly aware of its physics, or nature. Perhaps not its depthful true nature, but of the natural patterns that govern its operations to some extent.

    There are Fields (Properties assigned to all points in space-time), Energy (Potential for work to be done) and Space-Time (The soft stage upon which the delicate dance occurs). Simply put, in the real world there are Properties, Event-Potential and Setting.

    There are also weird things, like how causality has a speed limit and things beyond the cosmic horizon functionally Do Not Exist to you.

    This isn't about that. Instead this is about another world.

     

The Treachery of Images, René Magritte, 1929

    Elsewhere

    Here there is no "here" in a contiguous connected way. Locations and even time are dreamlike and disconnected, requiring journeys through abstract Wilderness in order to reach. In order for things to make sense, one must first begin with a description of the fundamental Aspects of the world, as this is a world not of Field and Heat, but of Symbol and Metaphor.

• Glamour: Pure sense-data. The fundamental qualia that build the sensory experience of a thing. Appearance, shape, texture, smell, sound and yet stranger senses you may take for granted. This is what is closest to the objects of the Waking-World, and yet its not something of any true substance, hence the name.
• A dearth of this suggests a smaller, simpler or otherwise reduced sensibility. A total lack suggests no physical appearance or shape, and a fuzzier location.
• Something that is just Glamour is mere shape and appearance, little more than an illusion. 
• Shadow: Perception and Affect. If Glamour is the raw sense data, this is what it invokes. Dreadfulness, Beauty, Funniness, and so on. Subjective interpretations can of course exist, ones own Shadow picking up the slack and allowing one to perceive things as these things even if their own shadows are lacking, but it is considered rude to rely upon that.
• A dearth of this suggests an unremarkable or reduced affect, as well as a lack of ability to supply ones own affect. A total lack suggests no intrinsic affect, total conformity to the surrounding tone of things. This does not make you impossible to notice or target.
• Shadow by itself is pure affect, perhaps like a wandering mood, a storm of emotion or interpretation. 
• Wish: Drive and Desire. The quality of "realness" something can have. Most objects slowly adhere to the ambient Wish of their environment, much like how most objects slowly homogenize temperature and ultimately Heat. Most places in the Other-Lands do not have enough ambient Wish to properly sustain inhabitants, and so other actions are taken to harvest this. This is partially because wish is directed in many ways, and if one wants to take it they must misdirect it.
• A dearth of this suggests a dreamlike or dissociated quality or nature, while a total lack of this suggests a severance from the typical "reality" of the Other-Lands, now seen as possibly imaginary by even the fickle reality of the Folk (this is not an unrecoverable state...), though such things can still possess a passive kind of power to affect the world.
• Something that is Wish alone would be raw unfiltered reality, pure want and desire and drive, it is the other aspects that direct Wish to sustain itself and others.
• Personae: Self-concept and Identity. A story one tells oneself and the world about oneself. Qualities of Character and expressed facets of the self. It defines what you can Do in both concrete and abstract terms. Most objects hold simple Personae, but some objects hold stronger and more complex ones. Many things can even possess multiple...
• A dearth of this suggests a very basic or simplified personality, conforming more to some basic facts or descriptions than to a complex self. A total lack of this suggests no personality or identity is applied to something, it existing merely as an extension of some other thing, or as mere illusion.
• Personae alone is mere identity with nothing else. Title, self-concept with no history, fate or feeling. Pure "I Am" with no "You Are". 
• Wyrd: Fate and Chance. A story the world tells about oneself. A kind of narrative gravity well, or fuzzy non-local cloud of influence. Orchestrates synchronicity with respect to its target(s), usually the singular entity possessed of it. These interact in subtle and secret ways, orchestrating the narrative causation of the Other-Lands
• A dearth of this suggests one is more subject to the fortunes and fates of others than to their own, or suggests a very simple fortune with few moving parts. A total lack suggests one is swept up in the currents and wakes of others, with no fate or fortune of your own. A background character, essentially, but even more so.
• That which is Wyrd alone would be akin to pure fate or luck, a storm of events/causality that might wash over a place. Pure event-association. 
• Chronicle: History and Experience. Something between memory and actual personal timeline. The story that has been told, the prior pages. Gradually builds with time, naturally, as events transpire and are witnessed. All things are possessed of this, and they interact and entwine as events transpire between individuals.
• A dearth of this suggests little experience or history, while a total lack suggests a momentary, immediate existence. While this may be persistent, such a thing would seem to exist in one context only, with no history to speak of.
• Alone, Chronicle is only history, or story. Recorded events with no power of its own. 

Lacking these qualities is not a state that often lasts very long, barring strange structuring or quirks of the Other-Lands. If the void of an aspect is not filled by one imposed upon oneself, then their other aspects will often birth something to fill it. 

And some qualities that apply to all aspects to varying degrees based on context and perspective.

• Wildness: A subjective quality, different depending on the target. This defines how difficult it is to directly be affected by others or to directly affect ones own Aspects. Naturally high enough to be frustrating with respect to oneself and others. One should seek to tame ones own Wildness with respect to oneself, and embody extreme Wildness with respect to the world, while taming its Wildness in turn, if one seeks to affect and not be affected in turn.
• Sympathy: An interactive quality, expressing the integration of various aspects. At a baseline (two random objects), the only Sympathy they possess is the connections brought by Proximity, similarity, symbolic suggestion, Wyrd interaction and so on. Ones own aspects are naturally highly Sympathetic. One should seek to maximize ones own Sympathy if one wishes to remain a coherent whole, and this defense can be maintained through some degree of Wildness. All things are technically mildly Sympathetic to each other. Similarity, past contact and so on are all paths of Sympathy.
• Creativity: All aspects can birth one another to some extent. A Chronicle bereft of other aspects is merely a story, memory or history with no actual subject but such a thing can, if spread enough or potent enough, demand its subjects into being. Even a mere Glamour can slowly accrue Chronicle and so on as events transpire,
• Divisibility: Similarly, these aspects can split and sunder under their own weight, if their scope expands beyond their Potency. A vast Chronicle may fracture into many smaller ones, and an expansive Wyrd may catch or birth others into its influence.
• Potency: The weight or scope of these aspects. A Shadow cast by a mere pebble is tiny, barely a flicker of affect, while a Shadow cast by a legendary conqueror or by the stronghold it has built will be much greater indeed. The greater the Potency the more liable it is to Divide or Create other aspects. The Potency of Sympathetic aspects often slowly adjusts to accommodate each other, to a degree defined by the level of Sympathy. This quality is strongly tied to Wish, as said aspect acts as the fuel for the "reality" of things, but Potent aspects with little Wish exist.
• Proximity: Location, or rather, Distance but only in an abstract sense. Locations are dissociated to some extend, separated by an untamed Wilderness where Proximity begins to break. This is simply the quality of being "in", "adjacent", "around", "near", "far", "distant", "away" and so on. Somewhat subjective, it's merely the other-lands way of organizing the abstract fairy-tale geography. Quite possibly merely a function of Sympathy.

 So what does this all mean? What do the Other-Lands look like?

 

Fairy Tale, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, 1909

A Sea of Story, A Forest of Dream

The Other-Lands are akin to a sea, but also akin to a forest in many ways. The Mortal World is like an island, yet one somehow nigh-impervious to the effects of the other place.

Within the mortal world the Other-Folk are all glamour and shadow, wish and identity, story and history. They lack the substance of the real world, though may still in turn affect the real world if their Wish be ludicrously potent. Most would find it easier to convince (or coerce) mortals into doing their bidding however.

The physics and metaphysics of how the Other-Lands and Waking-World interact are not so important on the waking side of the veil at the moment, however. Within the Other-Lands, it becomes somewhat complicated.

Proximity can be measured from the abstract locality of the Waking World. Most of the familiar features of the Other-Lands are, while not strictly close, are at least within the orbit of the Waking World.

The Aspects, particularly the Wish that sustain the Other-Folk, flow from the Mortal World into the regions of the Other-Lands "Adjacent" to it, and slowly radiate and flow outwards from there along naturalistic pathways. This can be thought of as the influence of the sun, as nutrients flowing from the surface of the ocean downwards or carried by a river... With some important differences of course.

Often these aspects flow on the winds, the rivers, or are carried by the migrations of beasts. Think of them as nutrients, sustaining (or rather shaping) the local Other-Lands 

"Depth" or Proximity can then be measured, in reference to the Waking World, with five (six?) broad ranges.

• Neighbor-Lands: Those lands adjacent to the Waking World, the Neighbors to the world as-is. The Other-Lands here will be very familiar, influenced as they are so directly by the Waking-World that the wildness of these places often corresponds instead to the waking worlds own patterns and symbols. Geographies and locales may line up quite well with the Waking-World, but places that correspond to places not often visited in the Waking World are less formed and so will often be the homes of much stranger things. It is said that the Mortals (Folk of the Waking-Lands) may cast "Reflections" (sometimes confusingly called "Shadows") here, Other-Folk versions of themselves who's entire personae, weird and chronicle are merely cast from their own histories, a strange double in the Other-Lands.
• Near-Lands: From the stranger places of the Neighboring-Lands, or from simply traveling a while away from the Waking-World, one can find those lands still caught in its orbit. These places often correspond to "Lost Continents" or "Legendary Places", seeing as they are influenced by the Waking World but not beholden to its geography. Avalon, Tír na nÓg, Atlantis, Mu, Laputa, Lemuria and so on may be real places here, inhabited by strange folk and stranger beasts.
• Frontier-Lands: The very edge of the Waking-Worlds direct influence. Here, Wish, Glamour, and Shadow all trickle from the Waking-World, or else gurgle up from some deeper realm of the Other-Lands. The influence of the Waking-World breaks down here, and the beings start to take on even stranger forms than the above realms. Impossible things can exist in the Neighbor-Lands (and many do!) but this is where they are often considered native to. Dragons and Giants of truly stupendous size and anatomy, Hecatoncheires, and other terribly, terribly mighty and strange beings may dwell here, yet this is not quite the lands of the truly foreign.
• Faraway-Lands: The bottomless depths, the vast and infinite wilds beyond the scope of the waking-world. With no bottom, no "sea floor", this place is truly a place of incomprehension. Beings that dream themselves, Archetypal Almost-Gods, Lands divorced utterly from possibility and typical human fantasy. These are lands of symbol and narrative, extracted fully, or arising totally independent of, the material subject itself. Symbols dreaming symbols, possibly unaware of the existence of the Waking-World itself. The lands here are often awake and aware, jealously consuming the Aspects they find, seeking to understand and spread. Here is where the phenomena of the Other-Lands are churned into a seething sea of potentiality, or else inhabit a silent almost abyssal stillness, conserving what they have...
• Distant-Lands: Perhaps there are other Waking-Worlds? Either other planets in the waking-world thus described, or other realities entirely, with their own radiating influence shaping some small region. Such places would be influenced by foreign stories, unbound to the conventions of earthly norms.
• Lands-Betwixt: Between established lands there are the roads and paths that connect them, like lands themselves but established only as go-betweens. These are often more dangerous than the lands themselves, unless patrolled or managed by other powers, as many things can be found wandering them that would love nothing more than to gobble up an unwary traveler. Deeper still, it may be only Wilderness, stalked by entities that feel more at home among the untamed and uncontrolled. From Wilderness, one can go just about anywhere, as proximity begins to break down, though one can still vaguely understand ones position with respect to Major Lands (or the Waking World).

Within the Other-Lands itself, it goes without saying that of course the settings themselves, the locations, are defined by the Aspects and the Qualities that describe them.

Hence locations possess Wyrds that may be imposed on inhabitants or visitors, Personae that may shape its character, Chronicles of their history and the histories they partook in, the Glamours and Shadows of their components and even of the location as a whole and of course the Wish that fuels this all, gives it reality and supports the Potency of this.

Remember: All things are described by the aspects and their qualities in the Other-Lands. 

 

Any Old Fairy Tale, Arthur Wilde Parsons, 1919

The Abstract Physics of Story...

... are best understood through storied examples.

Take a blade, hold it in your mind and understand it. Know it. Tell its story.

Its Glamour is that of a blade of whatever make desired, its Shadow may be many things. Dreadful, beautiful, inspiring, terrifying and so on. It all depends on the goal. Harvest these from the lands you find most amenable to such extraction, pull the Glamour of iron from the earth, and the Shadow of fear and dread from the dark itself. Take the physical objects and reshape them, either in your forge as expected, or sculpt them like a sculptor, or weave them like a garment.

Fill it with Wish and make it real, harvested from the materials you gathered, but it needs more than just that. It will be only set-dressing without more Wish. Find more.

Tell its story. Its Persona is one of a blade. A weapon that deals death, forged from metals drawn from the earth and given the explicit purpose to harm and kill. As you make it its Chronicle begins, a small thing for now but it will grow in time.

Give it a Wyrd, a fate, or it will grow one on its own. Weave something into it. You could tell it that its Wyrd is one of bloodshed, and that others near it find being wounded comes easily, accidentally even, but simply telling it this will instill only a flimsy Wyrd. You must harvest what you desire. Take it to old and dreadful battlefields in the Other-Lands and pull from them the Wyrds you desire.

Note how you cannot simply "Do things" with these. There must be some symbolic root to them. Some core action. Some justification. With time and knowledge these justifications can become as vague as "I willed it", but such things are the dominion of the Reigning-Folk (Kings, Magicians, High Fairies, Gods, Noble Djinni and so on). Additionally, this process can be different... Remember the divisibility of these aspects. One could make a blade (or anything really) an extension of ones own aspects... Albeit this confers the risks of being targeted through such objects via their Sympathy.

Things have inertia. This is true even of the Other-Lands, though it be an inertia of purpose and culture, rather than of motion or lack thereof. 

Another example.

You wish to slay someone, for insulting you or your lover or whatever other excuse you have. Really you probably just want to kill them for no single reason in particular.

When you strike them with your blade, the Glamour and Shadow twist at the targets own, creating images and impressions of Wounding and Weakening. These would be easy to dispel... Were the blade not possessed of a not-insignificant amount of Wish that it uses to stamp these wounds into the reality of the targets Glamour and Shadow. Were it insufficient, the wounds might only exist for a moment, or might not occur at all. Wish is force and reality as much as it is desire and Wishing for things to be some way.

The Persona of the blade is that of A thing that Harms and Kills and thus, through this power its strikes attempt to impose the self-concept of being wounded upon the target, twisting its own Persona. The Wyrd of the blade is one that invites further bloodshed, and so while the wielder is also vulnerable to this aspect, the target is the one currently being struck and is suffering from greater effects than would otherwise be the case. The Wyrd does not actively contribute beyond this, but may (if phrased/structured in a specific way) "infect" the Wyrd of the subject.

All of this contributes to the final effect. The Chronicle of the target starts to contain having taken wounds. Recently in fact. If the blades own Chronicle were expansive, the Potency of that could contribute, but this is a new blade, and this is its first blood. The blades own Chronicle now remembers drinking this blood. A Sympathetic link forms, albeit one that is weak for now.

Note that these are all additive effects. Negative, for sure, but they are adding bad things to the aspects of the target. Nothing is being taken. This is important for the next part.

If you strike the target enough, the number of wounds may overwhelm them and they may die. This too is Additive. One that has died still persists! But their Chronicle now "ends" with their death, their Glamour and Shadow both express their deceased nature, their Persona now includes "Dead" in it, its a whole thing.

There are ways around this. Crafty Other-Folk will take on a Persona that includes I shall return to avenge myself, and restore myself to life within it. If their Persona is weak, then contradicting Personae will overpower the weaker ones. Sufficiently egotistical Other-Folk can thus simply ignore the effects imposed on them in some ways. Most instead have to work around such imposed restrictions. Haunting is popular.

Subtractively affecting something involves a process of separation. Sufficiently symbolically resonant actions fueled with enough Wish or by Potent enough other aspects can perhaps cut deeper, severing Sympathies and even twisting preexisting aspects in some way. Surgery of some kind is common, though the surgeon will start physically reaching deeper than the body should be (or else metaphorically cutting through into the actual aspects themselves). Poisons or medicines ingested in some way are another vector, since that can be seen as "taking it in" and that can be pushed further.

It is for these reasons that Other-Folk treat death more as an entertainment or inconvenience, though perhaps a very severe one if they are not particularly Potent. Killing is not a way to solve problems, and social norms are often very respected, seeing as the consequences of a misstep can last a very long time here.

Truly killing something of the Other-Lands may be impossible, but one can scatter and transform aspects. See baking berries into a pie to consume their Wishfulness. The go-to method of actual murder is a kind of metaphysical cannibalism, but thats only often seemingly permanent, and it does invite the consumed to attack from within, which can be an extreme problem. 

A rather fun example is that of Fashion. Other-Folk of all varieties are rather fond of fashion, as expectation, symbol and affect become far more important than the literal practical physical effect of an object. Everyone expects a Knight in Shining Armor to be crushed up and eaten by giants (barring exceptional specimens) but even a mighty Wyrm of the depths may be cowed by a truly outrageous fashion statement, possibly even blinded by the sheer Pizazz (woven from Shadow at the very least, and all aspects if one really wants to make an impact) radiating from the wearer.

Other-Folk in general are more separated by self-concept and mindset than by any actual separation. The term refers to human-like entities of the Other-Lands, and refers to such cultures as Fairies, Trolls, Djinni, Peri, Nymphs, Yaksha, and so on. Any mythological concept of "They are People but Strange" can fit.

If an Other-Fellow begins to identify more with another culture, or begins to form an identity independent of any culture, they will begin to change in accordance with their now nature.

The physics and metaphysics of the Other-Lands are built on story, myth, symbol and so on. So long as it remains consistent, anything may happen. Be it fitting enough, thee could catch the sun in a net (no guarantees its the same sun outside the Land you do it in however). But the Sun might just have some words for you, and the consequences of your actions could be very long-lasting indeed.

Of course, there is a fundamental limitation of inertia. The Wildness of things, the directed Wish and other aspects, their Potency all resist alteration both blatant and subtle. Hence the requirements of physical metaphors for the alterations to occur. As said above, something must be fitting, and must make sense but not real physical sense, story-sense.

 

"The Blue Cat", Pamela Coleman Smith, 1907

Phenomena

But of course, the Other-Lands are not some passive recipient of action. It is a realm of many entities, all acting with and against each other...

• Wyrdstorms: Narrative storms, fuzzy causal clouds that churn the Other-Lands with their passing. These include such things as the Wild Hunt (Which scoops up "hunters" and sets them the "hunted", everyone else), The Bacchanal (Which simply gathers as much as it can into some wild revelry, fracturing into smaller parties to replicate itself) and more.
• Reigning-Folk: Those folk potent enough they could tell a stone to move and it would do so, even if the stone was not really a thinking or feeling thing. Reigning-Folk are Kings, Magicians, Demigods, Priests, Noble-Djinni, and so on. Beings for whom a "fitting action" to change somethings aspects are simply "demanding it" or "willing it". Incredibly Potent and vast.
• Fisher-Kings: Reigning-Folk that have woven themselves so utterly into the fabric of a location that they now are functionally one and the same. The Fisher-King becomes akin to Leviathan, a literal embodiment of their kingdom, their kingdom an extension of their will. In this way, their moods, will and so on can and do shape the very lands directly to a much greater extent. Arthur Pendragon is Camelot, and Camelot is He.
•  Twinselves: Beings who weave their aspects so closely together that they become one "person", with two bodies and minds, or individuals that construct new Personae and other aspects until they can craft an entirely new body.
• Faction-Folk: At the most extreme level, the passive loyalty of a faction, its own Personae, Wyrd, and other aspects, creates a self-sustaining system. These then act almost as abstract "people", without imposing on the individual too much generally, since with broadness such as this comes difficulty with managing it. In this sense, the faction one belongs to is almost its own emergent "person". These "people" may then eventually become very literally people, as they birth true bodies for themselves. The Order of One is the only example known to be solely (or almost solely) composed of this singular personhood. Most others are much fuzzier, much less egomaniacal characters. Yes even the Corporations (mostly).
• Genius Loci: Intelligent locations with legends of their own. Living and thinking landscapes. They may manifest bodies, acting as Fisher-Kings, or may remain locations, or may switch as the need arises. Some are kind, some are predatory but all have some core character or motivation defined by Personae and Wyrd.
• Figments: Wish-deprived beings, occupying an abstract existence even more imaginary than the Other-Lands themselves. Manifesting as figures that emerge within ones musings and daydreams, they seek to consume Wish in order to gain a measure of reality to them. Difficult to bind, as their sheer lack of reality means they exist in a state almost akin to a superposition, existing only in a vague cloud of influential non-interaction, but this strength is balanced by the weakness of being easily dispelled or ignored. Not necessarily hostile or parasitic, some are willing to lend aid in exchange for Wish.
• Nightmares: Beings born of the fears and anxieties of mortals (and of the Other-Folk themselves). The outflow of fear-flavored Shadow pools in hidden places, and generate the aspects necessary to birth these beings. Nightmares can be Other-Folk, or Beasts, or Monstrosities of other varieties. Even Abstracts.
• Primordial Beasts: In the old days there were no stories beyond the simple narratives of hunter and hunted, seeking a nesting place, the kind of biographical narratives of life itself. But there was fear. And from these eldest fears, the most grand and ancient Nightmares were born, the Primordial Beasts. These beasts have evolved with time, fallen to each other and had inheritors be born. The modern ones embody apocalyptic fears and the horrendous alienation of modern society.
• Magic: The qualities and aspects of the Other-Lands generate behaviors consistent with magic. The metaphysics of the Other-Lands are certainly "magical" by some metrics, but more importantly the symbolism of magic holds weight. Witches, Wizards, Sorcerers and Magicians of all stripes 
• Paradigm Shifts: Sometimes a dramatic change in culture in the Waking-World emanates into the Other-Lands. When this occurs, entire lands can be reshaped in a short time. Sometimes, a paradigm itself is its own independent thing in the Other-Lands, that suddenly surges up and changes the lands. These can be temporary or permanent, and can form strata of deep history, Chronicles difficult to read or understand due to their complexity and vast scope...
• Abstracts: Things of the deep. Beyond the spaces more proximal to the waking world, there lie whole ecosystems divorced from the radiance the mortal world provides. The things that dwell therein lack standard forms and natures, being abstract collections of ideas and symbols divorced from context. Built off primal bases, they manifest strangely and incomprehensibly to most mortals. Things of this variety embody simple ideas and themes.

John Bauer, 1911

 

Playing this game?

Id go with FKR or otherwise very mechanics-lite, using descriptive terms to establish how Potent a given aspect is, how that Potency is shared among sub-aspects and so on. Nothing super mathematical. This is a game I may actually outright reject the notion of using dice in cases of ambiguity, instead relying on the participants willingness to either back down or take on some harm to achieve something. Dying is temporary, or invites a transformation of game-play (one may choose to act as a ghost instead, for example, or as a memory that acts and behaves as itself).

Its almost definitionally more of a story game, grounded more in story logic than real logic, but still grounded. Just remember the causal requirements for affecting aspects, and get an impression of the underlying logic.

(All images from the Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.)

Beyond Vancian Magic: Applied Arcana

 I was already planning to make a post about the "Arcana" of Kith and Kin, as a demonstration of how Arcana can be used to color the magic of a world and shape its structure. Then the blog carnival started and what do you know, its about non-vancian magic! Neat!

If you're unfamiliar with my "Arcana" design philosophy of magic, here's a whole post explaining it. In short, "Diegetic Magic" is a good enough summary.

Idk what I'm supposed to do to get this to count for the carnival. Guess I'll just post it where most of those are.

General warning for some stuff that is typical to magic. Animal (and human) sacrifice, mental effects (mostly under the "possession" section) and discussions of sympathetic and similar magical connections that can agitate some elements of psychosis and OCD. Take care of yourself.

Kinds of Arcana

For the purposes of Kith and Kin I am going to split Arcana into three major classifications. This is not how arcana in general, that is "across games", work. This also isn't strictly a recognized in-universe split.

Also in-universe these will probably be called something along the lines of "Wisdoms" or "Magical Secrets". "Arcana" feels too "modern" a term.

Regardless, its a useful way to approach them from a design standpoint.

Root Arcana are some basic facts about the world. Core assumptions that build the rest of the magic system in this case. They are like the "laws of physics" or the "fundamental forces" of magic, or possibly more like "Themes."

Branch Arcana are any arcana that result from the former. They are learned or developed individually, and suggest at at least one Root Arcanum. These are examples of actual magical activity.

Leaf Arcana are specific, distinct magical things, rather than broader skills or consequences like Branch Arcana. Listed examples are more akin to game spells, though some powers are listed in the examples.

A Note on Consistency and Fairness, I generally will require 3d6 rolls for magical actions, with the ranges of 3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12, 13-15, 16-17 and 18 corresponding to different levels of success. Context and skill with increase and decrease the number of d6s added, though only the top or bottom 3 will be counted. What is possible is thus a bit context-sensitive. Its more important that this system feels consistent and fair than it actually being those.

Root Arcana

There are five, listed and described in no particular order. Magical workings can be subtle or flashy. Subtler magic is easier and more common (and is more "real" in that it feels possibly coincidental or circumstantial) but flashier magic does exist.

Altered States: The cosmology of Kith and Kin is psycho-spiritual, and in order to tap into the intrinsic power held in the cosmos it is sometimes necessary to uproot oneself (even if temporarily) from some basic perceptions and assumptions. Thus, altered states of mind are (generally) necessary. These can naturally peel back the perceptions of the world to reveal the spiritual realms entwined with it, and that is one of the core benefits of these, but it is often necessary to dip into them in order to access truly flashy magic.

There are five rough levels of these for game purposes. Minimal (Minor, Tone-altering), Weak (Minor, Minuscule game effects, slight hallucinations), Powerful (moderate bonuses/maluses, flashes of other realms, can see spirits), Heroic (Entering other realms entirely) and Extreme (cutting straight to the heart of another realm).

The levels are a combination of Pariahs measurements, with the first two instead becoming three akin to this Altered States system.

Importantly, this means there is a certain level of subjectivity in the cosmology and metaphysics of Kith and Kin. Its not entirely "post-modern", but individual experiential phenomena are Important in a cosmological and metaphysical sense.

Spirits: Kith and Kin is animistic, but its also weird. Spirits have no true universals, other than that everything is technically a spirit (or multiple spirits) and that they are more beings of their own nature than anything else, obeying their own structure over any "physics." A spirit of the land can do "spirit of this land" things quite easily, especially within the space it occupies, but beyond that it might struggle. A free spirit on the other hand, may be capable of acting just about anywhere, but might be limited to some phenomena. Spirits (much like spiritual realms) are not limited in what they can be. They can be ghosts, elementals, animal souls, your own souls, dream characters, shadows, people from other realities, alien consciousnesses, animate concepts, stories that have taken on a life of their own, elements of personal subjective experiences and many more things.

Spirits can be called upon for magic (invoking them in a ritual), or targeted by it (as with summoning and binding). Generally they are limited by their nature and whatever cycles (if any) they follow. They are not omnipotent but they are potent. Magic users who mostly rely on spirits are something like paleolithic diplomat-priests, negotiating with spirits on behalf of their community (or just themself, as the case may be).

A detail that also applies to the next arcana, is spirits explain a sort of "inertia" the world(s) have. Subtler magic is easier because spirits (including ones own souls) resist changes from outside.

What they do can be subtle, flashy or anything in between. Depends on the character of the spirit really.

Souls: Your own spirits. At least five are widely recognized, those being the physical shell (body), the vital breath/blood/movement (life force), Free-Spirit (subtle body) and Waking-Spirit (the mind). These might have further subdivisions, or be classifiable, but as with other realms and spirits there is a certain subjectivity to this.

Your souls are part of you, so you have a certain level of assumed power over them. Your souls also generally explain any magical talents you might have. Prophetic visions, Ghost-Walking, natural tendency to slip into altered states/other realms... These can also often be described by naturally existing in a semi-altered-state at all times (or falling into them easily).

These can be a path to power. There might be a part of your soul that relates to simply "Magical power". It would be extremely weak at first if you have no talent for it (i.e. no Trait relating to it), and even then it wont be anywhere near extremely impressive. Twists to ones soul can also encode mystical powers, "spells" of a kind. These are less like "wizard spells" and more like "Things you can now do and train up in power."

These can also be affected by magic, of course. Most "curses" or "talents" are some twist or distortion to ones soul(s).

Esoteric And Exoteric Connections: Binding everything together are connections both obvious (Exoteric) and subtle (Esoteric). An Exoteric connection is simple. If A causes B then A and B are connected, much the same if B causes C. An obvious causal connection.

Similarly, physical contact is about the most obvious physical connection possible.

Esoteric connections consist of those less obvious connections via some subtle aspect of reality. Some basic examples are sympathetic (like affects like), correspondent (things look like what they are), contagious (once together always together), symbolic (the image is the thing, representation grants power), composition (the part can affect the whole) and so on.

These connections exist by default but can be protected against (often by using other connections). They weave into spirits and souls, thus summoning spirits requires objects, times, activities, locations and so on that are "linked" to them in some abstract way.

This is the principle that also allows you to call upon spirits to help with magic, and is why you cant just use any damn thing to do anything.

 

Sacrifice: The balancing principle. Put simply, "You get what you put in." This is the element that suggests the more time, blood, sweat, tears, lives and so on put into a work the stronger, broader, deeper and so on it will be. This doesn't mean you need sacrifice to do magic. A circle scratched in the earth with a prayer of protection (or a promise of protection) will hold some power, albeit only enough to protect against the most impotent spirits and/or animals. This is similar to altered states not strictly being "required", but helping a lot.

Some costs can be easier. Some souls beings have might have natural power or energy to expend, but this is not strictly default (except for some spirits perhaps).

This is less conservation of mass/energy and more conservation of "fairness". A "curse" or pain or a "trial" can be a cost. Sometimes the "Cost" is paid to some specific thing directly, such as a spirit, and sometimes it is simply fuel for the magic itself. This isn't thermodynamics we're talking about. Its magic.

Branch Arcana

Branch Arcana are constructed from the assumptions of the Root Arcana. There are infinitely many, but some examples in no particular order might be...

• Spiritual Sensitivity: Some individuals have a natural tendency to slip into altered states of mind, as a consequence of some spiritual sensitivity in their souls. This allows for ease of entering magical mindsets and seeing spirits. This will combine with other "talents".
• Soul Flight: Often when the natural altered state enters a "heroic" dose, it often allows for soul-flight rather than simply entering another realm, though that can still be a consequence.
• Divination: A skill. Using some mild spiritual sensitivity and possibly lower altered states to read subtle connections across space and time.
• Prophetic Visions: Altered states up to Heroic, with Heroic slipping fully into the vision. Can be drug-induced, or a consequence of spiritual sensitivity. Rely on subtle connections and altered states more severely.
  
• Bestial Communion: Subsisting off the entire body of an animal of moderate size (or a sufficient number of smaller, or portions of a larger that have the preserved ratios of tissue varieties) ritually, often in an altered state, one can take on the aspects of various beasts, birds and even crawling things like insects and worms.
• Therianthropy: Physical transformation into a beast or beast-hybrid. A curse, so "sticky" magic tied to the self and thus soul. Often done as punishment, but due to the dynamic nature of the soul it can twist and warp from a curse to simply a thing you can do. May be possession by an external spirit instead. 
• Summoning Spirits: Conjuring spirits requires reagents and actions, contexts really, related to the spirit. A bloody spirit of the moon for example might require the reflection of the moon and blood dissipating in water. Often an altered state of mind is required, to more properly tune oneself to alternate realms, and sacrifices to lure or draw their attention. Rarely, simply calling their name can be enough, if the relationship is deep enough.
• Realmwalking: The ability to bring ones physical body into spiritual realms is a rare capability indeed. One possibility is allowing some spirit to summon you, as you might summon them. This is rare, as few spirits want to summon something that combines impotence and capaciousness as well as a mortal does, and most mortals loathe to grant that kind of power over oneself, but it is done sometimes. Other methods involve altered states and similar kinds of magic to summoning. Im sure you can develop your own ideas at this point.
  
• Binding Spirits: Bindings require using some sorcerous method to restrict the available actions of a spirit. A basic example is a circle scratched in the dirt charged with some sacrifice, which restricts the movement of a spirit. The circle demarcates an interior and exterior and the sacrifice charges it with some power beyond simply time, effort and hope. Other forms of binding are possible.
• Living-Dead: Binding spirits to a corpse-vessel, granting the spirit control over the dead body. If bound properly, a loyal and possibly powerful servant can be gained. Weaker ones are easier to bind, obviously. Sometimes spirits will let themselves be bound to vessels to gain bodies.
• Possession: Often times spirits (and magic in general) cannot simply overwhelm the will and mind of a host, due to the spiritual inertia of ones own souls. The exceptions are particularly powerful spirits and magic, and contexts in which the will of the host is compromised, such as sleep or some altered states. Instead, warping emotions, sensations and memories are often required to shape the behavior of the host, but the host still has inertia and can often resist these.
• Hauntings: Possession often requires either extreme power or extreme subtlety, which most spirits cannot provide in the required amounts to actively impose themselves. Even the subtler manipulations require one to possess enough power to redirect the inertia of the hosts soul in some way. Thus, hauntings are often the preferred dominion of spirits and most will want to simply possess a dead or "vacant" body if possession is required. These cause effects to the host, but are more akin to things happening around them, such as poltergeist activity. Still, small changes to the host (such as bouts of pain, twitching or brief hallucinations) often occur.
  
• Curse-Dolls: A representation of someone, built from cloth and stick and charged with locks of hair, blood or even small bones taken from the target. If the link is extreme enough, it can act as a stand-in for the person themself. Subtle connections such as these are incredibly useful, and despite the name curse-dolls can be used in a way beneficial to the target.
• Magical Languages: Languages spoken not with the physical tongue, but with the subtle elements of ones soul. Often allow for communication with inhuman spirits (or folk who do not share a language) without an altered state. This consequentially allows one to communicate, and thus attempt to change their behavior. This is done very similarly to how one does with other people. Threats, bribes, offers and so on. Some examples are:
  
• Fur-Tongue: Mystic language of beasts with fur and fang.
  
• Scale-Tongue: Mystic language of the scaled creatures of the land. Includes landbound feathery things.
  
• Wing-Tongue: Mystic language of the things that fly and the winds they ride.
  
• Shell-Tongue: Mystic Language of things with hard exoskeletons.
  
• Water-Tongues: Mystic languages of the aquatic spirits and beasts that occupy them. Split into Rivertongue, Laketongue (Includes ponds), Seatongue (Includes near the surface of the oceans) and Oceantongue (primarily the vast lightless depths).
  
• Root-Whispers: The whispering language of the forests and all that compose them, including the fungal threads. If understood can be "heard" (smelled?) as a faint murmur if one head is close to the ground.
  
• Celestial-Thundering: Thundering language of celestial spirits, quite literally thunder. Dangerous to speak. Storms may provide some information, but are often just involving warcries.

 

 

Leaf Arcana

The provided examples are more akin to "spells" from other games. Think of them like dnd "cantrips" that can be trained to be stronger, more complex, and so on. They can also be enhanced by increasing whatever cost is built in to them. Other "Leaf Arcana" exist, but most of the ideas I had are more akin to these. Summoning and binding rituals for specific spirits would also be examples. The names are just for flavor. Most of these involve twists to ones souls allowing one to cast them naturally, but leaf arcana are not restricted to just "spells". Its just a name for any very specific magical thing one does.

• Fires of the Heavens: A gift given by (or stolen from) celestial spirits of the upper air. Heavenly fire is infused into the flesh. When called upon, one may unleash the pure power of lightning, and the thunderous after effects. The sorcerer is only mostly protected from the effects. The cost is that calling upon it may cause seizing, electrifying pain and burns, depending on the power.
• Dead Flesh Obeys Me: Casting off small parts of ones own souls to animate dead flesh with the mere motes of spiritual power one has birthed. Painful and exhausting, often involving sweating blood or layers of skin stripping away to fuel it. Crudely animates dead flesh for as long as one can withstand the pain and remain focused. More like disparate body parts clawing and flinging themselves around than anything sapient.
• My Own Breath, Commanded: Using ones own spirit to sieze control over ones breath, something which is already "under your power" and thus easier to control. Allows very mild control over the winds to begin with, honestly like a large number of people blowing fairly hard, but greater exhaustion and training can improve this. Requires one breath out if it blows away from you, and breathing in if it blows towards.
• My Pain Wounds You: Forcing a causal sympathetic connection to a target, and magically altering what actually carries between the two. Pain transformed into actual wounds. Can be made easier by suffering actual wounds in the casting.
• The Cold Touch of Death: Ritually allowing ones hand to become frostbitten, and binding deathly power to the dead flesh of the hand, magically preventing it from causing horrible infections and necrosis. The hands still functions as a hand, but is crude, numb and slow, unable to precisely move. Its touch carries the horrible chill of death and frost with it, to any who touch it, regardless of intent.
• My Dreams Laid Bare: Using ones power over their own dreams to project glamours of sensation, emotion and memory into the world. Flimsy and easy to "wake up from" at first. Effectively no cost, except for the focus required, but very very weak at first, requiring training to bring forth greater effects than prickles of sensation, bursts of intrusive emotion and subtle deja-vu.
  
• The Glory of Daylight: Minor celestial spirits of the daylight sky are bound to ones own souls, carrying a mere fragment of the suns brilliance. A bright aura of light springs forth from the sorcerer, carrying the mystical effects of daylight for a small area. Unfortunately, the temperature of the sorcerer will increase with each moment, faster the brighter the light. This will only stop and begin to reduce when it ends.
  

 

 

 Questions?

I welcome questions about this since they'll help me define this better and better, while keeping the magic system abstract enough to still "work" as magic rather than science.

Tellus (Dark Fantasy Setting)

 Been working on a heinously crunchy ruleset and also on automating the actually frustrating math components so that neither I (the GM) or players have to worry about things like "Square roots" and "calculating percentages".

Anyways the system is for a dark fantasy setting of sorts. Vaguely inspired by the Fear and Hunger games, sort of alternate-historical not!Earth setting with very 1:1 cultural stuff BUT still juuuust odd enough that nobody is quite like their historical groups.

Major Places

Note these names are generally the Evrosian common names for them. Some places dont have endonyms because they're fucking enormous or they have too many to list.

Also as a note, all of these places are intended to be as detailed as each other. I just, sadly, have limited time and sort of need to figure out if my typical way of making names for places is alright.

(Several of these are taken from either historical names for their real world equivalent, or then have their phonetics exchanged for sounds that are produced by similar shapes of the mouth. I think this is alright but I do want to run some of these by some folks)

• Evrosia: Europe-analog. Initial setting. Roughly a thousand years from the collapse of the Remulan Empire that conquered most of it. Most developed as this is initially from an Evrosian (Remulan) perspective.
  
• Iberia: A pinensula largely under the control of the Nightborn Confederation
  
• Gaullia: Western-continental Evrosian region. Heart of the Nightborn Confederation.
  
• Germania: Central continental Evrosian cultural region. Largely controlled by the Nightborn.
  
• Remula: Pinensula into the Centelluric sea. Seat of the Remulan empire.
  
• Borea: Northern continental Evrosia. Separated by a small sea. Home of the old Vykr (raider) that a few short centuries ago devastated large regions of Evrosia. Minimal nightborn political presence.
  
• Baltia: Isolated evrosian cultural center. Largely pastoralist and farming tribes. Small nightborn political presence.
  
• Albion: Island tightly controlled by the Nightborn. Cultural variation exists, despite this.
  
• Eirie: Archonites, Devotees of the Old Gods and so on. Never had Remulan occupation or significant nightborn presence.
  
• Panaustralis: Africa-analog. Fucking enormous. There's more nations here than people you've met, so the saying goes. Generalizations will fail in reference to anything here, but it has been identified as the birthplace of humanity far earlier than in the real world.
• Akssonia: Most well known nation in Panaustralis to the Evrosians. Rich, powerful, first major nation to adopt the Demiurgic Church as its principle religion. Ethiopia/Axum analog.
• Berla: A large western Panaustralic empire. Has truly tremendous wealth and political clout. Currently ruled by Musha-Marruk, "King Marruk", the single richest human being on the planet. Mali analog.
  
• Alharia: Asia-analog. Also enormous. Derives from an Aurishik term that basically means "The silk place", in reference to the vital trade routes (both on land and sea). Difficult to summarize, but includes analogs to most broad cultures you may be familiar with.
• Parradat: India-analog. Part of Alharia to an extent but exists on its own subcontinent. Parradati cultures are broad but semi-unified by a handful of historical and cultural factors. Local nations form a large council of mutual defense and support. Local governance varies.
  
• Aurishia: Broad cultural region analogous to the Muslim cultural regions. Alharian, Evrosian and Panaustralic regions are included in this. The "golden age" has led into an extended proto-industrial society. They have indoor plumbing in cities. Largely independant of each other, split into innumerable "Houses", quasi-royal families that are more akin to trade unions or local governments. Broadly have a somewhat static class system, but that still does vary.
  
• Mu: Australia analog. Mostly unknown to non Muric folk, due to the environment being extraordinarily hostile if you don't know what you're doing.
• Amphimu: Technically part of the Muric continent, but culturally distinct. A series of very large islands many kilometers off the eastern coasts of Mu. Notably explorers from here have reached Antipodus. They did not stay long.
  
• Lemuria: What if Madagascar was really big? Largely analogous to Madagascan cultures but with a bit more variation simply due to increased scale.
• Vesperland: North america analog. Endonyms for it exist but are different across various cultures. Coastal cities, advanced broad scale farming methods, and so on.
• Mekhaxi: Mexica-analog. Has all the expected ethical variation of a large empire, though are somewhat more justified in the eyes of their enemies by their opposition to the Setak.
  
• Meryin: Maya analog. Extremely old. Have had cycles of inhabiting and abandoning cities for a time, seemingly due to circumstantial means. Has colored the culture a bit.
• Setak: Xenophobic and inbred "Wodewose" and "Giant" folk of Vesperland. Not intrinsically evil or anything but... Culturally pretty shitty. A threat a lot of nations have been unifying against.
  
• Apiyata: South american analog. Name derives from a specific cultures term for their lands, but has been adopted broadly. Largely unknown to Evrosians, but consists of many cultures just as its northern cousins.
  
• Imtchi: Inca analog. A huge mountain based empire, politically and economically powerful. Very good surgery and horticulture. Birthplace of the "knot-writing", the Apiyatan and Vesperian analog to paper and its associated writing, which in this world has been adopted much more broadly due to coincidental factors.
• Nisia: Broad name for islander cultures that are only extremely distantly related to each other. "Oceana" for this world. Derives from a Graeic word for "Island". As expected, generally are highly advanced in sailing and fishing technologies.
• Euborea: The arctic circle. Largely mirrors its irl equivalent by being hostile to almost all life and home to people who are very good at making that seem untrue. No broad-scale urbanized societies or even nomadic ones, but that serves the folk there just fine.
  
• Antipodus: Antarctica analog. Bleak, barren and blighted. Dotted with ancient inhuman ruins. Not for humans.
• Onyx City: An enormous city carved from dark rock. Active. Possible human inhabitants.
  
• Thalassia: The sunken continent. Verdent and living. Has living cities and cultures. Not for humans.
•  Atalati: Largest settlement. Home to Thalassids. Consists of mostly aquatic areas, but with some air-exposed caves and buildings for metalworking.
  
• Laputa: The flying continent. Legendary. Unseen. All facts speculative. Not for humans. Only rumors. 

Peoples 

Affinity just refers to what things they double (or more). Almost always just doubling. 

• Humans: 99.99% of the population, with a few notable exceptions. This is a historical fantasy, until it isn't. Affinity for focus and stamina. Gain some extra exp too.
  
• Thalassids: Thalassia-folk. Deep ones. Breath air and water and have some resistance to toxins.
• Wodewose: Hairy, tailed, often horned and sometimes hooved wild-folk. Tough, and have more protected heads. Live in isolated communities in deep forests.
  
• Giants: Big people. Size and degree of affinity depends on how big/"pure" they are. Look like mildly to moderately deformed humans. Healthy. Vitality, Strength and HP affinity. Armor generally isn't made with them in mind.
  
• Morlocks: Underground people with ape-like and bat-like features. Blind but can navigate via smell and hearing. Thus immune to most blinding conditions but defeated by different things. Perception and Speed affinity.
• Eloi: Other underground people. Batlike features makes them seem elfish instead. Can see infrared (basically can use warm bodies as torches and see further with torches and lanterns). Affinity for Charisma and Agility.
• Cynocephalics: Dog folk. Not just the head despite the name. Claws, teeth, and affinity for a lot of things. Basically really fucking tough and hard hitting but have a lot of trouble interacting with society.

Probably more later.

Other Shit

• "Nightborn" are vampires. You can play them. They're not a race, they're more a thing that happens to people. Nightborn society is split into three estates with internal rankings. Nightborn, Duskborn and Dayborn.
• Dayborn: Humans. Serfs. Livestock.
• Duskborn: A kind of intentionally vague category. Supposed to refer to altered humans or partial humans, but technically means "Anyone a Nightborn has bestowed the title of duskborn."
• Nightborn: Vampires. Immortal rulers of nations large and small.
• Religiously they revere "Mother Night" or simply "Night" as a God. Not clear if this is an actual entity puttering around, but it works as a religion.
  
• Magic involves rituals and is mostly dealing with otherworldly entities. In some cases its commanding them. Other times its replicating their power and infusing into yourself or other stuff. It uses my Arcana philosophy with vibes that hopefully lie somewhere on the spectrum of Fear and Hunger, The Bartimaeus Sequence and the SCP foundation. Ive been watching the Owl House so that might rub off some too. Who can say?
  
• There might be more lost or undiscovered continents. Its a globe but... Maybe not just a globe.
• Counter-Earth (Counter-Tellus?) could be a thing.
• Archonites are "Christian" analogs that revere Ialdaboath, the ascended form of a (maybe) once-mortal. I haven't decided if this setting ties into my previous ideas of divinity or not.
• Aurishi is the Islam analog. The reason they're technologically advanced was I thought "what if the golden age didn't stop and kinda started to push into some later stuff that happened irl". Vibes wise its a bit different. A lot more "pneumatic" tech than the irl industrial revolution. Honestly this isn't that impossible. There's a world out there where something like this happened.
• They pulled a bit more religious inspiration from the "Henosis" concept in this reality than Islam did irl. Also not super unrealistic. Theres a lot of fans of neoplatonism among muslim philosophers.
  
• I didn't mention it but the Judaism analog exists. Yeshrim/Yeshrimi. They're a notable subpopulation in Evrosia, northern Panaustralis and Alharia and as diverse as expected.
• Apparently Yeshrim is close to the title of an actual text written by a Rabbi. Hopefully this doesn't become confusing.
  
• Traveller cultures in general exist in Evrosia and other places. They tend to avoid the Nightborn Confederation and similar places.
  
• My technique for making names is usually grabbing historical ones and/or taking real names and scramling their phonetics to get names that feel kinda similar. Sometimes it is just vibes based though. I try to avoid that because that way lies issues and poorly-thought-out names.
  
• All of this is subject to change lol.
  

A Magic System: Arcana (Secrets With Power)

I don't even know how you'd define this magic system. Its not quite freeform but its not quite limited either. Maybe "Diegetic Magic"? It definitely is a magic system that works with FKR games thats for sure.

The origins of this magic system lie in my enjoyment of the game "Noita" and its magic system. Its spells have properties that you can learn and exploit to ridiculous effect. The game is kinda about that.

However, while generic spells and modifiers work for Noita, Tabletop games require a bit more work. And so, after some time, this "Arcana" system was born.

The idea is to incentivize exploration and experimentation, and to make magic feel like something truly embedded in how the world works, rather than a game abstraction.

Making a potion can be easy, but it can also be like if chemistry really wanted to eat your soul. (Source)

Arcana

Arcana is anything that knowing about can grant some form of supernatural advantage. That isn't to say that knowledge of it is inherently powerful (conversely, thats not to say that knowledge of it isn't inherently powerful either), rather knowing about it opens up the capacity to interact with it or make use of it in some way.

Arcana can be anything, but as a list of examples they can be supernatural skills, languages, esoteric energies, otherworldly forces, groups of entities, anomalous mathematical principles, systems of logic, beliefs, states of consciousness, other realities, subtle aspects of this reality, gods, concepts, substances, processes, properties of otherwise natural things, psychological complexes, a series of specific actions, anomalies in how the world works, natural laws taken in bizarre directions and basically anything else you can imagine.

Arcana aren't spells. They're not rituals. They're not magic items. They're not (strictly) powers and they're definitely not a "class feature." They're meant to be the building blocks of these things, however (except for class features, maybe). Think about how during a ritual the magician calls upon various entities, draws magical circles, and more. Arcana are like these things rather than the ritual itself.

Whats important is that Arcana have properties and that these properties can potentially interact under the right circumstances. This doesn't mean you need to have a huge list of how different arcana interact, just that there needs to be at least consistency. If one arcana is an altered state that involves extreme self-awareness, and another is a psychic parasite, these can probably be used together in some fashion (perhaps as a way to control the parasite? It depends on how the two work exactly).

There's no hard categories of Arcana. Some are more broadly applicable, some are more useful in specific contexts, some are quite dangerous, some are relatively benign. The point is they can be theoretically anything that has supernatural properties that can be learned and made use of.

Some actual examples of Arcana might be

• A species of psychic parasite, existing on a "Psychic" or perhaps "astral" layer of reality. They have specific things they feed on, byproducts, favorable environments and behaviors, all of which might be useful in some contexts.
• The Astral Plane (And Astral Projection in general) and how it interacts with the world. Things probably can't physically step into the astral plane, it probably requires specific mental states.
  
• An "otherworldly sense" that doesn't correspond to any of the major or minor senses known by science, but might be interpreted as "feeling" at a distance. It can probably be honed and trained to provide more information, and training synesthesia into it might have some interesting effects.
• Clearly unnatural mathematics.
• Any of these things really.
• A set of beliefs that, when reinforced through ritual repetition of important aspects of the beliefs, can be treated as true by participants and temporarily enforced via certain methods.
• Languages that let you speak to things that normally cannot understand or act.
• A method of lucid dreaming that allows one to escape the confines of their dream and access others. Perhaps it can let you access a collective experience shaped by all dreamers, or perhaps things stranger even than this.

This could continue forever, but you get the idea. A true list would have more details and useful information, though some Arcana might be deceptively simple in their presentation.

Ideally as well this allows for competing or otherwise paradoxical magic systems to exist without rendering a setting completely incoherent. Entire perpendicular or parallel cosmologies could exist, separated only by the relative ignorance of those who have yet to discover a way the relevant Arcana bridge the gap.

Generally speaking the user of an Arcana should not know everything about it, and if a new one is discovered they should know just about nothing about it. The idea is to incentivize experimentation and discovery, after all.

 

God damn it I forgot to account for microcosmic-macrocosmic correspondence. (Source)

Applying Arcana

By this system, "Magic" isn't just one thing. Its not a single "energy" or "force" but rather the application of (typically multiple) Arcana to achieve an effect.

Lets run through a few examples of how this might go.

Taevalis, a practitioner of the Arts, prepares a silver pentacle engraved with specific sigils. They then place the pentacle in the center of a ritual chamber and begin to chant prayers and exaltation to the great one Vo-te-na-shu, a deific consciousness native to a realm of pure mind and logic (of which it itself is the primary component, akin to "space-time" for our own reality). Taevalis expertly enters an altered state of consciousness that allows their mind to cross the boundaries of realities, allowing the great one to use their mind as a channel of influence to our reality.

The sigils on the pentacle serve to communicate to the channeled aspect of Vo-te-na-shu that it is to reinforce the pentacle with its own psychic might, allowing it to serve as a protective object for the duration of the ritual. This works because Taevalis knows that the great one can understand the meaning of the sigils by way of its access to Taevalis' own mind and that Vo-te-na-shu is a perpetually curious being, which Taevalis is exploiting to orchestrate its willing participation in the ritual.

Taevalis then shifts their mental state slightly, and directs a degree of channeled entropic energy against the boundaries between their reality and one they have been studying for some time. The pentacle, due to geometric properties, the double-meaning of several of the sigils engraved on it and how silver interacts with the forces of the accessed reality, serves as a magnetic "net" for a being composed of illusion, flame and roaring sound from this reality. The ritual is successful, though there is a moment of uncertainty as the being strains against its bindings. Taevalis concludes the ritual by "imprinting" Vo-te-na-shu's power into the pentacle, exploiting how psychometry works to allow an "echo" of the power to remain without constantly channeling the great one.

At the conclusion of the ritual, Taevalis has successfully bound an otherworldly being to the object. Now they just have to figure out how to get it to do what they want, when they want it.

In the above example, the Arcana involved are Vo-te-na-shu, the state of consciousness that allows Taevalis to access other realties, the entropic energies utilized to break down the barriers between other realities (this might count as two, the entropic energies themselves and the barriers themselves), the other reality with its various inhabitants and the properties of Psychometric imprints left on objects.

The pentacle itself is a mundane tool. Its only by how this mundane tool interacts with the distinctly not-mundane elements that it gains its mystical importance. Without any of the Arcana involved, it would be a pretty trinket perhaps, but little more than that.

Modern doctor strange stuff has some cool (weird) stuff in it. Can't remember the exact issue this is from.

A second example, set somewhere (and when) very different.

Thalia and Zoe are two magicians who have been wanting to cooperate on a project for some time, but utilize very different sets of Arcana to accomplish things. However they have discovered a way to work together to further both of their knowledge of Arcana.

Thalia knows a specific method of lucid dreaming that allows her to wander metaphorical realms, and even into other realities via their more dream-aligned aspects, such as by entering the dreams of its inhabitants. Unfortunately she's not particularly capable of determining how dangerous it might be to access a given realm.

Zoe has a variety of psychic powers, developed through specific practices and disciplines geared towards developing such things. Most important to their goals are Telepathic and Extrasensory capabilities.

Thalia falls asleep while Zoe remains awake, using Telepathy to scan for when Thalia begins lucid dreaming. When she does so, Zoe telepathically weaves herself into the dream, effectively linking their minds and falling asleep as she does so, while remaining lucid.

Together they explore a variety of metaphorical landscapes over the night, using Zoes extrasensory abilities to determine if they should steer clear of a given location, experience, realm, mental construct and so forth. This is aided by Zoes moderate specialization into specifically "danger sense" ESP.

When they awake they quickly write down what they remember that they consider worthy of further investigation and experimentation. These include realms, locations, mindstates, entities, experiences and far more abstract things.

In this example, there's only two main arcana that are being used. The lucid dreaming method, and the psychic powers, but together they allow the two magicians to accomplish far more than they could individually.

 

Not every magical working is capable of succeeding, however. Which the next examples should demonstrate.

Nathan has downloaded a number of PDFs that, unfortunately for him, do contain genuine occult and Arcane information. He wants to perform a ritual to summon one of the Eye-Theives of Ovolomithia, a relatively small faction of otherworldly humanoids composed of layers upon layers of leathery tissue. They are known for stealing eyes, but also giving strange other eyes if they feel generous.

Unfortunately, Nathan has no knowledge of the Arcana that the writer of the PDF assumes the reader is familiar with, and is unable to truly perform the more abstract mental exercises involved in the ritual as a result, as well as having no ability to truly gather or shape the necessary energies involved. Nathan attempts to perform the ritual, and gets only a fascinatingly bizarre experience with psychoactive substances as a result.

The exact ritual isn't important in this context, just that the lack of understanding of the Arcana involved means that the ritual is, mystically speaking, not really doing anything. Granted such rituals might have a more mundane but profound effect on the participants, and there's always the vague chance that despite lacking knowledge one might accidentally tap into something real, but these are very distant possibilities. Akin to a one-in-billion chance.

However, knowledge of Arcana but an incomplete understanding of them can be far, far more disastrous than simply a ritual not working. Lets revisit Nathan at a later date...

Nathan now has a more genuine understanding of the Arcana involved in mystical practices, though he's not really done much to experiment with their limitations and interactions yet. This is unfortunate as he attempts to perform a ritual granting him passage through the All-Hallways, a bizarre realm consisting of hallways, backrooms, linked rooms and various other building interiors, all seemingly growing off of each other. The realm technically can lead anywhere, and this is an enticing possibility to Nathan.

The All-Halls is, unfortunately, fairly easy to access. Nathan prepares a closet door appropriately, by engraving the statement "To All Places" or its equivalent in several dozen languages, setting a resin that has been ritually prepared with energies associated with movement, otherworldly passage, space and time, and exploits an associative property of these energies to easily open a doorway to the All-Halls. Nathan has underestimated the All-Hallways, however, and does not realize just how confusing and disorienting of a realm it is.

Nathan enters the now-open passage to the realm and attempts to find his way to a door that leads into a hotel, somewhere, but the shifting halls and rooms over the next half-hour unsettle him. He attempts to find his way back to his entrance, but the pathways have closed off. Panicking, he tries to find a doorway that might lead somewhere familiar and accidentally falls down a flight of stairs, spraining his ankle.

He decides to leave through the closest doorway he can find, and emerges from an closet in an abandoned home, on the other side of the city he calls home. Thankfully, the All-Halls have some small measure of co-spatiality with reality, meaning that you're not likely to find yourself across the planet or in completely alien worlds with just a short stroll through it. Nathan, thankfully, did not encounter any other visitors of the All-Hallways, nor any of the deeper anomalies of the place.

In the above example, Nathan clearly understands the useful mechanisms of the various energies he treats the resin with, and demonstrates a creative use of their properties and associations between the phrase he engraved and the result he desired and how to exploit that to achieve it, but he did not have sufficient knowledge of the All-Hallways to usefully exploit them as a travel medium. He didn't know how to use what he got.

This is still an optimistic failure. If Nathan were to learn magical ways of finding directions to a goal, or found some way to influence or predict the nature of the shifting paths in the All-Halls, he could very easily render them into a useful medium.

Of course, not every failure is this much of a teaching moment. Some simply reach too far too soon, and find themselves at the mercy of forces they wished they understood better.

Some Arcana interact in clearly detrimental ways. If two classes of spirits hate each other, would you really want to invoke them in the same ritual? Probably only if you have some way to keep them from knowing about each other. What about mutually destructive energies? Forces which prohibit certain effects? Entities which you overestimated your capacity to bind and command?

Next post should be a list of more in-depth Arcana, and some more examples! Everyone loves examples, right?