The various forms of magic and magical workings are grouped into disciplines. Each requires training and experience, and not every magic-user can learn every discipline. Individual affinity matters. Even the most gifted Sídhe cannot do everything.
A character's permitted magical abilities must be documented in the approved character bio and remain subject to Aereth's permission-based rules.
Blood Magic
Blood carries the essence of the Ley within those who possess Elder Race blood. Drawing upon that essence is ancient, powerful, and dangerous.
Lightborn Use
- Own blood only—never another person's blood.
- Only a small amount, normally a few drops, used to enhance a working already underway.
- Intent must be defensive or protective.
- The working remains physically costly.
- Repeated use creates accumulating spiritual wear and may lead toward Grayborn.
Dark Use
Using another person's blood coercively is among the darkest forms of Blood Magic. Power increases with sacrifice, which makes the practice seductive, and repeated use progressively draws the practitioner toward Shadow.
The Threefold Rule will collect its price.
Healing
Sídhe magical healing supports the body's ability to heal; it does not replace the body or the practice of medicine. An Airemidd is a trained medical practitioner as well as a magic-user. Traditional medicine, surgery, nursing, herbalism, and practical care remain essential.
Not every healer has the same specialty. Healers may focus on people, Ddraig, animals, flora, surgery, disease, or other areas of medicine. Some physicians trained at Sídhe institutions are not magic-users at all.
Limits of Healing
- Mortal wounds remain mortal even when an accomplished healer is present.
- Severed limbs cannot be regrown.
- Destroyed organs cannot simply be recreated, and there are no magical heart transplants.
- Disease may sometimes be slowed or the body's recovery supported while medicine does its work; advanced illness may remain incurable.
- Survival does not mean complete restoration. Scars, weakness, disability, chronic pain, and reduced function may remain.
- Healing requires concentration and drains the healer. The closer a patient is to death, the greater the cost.
- No healer can restore someone after the Golden Thread has ended and the spirit has Crossed Beyond the Veil.
Wight Removal
Specialized Sídhe healers may learn to remove Wights from living hosts. A Wight settles along the upper spinal column and establishes connections into the host's nervous system. The longer it remains, the more dangerous removal becomes.
A specially prepared derivative of Merasha may be introduced directly into the Wight's main body to weaken its tendrils and encourage them to withdraw. This makes extraction possible; it does not itself heal the host.
Removing a Wight does not erase damage already caused. A patient may suffer permanent neurological, physical, or psychological injury, and in severe cases may not survive the removal.
Necromancy
Necromancy wears two faces: an ancient sacred practice and the feared modern corruption of that tradition.
The Sacred Face
The oldest Necromancy is a rite of remembrance and release. It was practiced by ancient Sídhe and Drakeri elders to guide spirits gently toward the threshold, honor the dead, and, on rare occasions, commune with those who had Crossed. The sacred tradition survives today almost entirely among the Sisters of the Veil and a very few old traditions.
Communion with the Departed
In extraordinary circumstances, a Sister may serve as a medium between the living and a spirit that has already Crossed. The Sister does not summon the dead back or compel them to answer. The spirit remains Beyond the Veil.
The departed retain their personalities, memories, limitations, prejudices, humor, and imperfections. They may answer clearly, vaguely, symbolically, in riddles, or not at all. They are not omniscient, and communion is never a magical information service.
The Sister opens the way. The dead decide what they say.
The Feared Modern Face
Modern Necromancy is the binding of the dead against their rest: raising corpses to serve, tethering spirits against their will, or drawing power from death itself. Intent matters, but binding the dead against their will invokes the Threefold Law.
The Three, the Veilkeeper, and the Ferryman
The Three tend the Golden Threads. The Veilkeeper parts the Veil when a spirit is permitted to Cross. The same eternal Ferryman is known by different names among different peoples: Arawn among the Sídhe, Daireth among the Drakeri, and Caerwyn among the Sisters and the Cerosian tradition. The Common Tongue simply calls this being the Ferryman.