Circles of magic · 12:43am Apr 10th, 2017
1) Regio Naturae.
2) Regio Magicae.
3/4) Regio Occultae.
4/3) Regio Arcanae.
5/6) Regio Imperium.
6/5) Regio Dominio.
7) Regio Orbis.
1) Regio Naturae
First circle of magic for any mage. Encompasses spells and other activities that take advantage of preexisting relationships and properties inherent naturally, merely nudging them into most favorable positions for a mage. This circle includes such things as herbology, potions and animal affinities, among others things. All spells belonging to this circle are either of minor effect or highly circumstantial. It IS, however, possible for a mage to stack up a sequence of spells, each nudging things just a little further for an overall grand effect, such as causing an avalanche or inducing rain. The "stacks" of spells (which could possibly include the use of potions and other natural resources at opportune times) are traditionally referred to as rituals. Practitioners of exclusively first circle are referred to as witches, soothsayers, hedgewizards and hags, depending on area of habitation and interest. Due to self-taught mages often falling victims to were, all of those terms carry significant negativity.
a) Cantrip - a minor spell with immediate effect, such as a firemaking spell or water cleaning spell. Barring the most simple ones (that are usually detective in nature) require some kind of resource to be used alongside with spell (for example, dry twigs or cotton with firemaking spell or a bit of clean sand with water purifying spell). Hedgewizard`s specification.
b) Potion - a combination of naturally occurring ingredients that are prepared together in such a way as to produce an effect not available from a pure natural ingredient. The exact nature of potion can be both intermediate and final. Intermediate potions are intended as "stepping stones" for more complex ones or ritual use, while final potions are prepared for direct use, usually by imbibing or using as a topical salve, but sometimes merely by pouring them out into the area of desired effect. Usual area of expertise for a witch.
c) Animal affinity - a mean of gaining positive traits of animal by a totemic use and imitative behavior. Taps into collective unconscious of that specific breed of animals and can induce the same mindset in the magic user. Excessive use causes "were" - a degenerative condition where animal mindset partially or fully superseded the original one, resulting in progressive body adaptation to meet that of an expected animal. Reversible, but as all mental disorders, hard and long to deal with. Hags specialize in animal affinities.
d) Ritual - a combination of cantrips, affinities and/or potions intended to trigger a cascade of events towards production of effect greater then could be achieved with singular cantrip or potion. Rituals are the turf of soothsayer, who is thus by necessity a jack of all trades.
2) Regio Magicae
Second circle (aptly named "Circle of Magic") is the one mages tend to use the most. Unlike the first circle, which can be learned by just about anyone with enough patience and diligence, second circle of magic requires the mage to possess a modicum of personal power (sometimes referred to as "mana").
However, this is not a rigidly biological necessity. Mages without their own reserve of personal power can still learn the second circle and even higher, provided they supplement themselves with a "third party" reserve. Common options for those are gaining significant affinity with inherently magical animal (like cocatrice or wyvern), mutually beneficial possession (when possessing ghost serves as a reservoir of mana for the mage, in return for mage`s services), rituals of homesteading (a controversial practice among soothsayers to link themselves directly into the magical field of a locale they call home) or ownership of mana wells (artifacts enchanted for specific purpose of serving as mana reservoir). Each of those methods has their own drawbacks, such as high likelihood of succumbing to were, risk of becoming a ghost and vacating your mortal shackles for your not so honest ghostly tenant, being flatly unable to do any magic (or in some cases, even leave) the homesteading and possessing only a limited pool of personal power and being dependent on the goodwill of more magically gifted peers to replenish it.
Second circle is all about projecting your personal power into the world in all the possible ways. The first things a mage learns in second circle are telekinesis and cantrip replacements. As redundant as it sounds, second circle contains whole bevy of spells intended to perform exactly the same function as corresponding cantrip, substituting the requisite material with caster`s personal power. Obviously more tiring then cantrips, those spells are the bread and butter of every training sequence in second circle. Once the prospective mage grasps those, the option of inducing less natural effects is introduced. Commonly learned are physical effect spells (heating, cooling, vibrating, flowing, magnetizing), shields (basic shields being simply a variant of telekinesis) and counters to natural effects (Spells that prevent rotting, repel water or insects or trigger the natural events in unnatural circumstances, such as forcing flowers to bloom in the middle of winter.)
Second circle also considers basic transmutation. In this case, basic means changing pure substances into pure substances, like air into water, sand into salt and such. It`s important to note that at this stage, transmuter is not capable of handling the impurities, and they simply remain where they are. Therefore, if a caster makes an attempt to transform smoke into water, the end result will be water tainted with ash, and so on.
Circle of magic also considers the basics of enchantment - i.e. the use of specific spells and inscriptions to imbue an object with a bit of enchanter`s personal power. The enchantment at this level does not alter the enchanted object on some fundamental level - merely attaches a magical effect to it.
Practitioners focusing on this level are referred to as adepts, enchanters and wizards.
a) Low magic. This school considers the use of telekinesis and other primitive projections. While it`s generally considered a field any mage should know, it is studied in depth by adepts. The practical implementations of such mastery are manifold, most important and respectable out of them being chirurgy (use of telekinesis to perform surgery). Other popular occupations of adepts are martial arts (Overly romanticized school of magic, practitioners of which are commonly the most reclusive and secretive of all mages due to unceasing requests to cast "Magic Missile" or "Fireball", neither of which is actually something martial adepts commonly use or study.) and physical illusions (Creation of mirages using heat and air movement, commonly supplemented by colored dust and smoke.)
b) Enchanting. There are three primary kinds of enchantment - permanent, rechargeable and disposable. Disposable enchantments are typically cast upon an object that serves both as a container and a fuel for the effect - common options are parchment, elixirs and gems. If triggered, this enchantment will cast the spell imbued in it and burn up, evaporate or shatter, releasing the energy necessary for the spell to function. Each container has their own pros and cons, gems being most efficient for high-powered singular spells, elixirs being best for medically-oriented enchantments and parchments being the only medium that can reliably enact a number of spells in one go. Rechargeable items are typically weapons or tools containing a gem or a selection of gems as a mana battery and a moderately powerful enchantment that can be triggered by user. Permanent enchantments are typically low-powered spells that can sustain themselves indefinitely by leeching ambient power from the environs. Common examples include decorative paraphernalia (permanently scented pendants and such), utilitarian (for example solar lantern, stores sunlight and releases it on command) and detective/defensive (A charm that allows the user to determine of the water is drinkable.)
While there are examples of permanently enchanted items with high power, their creation is either enabled via magic of higher circles (see alchemy later) or they`re powered directly from user, which makes them fairly useless to anyone without pool of personal power (A common teaching example is self-whetting enchantment that keeps the knife permanently sharp. While supposedly this should make the user of such knife tire less due to less effort needed to cut, the strain of constantly maintaining the enchantment leaves the user exhausted hours earlier then if they used unenchanted knife.)
c) Transmutation. While the masters of transmutation are ostensibly referred to as wizards, this skill is one of the few with negligible amount of direct practical implementations. Rather, basic transmutation is a stepping stone towards more advanced kinds of magic, such as complex transmutation and alchemy.
3/4) Regio Occultae
There exists a curious dichotomy in the next four circles. Depending on if the mage in question is more inclined towards control or towards power, the circles might change their order. Usually, control comes easier then power, so Regio Occultae, or the Circle of Unseen is often considered third, while Regio Arcanae, or the Circle of Mystery is commonly fourth. For a mage with prodigious reserves of personal power (or some of the martial adepts who trained their reserves vigorously), these two are swapped - they grasp the powers of Regio Arcanae far easier then the intricacies of Regio Occultae.
Regio Occultae is all about influencing world in unseen and imperceptible ways. Mental illusions, telepathy, scrying, necromancy and demonology all fall under the precipices of Regio Occultae. The primary focus of this circle is interactions with other minds, one on one and other methods of information gathering. Practically all spells in this circle are practically effortless in terms of personal power and can be maintained for as long as caster`s concentration lasts. The disadvantage is that the more complex the influence is, the less attention caster has for reacting to the world outside of their mind. It`s not uncommon for a practitioner to fall into trance during a particularly intensive spell.
Regio Occultae can be roughly split into two directions. Mental interaction, which covers implanting thoughts and perceptions into foreign mind or pulling the feelings and memories out of it and translation between minds, that concerns itself with establishing a medium over which minds of drastically different natures could possibly converse. Practitioners of this circle are typically referred to as illusionists, mentalists and summoners.
a) Mentalism. Both illusionists and mentalists practice this art. Illusionist`s primary concern, however, is perceptions and how to spoof them most efficiently. Mentalist, on other hand, specializes in opposite direction - seeing through the eyes of others, listening in to someone`s thoughts, tweaking one`s thought process as to alter their normal reaction to events. The more overt the influence, the less of a chance mentalist has to exert it successfully - even the dullest mind reacts to inconsistency, and the greater it is, the more likely it is to cause alarm to the subject under spell. Passively spying on someone, however, is nigh imperceptible without learning specific mentalist techniques intended for detection and curtailing of such intrusions. Other tricks mentalist may employ might revolve around provoking basic reactions in sentients, such as desire to sleep, eat or procreate. It goes without saying that inciting somepony with an insatiable desire for particularly last is usually ill received in society.
b) Summoning. The name is a bit of a misnomer, actually. The primary focus of summoner is establishment of meaningful contact between oneself and the target. A dialogue, if you will. The exact application can range from other sentient beings (charm spells), animals (animal whisperers are rare ponies with innate talent in this particular branch of magic), dead (Necromancy, contrary to popular belief, has nothing to do with raising the undead. It`s all about conversing with those already departed.) or denizens of Tartarus (Demonology has the dubious honor of being the only branch of summoning that actually does any summoning with any degree of frequency. While it`s not unheard of for a necromancer to summon a soul to answer questions either, common practice is to come to the place where the body formerly inhabited by soul was interred.)
4/3) Regio Arcanae
Circle of Mystery is the fourth circle of magic in common comprehension, though for some mages, it might swap places with third circle as far as grasping them goes. This circle encompasses all manner of direct unnatural effects. This includes manifestation of energies, advanced transmutation and spatial distortions.
Circle of Mystery is perhaps the first circle of magic that ponies think of when they are discussing battle magic. Indeed, many of the spells in this circle are well suited for destruction. Many of the physical effects learned in second circle are reiterated here, orders of magnitude more powerful. Where adept can make a breeze, an evoker can let loose a gale. Precisely launched pebble is replaced with a hurled boulder. So on and so on. Simply by pouring more power into the spell, the effect can be magnified well beyond the proportion.
Advanced transmutation deals with changing things on macro scale. Apples to oranges, really. This is also the stage where mages start to consider limited alterations to their own bodies in order to achieve some task that is otherwise inconvenient, burdensome or outright impossible. (Most well known spell of this kind is the spell that gives subject of spellwork temporary wings.)
Finally, spatial distortions are wholly new area of magic that is not touched upon in the lower circles due to minimal personal power requirements. This school deals with bending the space according to mage`s will. Common examples are teleportation, creation of portals and spatial expansion. The practitioners are referred to as evoker, alchemist, wizard, and enchanter. Last two are same as practitioners of second circle, due to the fact that transmutation, regardless of complexity, is concidered a singular field, and aside from teleportation, all spatial distortion is done by enchanting the object or area that is about to be distorted. If a distinction is necessary, a word "grand" is added to the title to underscore the mastery of Regio Arcanae (grand wizard and grand enchanter respectively).
a) Evocation deals with direct application of personal power. It can be correspondingly magnified physical effects (heating, cooling, vibration, etc) just like second circle, or it can take more direct forms such as a mana projection (A forceful emission of mana that "rattles" the target`s magical system and cognitive process, causing their spells and magical abilities to go off as they are, wild discharges and triggering of abilities and acute confusion. It can be shielded with by blocking it with same spell. Surprisingly unpopular against mages of first circle due to unexpected synergy with animal affinity - a hag hit by mana projection will likely lose control of their affinity and temporarily enter pseudowere condition, in which the animal affined to will take over the hag. As it so happens, animal will immediately attack whoever seems to be biggest threat, usually the caster.) Evoker can achieve results commonly not encountered in natural conditions, such as igniting the stone or freezing the water instantly.
b) Advanced transmutation handles complex subjects, up to and including living beings. Unfortunately, the power requirements of such transmutation are making it unattractive as a production method. For example, mage transmuting rocks into cakes will never be able to produce enough cake to match the expenditure of their personal energy. In short, to transmute one cake, you need to eat two first.
c) Alchemy. An advanced study of substance interaction. While it does hail back to potions of the first circle, alchemy primarily concerns itself with enchanted and transmuted substances. If potions are all about combining ingredients with known properties to achieve a desired effect, then alchemy is more about crafting ingredients with specific properties and then combining them to achieve effects impossible to procure in natural way. While the same pit trap of energy cost hinders direct use of alchemy in production, there is a lot of use for catalytic alchemy in industry. (Creation of certain tools and substances that are not expended during production, while facilitating it. For example, alchemically treated sieves that can segregate various kind of impurities from water. Normally, purifying spell will just put everything that is not water aside as a mucky mix, but with alchemical sieves, it becomes possible to split that muck into silt, sand, stone, ores and gold. And while the output of gold from processing a bucket of water would be unseen by the eye, an output of gold from processing water for a city the size of Manehattan is quite tangible.)
d) Spatial distortion. Primarily, the domain of grand enchanters. The most common use of spatial distortion is creation of bags and rooms that are bigger on the inside then their outer dimensions suggest. Those possibilities find much use in both daily life and industry. The process of enchanting on it`s own requires a significant input of personal power, but once the enchanting is done (properly, that is). the distortion becomes stable and self-supports from then on. Portals are also possible, but much less popular due to inability to make them self-sustainable. As such, a portal can be open only a limited amount of time. Finally, teleportation is the last and probably most coveted of personal powers, In order to teleport, a mage bends space in higher dimensions, making the position mage is at and the position mage wants to move to intersect in visible dimensions. After that, it`s just a matter of "stepping over" in higher dimension and letting go of the bend. The longer the distance, the more power is necessary to bend the space like that (law of the lever is still quite applicable).
e) Incantation. Sometimes, in order to achieve more power-hungry spells, a number of mages will collaborate on an incantation - a synchronized casting of a spell or a bevy of spells, structured in a way to maximize the power efficiency. As the timing is crucial in an incantation, one of the most common solutions was to set the incantation to musical score. Still, learning any incantation is a hard job, and troupes of mages proficient in one or several incantations with desirable practical implementation are collectively referred to as coven.
4/3 Addendum) Dweomer. A mage sufficiently skilled both in Regio Occultae and Regio Arcanae can create dweomers - magical constructs. (Though it`s not uncommon to use alchemically created or even perfectly mundane materials to supplement construction. Wood, paper, metal, bone, gems, crystals, leather, meat - anything goes, the limitations are only the mage`s imagination and morals.) Dweomers are not sentient in direct sense of the word, but they can be imbued with a large amount of commands and parameters (program your magical robot, really). Singularly proficient mages capable of creating dweomers on their own are very rare, the usual method of creating dweomer is an incantation cast between grand wizards, alchemists and mentalists. Due to extreme effort necessary to create dweomer, they`re fairly rare and are created only for the tasks that are otherwise impossible or extremely hazardous to perform for a pony.
5/6) Regio Imperium
Fifth circle of magic, or Circle of Control shares the same amusing dichotomy with the sixth circle as the third and fourth do. Mages with more power then common sense commonly achieve Regio Dominio before they can master anything from Regio Imperium. For them, the order of those two is swapped.
Circle of Control is one of the least understood circles of magic, and deals with handling of information and concepts on a large scale. The exact disciplines are impossible to pinpoint - each spell is constructed on the fly, tailored for a specific purpose and conditions and never reiterated. Obviously, with such nebulous area of magic, no meaningful segregation by direction is possible. However, there are several specific titles corresponding to consistent achievements in this circle. The practitioners, if they are ever known, are typically referred to as oracles, prophets and pornomancers.
a) Divination. The purported art of oracles, which goal is large scale information collection. Combining elements of scrying, telepathy and dweomers, divination allows to accurately predict the upcoming events based on magical analysis of observed trends, flows and event sequences. Due to inability to distribute the load upon several mages via incantation, divination is very sparsely populated school of magic and every confirmed oracle is a person of interest within the state.
b) Prophets. The concept of prophecy is greatly misunderstood. The common interpretation is that prophecy is something that fate ordained and that will come to happen, come tartarus or high water. Nothing could be farther from truth. Prophecy is a spell. A highly advanced spell with mass effect that imposes mage`s intent on how events should proceed upon the immediate surroundings, primarily the other sentient beings. As such, prophets are both greatly feared and greatly secretive. One can not seek apprenticeship with prophet, all of them are self-taught, and only the extreme duress or misfortune will ever prompt prophet to allow themselves to be known as such. Purportedly, prophets can amend the conceptual understanding of something, changing the way people see the idea in question. This includes the ability to amend or change one`s cutie mark under limited circumstances.
c) Pornomancy. Rare, peculiar and finicky school of Regio Imperio that focuses on sexuality and responses to such. The urge to procreate is one of the three primal drives of any living beings - food, safety, progeny. Regio Occultae does have some spells dealing with sexual drive, but pornomancy takes it to the whole other level, literally influencing the love life of an entire kingdom, if desired. A hallmark of practicing pornomancer is an aura of presence - if a practitioner takes residence somewhere, you can expect amorous shenanigans and gaggles of foals at every step around their residence. Princess Cadence is Equestria`s topmost and currently only available pornomancer.
6/5) Regio Dominio
Sixth circle of magic (or fifth, as repeatedly stated before) is aptly referred to as Circle of Domination. This circle considers the overt magic in global scale and outright defiance of natural laws. The only title acceded to this circle is archmage, and the numbers of them are few. Few as in on historical scale few.
Aside from the grand scale physical effects, such as moving whole mountains, this circle is primarily concerned with the study of conjuration - an ability to transform mage`s personal power into matter. The demands of such skill are off the charts, as a rule of thumb conjuration can be attempted only by conclaves (large gathering of mages, essentially coven that trades precision and coordination between members for numbers and corresponding increase in power) or beings with immense power reserves (like alicorns, elder dragons, liches). The whole reason why conjuration is even studied as something more then academic curiosity is the fact that conjuration can allow creation of substances that are not available in nature entirely, such as transuranic metals.
a) Conclave. Historically, conclave is the gathering of unicorn nobility. Nowadays, it`s more of a gathering of mages, period. The difference between conclave and coven is that conclave is much larger. Several hundreds of mages is a normal attendance for conclave, while covens rarely exceed membership of twenty. The sharp increase in power comes with corresponding decrease in precision. Conclave can exert enough force to telekinetically drag a celestial body or amass enough energy to transmute into rare elements, but weaving more then one spell at a time is generally considered exceedingly difficult. The most complex conclave casting included three interconnected spells - the purification of Eerie Lake from salt contamination. The spells included were telekinetic shield moving through the lake as a sieve, a filtering spell and another telekinesis that moved clean water over the advancing shield, allowing muck to be pushed along clear of purified water.
b) Terraformation. Although not commonly done, terraformation is application of transmutation on grand scale, transforming the whole environs at once. Due to severe impact of such act and no less severe toll it takes on the mage attempting it, terraformation is currently seen as art best left for alicorns.
6/5 Addendum) Golem. An extremely advanced form of dweomer. Golem is always given a physical form and the spells imbuing it with motion and reason are self-updating. In essence, unlike static dweomers, golem is capable of educating oneself and developing abilities and competencies that were not intended by creators. Sometimes, golems can even learn skills that their creators haven`t. Creation of golem is a regulated process, as golems are recognized as sentient beings under Equestrian law. As such, creation of any golem has to be approved by princesses and closely monitored. This imposes severe limitations on whole process, and as a result, any existing golems are rarity on par with alicorns themselves.
Princess Luna is seemingly the highest authority on the matter of golem creations and also an unwitting creator of dream-based one (tantabus) recently.
7) Regio Orbis
Aptly named the Circle of the World, seventh circle of magic considers the highest peaks of magical implementation. As such, it concerns itself with transcending the worldly limits. There are no records of mortal ponies ever attempting magic of the seventh circle directly. An enchantment of the seventh circle level had been attempted, however, most of the attempts attributed to Starswirl the Bearded. (Who, by all accounts is an accomplished archmage with firm grasp of Regio Dominio, but somewhat lacking in Regio Imperium. Starswirl, presumably, was one of the mages for whom the reversed order of circles was in place.) Reportedly, Starswirl had created a stable portal to alternate dimension, somehow using the power of lunar cycle to power itself for a few days each revolution.
Other then dimensional travel and time travel, Regio Orbis considers the questions of creating stellar bodies. Princess Celestia remains quiet on the matter of question, but one of the popular theories is that she have had conjured the current sun (twice over, if the calculations are precise), as at the mass that is still manageable on par with moon telekinetically, the lifetime of sun should not exceed about four hundred years.
Huh. This is pretty interesting.
One minor point: "pornomancy" might be better written as "eromancy". "Porno" comes from the Greek word for "whore/prostitute". "Eros" on the other hand was the Greek god of sexual love and desires, which sounds closer to what you were describing.
I can see a new 8th circle being developed and studied during the new reign of HSH Princess Twilight Sparkle: Regio Amicitia, the circle of friendship.
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Actually, no. Insufficient.
This. Represents one billionth fraction (at best) of the facepalm you`ve just caused. I hope you`re proud of yourself.
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I`ve used pornomancer specifically for the same reason why I used witch, hag and soothsayer earlier. Those are traditional monikers that were coined back in times where magic was viewed with considerably more distrust and hostility.
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Now, about the facepalming matter... Ohgogwhy. Why would you say something so corny and stupid?
OK. Right.
Friendship, as it is, is not magical at all. It`s relationships between the people. Now, as for what we`ve seen in show?
Friendship as a direct magical effect is a high-level coven spell belonging, tentatively, either to Regio Imperius (when used against Nightmare Moon) or Regio Dominio (when repetrifying Discord). In either case, friendship is, primarily, a mean of enabling coven casting, a feat that would otherwise require flawless choreography and years of practice for each singular spell.
Back to the subject matter. Please don`t do that again. My face is not indestructible, a few more blunders like this and I just might end up caving my skull in. Which is not something I want.
I was thinking something along the lines of the recent "discovery" and classification of the mesentery organ in the human body: it has always been there (Leonardo da Vinci described it), but it was not until recently understood to be one contiguous organ with a specific function.
*shrug*
Just an idle thought that popped into my head hearing my brothers talk about their medical work.
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Reexamination of something already known does not mean that it automatically becomes the topmost importance, potency or nomenclature.
Understand me correctly - I`m not objecting to the idea that yes, Twilight Sparkle might add something new to the study of magic by studying friendship. Science is never complete, after all.
What I object to (strenuously, I must add) is the ridiculously annoying "OMG, friendship is an ubercircle of magic". It`s not. We`ve seen plenty of examples in the show itself that demonstrate that friendship on itself is not a solve-all deus ex machina.
So please. Treat friendship for what it is. A relationship between people. Not ubermagic, not a thing in itself, but an integral part of being sentient.