1203036
I'm guessing that this where the other two schools come in and support the ones they are the closest to.

1203061
An Avatar, or perhaps one of the very powerful magic users that have somehow ensured immortality. To achieve perfect balance is nearly impossible, and the last one to do it ended up taking the mantle of Dusk.

1203062
Yes. An alliance of all four is a terrifying sight to behold, and any House worth their salt has at least one of each profession in their service.

1203090
So what kind of magic can we expect from each school?

1203116
Well, let's start with the very traditional, the Mage.

Magecraft is the most paradoxical of the Disciplines. Its most prominent school, that of the Battle Mage, is technically the shortest, but for true mastery one must devote their entire life to proper study. The student in question, the apprentice, will be apprenticed to a Mage for a period of four years in order to learn the basics of Magecraft. To do so requires a rigorous course of study, with late nights and early mornings. To accommodate the physical demands placed upon the body by Battle Magic, physical labor and exercise is required. The Mage teaching the student will often push them to their limits and beyond, forcing them to abandon any sense of normalcy in favor of adaptability. Not only this, the apprentice must contend with as many as three additional apprentices for the attention and favor of their master.

While their days are filled with chores and exercise, the nights of an apprentice Battle Mage are filled with study, including experiments, practice, essays, and more. As they progress in their training, the apprentice will find opportunities to work more closely with the master, assisting them with simple spells after they can prove their competence. More and more trust will be placed on the apprentice at this time, and soon they will be allowed to perform small spells without the supervision of their teacher.

Each Mage sets a different passing test for their pupil, based on their abilities and the standards set for them by their teacher. With practitioners of Battle Magic, this is often boiled down to some sort of demonstration in front of their fellow apprentices and teachers, as well as several other Mages and their pupils. It can range from a demonstration of an unusual and powerful spell to the slaying of some monster, and in some cases the pupil will not be allowed membership into the hallowed ranks of the Mages until they can defeat their master in a duel of skill and magic.

Once graduated, the young Mage will often enter the service of some noble House or another, in order to gain employment and experience. Once established, they will oftentimes leave the service of their employer in favor of opening their own shop, joining the Collegia Arcana, or adventuring and questing for new and unusual magics. Though they technically still answer to the Archmage of whichever region they are in, most wandering Mages are afforded an enormous degree of freedom and autonomy. Battle Mages can often find work with expeditions into more dangerous regions, as officers in the Mage Corps of most armies, and as freelance workers who are paid by the job.

Eventually, the experienced Mage seeking to better themselves will agree to take on duties in a town of their own, studying some aspect of their craft while working with the populace and potentially taking on an apprentice. This cycle of perpetuation ensures that Magecraft of all varieties is spread among the percentage of the population able to use magic, creating a strong and skilled class of magic users.

I'm sorry I'm late, I was constantly refreshing the comments tab of the group and completely forgetting the forums tab.

1203155
Quite alright. Have you caught up with the class?

1203163
I scanned through it all. So magic is broken into two scales of alignment. Breaking/Binding Thought/Emotion, and every magic user falls somewhere on each scale.

1203175
Correct. The longer you study magic, the more powerful you become, and we find that most tend to either vanish from the scale entirely or gravitate towards the center. Heading towards the center can leave some...interesting...effects.

1203185
Can you explain what these effects are, sir?

1203031
Yes, though it's less of a test and more of an interview and demonstration of general knowledge. Most first-year students stress over it, but it's not a major milestone. We only sort you, we don't judge you.

1203185 Where do you lie?

1203185
What do you mean by "vanish"?

1203203
Well, for one thing we know that there has not been a case of achieved immortality where the user did not know much of the four classes, or learn them shortly afterward. Many great heroes who used magic often specialized in two or more fields of study. The more magic you practice, the longer your life seems to stretch.

1203217
Myself? I'm technically a Paladin, with a focus on spiritual repression. But I found a real love for teaching a while back, and I'm certainly not getting any younger, so...

1203233
So Princess Celestia is immortal because she is specialized in Binding magic?

1203228
Well, it is theorized that if one spends enough time exploring the infinite possibilities offered by any one field, they will discover some new sort of magic that simply does not fall along the scale. For example, some mages have been able to begin walking between planes of existence, which defies classification along a Logical axis, but certainly doesn't fall into any of the other fields of Magic.

1203252
Ah, now we touch on the difference between achieved immortality and true immortality. Only three beings in all of existence have been born immortal. Guess which three?

1203272
The three Princesses: Celestia, Luna, and Cadance.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHH

*Crashes through classroom door*

Sorry i'm late sir!

Will revise all material sir!

1203281
*is so startled that notes are dropped onto floor*

1203290
Notes! Crap, I need paper.

1203290

AH!

Sorry! Sorry!

*grabs shyguys notes*

*drops them*

*scrambles for them*

*hands them back*

1203281
Calm down, you made it to class, didn't you? Any questions on what's been covered so far?

1203306
Uh.. thanks?

1203309

Just one, on the "the further magic goes from binding the more chaotic it becomes".

How can we define magic as "Order" and "Chaos"?

1203293
Transcripts are available at the end of class. Don't worry, we're being recorded for academic purposes.

1203265
So even if this new spell comes out of a specialized study in say only magecraft, the spell will be unable to be classified then as magecraft? Wouldn't that then say that the disciplines aren't that different, that given enough time it might be possible for a Mage to cast magic like a paladin with perhaps no previous study of that discipline?

1203331
Think of it as traveling so far away from the axis that you no longer register on the graph. It isn't nearly as common as you might think, though. The abilities of the four Avatars serve as the benchmark for the edge of the graph, and to pass them is something that happens once in a dozen lifetimes.

1203337
What is the population of Equestria? One in twelve ponies being able to preform such feats might get rather... chaotic.

1203327
An excellent question! If you examined the diagram we were viewing earlier, you will notice that pure Breaking Magic leans a fair distance away from the rest of the Avatars. This is because the line does not stop at Luna, in fact, she is the edge between what we know as Breaking magic, and the magic of a Chaotic nature.

1203345
Well, the Evening Revolution took quite a toll on the spellcaster population, though with the Lady Everstar's patronage, the arcane is flourishing once more. At last count, there were approximately four spellcasters per ten thousand unicorns that controlled that sort of power.

1203346
So Luna would be where the line and the circle intersects. Discord would probably be at the end of that line.

1203346
Is this anomaly solely on the breaking magic line or does it continue in much the same way on the other lines as well?

1203363
Yes. Chaotic magic is not well-understood, nor is it easy to find a teacher for it. Theoretically, there could be a cadre of spellcasters wielding the "opposite" of the Orderly magics, but Chaos by nature is difficult to control.

1203367
So the simple act of casting a chaotic spell would weaken it significantly?

1203346

If magic must be essentially controlled by it's castor then where does the chaos come from?

If it is the will of the caster for magic to be chaotic how would that work?

1203364
We know for sure that the Binding line ends with Celestia, she being the paragon of Order and its mistress. As for the Temperance Line, each of the Avatars refuses to say what lies beyond their demesne.

1203373
Or strengthen it to the point where it would blow your head off.

1203374
As I have said before, Chaos magic is not well understood. I suspect the only one with answers to that question would be Discord himself.

You've explained what magecraft is like, what can we expect from the other schools?

1203397
Which would you like to hear about first?

1203379
And I don't suppose he wouldn't be willing to walk right in here and talk to us about that.

1203400

Mentalists

1203408
Likely not.

1203411
The Discipline of Mentalism is infamous for the actions its members perform, and indeed Mentalism is widely regarded to be the Discipline most closely tied to "dark" magic. It is a reputation rightly earned, for the Mental magics are able to do grave and direct harm to the unwary, including the casters of such spells. Many unsavory Schools of magic exist in the Discipline, among them the arts of emotional unbalancing, possession, and mental domination, or thrall-making.

But we shall set these aside for now, and focus on one of the more beneficial aspects of Mentalism, that of mental manipulation. Colloquially known as "Readers", the practitioners of mental manipulation focus on mind reading, persuasion spells, and in particular the influencing of thought processes. The beneficial aspects of this may not be readily apparent, but practitioners can often find extremely good work cross-examining witnesses to crimes, detecting deceit, and most notably helping those with mental illnesses correct themselves as therapists.

Students are referred to as "adepts", and the teacher usually takes on the title of "master", although "teacher" or "guider" are also popular names in reference. The adept is selected at a very young age, often while still in their formative years. The problem with possessing a talent for mental magic is that is closely tied to emotion, and young children tend to be very emotional. Therefore, it comes as a relief to most parents when their child is taken for training, loath though they are to admit it. The adept spends much of their first year of training in the care of their teacher, who does their best to keep the student calm via mental manipulation while explaining the importance of controlling one's feelings in order to achieve goals. Very little can be learned about this art, as most of the talent is innate. However, control of the ability and more importantly the moral training required to use it are instilled into the adept.

The training focuses heavily on maintaining emotional balance and impassivity, playing down both positive and negative emotions in order to retain the impassivity needed to push the thoughts and emotions of others in an appropriate direction. Techniques include isolation from others, recognizing the signs of stress and negative emotion, and meditation. The latter is most prominent in the techniques used to maintain neutrality.

The schooling time varies, but it would appear to take approximately six years to master one's magic and emotions to the point where the adept can function normally in society. Still, most new Mentalists choose to live away from others, in seclusion and away from large crowds until they are more confident in their abilities.

1203419

Do you know the numbers of practicing mentalists?

1203441
You'd have to ask the Registry kept by Lady Everstar, and have a very good reason to do so. In the Evening Kingdom, I would approximate about a hundred and fifty total, though they are a very secretive lot.

1203419 What about paladins?

1203470
Paladins specialize in the use of offensive Binding magic, laying seals and protective circles to ward off dangerous creatures and magic.Though it goes by several names, the act of laying Bindings and Barriers on harmful magic is commonly referred to as Sealing, and adept practitioners are referred to as Binders. After the unsealing of the spirit of Chaos, the populace has encountered an increase in harmful spells and dangerous creatures. Dark magic is now easier to access, and as such more unscrupulous practitioners are able to conjure dark spirits and use harmful magic to manipulate and cause injury to others. Several orders of Binders have been formed to combat these users, and as such enjoy a life of public appreciation and are often knighted, if they do not receive noble titles.

The Binder can expect to spend several years of training in rote memorization of all the possible hazards they may encounter, from monsters to magic to curses and beyond. These students are often referred to as "academs", and spend much of their time in isolation from the world and indeed the rest of their order. After they have achieved academic proficiency in the field, they are welcomed into the ranks of the Binder Elects, to be instructed on the virtues of humility, honesty, and chivalry. They are taught to fight, how to survive on their own, and how to recognize the signs of dark magic before they are inducted into the order.

After this, they are partnered with a more experienced Binder until such a time as they are deemed experienced enough to strike out on their own. The period of time can vary, and is entirely dependent on the discretion of the senior partner. A generally accepted time is a period of one year, although it is difficult to pinpoint where, exactly, the level of desired maturity is. The entire process, from beginning to end, takes approximately ten years.

Candidates are selected at childhood, at the age when their magic begins to come in. Their morality, steadfastness, and courage are examined, and both the parents and the child are asked if they are willing to join the relevant order. Warnings are made about the level of commitment required for the task, and the candidate is informed that it is not for the faint of heart. Should they fail in their training, no ill will is harbored towards them, and indeed they are considered to have done an honorable duty regardless of their lack of success.