His name was Isaac Newton.
He was the one credited with taking the little tricks that went with magic as it was known then and working out operating theories behind such things, and to come up with the six Grand Arts that defined magical knowledge. His work was built on thereafter, but it was his beginnings that caused the Arts to begin being studied seriously.
Summoning spells sometimes brought beings from outside into reality on a more permanent basis than was normal, as well as the occasional enchantment having repercussions on the genetic level. There were also those creatures which had been born of experiment or mis-cast spell and which bred true. There were even a few which had been bred deliberately before the UN Council's "Berlin Accord" forbade such things.
So there were elves and dwarves, rock trolls and ogres, goblins and furred folk, pixies and gremlins, golems and galatea, and various other nonhumans who tended to be found in various human societies. Some of whom practiced one form of an Art or another.
Humans though were the most common of the practitioners of the Six Arts, as well as the group with the most powerful individuals in the Six Grand Arts.
Alchemy - the transmutation of substances, which utilized the Law Of Equal Exchange. Alchemy could do many things, but it had many limitations as well. Mass couldn't be altered significantly, and transmutation circles had to be drawn - though there were rumors of those who could ignore one or the other.
Summoning - the Art of contacting beings from beyond the mortal plane. There were those who specialized in divine spirits, nature spirits, and infernal spirits. There were those who contacted others from beyond the grave, or who used shamanistic magic to call on specific spirits. There were even those whose specialization was in one of the Nine Guardian Beasts.
Invokation - the Summoner summoned beings, usually briefly but not always. Invokers summoned elements forth. The name itself came from calling on specific beings as intermediaries, now mainly done away with as it had been proven not necessary. Elementalists were the most common, tuned to a specific type of energy such as light or element such as water. All invoked manifestations had a time duration - they lasted a few seconds to hours at most. While some laypeople confused Invokation and Summoning, specialists in either were quick to point out they had little in common when practicing their respective Art. Summoners required long involved rituals usually, whereas Invokers specialized in quick flashy moves. Next most common was the Sorcerer who summoned energies of a wide variety of effects but usually traded control and precision for versatility.
Divination was the Art involving knowledge. The most common form was dowsing, but there were specialists in truth-detection, finding objects, and in esoteric lore. The most limited of the Grand Arts, because the diviner often received only very vague answers or could only interpret those answers in the most general of terms. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which stated that the very act of viewing the future altered it - was commonly accepted. It was easier to divine past events or see that which was in the present.
Enchanters took existing things and altered them, but instead of Alchemy's changing one thing into something else - an Enchanter took what was there and used magic to enhance it and bind magic within. Enchanters were the mages who put magic into the hands of non-mages, but the process of making a permanent enchantment was long and exacting and not easily accomplished.
Alteration of substances from one form to another, summoning allies and spirits, channelling elemental forces and energies, seeking knowledge that otherwise might be hidden, and binding forces to objects. Of course there was another Art, the Sixth Art, which was:
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(Posted Thu, 31 Mar 2005 09:59)
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