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[Ancient History]

Sorcery
When you cast a spell, what you're doing is forming a temporary astral construct, channelling the astral energy from the ambient mana surrounding you through your body. The difficulty in forming the construct depends on any number of factors, including where the magician is and where the construct is to form (i.e. the target of the spell).

If any condition exists which makes it more difficult to channel or manipulate mana (a background count, magical barriers, mental exhuastion, etc) at either location, then the difficulty of the spell increases.

Note that this does not require a "stream of mana" towards the target! The temporary astral construct, or "spell engine," is a fourth dimensional construct. The casting magician must access the astral plane (channel mana through their body) in order to form the construct (a three-dimensional shadow of the fourth-dimensional spell engine exists, of course, but without access to astral energy it is no more than a complicated thought-shape.) It is unknown how magicians ground astral energy through their bodies in order to do this (one theory is that the elusive Magus Factor is an astral shadow within the magician's genetic code, allowing astral energy to cross in much the same manner as metagenes are activated, but giving the subject awareness of the energy, which can then be learned to be applied).

Consider Ritual Sorcery. Because the magician(s) cannot sense the target directly, they must create or possess a link to the target. When the ritual is complete, the spell engine manifests at the target's location, but /does not pass through the intervening space between the caster(s) and the ragets/. Rather, the spell engine executes at the spot, as well as it can given whatever barriers or conditions exist which impeded the ability of the casters to manipulate mana.

The spell engine is a very flexible and complicated object, which can be modified each time it is used by the caster. This is, in part, why spell forumlae for the same spells at different levels of compelxity do not aid the magician in learning the spell: a more complex spell engine can be easily simplified, but a more complicated spell engine may be of an entirely different shape than the one famiar to the magician! It is good in this case that the magician can modify spell engines to accept more mana for increased effect.

The pivotal abilities of the sorceror are the skill of consciously manipulating astral energy, and the innate gift to channel such energy through their own bodies to realize such a skill. The body of skills and techniques known as Sorcery are, in fact, mental devices to better facilitate the impression of the magician's Will on the psycho-sensitive mana around him.

Consider the metamagical technique of Centering. The Centering skill of the magician, be it a mantra or ritual action, focuses the concentration of the magician, allowing astral energy to be manipulated with greater ease (this even allows the magician to manipulate the energy as it channels through their body, thus lessening the physical and mental fatigue associated with channelling such energy).

Essence, Aura, and Drain
A complicated subject, the aura is a function of the Law of Similarity and the fourth-dimensional nature of astral space. Metagenes manifest because they are three-dimensional shadows of specific fourth-dimensional objects. When the ambient mana level rises to allow these objects to exist, mana grounds itself through these astral shadows, activating the metagenes. In a similiar fashion, all beings possess genes which, while astral shadows, do not do anything unusual in the presence of magical energy. The fourth-dimensional component of these astral shadows, however, form the basis of the aura. As the aura is a component of any being in which consists (and interacts with) psychosenstive mana, the aura becomes, by the Law of Similarity, a mirror of the being in the physical world, reflecting the emotions of the being. Changes in the physical being are reflected on the astral, as the Law of Similarity reflects the difference of the subject from the "Aural Template" supplied by the fourth-dimensional aspects of the genetic code. Because a magician presumably grounds ambient mana through the aura and into the physical body in order to manipulate astral forms and energies, and dissociation of the aura can impede this ability.

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