Every established form of magic in Roo is bound to one of six metaphysical principles: Truth, Lie, Dream, Silence, Ambiguity and the Unknown. The names are human. The forces themselves may be far older than the people who try to describe them.
What makes a magic user powerful?
Power is not measured by one quality alone. Three capacities matter together.
Discipline
The ability to control oneself, hold an action steady and shape magic without losing command of it.
Spirit
Life-force, endurance and inner strength: the capacity to carry the strain of a magical act.
Conviction
The strength of belief behind the act. Weak conviction can limit even a disciplined and powerful user.
A person strong in one or two of these capacities but weak in another is limited to lesser acts. Someone exceptionally strong in all three can attempt far greater feats.
The six forms
Truth Magic
Truth magic works only with something that is already true or already exists. It can strengthen, weaken or alter an existing condition, but it needs a real foundation to work from.
A flame must already burn before it can be urged brighter. A wound must already be healing before that healing can be strengthened. A weakness must already exist before it can be made worse.
Truth does not invent. It takes hold of what is already there.
The Vanir gods were remembered as exceptionally powerful users of Truth magic.
Lie Magic
Lie magic allows something untrue — or something reality would normally refuse — to function as if it were true.
It can transform, prolong and sustain what should not continue. But every lie must be held together by extraordinary conviction. The larger the lie, the harder it is to maintain.
A man who should be dead may continue living — if the lie can still be believed.
Powerful lies are unstable. They can collapse when successfully challenged, and over long periods they may weaken as even the caster's own belief begins to fail. Lie magic is broad, potent and corrupting.
Dream Magic
Dream magic is associated with visions, seers and perception beyond ordinary time. It can reveal glimpses of the past or future and can be anchored through bones or other objects.
What is seen is not necessarily complete, literal or understood correctly. Dream may reveal more than ordinary sight — but not always more than the viewer can comprehend.
Dream shows what ordinary eyes cannot.
The Vanir gods were also remembered as exceptionally powerful users of Dream magic.
Silence Magic
Silence magic is the magic of concealment, shadows, stealth and suppression. It is suited to spies, assassins and anyone who needs to move, act or remain present without being perceived.
Its purpose is not spectacle. It is absence — the suppression of attention, sound, presence or notice.
Some magic changes what is seen. Silence concerns what is not.
Ambiguity Magic
Ambiguity magic arises when conviction, meaning or intent is uncertain rather than absolute. The magic can still function, but the result may differ from what the user intended.
This makes Ambiguity strange, unstable and difficult to predict. Woodlings are associated with this form of magic.
Truth requires certainty. Ambiguity lives where certainty fails.
Unknown Magic
The Unknown is associated with the Aesir. Unlike the other forms, it has no known inherent limit.
Where other magic works through principles that humans can at least name, the Unknown can alter the underlying nature of something: changing it, removing it or transforming reality at its foundation.
The Aesir could wield it to extraordinary effect, but not to see the future in the way Dream magic can.
The other forms have names. The Unknown is named for the point where understanding ends.
What ordinary people know
Most people in Roo do not walk through life classifying strange events into six neat forms. Priests, witches, seers and scholars may use different language, and religious belief does not automatically reveal objective truth about magic.
For many Rooans, magic remains half folklore, half warning. Most will live and die without knowingly witnessing a powerful magical act at all.
The names are human. The forces may not be. Roo's people have inherited fragments of belief, practice and memory from a world they no longer fully understand.