Editing Autia (section)

==='''Regional Magic Practises'''===

Magic in the South is a bit different from Nantic magic, generally being considered "arcanic thaumaturgy" in the academic classifiation of the Nantic mages (mostly because from their viewpoint this form of magic sort of use the Aether as if it was a god).

The key difference is that southern mages coax out the Aether into creating magical effects directly instead of forcibly manipulating its energy, a major advantage is more inherent power and needing a lot less of intellectual effort making spells unrealistically complex for Nandic magic possible but there are many cons like a much stepper learning curbe for fine control, a high level of unpredictability and a complete lack of metamagic like nandic aether manipulation because the Aerther can't manipulate itself.

Practice of southern magic is conceptual and ritual, generally involving a symbolic sacrifice to make the Aether itself "figure out" something appropriate, getting the Aether to really do what you want is the hard part and even the most talented southern mages often need to improvise with what they get.

Main southern schools of magic :

Alchemy : The main school in the Wizard Coast, the elaborate alchemical processes are actually just a complex way to ritually define what kinds of effects should a potion be granted by the Aether, the potions can be used for many things like healing, reinforcing materials or even doing some menial work without a workforce.
Possibly the most reliable school but slow and time-intensive.
Also surprisingly useless for magitech, to the disappointment of many Nantic mages.

Life Magic : Used everywhere but accidentally perfected in Sneed and main school of the Taur Tribes, is it the organic equivalent of Material Alteration (there is some overlap but most of biology is too complex to be used in Nandic magic)
Includes shapeshifting, self-enhancement and body modification (can become hereditary changes if done by great masters), modified plants able to grow biological substitutes of most materials,etc...
More or less potentially able to do anything wholly physical and not overtly supernatural but Life Magic like life itself is fuzzy, unpredictable and hard to constrain.
Most of its greatest and worst feats are accidental, side-effects are a constant and the greatest life masters are merely talented with getting what they want with side-effects that they can live with or find uses for.
Things created or altered by Life Magic tend to mutate over time (often developing a resistance against hostile life magic), even after a long period of apparent stability and are likely to find a way to self-replicate.
Creating living servants is very useful but they have a nasty habit of growing smarter, both resistant to and talented at Life Magic over time, although the effect seems both weaker and more benign if they are not kept in captivity and to a lesser extent just treated well.

Oath Magic : The main school in the Kingdom of Luver and the basis of their social order.
Can create "magical contracts" manifesting as very strong mental compulsions to fulfill and not break them, very powerful contracts can bind the descendants of the signatories.
There isn't really an upper bound to what this magic can do but is it limited to pure psychological effects, doesn't enhance the willpower of those affected in anyway (someone bound to be a soldier will fight but may still be paralyzed by fear), fall short of true mind control, can't be used on the unwilling (although pressuring someone is possible) and all parties involved must be bound to fair duties and obligations towards each others (you can't bind someone to become your slave, but you can enter a somewhat idealized lord-vassal relationship with them).
Also VERY vulnerable to creative interpretation of the contract and those with the dominant role in the relationship are still as bound as their subjects.
Outside of Luver, this school of magic is generally used for roughly egalitarian short to mid-terms literal oaths and contracts, very rarely life-long superior and subordinate relationships.
Has an unexplained side-effect of weakening the immune system of those actively using it and eventually cause a magic-resistant form of lymphoma with overuse.

Spirit Magic: A simple form of magic allowing the users to make the Aether create subservient short-lived pseudo-spirits.
They are weak but can do a bit of everything, more experienced users can create more powerful specialized spirits and above all the school is easy to learn and incredibly cheap to practice, making it very popular with savage southern people such as the Taur Tribes and the Theocracy of Alana but also as a "lesser magic" for the poorer folks among the developed southern nations.
Is it not uncommon for both groups to forget that these "spirits" are artificial and to confuse this school with a form of actual spirit summoning.
Spirit Magic being associated with both lack of civilization and poverty means that it has quite a bit of unexplored potential.

Divination & Dream Magic : All southern people (even the Taur Tribes) have some individuals either able to have some insight in the most likely future a the time (very limited outside of a few true oracles and never true prediction of "fate") or to manipulate in some ways the dreams of others.
Both have a lot of variation (some divinators just have a very good intuition, others can enter a trance state where they can see glimpses of the future,ect...some dream magicians can manipulate dreams while awake but a lot need to sleep too) and they never really improve once their talent manifests itself.
Most Nandic scholars think that these two forms of magic interact with the Aether but otherwise are mostly biological quirks.

Dark Aether Channeling : The rarest main southern school of magic, only practiced by secretive and hated mages.
The only way for southern mages to get something similar to Nantic Aether Manipulation is to channel a strange form of Aether in your own body, the most basic use of Dark Aether is in the form of destructive miasmas but the true power of the school is to corrupt magic, others and even the user himself.
A dark mage can destroy or even subvert other forms of magic, weaken or mutilate enemies and exploit corruption for his own gain.
The school is always corrupting but a good practionner can mostly sacifice others to get power or even corrupt himself in benefitial ways such as ravaging their own body with Dark Aether but increase how much they can store in themselves and slow their aging as a sort of lich.
The major incovenients are that it's very hard for those using it to not corrupt themselves to the point that even the other schools they know are corrupted (that make them more destructive but much less capable overall) and most destroy or mutilate themselves sooner than later.
Generally more potent the closer you are to the Eldr but also harder to control.
The Theocracy of Alana may or may not have dark mages.