An example of the kind of lecture I'd give to first-year magic students. Healing magic is generally among the first kinds of magic taught, though it's actually an ethically difficult subject to teach: what do you practice on? We can't encourage students to harm themselves or others in order to heal them, and those in genuine need of healing should ( Read more... )

Upon commencement of a spell, a faint tingling often begins in the veins, a sense of heat or coolness at the source of the power feeling as if it's spreading outwards through the nervous system, causing prickling along the arms or in the temples. Instinctively, muscles around the forehead or in the arms may contract or relax. As the energy builds ( Read more... )

Each of the twenty-seven True Runes, over time, may have a number of successive bearers; individuals who will bond with the Runes and thus gain a direct connection to one of the fundamental forces of our world, gaining the ability to comprehend and manifest that force, as well as taking on the immortal nature of the Rune. In return, the Rune gains ( Read more... )

In certain regards, many people of this world would find Harmonian culture oddly progressive, though we ourselves would not call it progression; we have had no foundation of intolerance in these regards to progress from. I do not wish to sound pompous and superior in saying this; I am merely stating the fact that our world, unlike this one, has, ( Read more... )

Magic is a force-- no, less a force; more a skill, of interaction with a force-- that is inherently lifeful. To practice magic one interacts with and directly guides the forces of existence, and being that the ultimate progenitor of the forces of existence, the One Force behind them all, is that which can variously be thought of as Goodness, Love, ( Read more... )

What is the first notion a newborn child is aware of; not physically, as in their mother's face or the beating of her heart, but with regards to the greater state of the world they exist in? We cannot be certain. Psychologists suggest that at a fairly early age human babies develop a sense of themselves as individuals, separate from their carers ( Read more... )

I've noted through listening to music in this world, where I have access to music from a much more diverse range of styles and cultural origins than I do in Harmonia, that my preferences in music, lyrical considerations aside, run very strongly towards that with a regular and forceful rhythm; not fast enough to be practically structureless noise, ( Read more... )

Coincidentally, the current writer's block prompt here on LiveJournal ties into something that I wanted to talk about anyway ( Read more... )

I have mentioned before that to be a Runebearer is not to perceive as ordinary people do. The effects of bearing a True Rune on a person are poorly understood and heavily underestimated; not in terms of their intensity, for their intense moments are usually depicted well enough (if with far too little emphasis on the positive experiences, no less ( Read more... )

I have been thinking some lately about the use of magic in warfare, and the appropriateness of treating magic as a weapon. I have used magic in combat in the past; I could not have done otherwise if we were to fight at all, for with such great power as mine I could not but use it to protect my people. (A regrettable turn of phrase; these people ( Read more... )