What's wrong with magic?

(Excerpt from Colt's Guide to the World of Dragon Metal)

Magic and the Veiling:

The source of all magic was the heavens (or Heavenly Realms, if you prefer), a plane of existence outside our own. A spiritual place of power. That power, that magic, flowed into the mortal world.

Magicians, sorcerers, wizards, and other practitioners drew from the Magical Source itself, channeling its power through body, mind, and soul, a direct communion with magic.

Then the Veiling happened. The heavens cut away from the earth, a complete separation, severing the Magical Source from the mortal world.

As a result:

· Humans can no longer use magic directly. If a mortal wants to use magic, they need a Relic, an item imbued with magical power before the Veiling.

· The planet’s ley lines—lines of mystical, magical energy—are dead, dried up and empty.

· The earth is severed from the afterlife. This means the spirits of the dead can’t cross over into the afterlife, and instead, they linger on Earth.

Chaos and corruption grip the world in a web of madness. Despair smothers hope. Entropy rules the day. This isn’t a fantasy world or post-apocalyptic future, this is our world, the world we live in today. A world where wonder has died and faith feeds on its own corpse. That’s what it means to live in a world cut off from magic, a world where mankind has lost the battle for its soul.

No one can pin an exact date on when the Veiling happened. I tend to think it happened gradually over time, within the past few decades. There were remnants of magical energy left behind after the Veiling, but those remnants have been bound and perverted by the Three Great Schools of Magic.

Relics:

Before the Veiling, practitioners of magic used runes, glyphs, and various ceremonies to imbue items with magic. These items are called Relics. They come from every mythology throughout history, even up to the modern era before the Veiling, when the Three Great Schools used magic to forge guns, bullets, and knives that remain in circulation to this day.

Relics work in two general ways:

· “Charged Relics”: Some Relics have stored magical energy, finite charges of power. Let’s look at an enchanted dagger, for example. A dagger might have three charges of magic stored in a rune or glyph. Its wielder can use the blade three times, to kill three demons, for example. After that, the weapon becomes a normal dagger.

· “Channeled Relics”: Other Relics have magical effects stored in runes, enchantments, and glyphs, but need to draw on the spirit energy of their users to trigger those effects. Take a magic staff as an example. A staff might be enchanted to trigger a bolt of concussive force once activated. Its user can trigger that effect over and over, launching bolt after bolt of concussive power . . . until exhaustion sets in. Just like throwing punch after punch drains the energy of your body, triggering magical effects multiple times drains your spirit energy.

Ever since the Veiling, when the earth was cut off from the Magical Source, mortals need to use Relics if they want to use magic. Relics are rare and coveted by the Three Great Schools of Magic—each School wants all Relics under its control.

END ENTRY