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Sorcery

Sorcery is that body of magic that does not require the use of Elemenstation, and a practitioner of this art is known as a Sorcerer. Sorcery involves the the act of 'casting' 'spells', an entirely different act from striking gears. Despite this, Elemenstors refer to all forms of sorcery as Low Elemenstation, or regard it as a primitive form of elemenstation. Sorcery is considered a weaker magical practice when compared to Elemenstation, for various reasons, but the one real issue is that a sorcerer's arts tire him and the elemenstor's do not.

Sorcery existed on Battal since some time before The War of the Item Guilds, since by this time magic items, and thus magical ability, existed. Whenever it was first discovered, it has been discovered independently several times since, by people who had never heard of sorcery before. Each time a new magical system was born, and a new set of theories and spells were developed. Soon after the beginning of The War of the Item Guilds, few had not heard of the Sorcerer (the term sorcerer was capitalised until The Unsundering), he who brings Epic with him where he goes. From then, people still accidentally released sorcerous energies, but few were compelled to come up with theories, expecting someone else to do it. Not to mention the fact that many who have such an accident are killed by the unstable forces.

Many societies in Battal develop magical systems and theories and attempt to classify sorcery and sorcerous knowledge, cataloging useful spells as they are invented. In general, however, research into the nature and origin of the energy behind casting is plagued by the fact that raw sorcerous energy is largely unpredictable. On a practical level, the study of sorcery has developed to a fine degree. Empirical evidence shows that a sorcerer can shape and direct the energy to produce effects that are predictable. Because of this, wherever sorcery is found in Battal there is the guarantee that one (or both) of two methods are used to invent new spells:

• Method 1 - Painstaking research into the cause and effect of gestures, words, thoughts, feelings and, rarely, material components, on the effect the final spell takes allows a sorcerer to put together a spell that would achieve an intended effect. This is long and complicated, the interactions of spell aspects need to be checked and rechecked, tested and proven, lest the sorcerer be killed (or worse) by raw energy.
• Method 2 - Wing it. Essentially, the sorcerer relies on his existing knowledge of spell casting to improvise a spell on the spot. This isn't as efficient as researching the right casting procedure, as some sorcerous energy is wasted, but an experienced sorcerer can still achieve effective results. Although this can be dangerous, and can result in death, a master sorcerer is rarely killed in this fashion. There are, to the knowledge of this editor, two cases in the canon of a master sorcerer being killed in this fashion, and both were extraordinary circumstances. It is far more prevalent among apprentices, who both lack the knowledge and the power to control the energy.

See also:

• Sorcerer
• List of Spells