Magic

The world of the Parallax Club is a world like and yet unlike our own.  One of the major differences is the existence of magic, and this page describes the different forms that have been encountered during the course of the campaign.  It is worth bearing in mind that although magic exists in that world it is still extremely rare, and the vast majority of humanity continue to think of it as the stuff of myth and fairytale.

SORCERY

This is the most 'common' form of magic.  It is an art of ritual and incantation, where carefully constructed formulae and esoteric ingredients combine to create reality-warping effects.  Its origins are lost in the mists of time, but the eldest antediluvian vampires are masters of sorcery so it undoubtedly dates back as far as the dawn of mankind.

In medieval times the practice of sorcery was codified, with titled ranks awarded to practitioners as they reached certain levels of expertise.  These ranks range from the Apprentice, signified by a single circle, to the Ipsissimus (nine circles and five squares).  

There is a large body of evidence that the power used to create sorcerous effects comes from a supernatural source.  This is because any sorceror who reaches the rank of Adept faces a test known as Crossing the Abyss.  To progress from this level the sorceror must choose whether to practice the magic of the Right Hand Path, which deals primarily with defence and perception, or the more destructive and seemingly potent magics of the Left Hand Path.  The latter is the Black Magic spoken of in occult tomes, and often involves the summoning of potent demonic entities.  Only after Crossing the Abyss can a practitioner reach the level of the Magister, then the Magister Templar and finally the Ipsissimus.

However, like all magic the effects obtainable through sorcery have been severely curtailed by the rise of the Technocracy (see McAllister Industries) and their imposed reality paradigm of science and reason.  The days of sorcery-induced typhoons and fireballs are fading fast as the belief of the masses leans ever further towards the constraints of 'explainable science'.

It is also interesting to note that those ancient Kindred who practice sorcery have seemingly reached high levels of mastery seemingly without narrowing their focus to the Left or Right Hand Paths.  In the mists of prehistory the most powerful sorcery was evidently usable without such constraints.

WEAVING

This is the magic of the Fey.  The faeries see all reality as a tapestry of interwoven strands, what they call the Weave, and by manipulating those strands they are able to alter reality to a limited degree.  Theirs is a magic of illusion and phantasm, fooling the senses or meddling with the mind, but the most powerful sidhe Weavers can also create effects as powerful as any invocations of sorcery.

Like all the other forms of magic, the Fey found the rise of the Technocracy stifled the effects of Weaving.  This is the reason so few came to Earth in the modern age, and why even fewer stayed for long enough to be trapped by the Sundering.

TRUE MAGIC

This is the lost and most potent art of the ancients, for it is said that the magi of the past were able to bend reality with their will alone.  Ancient tomes speak of all reality being comprised of a combination of nine factors, called the Nine Spheres or Nine Keys, and those who controlled the power of True Magic could control those factors.  Not even a gesture or a word of power was required of the true adept; their merest thought became reality.

A True Mage was created when a human underwent something called the Awakening.  The Technocracy have purged all records of what this involved, but it is known that an Awakened soul was required to control the power of the Nine Spheres.  Legends say that all men were once Awakened, so presumably Adam et al. were able to control the reality around them, but even by the time of Moses Awakened souls had become the exception rather than the rule.

However, when True Magi fought each other reality began to Fragment around them.  It was the rest of humanity that paid the price for their hubris, and the Order of Reason (later the Technocracy) was originally formed with the laudable objective of providing a single, stable reality for the masses.

The last of the True Magi appeared in the Renaissance, and by the dawn of the Industrial Revolution there were no more Awakened souls.  There have been none since.  Those magi who yet lived were forced to learn other forms of magic, and now even those other forms are beginning to fade from the Earth. 

According to the Greater Key of Solomon, the Nine Spheres are as follows -

Time - Ancient magi could travel back and forth as the situation demanded, or even step outside the flow of time itself.  Control of Time gave them near-immortality.

Spirit - Control of the spirit world without recourse to incantation and inscribed wardings.  The greatest Umbral entity bowed to the True Mage.

Matter - Turning lead into gold was the merest act of will.  It is said the walls of Jericho fell because a True Mage turned their foundations into water.

Forces - Electricity, fire, light and gravity were at the beck and call of the magus.  Whether creating them from nothingness or turning one into the other.

Entropy - True Magi could control the laws of probability, altering them to extremes if need be.  They could see the strands of fate and bend or break them as they chose.

Mind - Whether reading another's thoughts or reducing an enemy to a drooling imbecile, all was within the True Mage's power.

Life - By understanding the pattern behind life the True Magi could warp it to their design.  Turning a foe into a frog or healing the sick was a matter of no moment.

Connection - All places were one place to the True Mage, so teleportation of oneself was as easy as reaching out an arm and seizing an item on the other side of the world.

Prime - The last and greatest sphere, this gave the True Mage control of Prime Essence, the very stuff of Creation.  Combined with the others, it allowed the magus to create effects or items 'out of thin air'.