A study on the applications of the Four Talents in our society.

By Orhan Asetosh, Dovra’Sha, year 132 of the Third Age.

The magic of the Four Talents has been studied thoroughly the past thousand years since scholars first began writing down their findings. And its uses are plenty, especially when it comes to Sealing. Since the founding of the Order some hundred thirty years ago, the Talents have become more and more integrated in our everyday society. I think this is the opportune moment to accumulate these uses and maybe, through this collection, find new uses that are yet to be discovered.

I will not go deeper into how the Four Talents work, if one wishes to read more about these, I’d suggest reading ‘The Four Talents, a study’ by Maïz the Wise.

What can the Talents provide for society? Enhancement

As is generally known, most Enhancers in the realm can be found fulfilling the role of commanders or generals and are often times also direct advisor to their king or emperor when it comes to matters of war and battle tactics.

Only a select few Enhancers choose not to follow a warrior’s path and instead take up work that requires significant manual labour. Examples are miners, lumberjacks, dockworkers, sailors… Enhancers who choose this lifestyle are in high demand with employers as they can do a lot of work more efficiently in a shorter time span.

There are also those who choose a path in between. These are called the Wood Walkers, Mountain Walkers or Plain Walkers. They are often under the direct employment of the court of the kingdom or empire they are based in. They check on wildlife, function as guards for caravans or hunt poachers and the likes. They are also known to chase down wanted criminals and are revered as the best trackers of the realm. The Walkers are most of the time organized in Guilds spread across the lands of Odera and Titrith, but they do not have a central point of authority and all act independently from each other.

Unfortunately, as is the innate nature of men, there are Enhancers who choose a darker path and find their solace in crime and other malicious. One must only read of the Succession Wars of Odera that took place a mere two-hundred years ago to know the damage one man can conflict. The Dovra’Sha Markan used his Talents to influence people into joining him and plunged Odera into a second civil war. It is only thanks to men like Antal Donat who defeated Markan in one-on-one combat that the good citizens of this world can sleep peacefully.

In conclusion of this overview, it is obvious that Enhancers are generally seen in a good light by the average citizen. They keep our lands safe, advice our rulers and sometimes help us in everyday labour. It’s a shame that some of them go dark, but one must put this into perspective. There are way more deaths and crimes attributed to common thieves and murderers.

Healing

Perhaps the Talented most welcomed by society. Healers are found in almost every court of the realm and are pretty much certain they will die rich and old.

The majority of Healers choose to settle down at a court or city of their choosing and are almost always welcomed with open arms. They are wanted practically everywhere and this does sometimes elevate the Healer’s ego significantly.

I am remembered of an old friend of mine who was a servant at the court of Ters. He told me this story of how a Healer walked into the palace one day during the meetings of the commons and asked King Cacurio for a place at the court. Cacurio of course accepted this offer and gave the Healer a comfortable room to live in. From what my friend told me, the Healer started asking ridiculous payments for his services from day one. A soldier with a nasty cut in his arm was told that he needed to bring a vial of blood of the one who had caused the slash. Another time a young boy who worked in the kitchens came down with a nasty fever. The Healer asked the mother to shave of the kid’s hair and burn it while chanting some gibberish he wrote down for her. This went on for two weeks until the King got word of it and he asked the Healer if all these strange rituals were necessary. It was then the Healer told the King he was only curious to see how far people would go receive treatment. After this talk with the king, they would both come up with a competition between the two of them who could devise the strangest requests. The king’s wife, Namia was her name if I remember correctly, was assigned as a judge in this competition.

Besides the Healers who choose to settle down, there are also those who prefer to travel the realm and provide their services to those who need them. There are even Healers who live and travel with the Walker Guilds, although it is impossible for them to heal Enhancers due to the Laws of Talents (again, I advise reading ‘The Four Talents, a study’ by Maïz to understand more of this matter).

Wiser

It is truly a shame the common folk do not know as much about the Wisers as they should, because their contribution to society is invaluable.

As the well-informed scholar will know, Wisers can read the flows of power that is found all around the realm in every living thing and even in the earth and rocks. This enables them to reconstruct forgotten events from times past and complete the historical records. The fact that reading a single event can take several weeks and requires solitude has the consequence that Wisers are not that known to your everyday citizen. But what they do is so important to us and our cultural history that they cannot be missed.

Probably the most interesting and important event that they reconstructed was the first of use of the Talents by men. Thanks to them, we know that they were initially discovered by the first men living in the Asatori Woods some three-thousand years ago. This was an amazing discovery that will certainly help us in the future to finally understand the nature and source of the magic of the Talents.

It also thanks to a cooperation between a Wiser and a Wood Walker Guild that we discovered the existence of the Thines, small tree-like creatures that live mainly in the Asatori Woods and the forests around Arlan. For those interested in the specifics and the cultures of these curious creatures, I recommend reading Valan’s work ‘A Year with the Thines’.

Perhaps the most famous Wiser, at least for us scholars, must be Maïz the Wise, who I referred to before as the author of ‘The Four Talents, a study’. His work was the foundation for all future studies on the uses of the Talents and is an invaluable collection of research and results.

Another rather depressing facts is that there are so few Wiser these days, if not less than there are Dovra’Sha. I think this is to be blamed on how difficult it is to manifest the Wiser Talent as that can take several weeks and many will give up.

Sealing

I purposely kept Sealing as the last Talent to discuss as it is the most complicated of the four and the one most used in everyday life.

The main problem with implementing seals into society is that seals are always temporary. Dependant on the strength of the Sealer or the amount of focus put on the seal, a seal will die out quick or last for a few days or even weeks, months or a year.

The richer cities of the realm have Sealers permanently employed at either the court or important locations in the cities.

One of the services they perform, and is loved by all citizens of these cities, is lighting a large amount of lanterns spread across the main streets of the city or even all the streets depending on the size of the city. Every day at sunset, one or more Sealers will cast a combination of Light, Attachment and Separation and summon a glowing orb in the designated lanterns. A clever trick is used to overcome the Law of Talent that states a Sealer can only have one seal active at any given time. First, they form a very strong Light seal and they will then add Attachment and Separation to the seal to split it into several smaller orbs that are then spread out across the lanterns. Like this, the strongest Sealers are able to light up all the lanterns in a city on their own. In most cases though, the task is divided over several Sealers who each take care of a district or street.

Another nightly activity the Sealers often take care of is securing the city gates with a combination of Restriction and Detection. This both strengthens the gates and gives off an alarm when someone approaches the gate from the outside. This is mostly only done in times of war.

Important to note here is that all these tasks must be done by separate Sealers. This means that when there is only one Sealer present, they must choose what is more important. Another important note to make is that once the lanterns are lit, the Sealers cannot form another seal before getting rid of the lights. And even when the lights would be dispersed, it would take the Sealer the better part of the night to recover from the forming and dispersing.

Other everyday tasks the Sealers of the cities help with are reparations on buildings or the city’s walls, keeping the streets clean and easy accessible, organizing funeral arrangements and dusting bodies (a tradition that finds its roots in the culture of the first men when they burned the bodies of the dead), chasing rats and other vermin out of the city…

To the public eye these Sealers are indeed a most welcome gift, but there is a darker side to Sealers that should not be ignored. Although most rulers and nobles will deny this, Sealers are often hired for undercover operations and espionage. Their abilities to disguise themselves and stay undetected make them the perfect infiltrators. It would not surprise me if it was discovered that every single city in the realm has a network of spies operated by Sealers. A Sealer also has the ability to completely change a crime scene in a way that only a Wiser would be able to tell it had been tampered with.

There are also plenty of Sealers who prefer not to spend their lives in a city and live a nomadic life. Some also join with Walker Guilds and help the Enhancers where needed. They can sedate wildlife without hurting them, collect plants in such a way that the pickings stay fresh, create new passageways in forests and mountains…

Sealers who choose a more mundane life often take up the work of lumberjack of miner, as they can take down trees and create tunnels with the use of seals.

And there are a select few, me being one of them, who seclude themselves to libraries and maintain the knowledge gathered by cleaning old books and scrolls, making them readable again and ensuring the passing on of knowledge.

The Talents beyond mankind.

Most people believe that the magic inherent to the Talents is only found in the human race, but they could not be more wrong. It’s all around us, in every blade of grass, every bird and every pebble on the mountain sides.

Thines

The best example of this is without a doubt the existence of the Thines. As a seed, these would-be trees are infused with the flows of magic. Every once in a while, these seeds will grow to become a Thine whereas otherwise it would have grown to a normal tree. These creatures have a clear conscience and cultures of their own that are more intricate than one would think. I refer again to Valan’s work ‘A Year with the Thines’.

We are sure much to learn if we delve deeper into how the Thines exactly came to life and how they use their powers.

Makran Trees

A less visual aspect of this, but certainly a worthwhile one, are the makran Trees found in the Asatori Woods and the Forest of Arlan. Most scholars claim, and I incline to agree with them, that these trees are infused with the Enhancement aspect of the Talents and more at that than regular trees. Why they are only found in these two locations? I don’t know, but this might be an interesting study on its own.

Makran wood is sturdier than any other type of wood and will never rot, which makes it a much desired material for both the construction of buildings and the forging of tools. Enhancers mostly use handles made out of Makran for their weapons as they are able to handle the force they experience. Sometimes, ships will also have parts made of makran to strengthen certain key parts of the structure.

Strangely enough, the saw dust from makran wood is also a very good fertilizer for crops. Most likely the traces of magic in this dust spread across the earth they are thrown in and reach into the roots of the plants planted there. Thanks to this, the crops treated with this sawdust are more likely to survive when there is no rain to water the land and will also grow larger, yielding a bountiful harvest.

A less frequent use for smaller pieces of wood is engraving it with words to ensure that the message is carried through the ages as the wood does not deteriorate. Sometimes the wood will be refined to parchment as well. The works of Maïz and other famous scholars all have copies made out of makran. As a matter of fact, I’m almost certain I will purchase the needed makran parchment to make a copy of my own work so it may be researched in future years without issue.

The smaller branches of the trees also have several functions. Being both pliable and firm, they are perfect to craft bows from them used mainly by Enhancers. I’ve also known a few nobles who thought it would make them seem more important if they had canes and seats made from makran. Too bad the average citizen can’t see the difference between makran and any other type of wood and even if they were able to do so, they would think it just a waste of wood. I am of the same opinion.

Wisers have discovered that it becomes easier to read the flows of magic in the earth when they are in contact with a makran tree. A replacement of this is taking an unaltered branch of makran, sticking it in the ground and make contact with the earth like that.

Makran can also be used to let fire burn for a very long time without needing to fuel it. This is however seldom used as over time, the wood will burn up and only ashes will remain. There are some cultures, for instance the city of Kon Pha, that use these ashes as a fertilizer or in paint to use in rituals. Sometimes, blacksmiths that need to work on expensive commissions will add makran wood to the fires as they believe it strengthens the metal they work on.

The airships of Nova Brey are also fuelled with the heath from burning makran wood, which allows the ships to stay airborne for a very long time.

The leaves also have a very useful function. When grinded down to a fine powder and mixed with hot water, they have a certain healing effect that can chase away fevers or still pain. Smoking the powder has a relaxing and calming effect that is often used by nobles to relieve stress or simply experience the feeling. Be warned though, taken in high doses it can have undesirable side-effects.

In similar manner, the roots can also be used in healing and strengthening substances.

When left alone by men, the makran trees often become homes for Thines. They have a unique way of shaping and bending the wood that allows them to make the tree their own without affecting its lifespan. A tree inhabited by Thines is by law not allowed to be cut down and is often protected by the Wood Walkers when found.

The magic in animals

There have been reports of several animals, mostly wolves, bears and deer, in the Asatori Woods and Forests of Arlan that were larger than they normally should be. Again, these are the two same locations we have talked about before and I’m of the opinion that we should launch a separate investigation as to why these particular areas are so prone to magic-infused fauna and flora.

When it comes to the wolves and deer that were spotted, they were clearly the leaders of the pack and showed a remarkable awareness of their surroundings. The Wood Walkers I received the reports from are known as the best trackers there are and they would not be senses by normal wolves or deer.

Apparently the wolves would also use certain strategies to hunt down prey. One report talks of a pack of wolves chasing several deer and herding them into a small chasm by having other wolves waiting up ahead and surrounding them. This type of behaviour has not been observed before as far as I know and shows a certain amount of intelligence and sense for preparation in these wolves.

What these means for us I’m not certain of. This proofs that the Talents can also manifest in animals, although I think this is only the case for Enhancement as I cannot visualize a wolf perform a seal or heal another wolf, let alone read the flows of power.

Final note.

This concludes my research on the uses of the Four Talents in our society and how it can be used to improve our social wellbeing. I look forward to the coming years to discover new ways to utilize these powers that we possess.

This time next year, I will be spending a year with the Walker Guilds of Anthor and Thomana in the hopes of new discoveries to fuel a new series of innovations and research.