(«^») Iris Exurrana

Okay so… magic is a complex topic.

Let's start with the basic magical expression format, or BMEF. This is the rune, sigil, or glyph, whatever you want to call it, that magic is expressed in. The BMEF is a glyph. It consists of one large circle in the middle, and three semi-circles equidistant from each other on the outside edge of the large inner circle. These circles are often stylized by high ranking mages, or people in high society. It's common for a particular style of BMEF to be trademarked and used as a symbol, usually of one's family. Familial BMEFs are passed down through generations, and the direct family line of the creator of a BMEF usually has birth rights to use it. Although that varies from country to country.

The BMEF represents five basic concepts, all fundamental to magic as we know it. The center contains the letters for every element the spell uses. The top circle contains the basic effects in written form. The right circle contains modifiers to the spell in written form. The left circle contains limiters of the spell in written form. And the circles themselves represent how powerful the spell is overall. The simplest way this is done is by adding outer circles to increase the power of the spell.

That's the BMEF, so what about the nature of magic?

The people of Paradox are inherently magical beings. Our Aura is inherently magical, and all aura is is how much of yourself exists in the tenth dimension. The tenth dimension, for those of you who don't know, is the highest dimension. Within that dimension lies all possibilities, and the laws of the tenth dimension and our dimension are fundamentally different. We magical beings tap into the infinite possibilities of the tenth dimension and draw out what is essentially magic. Although our access is extremely limited. At most a person can have seven gifts, and we have a limit on how many effects, elements, modifiers, and power can fit into our spells. Think of it as spending a currency. Limiters reduce the cost of any given spell by applying certain requirements to cast the spell. Maybe the spell requires a catalyst, maybe you need to physically move to cast, maybe you need to speak a chant, or maybe the spell is obviously magical in nature, among others.

Basic effects include create, control, lock, link, redirect, copy, stop, nullify, transmutate, combine, revert, alter, detect, amplify, and revert. Lastly there's affects; form, dreams, emotions, thoughts, communication, memories, language, motion, senses, objects, mind, and body.

The base effects of any given gift must include three things. What it's doing, how it's doing it, and what is affected by it.

Modifiers are highly specific, and require an in depth understanding of said modifiers to properly use them. If you don't understand what your modifiers are doing your gift might fail, or have unforeseen consequences. Modifiers are actually built out of base effects, and then simplified to a single separate concept. The most basic modifier is an ‘area of effect’ modifier. There are a few other modifiers like magic attack, damage scaling, second chance, vampyrism, sinister, trigger, magic weapon, passive, trade amplification, and emotional amplification.

Limiters include signal, gesture, speech, catalyst, ritual, material, emotional, conditional, and blood casting.

Gifts and magic items also become more powerful if their elements match the Natural Elements of the user.

Part of understanding how magic functions in our world is understanding that for the most part, it's a supplement. The best thing you can do with your magic is create something that can be used to provide you multiple advantages when used creatively. You create a gift that you can exploit in different ways so you have many options available to you without having to create gifts specifically for those other options.

The other way it's used is in permanent potions, enchantments, and magical objects. Magic, to us, is a science, and it's the largest scientific field in the world. We use magic alongside other scientific fields, particularly engineering, to create extremely useful objects.

An example would be the most common forging technique in world, which includes using gravity enchantments on the tang to force that area of the weapon to be the center of gravity. If you're making a sword that would be too heavy to use a lot, you can blanket the entire thing in gravity magic to lower its weight. This is how ‘Ultra' classes of weapons are possible.