How Magic Works
Magic in the Kingdom Universe is complex, but only in it's scope. Its fairly easy to understand - or at least, we'll try to make it so. The page was last edited on March 2nd, 2010.
Basics:
All the people with magical abilities in the game are descended from a member of the Geldon Kingdom. Not all descendants of a bloodline can perform magic, but typically one member of each generation can. Once it manifests, magic is a part of that person until they die-- or they over stretch their abilities and experience burn out.
Why is the world not overrun by magic users, you might ask? The twist is not many people know they have magic. Few have experienced contact with a Daemon to awaken their abilities, and even those who have may never realize that what they can do is magic, especially if they are only partially awakened. Take Loni for example. She was partially awakened while visiting Sunset City, which allowed her to unconsciously summon air currents to help her golf game, but she suffered no outward signs of magical use (such as the hair or eye color change so many Hunters experience) and could not consciously manipulate the air.
Sometimes the person's "awakening" can be a quick thing (Peter, for example, while face-to-face with a daemon assembling itself out of lint) or something that's more gradual (like it was for those partially awakened first, like Mara or Loni). If your Hunter has lived in Sunset City for a significant period of time, chances are high they have been partially awakened.
One final note on magical abilities. They don't require any special calls or phrases. A person who was about to run a race wouldn't say, "SUPER SPEED POWER" before the starter gun went off - they'd just run and run hard. It's similar with magic - you just USE it. Naming attacks is completely unnecessary - unless your character is just weird like that. ;) If your character does yell out attacks, one of two things will happen: We'll either raise our eyebrows and direct you to this article, or we'll hope that your character has some personal reason for announcing their attacks.
Improving Magical Abilities
Like any talent or ability, the more it is put to use, the better the skill becomes. For example, if a person has a skill at playing piano, they must practice to become better. For the vast majority of people, they won't wake up one day and find out they are Beethoven. It's the same with magic.
The most efficient way a character can improve their magical strength is with practice. For example, Jane could light candles with her hands, Lynn could fill glasses without going to the tap, and Loni could blow her own hair dry. Exploring their skills and what they can do in their own time is how they'll get better and discover new things that they can do with their abilities.
Time frames on the improvement of a character's magic are relative, but we ask that you don't make new characters wunderkinds overnight. Gradual improvement, after all, means more log opportunities!
Guardians vs Hunters: Not So Different After All
The biggest difference between Hunters and Guardians are the way they access their powers. Hunters have an immediate access to their powers - i.e. they don't have to transcend into a higher state of being to be able to use their skills. They can just use them. Guardians can't do that. They have to transcend into their totem state to access their magical capabilities.
Hunters and Guardians have the same amount of magical potential. The advantage for Guardians is they can discover and master their abilities more efficiently than Hunters. As they are in a transcended state, Guardians tend to be more "in tune" to their powers. Hunters take longer to achieve this "enlightenment" with their powers, but they can do it with considerable effort.
A Brief Look At Magic in Kingdom's History
The Gelds were created for one purpose: to eradicate the Daemon population. At that time in history, nearly all daemonic activity took place within the borders of the Geldon Kingdom, which stretched over five islands off the coast of modern day California.
The populations on four of the islands tended to be homogeneous talents. Most of those living on the island of A'hi, for example, tended to be Air talents, because the place tended to be populated by Air talents. Only the fifth island, which housed the Geldon royalty, featured mixed bloodlines. Here, many abilities thrived that didn't lend themselves to efficient hunting. Illumination, healing and many other passive abilities were found here.
Since the fall of the Geldon Kingdom, the bloodlines have become mixed, which has had a curious effect of watering down abilities. Today's hunters function with less than half the abilities of the average Geld. Another curious effect is blended elements, which weren't as common in the Geldon Kingdom. You can read about blends later on.
In modern times, hunting families often boast members who have different elements. While this doesn't dampen the potential for magical strength, it does make for interesting mixes and family ties.
Magic in Kingdom is split up into two types: General and Specific. These types refer to what magic is performed by a character.
When we refer to general magic, we mean the type of element a character controls (water, air, earth... etc.). Specific magic refers to the part of that element which they control. For example, Peter is a ranger who can detect seismic activities. Therefore, his general and specific magic would read Earth:Seismic Activity. To keep things simple, General:Specific is the format we use.
The five elements are:
- Energy: Most of the phases of energy and chemical reactions. Light/Illumination, Fire, Heat.
- Water: All the phases of water. Ice, Liquid, Vapor, Water Currents.
- Earth: All the phases of earth. Soil/Rock/Sand, Crystals, Metals, Seismic Activity.
- Air: All the phases of air. Ether, Winds, Most Gases, Air Currents.
- Weather: Weather is technically a 'blend' of other elements, but due to the abnormal number of weather talents, weather has become a fifth element. WIND IS NOT WEATHER!!!
The elements of water, earth and air are all pretty self-explanatory. Energy encompasses things such as Illumination at night, Light and Fire. Chemical reactions (such as photosynthesis) are also included here.
Weather encompasses things such as rain, snow or drought. These things don't fit well within the other four elements. Rain because it involves water, but not a fundamental state of water like ice or vapor. Snow involves temperature (a type of energy) and water, so doesn't fit in completely with either element. Drought is due to an absence of water and an abundance of heat and air - a combination of three elements. Because weather powers were so hard to define as a particular single element, a separate, definable group was created to make classification easier.
Blends? What?
If a power still doesn't fit in neatly with the five elements, it is labeled a blend. After the fall of the Geldon Kingdom and the subsequent dilution and mixing of the magical bloodlines, magical powers have become more varied and less pure than they ever were.
These types of blends incorporate things such as magma (a blend of earth and energy/fire powers), salt (earth and water), or glass (earth and energy). None of these are Weather related, but neither are they strictly anything else.
The theory behind blends is the same as what created a Weather element. The scope of a person's power doesn't fit easily into any of the other five elements. Blends aren't any less powerful than an easily definable power, but they are less pure because the focus is on a specific interaction between two elements instead of one generalized element.
What about powers over plants or animals?
Control of animals in Kingdom as a power is not allowed. Animals are not elemental things. They only use of animals in Kingdom's magical system are the totem forms to which Guardians are bound.
Limited control over plants is allowed, though. Reed has some power over photosynthesis, as an example. If a person is going to go this route with their character, we'd advise them to think it through very carefully. We'll come at you with a lot of questions to make sure you've done your homework and also that you haven't strayed too far beyond the boundaries of the elemental powers we've established.