A Discourse on Majik

Lacking the evolutionary complements of fur, claw, speed, and other useful physical traits, which our sentient cousins the Gremlins, Anurans, and our betters the Altaicans possess in great measure, humans and Faeries are naturally creatures of the mind and will.  Our races were therefore naturally races of majikers.  Humans make up the middle ground, where on the one side are those of kingly physical prowess like the Altaicans and on the other side the Faeries, whose physical force is even less than our own and possess therefore more majikal attunement to balance the scales.

Humans represent a compromise of physical skill capability and majikal proficiency.  Unlike the Faeries whose use of majik is as natural as walking, and still unlike the Anurans whose astonishing powers of majik are known only to their lifelong-trained shamans, humans came by certain gifts naturally and others only by means of careful study and work.  Of the majik which was naturally gifted, we term it “decisive majik.”  These are the manipulations of the physical world by causation of the mind and with direct consequence without mental training or physical effort.  A spell may be worked by scrawling and incantation with meticulous training.  But when it is done by the mere “decision” of an individual, being firm within his mind that the thing should occur and his will having been granted, we call it true “decisive majik.”

It is a mystery as to how humans ever learned that these inborn gifts could be transferred to their youth by means of laying on hands and incanting rites, but we know by tradition that in this way the human decisive majiks were passed down.  Having been prohibited after the work of the cruel sorcerer Maraa, there does remain to man- and Faerie-kind the more ritualistic practices of majik which are the root of those supernatural gifts.   What are they?

For specific information, we separate the studied majikal arts into those:

Of Men

&

Of Faeries

The Future of Majik

Humans, often failing to master the laborious majikal arts of sigil scrawling and scrolling, and lacking decisive majiks, have very dramatically changed their fundamental nature. Technology and enterprise is now the foremost power of human kind, resulting in the finding of many technological solutions for problems that majik once solved.

The steam engine, chemical supplies, advances in electricity, and of course mechanical devices have allowed for the comfort and convenience of all Cavendians.

Many small problems remain to Cavendians that create vast markets for majik: indoor cooling, storage of perishables, agricultural success, and finding lost valuables being among them.

The widest applications of majik remain in medicine, for while the technology of communication, manufacture, and transportation have sprinted ahead like a cheetah, a synthetic knowledge of medicine has gone at a cow’s pace.

It is doubtful that majik will ever be totally eclipsed by mechanical innovation, but it is just possible that within a few lifetimes it could be an art practiced for art’s sake, rather than one done out of need. If that is the case, it is possible that men like Wiz. Erilaz are the last practicing experts of their craft.

Recently the government has spurred the universities of Charleston by many handsome grants to speed the research into scientific methods of healing, with the recent effect of creating the pain-relieving compound, a derivative of salicylic acid. Though the discovery is important, it can hardly compete with the wizards who can heal grievous cuts and gunshot wounds in a matter of seconds.