World of Æor

What is the world but what we perceive around us? There is more around you than what you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands. Most people will live out their entire lives believing the simple reality that surrounds them is the extent of all there is. They are content to believe that something exists because they perceive it or that it does not exist because they cannot. The reality that we perceive is only part of a much larger whole. All of the threads that make up the Tapestry of reality weave a pattern intricate beyond comprehension. The wizards divide people into two groups. Those who see the Tapestry and its intricate workings are called The Awakened. Those who are content to live out the mundane life of their sensory perception are The Sleepers–the commoners.

There have always been those few that labor their entire lives to attain some partial control of the arcane magic that flows unnoticed through their world. Years of study and practice can lead to ground-shattering power and understanding. These are the wizards, the reclusive society that nurtures and manipulates the world around them. More than just awakened, the wizards are students of the Tapestry and learn to control and weave their own patterns into it as it flows. Wizards have no general interest in the doings-on of the sleepers; they are at best useful pawns in a much greater political struggle. The sleepers also pay no great attention to the works of the wizards. Each group exists with little interaction with the other, both believing that they alone control the destiny of the world around them.

Caught between, there are others. Not everyone who sees the Tapestry has a desire to make changes. Still others wield the power of magic, but may not see or understand the powers they command.

Vis is the force that sustains magic. It flows like waves, unnoticed by the sleepers, through both objects as well as the open places. When Vis comes into contact with Essence, its waves are distorted and bent as it passes. All living things contain some measure of Essence, the force of life. It is radiated from all living things like an eternal torch, invisible to the eye. Although it bends and warps the flowing Vis, Essence seems unaffected by these naturally flowing waves.

Essence can be stored in any object. An object used to contain Essence, however, will always be very apparent. Because Essence is the force of life, all items containing Essence are alive and will show signs of their Essence – motion, vibration, perhaps intelligence. No item can contain both Essence and Vis. When both are introduced into an object, the Vis is released and the Essence remains.

Vis can be stored in any object that doesn't contain Essence. If Essence is ever added to an object containing Vis, the Vis is immediately released. Unlike the Vis that flows through the expanses of the world, stored Vis is usually woven to perform some specific task – a combination of forms and methods (see wizards). Stored Vis is volatile and potentially dangerous. Wizards exchange stored Vis and Essence as currency. Unlike objects holding Essence, objects holding Vis are not apparent to a sleeper. The awakened can identify both stored Vis and stored Essence and in the case of Vis, can identify, roughly, its purpose.

We are not alone in our search for answers. There is a voice inside each of us, call it a conscience, or a gut feeling, or whatever. Once a person has become awakened, that small voice becomes just as loud in our head as our own thoughts. Whatever their nature, a wizard must learn to act and react in concert with that other voice. It is a constant presence, even if only an imagined one. It is this presence that is called our avatar. The avatar bestows the ability to see the tapestry and weave patterns into it. It is possible for the avatar to be separated from the person; leaving them a sleeper with no ability to interact with the Vis. All living things born with Essence have an avatar. The avatar of a wizard is just much stronger than one found in a sleeper. There is some evidence that when a creature or person is destroyed, their avatar returns and joins with another soul that is just emerging from the Great Well.

Every weave in the tapestry whether by chance or by spell leaves a mark of the person who has performed it. Some doubt the existence of resonance, but the signs are too many to be coincidence. When casting a spell of healing in a church that was used for the same purpose, the spell is more potent and easier to cast. The karma that follows a person is a form of resonance. Be careful what you do, for everything is recorded in the tapestry and anyone who is awakened has the chance of figuring out what has happened.

Paradox is the backlash of Vis and its tapestry against those trying to alter it. Small changes to the tapestry are cumulative, but mostly of no consequence. The larger the change, however, the more resistance the tapestry will give to being changed. Vis is the collective perception of not only the awakened, but of everyone and everything that exists everywhere. Reality is the collective perception of countless entities. When things happen to alter reality, Vis resolves the inconsistency by forcing reality back on the weaver. For example, a wizard making a small stone rise an inch above the ground is only making a tiny stitch in reality. Making an entire ocean turn to fire, however, is an incredible undertaking that affects billions of entities that each disbelieves that such a thing is possible. Any wizard attempting to turn an ocean to fire will be crushed so hard by the resulting paradox that they will probably never recover. THIS is paradox, the greatest foe of those who attempt to alter the tapestry.

One such effect of paradox is Quiet. When the wizard has designed his change to reality and the tapestry brings forth paradox and denies him his version, the wizard retreats into his own reality and withdraws from the other. The wizard exists in a comatose state in this reality and stays that way for an indeterminate period of time – fighting to get back (perhaps) from the altered reality he had created but could not weave.