Magic

Underlying Mechanics
Through years of arcane and academic study alike, the nature of how living beings are capable of indirectly affecting the material world around them* has yielded incalculable benefits and risks regarding areas of war, architecture, city planning, culture, religion and many others. The underlying mechanics of magic are quite simple (in retrospect of course). Magic is a manipulation of the fundamental forces of the universe (gravity, strong and weak nuclear force and electromagnetism). From the four fundamental forces being manipulated, countless applications are possible despite being somewhat roundabout, an example being the taboo subject of necromancy. Necromancy, rather than being the alteration of some essence or filling of vessels with 'life force' of some variety, is instead a matter of manipulating electromagnetism to restart the functioning of the brain, manipulation of the neurons is a different matter which requires more generated electromagnetic power to alter the neural pathways. A less taboo form of magic is mending objects in which the strong nuclear force is exploited to hold the atomic structure of the object together.

Knowledge is Power
'Meat feeds the soldier, books feed the mage'

-Unknown, popular mage adage

Just as the task of storing new information is achieved by altering neural pathways in the brain, so too is knowledge of how to manipulate the fundamental forces, in effect, knowledge is power indeed. A mage must learn the forces involved, which to manipulate and how to manipulate them to achieve a specified result. Scientific study has thus far failed to answer how exactly the correct neural pathways being active allows 'the magic to happen' as it were but the generally held concensus is that the pathways allow specific electrochemical reactions to occur that are minute in scale but amplified via the body, hence the importance of extremities to mages globally since they act as the most useful and effective amplification points though any point on the body can be an amplifiction point, finger tips and palms have proven most useful. Some mages do use other parts of their bodies, such as Sneezing Mages who use their nose and work in entertainment or Éla Áka (also known as Eláka) who is famous for using her feet to continue healing Mec rebels after the Nimandrians cut off her hands to prevent her from continuing her work.

Associated Risks
The use of magic is not risk free, much to the dismay of enthusiastic students. Due to the energy to manipulate the fundamental forces needing to come from somewhere, it often comes from the mage themselves, not only this but the strain placed on specific neurons in the brain means that magic does take a toll on the cognitive functioning of the individual over time. Different effects yield different dangers, to use the necromancy example from earlier, it is extremely dangerous and in most cases fatal as the energy required to restart full or in most cases partial function of a thrall's brain is in itself huge. Adding to the difficulty is the large amount of calories burned by the caster to create and maintain the necessary pathways which can cause rapid weight loss if performed repeatedly and often. Furthermore, the repeated use of the same pathways causes them to weaken over time along with other neurons and as a result, cognitive function diminishes at an alarming rate. Weaker forms of magic have much less of a noticeable effect, though the calorie cost is still relatively high and the mental strain high, even experienced mages are not immune to cognitive decay or 'mentor madness', so called since older mages are often so mentally expended that they cease to function. Despite the risks, technology does now aid in the application of magic as an attempt to alleviate these issues but they persist nonetheless. Magic is in various states of legality globally for numerous reasons but it has proven itself too useful a tool to be disregarded.

Strength, Limitation and Legislation
As with anything, there are limitations to magic and its effects. The primary limitation is that energy and matter are required to perform an action but the energy that can be consumed to perform the action from (usually) a human or humanoid body, is limited and if not purposefully limited by the user, short term and long term health problems are inevitable. Due to the lack of raw energy output and inability to somehow generate more power (until recently) the main approach historically has been to use some form of amplifier. Amplifiers have usually come in the form of gems or some precious stone which limited mages to higher societal classes but over time other amplifiers were discovered, these amplifiers were less effective but they were also much cheaper which allowed even peasants to use magic to some limited extent. The discovery and accruement of these imperfect amplifiers occurred around just before The Fall with the presence of lower class revolting magic users noted in numerous primary sources. Due to the possible strength of magic now with the ability to create perfect crystal lattices and the amount of knowledge now available, magic is limited to varying degrees globally due to its destructive and manipulative power however it has proven too useful to be simply banned outright, not to imply a lack of effort towards banning its use. As with many a contentious issue, lobbyists follow closely by and magic is no different. Carac Óstir na Shémasha, a Dírmala based group being the most prevalent pro-magic lobbyists and representatives in Igleis. There also exist extremists who argue that there should (usually must) be an island created by mages where there are no restrictions on magic, this is a view only held by fringe groups however. Due to the legislative limitations placed on magic, there are many mages who think back to 'the good old days' when they say magic was at its peak and legislation was loose or non-existent, when exactly this period was is argued between such people but they do all share this belief. Further still, there are groups in favour of certain legislation and others against it entirely.

War
Just as wars were fought with sticks until metal was discovered and they were fought with swords, when magic was discovered one of the first applications was in warfare. From separating torture victims on the atomic level to creating fireballs from friction between oxygen molecules, magical warfare is not a new sight and never was one as far as historical and archaeological records tell. Due to the strain and caloric intake necessary to continue operating as a mage as well as the training necessary to focus on maintaining highly specific neural pathways, Battle Mages were inherently a high class, expensive unit to deploy. Not only were mages expensive in their own right, their equipment also required a whole other set of obstacles from normal infantry be bested for maximum efficiency. Due to the high cost of Battle Mages, they rapidly became an upper class with the usual class based animosity cropping up.

Pre-Scientific Theories
Due to the fundamental forces not being something any species was aware of until relatively recently, numerous theories arose concerning how magic works and where it came from. Theories differ from region to region and sometimes it is tied into religion (though not always). The main connection between most theories is that magic is seen as a control of the elements, rather than for example a manipulation of gravity allowing a large rock to be lifted, it is viewed instead as the rock itself being lifted because the user is commanding the element of earth to do so. Though some theories do insist that magic is an underlying connecting force of the universe or some form of unseen mesh that can be interacted with, most settle on the elemental explanation or at least have at some point in their history.

Fourth Wall Note
* Magic is only used to allow the reader to understand the concept. The people of Jokaimi are as accustomed to what we call magic as they are to using hammers, axes and bows. Magic is not mystical, it is simply another tool to be used. Think of magic and how it relates to the people of Jokaimi more in terms of how we today view technology.