Bab 55: Lost Lore, Magic in Ancient Times
Lost Lore, Magic in Ancient Times.
Excerpt from the diaries of Prince Doran Nymeros Martell:
After spending several years studying the tomes and scrolls that I recovered from the lost vaults of the First Men, I have a clear idea of the type of magic the First Men used.
They classified magic into two types: Divine and Mortal.
According to the tomes, divine magic cannot be learned, it is something that is inherited through bloodlines while mortal magic can be learned by anyone who puts in enough time and effort.
After a detailed study I divided their magic into six categories:
-Elemental: It was the magic of the frost devils according to many, and for that reason its use was prohibited for millennia, according to the book "Winter is gone" by Arthos Stark elemental magic only ceased to be a taboo subject approximately 6200 years ago when the heir to the Winter King, Jon Stark, was born with a great gift for Wind Magic.
The reason it was considered a forbidden magic is because during the Long Night the White Walkers used two types of magic: Necromancy and Frost Magic. Ironically The Wall was built with a mixture of Frost Magic and Runes, yet the fear of Frost Magic did not disappear from the hearts of men and many still associated it with the Others.
That is why this magic was little developed, there were only a handful of mages who dared to venture into this field, and even after removing the ban it was frowned upon. By the time the Holy Order of the Seven arrived in the Last Land (Westeros) there were only two dozen mages capable of using this magic, the elements they used were mainly Wind and Water (Ironically, the combination of these two elements create the magic that the First Men feared so much: Frost Magic).
Given my upbringing, I find it hard to admit that the First Men had a point in being so wary of this magic (but that doesn't excuse having banned it). Elemental magic is extremely dangerous for the novice user. This magic relies heavily on the mage's discipline, control and restraint. Unconscious, emotion-influenced, impulsive, or reckless use of this power can be catastrophic.
There are a lot of very important factors when using elemental magic: distance, mass, precision, power,... It all depends on the user's power, knowledge, skill and control. If a novice mage recklessly uses this type of magic it could easily consume all of their mana, which doesn't sound too terrible but remembering that mana is spiritual energy connected to the soul... There were many cases of novice mages consuming their own life force by accident.
"Magic can consume your very soul." is a very popular saying among Elemetal mages. Elemental magic can consume you if you are not careful, and of all the elements Fire is the most dangerous. I remember reading the Diary of Lyon Black, Master Firemage, in it the mage told a thousand horror stories of how his students did not heed his warnings and recklessly practiced Fire magic. The most common danger of fire magic is that the fire will consume you if you lose control, Lyon Black watched as dozens of mages were reduced to ashes in front of his eyes.
But as dangerous as Elemental magic is, it is one of the most powerful branches of Magic, and one of my favorites.
Taking all of this into account, it was no surprise that Elemental Magic was the first type of magic to disappear from this part of the world.
-Divination: It was a type of divine magic, therefore extremely rare. The First Men called the users of this magic Greenseers, according to my studies that name came from their adoration for nature (I can't find any other reason, the name has nothing to do with the capabilities of this magic). Greenseers had two types of abilities, we will talk about the second one later, the important one for this field is what they called Greensight.
Greensight is the ability to have prophetic dreams that they called green dreams (again I have no idea why the name). Their dreams were not clear images of the events to come, something very typical of prophetic dreams of any prophet of any civilization. The prophetic dreams of the Greenseers were filled with symbolic meaning, images, and metaphors of what is to come.
The meaning of dreams is not always clear, many times the greenseers could not solve the puzzles that were their dreams until the events occurred, which is why many believe that the future is written in stone and nothing can change it.
Likewise, dreams about events that happen in the present were mysterious and difficult to understand. In contrast, dreams about the past were clear as day, the Greenseers could see past events as if they themselves were present in such a place and such an age.
-Skinchanging: There were two types of Skinchangers, called Wargs and the other called simply Skinchangers.
Wargs were wizards who had the power to enter the mind of any animal and control its actions. The process sounds simple but in reality it was much more complicated than it sounds.
The interaction between the minds of the animal and the human influences the personalities of both, this could result in detrimental effects for the human if he does not combat the animal's influence (many wargs did not heed this warning and ended up as more beast than human).
It is much easier to warg into the mind of an animal the user has a bond with, in fact many novice wargs (unaware of their abilities) warg into the minds of their pets unconsciously.
When a warg forms a bond with an animal a soul bond is formed between them, somewhat akin to a familiar bond. If the animal dies the user is marked for life, many describe the experience as worse than losing a sibling. If an animal dies while the warg is still in their mind, the user is permanently traumatized, in some cases losing mental faculties and reduced to an empty shell. Conversely, if the human's body is killed while he/she is in the mind of an animal, the human's consciousness will remain in the beast. In the latter case this "second life" is rather short because the memories of man/woman will slowly fade until there is nothing left but the beast.
Like any magic warging has different levels of difficulty. Warging into a pet like a dog is easier, as they live close to humans and are more domesticated. Wolves are more difficult, as one has to forge a lasting bond with them, similiar to a marriage. Birds are tempting, but a skinchanger may soon lose touch with the world of man and be lost in the skies, such mighty is the call of the wind. Cats are selfish and vain animals, they cannot be easily controlled unless you have a powerful bond with the cat in question, in most cases they can only be forced. The elk, deer, rabbit, and herbivores in general are easier but also more dangerous according to the First Men because the influence of these animals makes man docile and complacent, according to them it turns him into a coward.
The warg have three inviolable rules: 1-Do not mate with another animal while warging (The "while warging" I hope is an error of my translations and is not something literal. By the gods I hope so). 2-Do not consume human meat. 3-Do not take over the body of another man, that is considered an abomination. The penalty for non-compliance with these rules is capital punishment.
Interestingly all Greenseers are Wargs but only some Wargs are Greenseers.
Skinchanger are wizards capable of shapeshifting, they had the ability to transform into animals. Kind of like animagus, but unlike us skinchangers weren't limited by the shape of their spirit animal. They could take the form of any animal they wanted, be it a trout or a wolf.
Much like warging the animal they changed into influenced their personality (but the influence was temporary), for example a user could be more violent while in wolf form and more docile while in dog form.
The size and power of the animal influences the mana needed for the change, the weakest skinchangers could only take one form (that of a small and weak animal) while the most powerful could take the forms of dozens of large and powerful animals.
Legends say that the most powerful Skinchanger of all was able to transform into an Ice Dragon (a legendary Long Night hero named Frank the Beast).
After exchanging several letters with my friend Rickard Stark, I came to suspect that this type of magic never completely disappeared. I personally think there are still wargs and skinchangers in the North.
-Alchemy: It is the art of potions. An old teacher of mine once said: "I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death"
A potion is a magical drink created from various ingredients, the result creating various magical effects on the drinker, from healing wounds to inducing madness. It is an art that I know very well as I am a Potion Master myself.
That's why I was very excited to read about the potions of the First Men, after marveling at them Skinchanging and Divination magic my expectations were high. But unfortunately I was disappointed.
The First Men were never masters of this art, nor did they become adepts. They were newbies, they barely created a dozen potions.
I didn't learn anything new, the few recipes I found were archaic and I know much more powerful potions with the same effects. Mainly they had a couple of healing potions, to speed up healing of wounds, broken bones and to heal common illness.
-Runes: The First Men were not masters of this magic but they were adepts.
The First Men focused on one type of runes, Strengthening runes. Strengthening runes can be used in a variety of ways, whether it's making a wood stick stronger than a metal rod or making a glass vase more durable than a wooden one.
Strengthening runes enchant the properties of an item. The First Men focused on making everyday items more durable. To this day there are still some of those objects in Westeros, the most famous example would be Lord Royce's armor.
But just because they focused on and mastered one type of rune doesn't mean they hadn't tried to create other types of runes. But their knowledge of other types is little.
-Nature Magic: Another type of divine magic for the First Men.
Before I mentioned the first type of magic that the Greenseers have(greensight), now I will talk about the second: nature magic.
Nature magic allowed them to control plants and even affect the weather. One of the most notable examples of this magic is when hundreds of Greenseers came together to bring to life the catastrophe known as The Hammer of the Waters. The children of the Forest created a powerful earthquake that shattered the Arm of Dorne separating Westeros and Essos for good.
Another more benign example of this magic is the acceleration of crop growth.
This type of magic was also lost, I did not hear any mention of it.
After my investigation, I came to the conclusion that all types of mortal magic (magic that is learned) vanished from all of Westeros while almost all types of divine magic (inherited magic) still persist. Of the divine magic the Wargs and the Greenseers remain, but the greenseers only have access to their innate magic (Greensight), nature magic is a gift that requires a lot of study and practice therefore there are no Greenseers capable of using it.
I would like to be wrong, maybe there is a Nature Mage left on this continent, if so I would really like to meet him or her. I'm sure I would learn a lot of things.
Aside from that, another thing I learned is how to awaken dormant magic in humans. To do this I found two ways, one requires a Children of the Forest to awaken the dormant magic using their innate magic, the other I can do it myself. The second method is to channel a large amount of mana into the body of a man or woman, that mana will awaken their own mana. But this method is a bit dangerous, there is no risk of death or permanent injury, but it is extremely painful.
The mages described it as an experience comparable to Holy Steel, somewhat akin to Crucio.
Although I would like to have more wizards around I will wait a few years, I will wait until I am more powerful and have more information about the (Un)Holy Order of the Seven.
***
NOTE: This is the beggining of The Lost Lore saga: lots of Worldbuilding about the Age of Dawn and the Age of Heroes.
It will be six chapters of it so if you dont like that Doran wont be "the MC" of this part (even tho he is narrating all of this chapters) you can wait a week and join us later. Anyway I am exhausted (last chap of this saga has almost 4k words and I just finished it) so bye
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