What This Page Is
In the old world the Veil was thick enough that the sequence in The Veil could be learned in a year and trusted in a war. In the The Unknown Universe the Veil sits under a different kind of tension, and the difference is the camp's oldest argument: what that tension is, and what it is for. Wild Magic is the standing rule for the new world's magic — the pull that comes back shaped, and the one technique that takes the tension back.
The eight doors are the map in The Eight Doors; the cost ladder is in The Veil. This page is the failure — and the failure is not a bug. It is the new world, and the new world is the story.
The Shaped Pull
The rule, in one sentence: the pull comes back shaped, and the shape is not the one the mage sent.
- The spell works. That is the part the old world would call a miracle.
- The spell is not quite the spell. That is the part the new world is about.
- It is not that the fireball turns into a frog. It is that the fireball arrives from behind. It is that the healing lands on the one who is already whole. It is that the door opens, and the door is not the door, and the one who opened it is the one who has to walk through.
The chance is one in N, and N is not a number on the sheet — N is a place. Where the Veil is thin — the Threshold, a ley line, an elemental hotspot — N is small, and the shaped pull is the weather. Where the Veil is thick, N is large, and the shaped pull is the story.
Wild Spells
A wild spell is a spell that was released badly — the tension kept, and the tension looking for a new shape. A wild spell does not have an intention, and the one who cast it is not the one who has to live with the shape.
- Wild spells are recorded. The camp keeps the record — the place, the shape, the one who was hit by the shape — and the record is the story's memory of the new world.
- Wild spells are feared. Not because they are wrong — the language is not wrong, it is just not yours — but because the shape is not the one the mage sent, and the mage is the one who has to explain the shape to the one who was hit.
- Wild spells are the camp's oldest argument: is it a flaw in the world, or a message from it? The argument is every night by the fire, and the argument is the point, and the one who finishes the argument is the one the story is about.
Mana-Burn (the counter-technique)
Wreckreate could kill a dragon by draining its magic. That's not magic. That's art.
Mana-burn is the one technique that takes the tension back: the burn does not cast against the spell — the burn takes the Exchange up, takes the tension out of the other mage's hand, and gives it back shaped. The other mage's meter goes to zero, and the meter is the budget, and the budget is the one who is still standing.
- Mana-burn is an INT technique — the shape has to be held exactly, and the shape is the one the other mage sent, and the one who holds it is the one who takes it back.
- Mana-burn is not a spell. It is a taking, and the taking is the art, and the art is the one the camp argues about, because the art is the answer to the question the new world asks: what if the tension is not yours, and the one who takes it back is the one who is still standing?
- The cost of a mana-burn is the other mage's meter — and the meter is not the Exchange, and the Exchange is the one who is still standing.
"The new world's magic is a language you have not learned, and the language is not wrong. It is just not yours. The burn is the one who learns the language, and the learning is the art." — Wreckreate