Ritual Magic In Tyren

Overview and the Three Rules

Magic in Tyren was in the past mostly ritual, until the Demon Wars began. Then there was a shift in magic usage, so that magic could be used in a fraction of the time it would take to perform a ritual: in essence, Kren were originally used as battle magic. True magic is ritual in nature, and follows a few basic rules.

1) All magic is invoked by focusing Dol energy into doing a certain task, such as creating a fireball, or opening the Gates to the Outside to let Cthulhu in, and requires a will to support the spell, to keep it coherent and together until finished.

2) Unlike Kren, Rituals take time to focus the magic, because they must gather Dol energy together during the ritual (as compared to Kren, which already have the required energy gathered and held in a single place). This is part of the reason why a will is needed to support each spell.

3) As with Kren, any one soul can only support so much energy before it burns out like a candle, so ritual magic is similarly limited in scope.

Of course, one can always bend the rules or tilt them in your favor, and that's all of what ritual magic is about. If one didn't do anything, just focused their will into trying to do something, one would drop over dead long before enough energy to do anything had been gathered. That is why you will find that rituals tend to have candles, pentagrams, etc. These things help to add more focus to the ritual, gathering energy faster and holding it in the area to be used later. The net effect of this is that you can actually cast a spell before you drop dead from lack of eating, for you must have pure uninterrupted concentration to properly focus and support a spell.

In direct relation to the adding of ritual items, there is a certain way to go about it. Yes, a rock might allow you to gather energy faster for a Vol (Fire) spell, but that rock is predominantly Sil (Earth) energy, and would be better suited for a spell affecting Earth, such as an earthquake. Therefore, choosing the proper items for a ritual is important. In the above example, a proper item to use would be burning candles, or any other item predominantly associated with fire.*

Of course, while one might gather a few rocks around to help aid in gathering energy (for those rocks are suffused with it, and thus will act as a conduit for Earth Dol), once again the proper item would be better. In this case, a larger rock would be better for gathering more energy and holding it in place for use (yes, larger IS better for rituals). Even better than that is an item, once more a rock, that has been used in previous rituals. Such a rock has already been used for the task at hand (gathering energy), and so will make the job easier/quicker.**/***

The observant person is now wondering, 'Well, what items will help in focusing Zun (Void) energy for a spell? After all, there is no real object or location for Void as an element.' Simple, I reply. There is really only one way to gather energy for a Zun spell.

Blood.

More specifically, energy. Pure energy doesn't manifest in anything naturally except in living creatures (to understand why, go look back at my descriptions of the elements, found in the overview. Blood has long been associated with power, which makes sense, because in Tyren your blood is what holds your soul inside your body.

So, if you want to gather Zun energy you need something that's predominantly Zun. Blood fits the bill perfectly, and that is why sacrifices to do purely kinetic things (such as opening the Gates of the Outside to let Cthulhu in) require blood, and lots of it. Of course, if you wished to and had one to spare, a magical/enchanted item will do just as well, because in order to hold an enchantment to an item it must be bound with Zun, otherwise that ambient energy will dissipate rather quickly.

Blood, as the soul-anchor, is also useful in working/gathering large amounts of Dol energy. This circumvents the normal limitations of a single person being able to do just so much without burning out. See the mechanics section of Kren to get a rough thought about using the Life Force (blood) of yourself and others.

*Because Kren are at their essence concentrated Dol energy, using Kren (whether one or more) in a ritual would be very useful as a source of power. This, however, is only truly applicable to times when a ritual is absolutely required (once again, like opening those Gates to the Outside to let Cthulhu in).

**Location is just as important, if not more so, than ritual items. Stonehenge would be perhaps the best place for someone in our world to cast an earth spell, due to it's massive stone pillars and it's connection (whether real or fake) with magic. Another example would be the Temple of the Earth God. Ect, etc.

***In the time before the Demon Wars, when ritual magic was still common, magicians would have carried around certain objects that had been used in other rituals, so if they needed assistance in a spell, they could have an aid right on hand.