Last week’s article introduced the fundamentals of magic in the Endless Lands, the fantasy setting which constitutes my “private vice” for fiction stories. Continuing on that theme, this week I’ll describe how that abstract bundle of metaphysics illuminates my cultural worldbuilding in the setting. Differences in culture and perspective generate tension, which leads to story. Fiction, or games, or whatever I really end up doing with the setting ought not be about the worldbuilding. The heart of fiction is a character’s story, and the heart of a game is the players’ story. I engage in all this worldbuilding because I find fantasy stories most enticing when they settle, like this, as the tip of a pyramid.
As a quick recap, the metaphysics of the Endless Lands distills to three basic elements of magic:
- Soul: The “fuel” of magic, energy invested in creating or generating a magical process. Can be conceived as an energy (like calories), or a capacity (like muscular strength).
- Law: The “structure” of magic, which describes how Soul can be channeled.
- Will: The “shape” of magic, how the channeled Soul impacts the world. An important aspect is the mind visualizing the effect.
Three Cultures
There are three notable macrocultural groups in the 200-ish year epoch about which I write most Akhelas fiction. They are the Jairi, the Nothi, and the Quinyans. Of these, the Jairi dominate my focus. The Nothi are largely in conflict with the Jairi, while the cultures of Quinyan descent do not have a specific trend.
The First People, the Akheli, are the ancestor of both the Jairi and the Nothi. The current macrocultures descend from the eponymous heroes, Jair and Noth. These former friends were opposing leaders in the cataclysmic Lightswar which birthed the Ninth Dragon and ended prehistory. Geographically, the Jairi cultures mostly inhabit the arid north of Akhelas, especially along the Kaires River. The Khian River in the rough middle of Akhelas acts as a natural “soft boundary” between the Jairi and the Nothi. Peoples from cultures of both groups live along the Khian. South of that river live mostly Nothi cultures. The southern geography is poorly defined.
Within these macrocultures, two cultures (or ethnicities) are prominent: the Jihari of the north, and the Threnothi of the south. Broadly, the Jairi are less populous and more politically cohesive; the Nothi are more populous, and less politically cohesive.
The Quinyans are dominant in a western portion of Akhelas. A mountain range separates them from the Jairi. Quinyan cultures can be found throughout the continent, but are rarely a populous majority. The mythical/historical distinction for the Quinyans is that they did not descend from the Akheli. While the Quinyans acknowledge mortal nature is “Half-Made,” they differ from the Jairi and Nothi on tales of Creation, history, and purpose.
Variations on a Theme
As mentioned previously, all magic in the Endless Lands functions through the use of Soul, Law, and Will. Cultures differ in their approach to magic and their perspective on “what magic is” through how they utilize these elements. These elements are a tool used from an outside perspective. From an internal perspective, no Half-Made in the focal epoch of Akhelas has achieved this metaphysical insight.
From a high-altitude view a culture’s magical tradition stems from which elements (or combination of elements) that culture emphasizes.
Jairi magic emphasizes the investment of Soul into a relatively simple Law structure. This takes the shape of individuals or communities negotiating with the living landscape’s psyche, perceived as a spirit, so that the spirit will provide a benefit. For example, coaxing the mind of a breeze to live in your ear and improve your hearing. This magic’s focus on Soul means it is often quick to perform—like inefficiently dumping fuel onto a fire—and does not require extensive experience with magical procedures. In essence, the Jairi tend to rely on the world’s animism for the Will to shape their magic. A consequence is that Jairi culture has evolved, over the centuries, toward practices, traditions, and beliefs which make it easier to strength, generate, and invest one’s Soul.
Among the Jairi, the Jihari have a notorious history of producing magically powerful individuals. The most common circumstance is the individual contracting their own mind as if a spirit. Jihari who build personal Law structures in this way can develop unique magics through employing their Will to shape the channeled energies. This comes with a great risk—if the person breaks their own Law, they risk harm to their body, personality, and energy.
The Jihari love of freedom and hero-worship condones these practices, at least to a degree. The other Jairi have a broad distaste for individuals who achieve personal power through self-bound Law. Their attitude is pragmatic. An individual can continue to invest Soul into their own Law, and continually increase in magical power. Such a powerful person can unbalance magical ecologies and warp stable social structures. For example, developing a Soul strong enough that the land’s psyche seeks a contract with the individual alone, rather than the community. For agricultural communities which rely upon the land’s good grace for their survival, this can be a disaster.
Thus the Jairi cultures have a bias toward communal magic, and individual magic through interconnection with the world. Their traditions result frequently in the emergence of powerful iconoclasts, which the community then rejects for its own safety.
Nothi magic emphasizes building complex structures of Law which are shaped by a strong Will. This often takes shape similar to Earth stereotypes of wizardry or alchemical ritual. Unlike Law among the Jairi, the Nothi do not construct their Law from an investment of Soul. Rather, they build layer upon layer of weak Law to produce a structure which can channel the individual’s Soul. A classic example would be spending weeks creating a great sigil or mandala which will guide energy along specific pathways to achieve the effect shaped by the individual’s Will. So long as the Will coheres with the structure of such a Law, the magic will be successful.
A consequence of this approach is that Nothi magic requires less energy—less Soul—but greater individual skill. Nothi magic is capable of channeling very little Soul to impressive effect. Thus, the Nothi culture places less emphasis on the acts which will produce Soul or strengthen the Soul of individuals. It focuses more on developing individual skill, and results in a culture of education as knowledge about what processes, structures, and artificial limitations are most effective are inherited by each generation. Naturally, there’s also the petty covetousness which adheres to knowledge about power.
Nothi culture tends more toward an educated aristocracy as a result of their magical tradition. Powerful individuals are not as common as among the Jairi, but they also are not forced into iconoclasm.
These magical traditions shape the cultures which practice them, and in turn are shaped by their culture in a symbiotic relationship. I find worldbuilding is at its most interesting when there’s no “single” starting cause of an effect. Rather, this back-and-forth melange, for me, is much more persuasive. Likewise, this formative process influences how the Jairi and the Nothi perceive one another, and continue to shape their perceptions. This ongoing antagonism in cultural, political, and magical domains is why the particular epoch I write within drives my interest.
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