Magic Fundamentals

Just to make sure everyone's on the same page of the same book, here are some blatantly and officially stated things that EVERYTHING MUST FOLLOW.

We must also take a vote on accepting or rejecting them. If rejecting, reasons why, and also post whatever you think should also be a fundamental.

#1: Magic is the application of mana somehow. Everything else that does something without mana, even if it's whimsical, it is NOT magic.
#2: A point Bronkor stressed was that magic shouldn't be as easy to attain as drugs in America (my own analogy). Magic therefore needs to be dangerous when using. The system we must develop must also have DEFINITE consequences. Anything that is 'vague' in it being dangerous isn't good enough.
#3: Mana is inherently chaotic.
#4: Magic is change that is not inherently natural.
#5: Mana was created as a form of energy when The Beginner imploded and created everything. That's in lore, I'm just stating it to be clear as to it's nature and how it got there. It's EVERYWHERE inherently.
#6: Mana cannot create magic itself.


There is a #7 That I will develop soon which takes into consideration what can and can't use mana and why. That will be voted on separately. Votes are to be yes/no in posting, due to the extra conditions of "No".

I'm fine with all this.

Clarification:
In #5, is mana moving, or stagnant, does it flow like a fluid? can one area eventually run out? If it is truly everywhere, is it IN everything too? If so, how does it being there have an affect on living and non-living beings?

In #6, if mana is chaotic, why can't it randomly create spell-like effects?

This is the exact kinds of questions that need to be asked to flesh this stuff out...
#5: Mana is moving constantly, holding no bonds to itself or other things. It exists outside of everything, as if it's a vast moving sea that no one can see that extends in all directions, forever. At least that's what I propose. I'm not sure if one area can eventually run out... it would depend on an eighth proposition:

Concept of #8: Is magic used up as a result of magic, or is it simply manipulated to generate energy?

As for "how does it being there have an affect on living and non-living beings", does it? I'm currently unaware (or extremely forgetful) of articles we made of it doing such things.

As for the question for #6: It's defined as such by its natural mannerisms that I just stated. I suppose that would also make me revise #6 with what was just said.

An area can't run out of mana. More mana from other areas will just move into replace it. There is an actual term for such an effect but I'm tired this morning and don't remember it.

As for what it effects, as I understand it the ONLY way mana can effect the "real" world when species with the Gift manipulate it. Otherwise it's pretty passive.

So is it free-flowing, like water? even more flowing, like air? and that is why it will never run out, because it will always "fill in"? Or could it flow like a syrup?

And so mana, doesn't even exist, until it is pulled from this "other world" until someone casts a spell or does something similar?

I'd say closer to water. And yes I'd say it works on a invisible plane on top of our own. The best analogy I can find was when in SG-I episode they accidently activated this device that let everyone in the base see invisible creatures that occupied the same plane as we did. In this case it was these gigantic bug monsters that were really quite gross. That being said just as in the SG-I episode, we couldn't react with them, nor them us, beyond the seeing. In this case Gifted would be people that COULD have reacted with said bugs.

If it flows like water, could one not have a circle (if the mana flows on a two-dimension plane) or a sphere (if it flows in a three-dimensional plane) of spellcasters, casting relatively useless but high-mana-cost spells.

Would a spellcaster in the center of said circle of sphere, find themselves unable to cast spells? Would their spells find a lack of mana, and be less powerful? Or would the effect be negligible or unnoticeable?

This is less a question about whether mana can totally run out, and more of a question about how much/fast a spell consumes surrounding mana, if it drains from a point or an area, and if so, could this stamp out the effectiveness of other users in ANY way, no matter how small.

Water rushes to fill the void. So let’s just say mana from other areas rushes in to fill the area being consumed nearly instantaneously because the idea of argueing about how much mana is in any given area and argueing over each caster consumed would be the BIGGEST headache in the world. Then the area that filled the spellcasting area is refilled by another area and another area until we hit the implosion of the Life Goddess which I'm assuming is constantly shooting mana throughout the world in a never-ending explosion of mana. As it stands the Life Godess implosion has probably shot enough mana into any given area that it would be simply impossible in all but the greatest of magical rituals to drain an area to any great degree.

So, the interworkings of mana and spells, can best be described as "Dodge". Mmkay.

Here's how I see mana, kinda like energy in that it can not be created or destroyed...only changed...

Now mages would of course be the weavers of this magic, which would normally be an infinite source of energy except, weaving such large energies requires a certain amount of skill, and endurance...

Eventually the force needed to bend mana to your will would eventually start to kill you if you lacked these two curial elements, and even with them it's still entirely possible to...'magic' yourself to death.

Just the way I see it, but you guys can turn it about and intergrate it however you want.