Sorcerer

A sorcerer is someone who has tapped into their own soul and knows how to draw out the power to wield as magic.

Souls

Souls are the metaphysical properties of a person. They are the blueprint, the inmortal energy within us all, the unseen and inexplicable essence of the self. It is one part of the True Name of a person (along with body, mind, and heart), all of which are intrinsically linked.

Meditation

In order to access the power of one's soul, one must meditate and come to a deeper understanding of themselves. This is not easy and requires usually decades or even centuries of work.

Journaling

In order to better know oneselves, sorcerers often keep detailed journals upon which they can meditate.

Innate Characteristics

The innate characteristics of a person include their species, their genetic makeup, their heritage, and so on. Immutable, inborn properties. These translate into different kinds of magical power when a sorcerer comes to understand them.

For example, a shemir will have powers of creation and fashioning that can be effected via sorcery. An aerligian might have powers over truth, and a ka'ar could invoke powers of fire due to their species.

Experiences

A person's experiences also shape who they are, and these can have a profound affect on the soul of an individual. Trauma and achievement both have an impact, as well as faith, other esoteric energies, and all the thoughts, emotions, and physical experiences a person has.

For example, if the ka'ar from the example above were raised in the Subterranean Realm, they might also have powers over stone and metal. If they were raised to be a fisherman, they might have powers over water and fish. If they experienced a traumatic event in their childhood involving a building collapse, they might either have powers to reinforce the structure of a building or the opposite, to raze one. If they have a long-term romantic partner or even very deep friendship, they will take on, in a minor way, energies from their partner or friend. And, of course, if they are subject to, for instance, a curse, their soul will reflect it and they might gain general powers from that, even.

Accessing the Soul

One must know what energies can be drawn through their souls before they can draw them. They cannot merely guess; they must know before hand and intentionally target it. For instance, the above-mentioned ka'ar may not know they had the power to raze buildings, so they could not draw on that power, even if they found themselves wanting to raze a building. This is why sorcerers continue to meditate often, to learn more about their own souls.

Directed Energies

For a sorcerer's powers to affect anything, the enegies must be channeled through a rod, and then they must hit their target. To direct a spell at oneself, simply point the rod back or use a mirror to reflect the spell back.

Rods

In order to wield the powers of the soul, one must have a device to channel it through. For sorcerers, this is a rod, a length of metal or, sometimes, stone, often capped with a gem. The most common metal used is silver, but the best is said to be quickchrome, if one knows how to make it keep a shape.

Backlash

If a spell's energies miss their target, the intended power of the spell affects what it hit instead. If, however, the spell fails to be cast, if the sorcerer's channeling fails, the energies might recoil and cause harm to the sorcerer. It matters not the intended spell; once control is lost, the energies are wild and dangerous. They can cause damage to the soul or to the Name of a person, depending on the degree of backlash and amount of power.

Soul Damage

Soul damage has little outward effect at first, but it makes it harder to use sorcery. Significant soul damage might show up in other aspects of a person, such as physical alteration, emotional trauma, or mental instability. Truly potent soul damage may simply drain a person of will, personality, and health.

Loss of Self

Another possibility is that the damage will cause a person to lose their sense of self. At this point, they will no longer be capable of being a sorcerer. The weakest version of this is simply a personal identity crisis, but truly profound losses of self might cause bodies to lose their form.

Variations

Some variations include

• Fa'amalolo: sorcerers who help others with their souls, becoming healers of metaphysical injuries and ailments.
• Faipese: sorcerers whose meditation involves musical chanting.
• Metaphysicist: a sorcerer who studies metaphysics to improve their magic, or a metaphysicist who uses sorcery to better study metaphysics.
• Sorcererss: in many cultures, women are forbidden from becoming sorcerers, so those who do are often doing so in open defiance of law and custom.
• Tagata asiasi: sorcerers who use their powers of meditation to come to answers to deep questions or mysteries similar to how an intuitive does.
• Tagata poto: sorcerers who focus on teaching future sorcerers, archiving knowledge and journals and information.
• Totagara: sorcerers who build special contemplation gardens to meditate in so that they may adjust the garden to adjust their own focus and perhaps their own soul.
• Tusisolo: sorcerers who meditate via poetry, which they pour their souls into, literally.
• Uchakka: sorcerers who use their powers to steal energies from the souls of others. Forbidden almost everywhere sorcerers are known.

Sweepers

It is said that the most powerful sorcerers are sweepers, those who clean the hermitages and temples and halls where other sorcerers dwell, study, and meditate. They meditate through action, and thus, they tap into deeper parts of their souls than anyone else.

(Yes, this is an unabashed homage to Discworld.)

Persecution

Sorcery is often illegal for anyone but members of the ruling class, ruling class churches or temples, or other agencies of the state.

Skills

Some common skills include

• Meditation
• Journaling

Stats

The average sorcerer has these variations on the base stats of their nation/species:

PRO -1
ATH -1
STR -2
AWA +3
WIL +6
ATH /
PRS +1

Though many sorcerers adapt their souls to give greater bonuses.