In this post I'm going to speak on what is and the different ways to use Dume Powder.

What Does Dume Mean? D.U.M.E means Death Unto My Enemies.

What Is The Difference Between Goofer Dust & Dume Powder? This type of powder I would say is a step below Goofer Dust. Dume Powder is fairly newish and has lighter ingredients, where Goofer Dust has been around for over a hundred years and has more potent ingredients and takes longer to make.

Is The Store Bought Dume The Real? Don't know, I can say Goofer dust Is Not The Real Deal in stores. Dume I want to say can be in some places. But i can say this. I think the southern hoodoo communities stop telling outsiders how to make goofer dust to keep it from being sold because of how dangerous it can be.

How Can It Be Used? There are many ways to use this depending on what results your looking for.

Dume powder works well with a person's natural tendencies.

(Example) If I know that a person's is constantly getting sick or think that they are you can play off that and actually make them sick.

Spells: Here are two spells useing a photo if you done have your targets photo use their name and burn that to ash.

Burn a photo of the target to ash & mix in hospital dirt and dume powder. Now this will make them sick.

You can burn a photo of a person to ash then mix dume powder and put it in a little bottle or pill bottle the it will make them shake constantly.

There are other ways it can be used like putting it a persons foot track or of you pick up their tracks.

I figure it’s relatively universal. It was probably the Centralist scholars that came up with the system, and it was adopted by the other countries. The system’s been around for decades and decades, so it’s had time to spread to the majorly populated areas.

The more remote Eastern villages, Northern clans, and the entirety of the magic-hating West might not have heard of the tests, and certainly wouldn’t have access to them, but otherwise the knowledge is pretty wide-spread.

Gonna talk about my magic system for my Fantasy Thing some more. I realize that I write very little about this world, but uh, oh well! Cliff Notes version of my magic system: There are two types, runic and innate. Runic is symbol-based, so all spellwork is written, and anyone can learn it in the same way anyone can learn higher mathematics or physics. It can be cast as fast as you can write the symbols, and some mages will tattoo the runes on themselves to speed things up. Innate is genetic and can only be learned by those born with the ability, has a much wider variety of spells to work with, can be cast as fast as thought, and uses three times as much energy as runic magic does.

So because I am amazingly pedantic, I’ve decided that in-universe scholars created a power scale to measure a mage’s strength. It can be useful to know for a variety of reasons, such as if two people are dueling, it’s a really good idea to make sure they’re around the same power level. This scale goes from 1 to 10, and is mostly aimed at innates, since all runics are either level three or four.

How it is tested, I am not clear on yet. I just know that (most) mages are tested at some point in their lives. It’s best to test innates multiple times, as the more powerful ones may not be finished growing into their power until their mid-thirties. (Eg. Someone who was Level 3 at eighteen might be bumped up to 4 or maybe even 5 at thirty-five.)

More under cut, to not clutter dashboards!

Some slightly-awkward musing on my magic system, in an attempt to solidify things in my own head. Since I am on a Star Wars kick, I made a Star Wars metaphor.

Runic magic is the equivalent of a lightsaber. A lightsaber is always a plasma arc produced by a kyber crystal and looped back into its casing; runic magic is always produced by writing a set of specific symbols onto solid matter and firing them. Different forms of lightsaber combat exist, and are used depending on the situation and the proclivities of the wielder, and there are likewise different schools or philosophies on the usage of runic (there are the combat mages, and the priests, and about a hundred different academic pursuits). Individuals that are particularly good at thinking outside of the box may use their lightsaber to put doorways where no doorway existed before, or as a very impractical soldering iron, or as a fancy flashlight, but it is still, and always will be, a lightsaber. So it is, in its own way, very limited in the ways that it may be used.

Innate magic is the Force. Innate magic still obeys the laws of physics (ie. be careful when casting fire because thermodynamics is a thing), and it obeys some set-in-stone Rules that I’m still making up, but it is considerably more flexible and can be used in a wider variety of situations than a lightsaber. As with the Force-- and ignoring all philosophies on Light and Dark for the moment-- any sensitive individual has the theoretical ability to learn everything, but they will always specialize at least a little bit, due either to temperament or training or what have you. For instance, a generic Force-user can use telekinesis and healing because they are very practical, but maybe their passion is the Mind Trick and they are bomb at it. Same for innate magic.

I’m gonna talk about my magic system! This is for my exponentially-growing fantasy headworld, which is currently very cleverly called the ‘Fantasy Thing’.

So I’ve got two types of magic in this world, and they play by very different rules. The working names for them right now are runic and innate.

Runic is a symbol-based magic-- every single spell exists purely in a written form. Some of the really simple spells, like producing a light, utilize a single rune. More complex spells are comprised of multiple-- sometimes many-- runes strung together. Weaving them together in such a way that the runes a) do not foul each other up, and b) work at all is something that takes a long time to master. This is why the vast, vast majority of runic mages, even fighting mages, have a scholarly background.

Of the two magics, runic is safer. If you do not write the rune (or set of runes) exactly correct, it will not fire and nothing will happen. Summoning some horrible entity from the nether world, and botched the inscription on the summoning circle? Your spell will not work, and the entity will remain safely in the nether, and you will get to waste a few hours of your life figuring out what you wrote incorrectly.

Since runic spells must be written in order to be used, mages who use the same spell(s) with extreme frequency will often have them tattooed on themselves. The most common place is the underside of the arm, though there are some regional variants-- including the back of the hand, the face, and the hips. Constables will often have tracking and binding spells printed, and battle mages will choose some offensive spell (ie. fire and lighting, push/pull, etc.) and make that their specialty. Tattoo artists are highly regarded and sought after, and charge a hell of a lot of money for their work. Each artist has his or her own particular style, so you can totally tell who did a particular mage’s tats.

Runic magic has been in my head rather longer than innate has, so I’m still figuring out everything some things about the latter. Literally anyone can learn and use runic magic, in the same way that anyone can learn higher mathematics-- some people just find it easier than others. Innate mages must be born with the ability, and it is uncommon, though not rare. It is also hereditary, so magic tends to run in families.

Innate magic is considerably more dangerous than runic. If a spell is improperly cast, it can backfire on the mage-- this can result in the rather messy and spectacular death of said mage, if they are unprepared. Where runic is bound by a very specific set of rules and what can be cast is literally whatever is written down, innate magic is a lot more flexible, and is basically limited to the imagination of the caster (and whatever Laws of Magic/Physics I make up because I am pedantic).

Each rune has a particular amount of power associated with it-- for example, a particular rune for a light spell will always run for X minutes at X luminosity, no matter who casts it. An innate spell depends on the strength of the caster, so some people will find lighting a single candle challenging, while others will be able to throw around monstrous spells and barely be winded. All spells, either runic or innate, use a lot of calories, so mages in general tend to be big eaters.

A quick comparison of each type of magic can be as follows: Runic is safer (no backlash), can be learned by anyone, has a set power level, and can be cast as quickly as you can write out a very complex series of runes (ie. v e r y  s l o w l y) unless you have something pre-set up (like a tattoo). Innate can backlash if you do it wrong, can only be used by those born with the ability, varies wildly in power level, can be cast very quickly, and has a much wider variety of spells to work with. Innate magic also uses three times as much of the mage’s energy as runic does, so they get tired faster.

There are several different ways that shapes are changed in Han's and my new urban fantasy world (the one with Zero the vampire, Peony the unicorn, Faris the centaur, and the angel Zarut).

Talismans are usually charmed rocks (I... think Han and I decided on a stone, but darned if I can remember what it was-- maybe hematite??) worn as a necklace, earring, or bracelet. They are used to change the wearer's form so that they appear human. Important for nonhumans who need to fit into society. The act of putting on the talisman triggers the transformation; taking it off changes the wearer back into their real form.

The talisman-induced transformation isn't usually painful, but it can be quite disconcerting to watch. The wearer basically appears to pour into the new shape, like a liquid. Internal organs and fluids can often be glimpsed in grisly detail. The change takes several seconds, and conservation of mass is kept up (so a very large creature taking human form is going to weigh a lot, while a small one will make a very short, very light human).

Werecreatures are people who take on an animal form during the week of the full moon. Pretty standard stuff. Moon comes up, the person transforms; moon goes down, they change back. It takes several minutes and can hurt quite a lot. The wereperson is most vulnerable during and just after the change, when they may be disoriented and in pain. Conservation of mass is kept.

Shapeshifters are people who can take on another form voluntarily. They get mistaken for werecreatures a lot, but aren't-- their ability is congenital, voluntary, and they don't get the "moon-crazies". Their transformation is the fastest of all; it takes a fraction of a second, and was once poetically described as "a blur like a hummingbird's wing". It takes a lot of energy, though, so no hopping between forms with abandon. Conservation of mass still kept.