#shadow school

so because this is accidentally a wiz blog now, i have been working on crochet charts of the school symbols. here is one for the shadow school.

The others can be insidious. Quiet magics, the kinds children and soldiers and child soldiers learn.

Storm can scatter a wizard's thoughts. They are staring off into space, trying to concentrate, each thought a raindrop through a sieve. They know wildness, live it, let it sustain them. Coming to terms with a lack of control of their own mind is impossible. So they smite enemies, they call upon legends of the deep, and do not pay attention to this entropy. Because they can't focus anymore anyway.

Ice can stun a wizard in place. Joints aching, teeth clenched, jaw twinging. They are trapped and frozen with no hint of coldness. They can only stare, and watch who they cannot protect from their side of the battlefield. They can only watch the world continue without them as they lie in bed, fatigue paralyzing them. They watch sunlight grow and dim through their windows, and can do nothing.

Fire can make a wizard hesitate. They have seen how destructive and hungry their magic is. They know their own power, how it can be fueled by something as volatile as emotion, and they do not trust themself. It changes the wizard, and they become a dog waiting for the leash to be clipped on before they can quest. They sit and wait patiently for the muzzle, so they don't bite the underserving.

Death can isolate their wizards. They wilt flowers and watch enemies crumble under their decay and desecration, so they fear, knowing their touch may harm the ones they love. They starve themselves of touch, gloves on their hands, avoiding even the most casual of interaction. How can they let themself hold a person they love if they hear heartbeats slowing in their ears? Was it ever there at all?

Myth can give their wizards a dead, dull look in their eyes. Once amazed by the ability to have visions of the past, present, and future, they now watch with dead eyes as their sight shows them past failures. As their sight shows them current tradgedies they can do nothing to stop. As their sight shows them their own end, and they still only watch, knowing that it will happen no matter what. They tell no one, but grimace as they watch the paths people take, knowing the horrific destination.

Life gives instinct to it's wizards. They've always understood the cycle of life and death, accepted it as is typical for their curriculum. They startle at loud noises now, though. Rabbit quick heartbeats thudding as they scan the area, twitching with the urge to run. They stare at small animals, wondering about the meat in those delicate bones. They follow others much easier, eyes narrow and breath quiet, and they startle their fellow theurgists. And the cycle continues.

Balance knows less can be more, that their wizards consider and watch and notice the giving and taking other magics do. So once in a while these composed wizards trip over thin air, their hand suddenly shakes for a moment and messes with their runes. And the wizard is left wondering what mistakes they make can be blamed on the magic they do, on the path they've chosen. Their arrogance of being above other schools gnaws at them when other wizards laugh at a sudden bout of clumsiness, when they get a bad test grade, when anything goes wrong. Where do they end and the magic begins?

Star magic makes their wizards more noticeable. Sparkly, bright, bubbly targets are painted upon their backs. They are distracted, watching for attacks, and do not realize how they are pushed towards becoming self absorbed, worries revolving in orbit around themself.

Sun reassures their wizards that they are leaders. That they make choices, have the final call without sacrificing anything for those who follow. It drags the wizard down into thinking they can order others around, thinking they are judge, jury, and executioner. They define rules and watch others follow, and think they are a just and good leader. They do not know that obedience is an expression of fear.

Moon makes the wizard wonder, makes them fear. Becoming stuck in one form not their own strikes fear into them, cuts through all disguise and pretence. Above all else they value their initial form, the originality and uniqueness. When they magically shift into another form it is a general approximation, sometimes a stereotype from their own mind. It is forgettable. What if the time comes to return to their initial form and they cannot?

Backlash and sacrifice are integral, because give and take is the way of the Spiral. Life and Death balance spirits and bodies in the worlds, another representation of the push and pull. If you give nothing, then it must be taken.

The shadow is the other side of the coin, where many think the Moon should lie, but the moon is merely a small satelite of every world. It is not the negative space to accompany the center of the Spiral, that burning star of light and warmth and magic.

Moon is linked to shadow magic, it is an echo, another changing magic, with darkness and coldness buried deep. It is a magic that works best where the Sun does not shine, at night or in deep dungeons. Moon changes the perception of reality, it shifts what it's user experiences, but it will never have the permanence of Shadow.

Death is both the push and the pull. Pull always comes first. Pull your own lifeblood from your veins, push it to heal another or yourself. Pull undead beings and other atrocities against life out of their gravedirt. Pull open the coffin's door, push the creature out, and watch how your victim always cowers.

Something makes death magic oh so scary to others. It's a knife, a tool. In the hands of a surgeon it is surety and pain for eventual healing. In the hands of a man with an inferiority complex and the wrong person walking by, it's a murder weapon.

Push out the darkness. Make it face the light of day mid-battle. Pull in that same darkness, give it acceptance and sanctuary somewhere.

Life has to be doted on, nourished. Death merely needs a vessel to reside in, and will survive.

You do not coddle this force of nature.

The way the Spiral is balanced is strange. It's a terrifying cosmic dance that no one wizard should be arrogant enough even think about becoming the choreographer. Those wizards do exist though. They tend to be taken by death sooner than others.

Death, Life, Balance. They can work large magics. They can lead a dance for a song or two. As long as they remember that this masquerade has as many friends as foes, and the numbers must be even or there is no fun in playing this social game. If they forget their place, they meet an end.

Other magics can change the Spiral, of course. The astral schools combined dictate the space between worlds, the celestial skyways their pirates love to frequent. The elemental schools orchestrate a beautiful push and pull of their own, intent on what is happening on a world, not the machinations of their universe.

Shadow is the darkness. It's the fear. It's the fact that everyone will look out and see all those stars, and yet still think of the vastness of space, of an inifinity that intelligent creatures could not begin to comprehend. It is the fact that they will never fully understand why their worlds live, why magic works, why the Spiral is shaped how it is.

It is the fear of the infinite, and the shadows will always be there to define space and light.

It does not bother to push or pull. It is the gravity.

(link to the original post)

I decided to make an addition to my most popular post, with the four additional schools. Content warning for blood mention.

When a star wizard is marked, the bright, sparkling energy of something so bright seems to blind them. Pinpricks of pain rise in a cold, detached fire, widening and filling their vision with nothing but white. When the pain abates into a slight tingling, there will be marks on the apples of their cheeks, stars that glitter, holographic markings on their skin forever. They can grow, with time, and more seemingly erratic or selfish plans pulled off to the benefit of more than themself. They will scatter across their face, varying in sizes and glittering in the sunlight, they will glimmer with strange, eclectic wisdom. They will carry constellations on their faces, amalgamations and dot-to-dots in order to represent their power.

When a sun wizard is marked the sunlight fills their body, warm, warmer, and then burning from the inside out, an instant incineration that leaves them bereft of any breath to scream with. On their back, where the spine tapers off, where their spine dips when they arch, stretching up, towards the heavens, there is a small sun. It shimmers golden, the size of their palm. It radiates warmth, loosening muscles ever tense from the stress the wizard takes upon themself. When they stray from the right path, falling into selfishness and greed, the mark freezes, turning their surrounding skin black and blue with the cold. But if they continue, if they do what is good and right, then the sun expands, gradually, until the circle is as large as their hand, fingers splayed, and the flares of the sun grow ever larger, up and down their spine, circling around their sides and to their hips, more coppery or orange as they grow older.

When a moon wizard is marked, a cool breeze hits them, pushing them around, controlled as the moon controls the tides. They are unsteady on their feet as a strange wet feeling, like a stamp pressed into their skin, hits them on their side. A phase of the moon, clear as day on their skin. The grey of the moon is darker depending on how light the wizard’s skin tone is- the mark wants to shine. As they change more, and accept these changes, on both their sides from their underarms to hips, there are lines depicting the phases of the moon, the full moon at their middle. The texture of the moons themselves are smooth, like touching a stone that had lain in a river bed for centuries. 

When a shadow wizard is marked, they don’t feel it. They don’t notice anything at all. Usually they only learn shadow after already being skilled and powerful enough to be marked from their primary school, and even then, they don’t spend enough time gawking at their mark as if it was new to notice the addition. But it is there, a dark indigo, almost black mark that lines the mark of their primary school. It will continue to spread as long as the wizard still practices and progresses in shadow magic, spiraling out with cut off lines, left in the strange triangle of shadowmancy’s casting sigil. After a while they may start to emanate from a secondary school’s mark, if the wizard manages to get one of those, a rarity. The shadow marks continue, regardless of how they potentially mar the body of the wizard. The shadow always continues on, unending in it’s existence.

So few wizards even know of these schools and their existence. To obtain a marking from them is strange, an alien concept that many scholars would tell you is impossible. A made up school, a made up mark, a waste of time.