Lessons From the Grand Sage IX: On Magic (The Grey)
Celdos reveal, your grace.
Our thoughts return to the Cycle Wheel as we approach the final element. The Green, Body, and Mind we have already covered. Now, meditate upon the Grey, the magic of the Cosmic Infinity.
Mind brings into the world thought and ideals. These carry power with them, but neither are they real in the way that a blade of grass is real. Justice is a force so great that tyrants might be brought low by them – but grind the world to dust and put it through a sieve and you would not find a single grain of justice. So it is, with all other ideas that echo across reality. Hope. Mercy. Hatred. Greed.
The Grey is the magic of power in its truest incarnation. Untethered and unrestricted. It is a wild element, and many things are possible through Grey that are otherwise beyond mortal means. Of all the elements, the powers it grants are the most eclectic and paradigm-shifting of them all. And yet, it also the most dangerous of all to wield.
Note well that on the Cycle Wheel – the Grey touches Mind and Spirit, but not Body or the Green. It is a dangerous element for the body, and an element poorly understood at that. The Grey Elves, the Ulkan, have long hidden themselves – and their wisdom – away from the world at large. The other great practitioners, the Dwarves, likewise keep their own council in the deep dark.
It is common to find a focus through which one can channel the Grey and minimize contact with the physical form. Wands, staves, trinkets – in Telent, it is known that their mages even bind themselves to Grey spirits that then filter the magic on their behalf.
Positive Grey deals with altering and bending the World Bones, the laws of the world. The most well-known of its powers are the Grey Step, crossing great distances in a single stride. Levitation, the conjuring of light, and the folding of space are all encompassed in the Positive Grey.
Negative Grey is the work of conjurers. It deals with shaping elemental force into physical form, though temporarily. More famously, however, it is through negative Grey that one contacts, binds, and bargains with Grey spirits.
'Grey spirits' is a nebulous term – and for good cause. Any mortal action that evokes powerful emotion can create a Grey spirit. The most powerful of their number are the gods themselves, who embody entire concepts. Perhaps in later lessons we will discuss them fully – for now, suffice to say that they might be handled through the craft of a Grey mage.
The two counters of the Grey are Body and the Green. It is no coincidence that these, the most physical of the elements, react so poorly to the Grey.
As to Body – “Grass Outweighs Gods.” Body is dense and hard to shift, even by skilled mages. It resists the raw but unmoored power of the Grey, like waves crashing against the cliff. The Grey expends itself long before the Body wears away.
As to the Green – “Angels Dance Upon the Head of a Pin.” For all its versatility and adaptability, the Green is fundamentally bound by the laws of nature. The Grey has no such restrictions. It is a problem beyond the Green’s understanding, beyond its ability to adapt to.
Dwarves use the Grey to animate golems. Royal heralds wrap themselves in it to carry messages far further than by foot alone. Peasants call on the Grey to push back the shadows of night.
Of all the elements, the Grey has the fewest practitioners. Dwarves, especially those of Maldrun Hall, are the foremost experts on the craft while the Elves of Ulkan remain hidden. Inras Cital forges a great Grey network, binding together distant cities.
So ends our lesson for today. Meditate upon what you have learned here, and carry it with you.
Celdos guide you.
- The Grand Sage
