Ether and the people

 Hello everyone!

My previous post went through what is Ether and its relation with all creatures, them being mundane or divine.

Today I'm going through how people can use this magic system to beat each other up.

As I said previously everyone is born with a certain amount of Ether. If left alone it will be used to keep that person alive, heal its wounds,  and let them go beyond that one time where they really need. Then it will start to fade and when it's over the person will die.

But while this is the same for everyone, some people are born different, special. They can be born with more than this, or just a will to push themselves into being something else.

The basics

When a normal person is stabbed in the guts they will probably die. The Ether they have on themselves will try to heal the wound and run out, causing the person to die. Just to be clear, people still have organs as we have (mostly because I don't know enough of anatomy to change how people are made and make it seem realistic) but what keeps them working is the Ether within.   

But not everyone would die from this. There are some that have learned to gather Ether from their surroundings and use it to complement their own, allowing, among other things, to heal such wounds. 

This is the most basic Ether-related ability, being able to increase your own reserves of Ether and use them to perform super-human feats, like surviving a deadly wound, run really fast or increase your strength beyond what should be possible.

One final aspect of this basic ability is that, while some people are born naturally knowing how to do this, everyone can learn this ability if they are willing to. The training process isn't easy and might take a lot of time to grasp, but this is something that is available to everyone with the willpower and dedication to endure through the learning process.

Now, these super-human feats can be performed without learning how to gather Ether, but doing so will probably result in your own Ether running out and the person performing the feat dying during the action or right after.

Also, as I have hinted before, the more Ether you have, the longer you will live. And not just that, you will age slower as your body can keep its peak performance longer. To give you context, someone without any Ether abilities that was born with a normal Ether reserve within him will live, maybe, up to their late 70's or early 80's at the very maximum. Every time they got hurt, catch a disease or simple pushed their body too far will decrease this number, so people tend to die relatively young (at least from the real world standards) 

But for people with power, those numbers are very different. While no one is immortal, using the Ether around you to renew your own can increase your life expectancy and delay your aging significantly. People that were born with a huge reserve of Ether and learned to restock it can easily live up to their 300's while not being crippled by an extreme aging process. 

Those are the persons that change the world in really dramatic ways, and as they are full of Ether they will be drawn to each other because Ether attracts Ether. 

I will be honest here and tell you all up front that there are two beings that managed to hack this process and are alive for away longer than this, each being alive for a couple thousand years each. Those two are the Emperor of the Karloff Empire and the Magistrax of Arcadia, but both will eventually get a post just for themselves going in detail about how they hacked their way into living so long. 

Divine Ether

As I explained in the last post people can attune with the new Gods which allow them to use their power. This is a similar process to gathering Ether from your surroundings with some key differences. The first is the amount of Ether you can get this way, which is a lot more than simply siphoning from your surroundings, which allows for more extreme displays of Ether uses. The other is the connection with the Gods and your intent on every action.  If your intent is not following the God's purpose or motivation, its conscience and awareness will reject you closing the link.

So, long story short, users of Divine Ether have to go through the same type of training as users of normal Ether and in addition to that have to be fully dedicated to one particular god's concept but in exchange, they will have access to much more power.  

Ether Links

Now we are getting into the stuff that you can't be learned, but instead, you have to be born with the potential to use this ability. 

The first is the ability to set an Ether Link somewhere. Those links serve as a proxy for the one creating them, allowing the user to gather Ether from them as if he was there. Each of those links allows its user to siphon Ether from its surroundings and get it transferred to them, but the ways that Ether can be used are drastically different. While Ether absorbed in the normal way is collected inside the body and allows for that body to go beyond its limits, be it by increasing an aspect like speed, resistance or strength, increasing some sense like sight or hearing, or even healing the user's wounds, Ether gathered by the Links has to be channeled and can't be stored inside the body.

This is why people that can set up those links are normally known as mages, sorcerers, witches, or wizards. They can channel Ether to create impossible things, normally known as magic. 

Which magic depends on the Ether being linked. If a mage goes to the top of a mountain range with lots of seismic activity and active volcanos and sets up a link, the Ether he will get from that link will be attuned to fire, which will allow him to create fire-related magic. The same principle applies if he gets on the boat and goes to the middle of the ocean or goes to the middle of a very dense forest full of life. That Ether will be attuned to its surroundings and allow for different types of Magic to be performed. It all depends on how much Ether you can gather with your links, how attuned is the Ether you are collecting, and how you use it. 

As a note, Arcadia's principal function is to be a large-scale school for mages like this. On that island, you can learn how to set up the links, gather Ether from there, and most importantly, the recipes for spells that have been discovered and used to maximize their efficiencies. 

One practical example would be someone gathering Ether from someplace that is being hit by a lightning storm. Gathering that Ether will allow the mage to perform some electricity-related spells. Someone without or low knowledge will be able to send some sparks, maybe shock someone near them. But someone who has studied and knows the "recipes" for electricity-related magic will probably be able to lunch a lighting bolt against someone else. 

The number of links that someone is able to set is different from people to people but it normally varies between a handful and the lower twenties, but of course there some prodigies that are an exception to this.  

One last remark that I want to make regarding this is that the assumption is that the more links you can set, the most powerful of a mage you are. While this might be the norm and widespread belief, this might not be true. A mage that has set its links on places with an average attunement to an element can and will be surpassed by a mage that is willing to go to really dangerous places to get ether with a higher level of attunement. The same is true for how much you dedicate yourself to learning new and better ways to perform old spells or come up with your own. Magic related to Links is probably the one that most rewards individuals willing to go the extra mile to be better. 

Etherians

A couple of paragraphs ago I mentioned that some people are born with the ability to gather Ether from their surroundings and don't have to train their bodies to unlock this ability. 

This is due to them being born with a special relation to Ether. I will get into more details on this at a later post but a very resumed version of events would be that the Old Gods went o war with each other by the end of the First age of Anduria. During this massive war (known as the End War) the dragons gave special boons to lesser creatures to aid them in the war. Those boons would reflect on increased Ether reserves and special abilities directly related to the dragon.  

Those would be the first Etherians. People with extraordinary abilities based on the boon they were given or the ones they inherited from their parents. 

This was a long time ago, and now that the third age of Anduria is well in its way those blessings have dissipated and dulled down, but sometimes people are still born with a remnant of those very powerful abilities. And those people in addition to that extra ability are born with the innate ability to gather Ether

Those abilities have a large range of possibilities and could go from some domain over an element, maybe they can create it, control it and/or being resistant to it, heal others, invisibility, or even affecting the perception or mind of others. It really is a matter of luck.

This is it for now. Those are the type of power the exist in the plane of Anduria (The other 6 have slightly different rules but that's a story for another post)

Love you all <3