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evokethestarsabove) wrote2025-08-10 09:09 pm
evokethestarsabove) wrote2025-08-10 09:09 pm
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— Alasdair's Magic —
FLEXIBILITY. Alasdair is a sorcerer; in his setting, this means he has an innate talent for magic combined with years of dedicated study. Because his family manages a major magical archive, he had both the adults setting him on the path and the study materials to make the most of his gifts. While he’s not the strongest raw talent of his generation, Alasdair has a knack for a few specific areas that he’s cultivated (described below). With time and access to his library, he can also learn a variety of new spells.
WARDS. Alasdair’s strongest skill is creating protective enchantments of various kinds and the most powerful of these are tied to his ancestral home. While he can, with time and preparation, create wards of various styles on any property to which he has access, at home he has spent a lot of time improving and reinforcing generations’ worth of work protecting the Mac an Rìgh family and its archive. Wards may have a variety of effects, including repelling those with ill intent, convincing the weak willed that they would prefer to be elsewhere, trapping intruders until they can be dealt with, etc. While powerful, wards cannot be created on the fly, as they take time to set up. Unless broken, they are often meant to be permanent.
PROTECTIVE CHARMS. Less permanent, these sorts of protections are often tied to armor, garments or accessories worn by the target. Occasionally, the spell itself may create the item of focus. Depending on their nature, these charms may guard against physical harm, mental or magical effects, or detection. They usually require some sort of magical power source and may need to be recharged or replaced after a few uses. Making one takes time, though if he’s on hand Alasdair may be able to modify or amplify an existing charm’s affect on the fly by feeding it his own magic.
SHIELDS. Unlike the two approaches above, Alasdair’s shields are meant to be cast in the moment to deflect spells, curses or physical attacks. The bigger a shield is, the less time he can maintain it. The shield does not have to be personal (so he can cast it to protect someone else), but the target to protect usually must be in his eyeline.
HEALING. Alasdair would not describe himself principally as a healer, but he has studied enough to do some basics, including temporary pain reduction, staunching bleeding, and reducing a fever. If a 21st-century person could do it with YouTube and a trip to a local pharmacy, he can probably do it with magic; he’s not going to be knitting any broken bones, though he might be able to realign them to help with splinting.
WARDS. Alasdair’s strongest skill is creating protective enchantments of various kinds and the most powerful of these are tied to his ancestral home. While he can, with time and preparation, create wards of various styles on any property to which he has access, at home he has spent a lot of time improving and reinforcing generations’ worth of work protecting the Mac an Rìgh family and its archive. Wards may have a variety of effects, including repelling those with ill intent, convincing the weak willed that they would prefer to be elsewhere, trapping intruders until they can be dealt with, etc. While powerful, wards cannot be created on the fly, as they take time to set up. Unless broken, they are often meant to be permanent.
PROTECTIVE CHARMS. Less permanent, these sorts of protections are often tied to armor, garments or accessories worn by the target. Occasionally, the spell itself may create the item of focus. Depending on their nature, these charms may guard against physical harm, mental or magical effects, or detection. They usually require some sort of magical power source and may need to be recharged or replaced after a few uses. Making one takes time, though if he’s on hand Alasdair may be able to modify or amplify an existing charm’s affect on the fly by feeding it his own magic.
SHIELDS. Unlike the two approaches above, Alasdair’s shields are meant to be cast in the moment to deflect spells, curses or physical attacks. The bigger a shield is, the less time he can maintain it. The shield does not have to be personal (so he can cast it to protect someone else), but the target to protect usually must be in his eyeline.
HEALING. Alasdair would not describe himself principally as a healer, but he has studied enough to do some basics, including temporary pain reduction, staunching bleeding, and reducing a fever. If a 21st-century person could do it with YouTube and a trip to a local pharmacy, he can probably do it with magic; he’s not going to be knitting any broken bones, though he might be able to realign them to help with splinting.