Manatar, Archon, and the Birth of Magic

Before humanity as it is known came Manatar, a creator god who reshaped humankind. He gave humans red mana, harmless and inexhaustible in their blood, organs, and every cell. The first humans used it instinctively: anger or grief produced a spell they could not repeat.

Archon first built a system. His method reproduces spells through precise steps: speech, movement, and above all visualization. It demands concentration and years of study available to very few. It remains the magical system of humans in both the Ark and Cerberus.

Archon worshiped Manatar fanatically, and Manatar gave him eternity.

Archon established the great schools of Conjuration. Remarkable families took charge of other fields: the Stonehearts of Abjuration, Leblancs of Divination, and Alois of Transmutation. For generations these minds worked together, and the system grew with their power.

Cerberus mages describe mana as a cloud of chaotic particles drawn by a force still not understood. A wizard manipulates those within and more readily influences nearby ones. Blood contains far more than the rest of the body, but only alchemy can exploit this.

Mana particles arise and transform, sometimes becoming elemental particles. Over immense spans of time, all life decomposes into magic.

Above all, they retain information. Each remembers places crossed, spells fed, and lives touched, endlessly replaying versions of the past like elders repeating a familiar story at market. Divination reads that memory, and an ambitious enough spell can write into it.

This defines each school's nature. Evocation turns magic into temporary elemental energy. Conjuration creates matter, sometimes permanently, and erases the history stored in its particles, making it useful to anyone avoiding Divination. Illusion shapes figments that become tangible when fed readily available but less solid Shadow Plane energy. Transmutation changes creatures or objects, though its spells are not all compatible. Enchantment acts on minds, including the caster's. Necromancy handles positive and negative energy and is rarely taught. Universal magic combines every school and is therefore weaker than a specialized spell of the same level.

A magometer, enchanted with powerful Divination, measures the magic in an object, enchantment, or mage. It becomes unreliable against extremely powerful enchantments whose magic is too complex to read.