Happy Halloween everyone! In the spirit of the creepy and dark, here is a new extract from what I’m currently working on. It is a description of the magical properties of the “Void”, the great darkness surround everything. Enjoy!

The third magical Element is the Void; the undefined darkness that lies at the root of everything. Yet it is also the destruction of everything. It is the shadow and the fear and the source of inspiration and all creation. The Void cannot be taken as Elemental Ability or Magic, instead it is broken into three sub-elements. The Near-Void which is the Void close to the Earth, can be used as a magical material using the path of Stygian Forging. Cosmic Forging is the Element of the Deep-Void, which is the true pure Void, existing beyond the Wall. It is the stuff of Dark Gods and universes but it is heavily restricted. True manipulation of the Deep-Void is beyond all known beings. The final sub-element, Chaos Evocation, is the relationship between physical existence and it’s origin Void. By playing with this relationship, things can be made to go out of phase, make things more real and even slip between the shadows.

There is a terrible dark-side or cost to using Void Magics. Casting very powerful effects, making mistakes, “brutal” uses (like blasting a person out of existence), intensive over-use and so on have a side-affect on the caster and sometimes the rest of the world. The caster can lose a piece of their mind, sometimes permanently, mutations may appear on their body, they become sick or a lesser version of the effect also affects the caster. This is because a caster gets very close to the Void when creating an effect and in a sense becomes like the Void and thusly it has an awful influence on the casters mental and physical self-identity. Alternatively it can create tears into the Void and all sorts of Darklings can climb in before the tear is naturally closed by the Veil and Dreamlands.

Stygian Forging is the manipulation of the Element of the Near Void. Just outside the physical world there is the great unending Void, but the Earth gives off an aura that tempers the raw Void close by. This is know as Near Void. Unprotected exposure to the Near Void is lethal, it either destroys the mind or warps the physical body. So casters using Stygian Forging learn to protect themselves against exposure. Near Void can not be creating out of nothing, instead it must be pulled into reality and as soon as it enters, it must be given a form. Near Void can be formed into any sort of material with nearly any combination of properties (though the more unrealistic the material, the harder it is to form) such as silk as strong as steal or a metal as light as wood. When Magic Practitioners refer to making something out of the light of the moon, the spittle of the stars, the shrieks of cats in heat and so on, they are talking about forging Near Void into a practical form. Unlike the stuff of Dreams, once forged the Veil accepts it as mundane material. However Near Void cannot have any of the fantastical properties of the stuff of dreams, except for one. Near Void material can be alive (but not sentient, at least not initially). When a caster forms Near Void into an actual mundane form, they can give it any sort of shape (though the more complex it is, the more difficulty). They can create instant machinery and also living things. These living things can have drives and impulses and feed off nearly anything, but no initial mind. The caster need not worry about the organic or mechanical details, reality takes care of that. Some casters take ordinary machinery and add a living component to it, such as a beating heart that feeds on gasoline that can power a customised car. Stygian Forging also brings with it a great risk of creating tears into the Void. Aborted or botches can be disastrous as leaked Near Void is poisonous to all things. Stygian Forging cannot be used to merge or transform. But existing materials can be modified, to a degree. Properties can be shifted, improved or weakened, but it requires a lot of Mana.

Darklings that get close to the physical world can be sensed by casters using Stygian Forging. They appear as “living knots” in the tapestry of the dark Void. Casters can summon them into reality, giving them a physical form to exist. Casters can try to summon something out of the Wall but the summoned Darkling must get to Earth under their own steam. Most Darklings are primitive critters, full of hunger and instinct and the caster who brings them into reality will have no control on them. More powerful Darklings may be bartered with and they will require more Mana to stabilise under the Veil. But once their here they are here. Like all supernatural beings, extreme forms will suffer Passion Bleed.

Chosen with a high Stygian Forging Ability can sense the Near Void nearby at all times and they find it easy to work with all materials as they are pliant in their hands. However Magic Practitioners and Chosen develop unhealthy interests in weird natural mutations, freakish psychological disorders and bizarre sexual desires. They are drawn to disturbing art, weird mixes of human and machines and so on. To most other people, such Chosen are disturbing.

Cosmic Forging is the path of the Deep Void which is the purest form of Void stuff known to existence and as such it is only available as a Magic, never as an Ability. In fact it can only be learned up to only a few basic levels. Deep Void is free of the constraints of reality such as time, physicality, causality, etc. Deep Void is the origin matter of universes and worlds. In theory Dark and Mad Gods can be summoned but the caster must have a huge amount of Mana and the right set of circumstances (dependant on the caster, what is being summon and the context of the time). Some manipulation of Deep Void is also possible but the Deep Void can not be brought into reality. To do so would rip the world apart. Some casters, who get lost to the Void, use Cosmic Forging for the Dark and Mad Gods to build/form Dark Moons beyond the Wall. Those who practice or spend a great deal of time learning Cosmic Forging will be insane and their bodies will have strange and foul mutations, such is the influence of the Deep Void.

Inbetweens shift between the shadows, part of this reality, part not. They do this through the use of Chaos Evocation, the manipulation of the relationship between physical existence and it’s original form: the dark undefined substance of the Void. Chaos Evocation can be used to sense space and physicality, and as such can allow the caster to see through walls or have a “3D” sense of their immediate locale. Casters can also make physical things go “out of phase” such as coins falling through a pocket or hands passing through bonds. Skilled casters can slip bigger objects, like themselves, through solid objects, but a cheaper method is Shadow-walking.

At higher levels, a caster can slip into the Void and emerge somewhere else. This is achieved by the caster becoming like the Void and then jumping through the Near Void, remaining close to Earth. As distance is simply an impression on infallible darkness, long distances can be made short, but this requires much Mana. More powerful casters can bring others through and even open temporary portals. Such portals can bridge different Shard Worlds, circumventing the need to travel though the Dreamlands (some Shard Worlds have even developed technology to do this). But a caster must know exactly where they are going. Mistakes during Shadow-walking can lead to all sorts of problems, from getting lost to the Void, to arriving on a different world.

The Void, or rather chaos, inherent in all things can be played with. Insanities and fears in people can be given strength temporarily or the mad can be calmed. Darklings, Dreamlings and other shape-chargers can be forced to take one form. It can also be used to strengthen forms against the wearing of the Veil for periods of time. If the caster can see Spirits, they can also give them physical form or break apart a Spirit’s temporary form. They can also make unbreakable bonds for specific creatures, even for the Gods. They can make areas magically blocked, preventing Spirits, Astral Projectors and Shadow-walkers from sneaking in or prevent magical viewing, such as from the Gods. They can even erect ‘shields’ against the wearing winds of the Spirit World (without having to know anything about the Spirit World). This can make it useful to many Magic Practitioners.

A very powerful use is to obliterate something from existences. It’s brutal and violent and has consequences on the caster, but anything can be destroyed this way, even humans. It can be used to destroy someone’s mind, their entire memory or recent memories or shatter them from existence completely. Physical objects such as stone walls or even just parts of objects can be destroyed. But it has a blow-back on the caster.

A clever use of Chaos Evocation, is to shift machinery into a Void-like state and then using Stygian Forging, making the machine alive. This same trick can be used to attach machinery to living beings, though it requires also the Element of Life. This can be used to replace lost limbs with powerful magically enhanced ones and as long as they look like the real thing, the Veil doesn’t wear them down. Though those of the Others will sense the wrongness of the form.

Regular use of Chaos Evocation has a strange effect on the caster, they can become lost between reality and non-reality. If they are unlucky it becomes permanent. While lost, they are like Inbetweens, having to find some other, often unnatural, way to survive while stuck. Chosen with high Chaos Evocation find that they are always covered by shadows and shadows around them move of their own accord. Those of the Others will sense something wrong or disturbing in the presence of such Chosen.