Truth Magic
The World is (not) the World
Backround[edit]
Many among the planes speak of Truth Magic in hushed tones, frightful and enamored in equal parts by the prospect of being exposed to what is sometimes referred to as the King Magic. It is the sorcery of Oberon himself, the most potent weapon that the High Faerlan wield in their many wars. For it is the song of reality itself, capable of bending fate to the whims of muses. To be a Truth Mage is to hold a world in the palm of one's hand, to carry power limited only by one's imagination and mana.
Order made manifest.
With enough of both, one could rewrite the planes themselves.
Summary[edit]
What is Truth Magic? Simply put, it is the power to alter reality by imposing one's own Truth upon it. The strength of one's personal Truth, the potency of one's image, and the power of one's mana all factor into the end result. What Truth Magic can do is theoretically infinite, bottlenecked by capability and compatibility.
That is not to say that there are not commonalities; roads of power often trod upon. Though the paths are endless, some are walked more often than others.
Internal usage[edit]
To impress a Truth upon the Self is one of the most simple of manifestations, something that even neophytes may manage with a small amount of success. A Truth Mage who alters their own mind or body might find themselves believing things utterly that they once could never fathom. They can alter their memory, append otherworldly charisma, and even change what they are to others. For a Truth Mage of sufficient power, becoming someone else is as simple as thinking it.
Yet, as with any magic, touching upon the soul itself is so difficult as to be nearly impossible. One cannot impose unto themselves a Truth that makes the capability of their soul more than it was before so easily; much less to alter it permanently. By the same token, changes upon the mind and memory will never be so utterly complete that they can never be undone. Though our minds are housed in the brain, they are also housed in the soul.
External Usage[edit]
To alter the world around oneself, a Truth Mage requires the will to see beyond what Is and May, crossing an infinite horizon to step upon the shores of what Could. They sift possibility or imagination like grains of sand in their hand, finding the perfect image of what they wish to create. When they do so successfully with no interference, the Truth that is manifested is no illusion or mirage. It is indelibly real in the strongest sense of the word. If one were to make a sword, they could kill with it. They could batter it and break it. They could bend it into a ploughshare. It is everything a sword is.
Though one could easily imagine the power of a Truth Mage being unchecked in this regard, it is not as if their power is truly omnipotent. In a battle against one, knowledge is king. If one knows without a doubt that something manifested is not truly real, or if the mana of their magic is disrupted, then it is possible to combat it. That is not to say that belief is always enough - for simple things, it often is, but one finds it almost impossibly difficult to deny a Truth-Forged spear sent at their hearts in the heat of battle.
Usage on others[edit]
The most difficult and terrifying act of Truth Magic is to directly affect the mind or body of another mage. It is a thousand times more difficult than the same magic used on oneself, as the Truth Mage has to contend with the riot of a soul that holds its own belief. Doing so opens up a world to the darkest of Fae stories, beyond what any other magic is capable of. There are fates far worse than death.
There are many curses that a Truth Mage may employ. They are capable of harming one's memory and personality, or placing strange manners of commands that prevent certain actions - or compel them. Most terrifying of all, that which is known across the planes as a curse that even gods fear, is the punishment Oberon reserved for his fellow Eidolons. The theft of a Name.
To steal one's name is to steal their power and memory, utterly. Though a lesser user may lock someone's name, preventing the owner from remembering it or hearing it spoken, that is not true theft. When a true name is stolen, the victim is shattered beyond all other magics. Their personality, lost. Their deeds erased from any record of mind and stone. The word unable to ever be spoken again. It is a death so complete that one cannot even be mourned. Though this power is not something that can be readily wielded - only a true master of the art could ever hope to pluck a thread so completely from the loom of fate.
Truth Defined[edit]
What is one's own Truth? When speaking of this kind of magic, the rhetoric of the soul is a necessary and vital component. For as much as mana and image are necessary, so too is the belief that girds them. One can imagine Truth Magic as a painting; where the mana is the pigment, the finished work the image. If this is true, then one's Truth is the brush.
The Truth of a mage is their defining belief, their virtue made manifest. It is an underlying view of how the world functions, and their place inside of it. Without it, all Truth Magic is rendered hollow. There are as many possibilities for this as there are stars in the sky, however, and it is a rare Truth Mage who struggles to find theirs. Often, their Truth is tied to a defining moment or act that allowed them to first access the magic.
It can be anything, truly, as long as it makes sense to the user. Some may seek to understand the world through the lens of stories, whilst others seek to order it under a strict set of logical rules. Even more, there are those who eschew complexity in favor of utter simplicity - that they are the center of the universe itself, and the world is made to serve their vision. Many believe that this is Oberon's Truth, but the reality is a secret perhaps known only to Him.
Costs of Truth Magic[edit]
There are costs to power. When one touches upon something greater than themselves, anointing their mind and body in the silver waters of an imagined world, they find themselves warped in turn. It is impossible for a Truth Mage to not utterly believe their personal Truth, for better or worse. One who sees the world as their property will not be able to suffer true subservience, just as one who believes it a story will be made a slave to the narratives that cross his path.
To go against one's Truth is possible, for a short while. But it is an immensely harmful act to the user. As one progresses in their journey to greater power as a Truth Mage, their very essence is steadily steeped in the magic. They become their Truth, embodying it, and to deny such a thing is tantamount to erasing oneself. A user of the art is only capable of doing so with great and obvious existential pain. To die like this is the most terrifying prospect one can consider; for an end caused by the denial of one's own Truth is the only way one can shatter their own Name.