Benedict Jacka

The Concord is a treaty between Dark, Light, and independent mages, and forms the main common foundation of international mage law.  It lays down rules that all mages are required to follow, no matter their nationality or faction, and was established at the end of the Gate Rune War.

How It All Began

The Gate Rune War devastated magical society.  Although the Light Alliance won, the destruction was so total that by the time the fighting finally ended it didn’t feel like much of a victory for anybody.  All sides involved took massive casualties.

In the aftermath of the war, there was a widespread perception that the old treaties and agreements had failed.  Most of the old guard and the leaders who had been active in the prewar period were dead, and the survivors had become generally disillusioned with the prewar ethos.  It was agreed that a new treaty was needed, and the surviving Light leaders from around the world assembled in London to draft the Concord.

Although the Council records the following process as a negotiation, “negotiate” is a little misleading as the bulk of the treaty was written by the Light faction with zero input from anyone else.  Even the independents in the Light Alliance didn’t get much of a say.  Seven months after the conclave’s official beginning, the Concord was presented to the magical world, and members of the Light Alliance dispersed back to their home countries to establish the new order.

The Reactions

To say that not everyone was happy with the Concord would be an understatement.  Members of the different factions considered it an imposition, a tyranny, a betrayal, a waste of time, or a piece of useless posturing, respectively.  It didn’t help that not only were the other factions not consulted, they weren’t even asked to sign it – the Concord was just declared as law.  The Dark factions saw it as a peace imposed under duress, and many planned to break it as soon as they rebuilt their strength.

However, the Light mages who drafted the Concord were not idiots.  They knew that trying to force a treaty too harshly would have strained their political capital to the breaking point – while the Light Alliance was the only real cohesive force still standing, its members were war-weary and reluctant to fight.  Instead, what the Light mages did was more subtle:  they made sure that the terms of the Concord were in line with what they predicted that the bulk of the factions would want to do anyway.  Their predictions were good.  Despite a few initial skirmishes most mages found themselves following the Concord even if they’d never supported it, until it became a habit.  Habit turned into custom, and custom became law.

The Present

Nowadays, the Concord is generally accepted worldwide.  Individual magical nations can (and do) make their own laws, but the Concord forms a larger framework of international law which takes priority and which all mages can rely on.  It’s this usefulness, more than anything else, which has made the Concord last.  It acts as a kind of diplomatic protocol:  mages can travel between countries and factions and have a certain level of legal protection while doing so.

The amount of respect the Concord gets varies.  Some mages take it seriously, some pay it lip service, and others break it on a regular basis.  However, even the mages who do break the Concord are careful not to get caught.  The various Light Councils might not enforce the Concord consistently, but they do enforce it, and while it isn’t common for a mage to be hunted down and executed for violating the Concord it happens often enough to send a message.

In Britain, the organisation responsible for upholding the Concord are the Keepers of the Flame, otherwise known as the Keepers.  Anyone charged with a violation of the Concord can be placed under arrest to be formally tried before the Council.

Part One of this article described the powers of fire magic:  this part will look at the nature of fire mages, and their place in the magical world.

Why So Much Fire?

Elemental magic is the most common family of magic, and fire mages are the most common type of mage, so much so that some people think there are more fire mages than any other two types of mage put together.  Nobody’s quite sure why there should be twice as many fire mages as air, water, or earth mages, although a simple explanation could be that the particular personality traits that attune a mage to fire just happen to be really common ones.  Another theory is that it’s something to do with fire being a symbol of humanity’s dominion over the natural world.  And some people say that it’s because fire’s the most destructive of all the elements, and humans are really good at destroying things.

Because fire magic is so common, fire mages are very much a known quantity.  Pretty much everyone in the magical world knows a fire mage, or at least has seen one, and their abilities are very well-known . . . as are their weaknesses.  As always, though, there’s enough variation within the type to make sensible mages careful about assuming they know everything about what a fire mage can do.

Nature and Demeanour

Fire mages have a reputation for being spontaneous, passionate, and creative.  If mages are making up a story and want a romantic young lover, they usually make the character a fire mage.  Of course, fire mages also have a reputation for being dangerous, violent, and destructive, so if a fire mage isn’t being cast as the hero there’s a good chance they’re being cast as the villain.

Both reputations have some truth to them.  Fire mages do tend to be intense and charismatic, and they do tend to attract a lot of attention (even if it’s not always the good kind).  On the other hand, an awful lot of thugs, tyrants and killers in magical history have been fire mages, too.  Fire magic is just so very good at causing fear and destruction, and a fire mage always has to fight the temptation to get rid of their problems by burning them.

If there’s one thing all fire mages have in common, it’s activity.  There’s practically no such thing as a passive fire mage.  No matter their interests, fire mages are doers, people of action, and a fire mage with nothing to do is a recipe for trouble.

Mundane Boredom

Fire mages often find that the aggressive nature of their magic makes it hard for them to fit in.  They’re great in high-stress high-intensity situations, but in quiet, peaceful settings they can feel like a fifth wheel.  On top of that, the ability to burn things doesn’t qualify you for many jobs.  It does however make you very good at extorting money from people who do have jobs, meaning that all too often the easiest way for a fire mage to earn money is by violence.

The Council’s traditional solution to this problem has been to recruit fire mages as Keepers, soldiers, or both, presumably in the hope that if fire mages have a place in society and a job to do then they’ll be more likely to expend their energy in ways that are helpful rather than randomly smashing things.  Sometimes it works, but it’s very common for fire mages to drift into predatory lifestyles with high risks and high rewards.  It’s an open secret that many fire mages are involved in illegal activities, and the Council generally turns a blind eye as long as they don’t directly harm the Council’s interests.

Fire magic is probably the most iconic type of magic out there.  It’s common, widely known, and very very noticeable.

Playing with Fire

At a basic level, fire magic gives control over heat:  creating it, manipulating it, and moving it.  The most obvious use for this is of course burning things, and unsurprisingly that tends to be exactly how most fire mages get started.  A master taking on a fire mage as an apprentice is well advised to hold lessons in a non-flammable location.

As they gain experience, fire mages learn to use their magic in less destructive ways.  Their ability to control heat can be used as a protection as well as a weapon, moving and dissipating a fire away from things it might threaten.  In the same way that they can start fires, they can stop them.

Fire mages can also protect themselves against heat, and they’re very good at it.  Trying to burn a fire mage is a lot like trying to drown a fish – they can survive unbelievably high temperatures and there have been confirmed reports of fire mages walking through bonfires, furnaces, and even lava.

Infravision

Like most elemental mages, fire mages can sense the presence of their chosen element.  A common way this manifests is in a kind of thermal vision, letting a fire mage ‘see’ heat in a similar way to a thermal imaging camera.  Warm objects stand out in their sight, while cool areas fade into the background.  The spell has a wide variety of uses – seeing in the dark, telling if someone has a fever, noticing malfunctioning electrical components, knowing when the roast is done, etc.

Their ability to see heat makes fire mages better at subtle operations than most people would think.  A fire mage can spot a warm-blooded creature in pitch darkness more easily than most people can see them in broad daylight.  Unless a person gives off no heat at all (difficult to do) it’s almost impossible for them to avoid a fire mage’s notice.

Combat Magic

Fire mages can do a lot of fancy stuff, but it’s their combat magic that they’re really famous for.  Fire magic has a horrendous amount of destructive power and can burn through buildings, armour, or flesh with equal ease.  Other types of magic can destroy as well (if not quite so effectively) but fire magic has a psychological impact that air or earth magic doesn’t.  Nearly all living creatures fear fire, and when used as a weapon fire kills in a particularly horrifying and agonising manner.  The sight of a human being turned into a screaming, flailing torch is quite terrifying, and one glimpse is usually enough to instil a deep fear of what a fire mage can do.

Fire mages, however, have one major Achilles heel when it comes to combat.  While their magic is great on the attack, it’s very bad at defence.  Fire shields can hold off spells and ward away people, but they’re terrible at stopping physical objects, particularly very fast ones (such as oh, say, bullets).  If a fire mage is about to be hit by a bullet travelling at 2,000 mph, then the only thing a fire shield is going to do is ensure that they’ll be hit by a red-hot bullet travelling at 2,000 mph, which really isn’t much of an improvement.  Some fire mages deal with this by developing spells or foci to include a kinetic element to their shields, but at a fundamental level fire magic just isn’t designed for defence.  Tactics with fire magic usually come down to some variant on ‘kill them first’.

Newcomers to the magical world have a lot of questions.  One question that everyone asks sooner or later is “How come mages have such weird names?”

It’s a fair point.  For every mage who calls themselves Alex or Anne, there are two or three more who go by names like Cinder, Deleo, Sagash, Levistus, Caldera, and others that are equally hard to imagine a parent giving a baby.  The reason’s simple:  in most cases, the name an adult mage goes by isn’t the same name he was born with.

What’s In A Name?

An adult mage has two names – their birth name and their mage name.  They go by their birth name as a child and continue to use it when they enter a master’s service and become an apprentice.  At some point in their apprenticeship they pick their mage name, and when they graduate to the status of a journeyman mage they take it as their own.

An apprentice’s choice of name is serious business.  It’s considered a rite of passage, marking the transition from childhood to adulthood.  Socially, a mage who doesn’t have their name yet isn’t really considered a mage at all – they’re still treated like a kid, even if they’re twenty years old.  Interestingly, this is one subject that Light and Dark mages don’t disagree about.  Both consider a mage’s name equally important, and for the same reasons.

Picking and Choosing

Apprentices choose their names personally.  It’s one of the few areas of the master-apprentice relationship where the master doesn’t have the last word – even attempting to dictate an apprentice’s name is considered a major breach of etiquette.

Methods of choice vary.  Often an apprentice will pick a name related to their magic type:  geological or mineralogical names for an earth mage, combustion- or heat-related words for a fire mage, and so on.  Another common choice is to take the name of a historical mage who the apprentice identifies with or wants to emulate.  Some make up a new name, using etymology or just picking something they like the sound of, and some masters even encourage apprentices to treat the choice of their name as a full-on quest, consulting magical creatures or seeking visions.

In every case, a mage’s name tells you something about them.  It’s the identity they’ve chosen, and it’s how they’ve decided to define themselves in their dealings with the magical world.

Child to Adult

Once a mage has become a journeyman, her mage name becomes her ‘official’ name.  If another mage approaches her or if she’s referred to in any formal way, they’ll use her mage name:  in magical society, her mage name is the one that’ll identify her from that moment until the day she dies.

A mage’s name can be a touchy subject.  It’s usually best to avoid the use of a mage’s birth name unless you’re very familiar with them (and sometimes not even then).  Some mages continue to use their birth names, especially with close friends and family, but others abandon them completely.  As a general rule, the more distant a mage is from their non-magical life, the less happy they’ll be about being addressed by their birth name.  Independent mages tend to be the most likely to keep their birth name, while Dark mages often treat the use of their birth name as a fairly serious insult.

This entry finishes up our guide to the political factions of the Light Council by looking at the Weissians and the Unity Bloc.

Weissians

The Weissian movement takes its name from the writings of the nineteenth-century mage Kolman Weiss.  Weiss incorporated elements from the existing Transcendence and Klaussian movements to form a new political faction which has been slowly growing ever since.

Weissians believe that magic represents the next major step in human potential, and they want to see the human race embrace it.  They want a world where mages have a place in normal society, practising their magic openly, with magic taught in schools side by side with maths and science.  In the long term they’d like to see magic spread more widely:  their ultimate goal is a world where every human is a mage.

The Weissians’ plan is obviously incompatible with keeping magic a secret, which places the Weissians squarely at odds with everyone who supports the Concord.  For their plan to be approved they’d need to get enough of a majority to get the Concord amended, which at the moment seems pretty unlikely:  the Centrists, the Directors, and especially the Isolationists hate the Weissians’ proposals and have gone out of their way to block them.  Even if the Weissians could overcome this opposition they would have to deal with two other problems:  first, the normals that the Weissians want to uplift think magic is a joke, and second, no-one has any idea how this ‘uplifting’ thing is supposed to work anyway (though the Weissians are doing their best to figure it out).

The Weissians don’t have many friends.  Some of the Guardian faction are sympathetic to them, and that’s about it.  Oddly enough the Weissians’ most frequent allies are the Crusaders, partly because they’re the only two factions opposed to the Concord (although for different reasons) and partly because they’re both pariahs disliked by everyone else.

Note:  ‘Weiss’ is pronounced ‘vice’, as in ‘vice squad’.

Unity Bloc

The Unity Bloc is the newest and currently the smallest of the Council factions, though it’s probably more accurate to say that their faction isn’t new but cyclical:  the idea has been around ever since the Dark Wars and it’s waxed and waned over the centuries.  The Unity Bloc want Light and Dark mages to unite.  They see Light and Dark philosophy as two sides of the same coin rather than violent opposites, and they’re frustrated by the endless infighting.   They want mages everywhere to co-operate and work together as a single brotherhood, as legend has it they once did long ago, and they hope that by doing so magic will enter a new golden age.

Needless to say, the Unity Bloc has a lot of opposition.  The Crusaders hate them and the Guardians don’t like them much either – both of them consider the Unity Bloc fools at best and fifth columnists at worst.  On top of that, most of the Dark mages that the Unity Bloc wants to help aren’t particularly grateful for the offer and in fact are seriously insulted by the implication that they need ‘helping’ in the first place.  But some Dark groups see potential in the Unity Bloc, and as a result the Unity Bloc has by far the best relations with Dark mages out of any Council faction (not to mention a small but significant number of Dark members).

As the newest faction, the Unity Bloc hasn’t had time to develop many alliances.  At present they’re making overtures to the Directors and the Isolationists, arguing that a unified Light and Dark council would serve their own interests, and in the long term the Unity Bloc are hoping to bring the Centrists round to their way of thinking.  Centrists are supposed to want peace, after all.

A member of the Unity Bloc is called a Unitarian (as well as several less complimentary names).

None of the Above

Dark mages and relations with normals aren’t the only issues in Light politics:  there are plenty of others, such as magical creatures, culture, and religion.  However, these tend to be more spread out over the factions:  none of the groups has a monopoly on religious members, for example.

Even when it comes to the main ‘axes’, the faction a Light mage belongs to doesn’t tell you everything about them.  A mage might join the Guardian faction because he sees normal humans as equals, worthy of respect;  such a mage would probably be very sympathetic to the Weissians but would dislike the Directors for their habit of manipulating mundane society.  Another Guardian might see normals as below them, to be protected and guided;  that Guardian would think the Weissians were idiots and that the Directors had the right idea.  A third Guardian might defend normals not out of any particular empathy but out of a belief that reducing the number of magical predations in the world protects mages in the long run by reducing belief in the supernatural;  his closest allies would be the Isolationists.  All three would want to stop monsters from harming normals, but for different reasons.

Finally there are a fair number of Light mages who don’t permanently ally themselves with any of the factions.  These mages tend to get lumped in with one faction or another, but it’s more accurate to call them independent agents.