Forget simple spells and wand-waving. True magic is a vast and dangerous ecosystem. At its heart lies the Warp—a raw, violent ocean of unlimited power. It is the ultimate potential, but it is corrosive to mortals and utterly chaotic making it unable to be used directly by high dimensional beings. This energy is too wild to use directly.
Thankfully, nature provides a filter: the Elemental Planes. Think of them as lenses that focus the Warp's blinding light into specific, stable colors. They take that chaotic energy and give it rules, turning it into the building blocks of existence: fire, water, earth, air, and their many derivatives.
Our world, and all other Realms, are built from these two sources. They pull structured matter from the Elemental Planes to form their physical foundations. Then, they draw power from the Warp, stamping it with their own unique theme, death, fey, dream. This process is imperfect; the leftover chaos doesn't just vanish. It splinters off, often forming the monsters and abominations that haunt the edges of reality.
There is one special exception: the Arcane Realm. It draws directly from the Warp, making its energy incredibly potent and flexible—the perfect tool for understanding the universe. This is the power mages use to study and shape the world. There's just one catch: this energy is omnipotent, but mages are not. To fully command it, you would need to know everything, which is impossible.
This is why mages must specialize. A scholar might use arcane energy to unravel the laws of motion, while a healer might use it to mend flesh. Their deep knowledge in a specific area allows them to "leverage" the energy to do amazing things within that field. However, this power is a thinking tool, not a weapon. It requires intense concentration and precise calculation, making it far too slow for combat. A mage in a fight must find faster, more dangerous alternatives.
This is where other realms come in. A necromancer mage might tap into the Death Realm, for example. Its energy is incredibly powerful for creating undead or manipulating life force, but it is just as unpredictable and wild as the Warp itself. It's a risky shortcut, not a reliable source of power.
The greatest discovery mages ever made was how to tame this energy. They learned to imprint their own will upon raw power, turning it into what we call mana. This mana becomes an extension of the mage's mind and soul. Its power is limited only by the mage's own knowledge and understanding. The more a mage knows, the more they can achieve. It is a tool of pure potential, waiting for a will smart enough and strong enough to command it.
Norris, out in the wild, the true wild—a part of the death realm not conquered by any being, he felt relatively safe. Intelligent beings could be more dangerous than mindless abominations.
Norris stood looking at the desolate landscape, the mana in the air thick with the sense of decay.
"Idiot," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Jumping into plane exploration without some more preparation. You'd think a mage of your caliber would know better."
He knew he had prepared but to be fair, more things hadn't been considered.
He kicked at the dry earth, frustration simmering beneath his surface.
His usual arsenal of spells was useless here
Every being here gets a resistance buff against his spells. He refines his mana from the death realm but they live in the death realm itself. This leaves energy shaping out of the question.
Stranded, Norris had never been so far away from civilisation. It felt way worse than he'd ever calculated.
"Without a companion, talking to myself feels natural. It makes me feel alive, interesting phenomenon.", he looked around, any abomination that comes now could be fatal.
Looking around, Norris was baffled, "To be honest, the difference between the nobles domain and the ownerless land is pretty obvious. Order and chaos. Like, look at these creatures."
"Like the Australia of the death realm. Skeletal hands, head wrapped like a mummy, with the body type of a ghoul. As if that's not weird enough, it can fly. Omo. Oops, the Nigerian in me slipped out in the Otherworld."
"I need a shelter. No, I need two shelters. Maybe more. Like nick fury, build shelters around. Unfortunately I'm not as rich. "
"Worse still, I've got to scrounge for materials to build a mini mage tower.....shelter is really a better word.
No convenient market stalls or enchanted suppliers here unless I go to the Arcum realm— the realm of merchants, to conduct business and order what I need, but the platform fees are so expensive."
Norris's self-criticism continued, his inner voice berating himself
"You've been so caught up in learning and creating spells to blast things up and kill people, you've forgotten how to think outside the box. Time to smarten up, Norris. Life isn't all about killing and slashing".
"I need to use ritual magic.", Norris said wearily.
Norris look at the ring on his finger. Plain looking but certainly not useless —it was his everything in this wretched realm. With a practiced thought, a mere flick of mental power, he touched it. The ring yielded. His consciousness slid past the physical shell and into the waiting pocket dimension within.
Norris looked on as different magical materials popped up from thin air.
"Space magic is very good for home and travel. Someday, I'd learn. Hopefully I live long enough."
With his materials in hand, Norris returned to his construction site, ready to begin the next phase of building a shelter.
Arranging the components of the ritual took time and effort. Runes were drawn. Garbage was placed precisely at different positions.
"Using this kind of ceremony to cast spells is tiring."
Norris complained as he picked up a goat tooth and dropped it at a position.
An altar was laid. Norris carried the heavy altar. Putting it on his skull, he staggered as he transported it from outside the ritual to the core.
Norris avoided using any magic all through this process. Everything was ceremonial. Magic was an affrontery to the ceremony.
Now the hard part of it…Norris winced thinking about this step. Gems were placed on the altar. Equivalent exchange. His first shelter in this abandoned zone must be huge and reliable. So…. he had to pay more. The creation of the shelter will surely attract most of the abomination from this area.
Norris added a little more gems. All with pain.
He cast the spell "Build Sanctuary", an ancient ritual that drew upon the fundamental concepts of home, mage, and arcane. Norris added the concept of death since it was one of the core concepts of the Death Realm, making it easier to draw upon.
Higher powers from the arcane realm responded. The ritual borrowing their powers
Norris felt pressured. Even though the high powers don't care, their better presence is a danger to mortals.
Watching a home built from nothing, Norris had to sigh. Magic can never be scientific.
The arcane realm was brilliant; energy lending, high dimensional and ritual services, omnipotence—Mages can never not depend on it. Praise The Lady, goddess of magic, creator of the Arcane realm.