Question Magick Knacks

controlling hobgoblins is not actually possible. not by anyone, include Absinthe. Hobgoblins are, by nature, uncontrollable... they are, after all, a physical manifestation of uncontrolled Essence. So, no... you cannot actually have control over hobgoblins.

BUT

Can you learn how to make animated physical critters that look like hobgoblins to the untrained eye? Why yes... you could. Could you then develop skill in sustaining and manipulating these manifestations? Yes, yes... you could do that too.



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As to the more general 'mage' oriented question.

You should note that you're conflating a number of different concepts here to compare these characters as ones with different affinities. Affinity would generally explain the ease of working of a particular 'flavor' of Essence over another. For instance, a mage with an affinity for Fire Essence will find it far easier to use and develop spells and effects that are based on Fire. Whether that is simply tossing around firebolts and fireballs... or Healing through the use of 'burning out the damaged or sick tissue and cauterizing wounds.

On the other hand, there are different 'systems' of magick. These are more about where and how Essence is gathered, how spells are constructed, and what is done to 'clean up' afterwards. Whateley mostly teaches traditional witchcraft and Qabbalistic High Magick. These two schools or system of spellcasting cover a significant majority of Western magick. When Chou needed it, they added some Taoist magick... and for Kayda, they added some shamanic classwork. You could probably add Sidhe or pre-Sundering Court magicks and Mythos to this list of systems though obviously, neither is taught at Whateley (though some texts might be found in the library stacks).

And then there are classes or schools of magick which is more about what the purpose of the magic is. Such as necromancy, summoning, transmutation, enchanting, and so forth.


Schools are the most 'choice' oriented and sticking heavily to a school only really means that you get better at learning or developing new spells of that school because you are familiar with how those types of spells work

Most systems of magick operate using specific 'laws' and techniques. They will typically have them own selection of spells within each school, but often have certain Essence types and spell schools that they do not work with at all. Getting better at a given school will make you better at all things within its scope... and less likely to use or work with those outside of it.

Affinities? These are generally not a matter of choice. Either some special event or condition of your birth or manifestation makes it possible and good or bad, you're stuck with that probably permanently.

Other things are just 'techniques' and while most story characters seem to have completely unique ways of casting when we show combat finales and such... those are mostly 'external' to the actual craft they use. holding and triggering methods. most of them still studied the same systems of magicks, learned Essence gathering/control and spell semantics/crafting from the same teachers ... often in the same classroom.

There are a few parts to answering that.

One is that yes, it is more efficient to use Fire attuned Essence in Fire spells. It is NOT however, easier for a mage to naturally hold Fire Essence. A Mage's Well is a natural filter that 'tames' raw Essence and various sorts of tainted Essences over time. Yes, a Mage with a specific affinity or mutations might hold Essence that is more Fire than another... or more Life... but generally in 'subtle' levels, not to the degree of say what you would find from an Elemental world. Exceptions exist... Morganna is drawing Essence from an Elemental Fire plane... but note what it does to her ability to cast and handle magick on a regular basis. She has to deal with those disruptions and add variations into spells that would work fine for others. Her nature allows her to hold that Essence... most Mages could not do so without repercussions.

Two... spells are naturally designed to account for this. An inefficient super simple Firebolt spell is going to be more neutral Essence based magick than it is 'fire'. It's basically pyrokinesis applied to a small ball of ectoplasm or conjured flammable materials. You don't need elemental Fire for that. On the other hand, the Elemental Fire version is going to do a hella lot more damage. This would be a Firebolt with all the weight of the nature of Fire behind it. To achieve that, you are probably going to need Fire Essence instead of the normal mage stuff. But that doesn't mean you're carry around a storage ring with Fire Essence in it (though you CAN) or risking the repercussions of holding it naturally in that state (though that too is possible, if unwise).

Instead, smart mages down through the ages have built 'conversion engines' in hidden places that they can feed natural essence in to in exchange for certain other types. They have also made contact with immortal and ancient beings of power who live in places like the plane of Fire who are happy to make quick exchanges of Fire Essence (abundant and cheap to acquire in the realms of Fire) for neutral refined Essence from the physical realms (hard to get). These quick conversions are worked into the process of the casting of spells and the Mage simply feeds in neutral Essence and the appropriate special Essence is exchanged in the process.

This is why the most powerful mages are those with decades (and centuries) of study. Even though a young mutant Wizard can throw massive amounts of Essence into a spell, they are still 'unknowns' to these ancient beings. And like walking into a new Comic book shop the first time, the guys behind the counter aren't going to mention that someone just brought in a box of a full run of a title you collect and is looking for a quick sell and the shop has hit its 'buy limit' for the month. They'll hold that deal for the guy that's been a daily visitor for years who will be in later in the evening. You have to study the lore. Work out enough of the details of old spells to find the parts that reference conversions to allow you to mix and match. You'll have to learn which ones have limits and special conditions so you don't try to convert in the midst of a complex spell and suddenly get the wrong thing. And so forth.

But remember... most human (and even mutant) mages are typically working with neutral / tamed Essence. So human spellcraft tends to operate using that Essence. Just as Sidhe magick was designed to work with the more 'raw' Essence of the World Trees and Ley Lines... and Elementals tend to default to magicks that use their own sort of Essence. A human can't cast Sidhe magick without filters or conversions.

One of the best examples we have of dealing with spells and Essence of sorts that aren't natural to us... is mythos. Extreme case... but same logic. Fire magic and Essence at its most 'pure' can be as bad for a human as mythos... but Fire IS still a natural part of life in the physical realms. So as long as we don't delve too deep, it isn't outside our grasp. But nothing about mythos is 'natural' to life in the physical world (or any of the realms we operate in).

Sorry, I don't know enough about Pokemon to confirm or deny any analogy using it.

I'm not sure what you're asking re: natural spells in non-Sidhe mages...

Potion Making and Enchantments are not Alchemy... all three of these are unique methods of working with the nature of a thing and through a process potentially involving magic (but not necessarily).

Potion Making is a process of using materials that have certain characteristics or metaphorical associations in combination with each other to bring out a specific benefit that, when consumed, provides some benefit to the user. Those who make potions also tend to learn recipes for salves, tinctures, teas and so on.

Alchemy often 'seems' the same as a slightly more scientific / engineering oriented Potion Making... but the key difference between them is that where the intent of potion making is to generate something that draws out a key quality from its materials... the goal of alchemy is transformation, changing one substance into another more valuable one.

Enchantment is the process of taking a core item and using other materials and magic to make it better for purposes that core item is used. Adding magic to a sword to keep it permanently sharp, to hit more heavily, to burst into flames when it cuts flesh.

Artificing (which you didn't mention) is often lumped into Enchantment but is slightly different. This is the process of creating items that are inherently magic. The results may often seem indistinquishable from Enchantment.. like.. the creation of a sword that flames when it cuts flesh. The difference though, is that an enchantment is applied to a sword... and thus, in theory at least, can also be stripped from the sword (or at least suppressed). A sword built to flame when it cuts... where that is its inherent nature... is far more difficult to stop.

Conjuring / Summoning - not the same, nope. At the most basic, conjuring creates something from nothing. Summoning brings something from elsewhere.

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IRL - Drawing Down the Moon is a Wiccan ritual / ceremony in which the High Priestess of a circle calls the Goddess into her, allow the Goddess to give guidance and direction to those present for the benefit and growth of those present. When done by those who practice the craft, the circle is often filled with energy by the presence of the Goddess... so larger workings are often held in combination with Drawing Down so they benefit from both the advice and energy brought to the circle.

For WU purposes, the Drawing Down is a moon tied ceremony that requires some small commitment of Essence to perform successfully that with a proper Priestess in place CAN provide a temporary conduit to an ancient source of wisdom... or, as is often the case, a brief moment of time in which the 'eye' of the goddess is on the circle that sought her attention. When this occurs, a surge of Essence is drawn down from the divine / the moon and a Mage with a lit Well can make use of or draw some of this Essence into storage. The amount of Essence isn't huge by any means and it varies depending on how long the Goddess lingers at the circle (obviously longer if its a true coven with a Priestess, etc) and the ceremony can only happen once a month (under the moon associated with the proper aspect of the Goddess for your circle). But this is one of a few ways that Mages can acquire Essence 'easily' ... as long as they have sufficient as a circle to initiate the ceremony.

In the heirarchy of power, we see Essence used (mostly by mortal mages, though Sidhe used a scaled up version of it from the World Trees and ley flows)...

But we also have two additional power sources in play... there's the spirit energy that we talk about being generated by Avatars and is the 'coin of the realm' in the spirit worlds, necessary for sustaining stable existance and growing in power there. We also show that the cost of 'living' as a spirit or other dimensional being goes up closer to the physical world... which is why spirits don't just hang out without a hallow at will in the physical world. Doing so 'costs' them and once depleted, the absence of this energy can corrupt and destroy them if they don't manage to flee into the spirit realms. Essence can also be used as a means to create artificial hallows and to sustain a spirit, but typically at a high cost to a mage (ie spirit energy is a higher order / more dense energy than spirit energy).

Then, there's the energy that sustains divinity / divine beings. Also another 'step up' in energy density... which is one reason the average avatar doesn't host gods - instead only special subtypes (channelers and paladins) deal with them, each in their own particular way. the spirit energy generated by an Avatar simply doesn't 'do it' for a god. You could say... (this isn't official canon just a 'how I think of it' sort of thing) that being a god is just like being a mage. You have to have your 'well' lit before you can start collecting the divine energy generated by faith/worship and ceremony... but once you do, you can start collecting that energy and using it just as a Mage uses Essence. Except the things gods can put energy into are scaled appropriately. They expend a certain amount being 'immortal' and so on.

Which is where the 'something for nothing' comes into play. When you're drinking a glass of cold tea in the hottest days of summer, you don't really mind that your glass is collecting condensation and dripping water on the table / coaster. You aren't desperate enough to collect that condensation and save it for later when you're thirsty, you've got a glass of tea right there.

In the Calling ceremony, the small Essence expenditure is mostly about creating a locked circle.. akin to a large Well instead of your individual one. The ceremony to the Goddess is what draws divine attention, generating faith/divine energy for whatever aspect of the Goddess gives the circle attention. The Essence that happens to fill the circle is incidental to the Goddess. It doesn't amount to any serious amount of usable energy on the divine level. And you, as a mortal, have no way to make use of the divine energy raised by the ceremony but the Goddess certainly does... and in a true full circle, its worth enough to merit the Goddess making a quick appearance to give advice. So... its not something from nothing... its a trade of something you can create but has no value to you but that I need... for something that I create that you need.

Ah... by 'natural spell' you're talking about something that is a spell-like innate ability using Essence that they just 'know' how to do without learning it.

This is similar to 'creating' hobgoblins in the sense that magic doesn't need complex spell casting to cause an effect. As long as you supply an intent to Essence under your control, it will act on that intent. Of course, intent is a wiggly squirmy thing with lots of ways for the energy to drain out of its control ... and like electricity, Essence is always going to take the least resistance path to 'ground.' And hobgoblins aren't the only 'overfull' Well problem. Spilling uncontrolled Essence produces hobgoblins... but an undisciplined Mage with uncontrolled abundance of Essence will find it being burned off by 'least wishes'... anything that you might 'want' for the briefest of moments counts as an intent for the purpose of loose Essence.

For baseline Mages, this is less often an issue... apprentices spend years training their will to be ready to hold Essence firmly in their Well long before they are granted enough Essence to light their Well. And with continued work on their discipline through their journeyman years as they accumulate Essence and invest it into collection systems, there are few times they come near to having spillage or uncontrolled Essence for this to happen. But with Wizard class mutants, excess Essence long before they have the discipline to control it? Almost guaranteed. So Wiz class mutants do lots of 'unintended' non-spell things. Like glow. Have glamour-like effects (they want people to like or fear or trust them, etc). They may appear to be lucky. Things happen at random, as if they were probability warpers, etc.

Some 'specific' things may be a combination of this 'uncontrolled' Essence effect in which they get a spell effect purely from intent applied to loose Essence.Most likely, the same thing can be done with a spell much more efficiently and the non-spell might not actually work once the Mage has some training and doesn't allow their Essence to get out of control, and they would have to develop a process of freeing up essence to use the ability the original way.

Basic spells?

Light

Also, Light.

More Light.

And probably Light.

Why a basic light spell? The simplest light spell out there is also one of the simplest measurable outcome spells in existence. It takes a very standard amount of energy to cast it and it either works or doesn't work. Sure, you can add extensions to it to vary the outcome, but the default spell uses a set amount of Essence and produces a consistent amount of light. Additionally, continuing to apply that amount of Essence sustains the spell. For that reason, this light spell is actually used as the measurable standard by which Essence is counted.

But a lot of what is taught in the theory class is not existing structured spells so much as the 'theory' of spell casting... what it means to acquire and hold Essence, to store Essence in temporary items for a 'rainy day', what happens to a mage using Essence or being depleted of it, what is involved in controlling Essence and bringing it from your Well and using it in the process of casting a spell, to build and store spell 'pieces' so quick choices can be made in emergency situations without having to cast entire complex workings. How to see goals in terms of times and stages, understanding that you need knowledge, and casting skill, and enough Essence to do any major working... and that by the time you have all the things in place for such, will your goals still be the same? And understanding why your goals need to be clear because intent affects every step of the process.

Any specific spell you might learn along the way in a class like that is going to be examined as a 'case in point' during Lab time.

Remember, for part of the class, the only real amount of Essence available to them is stored by teachers (or other 'donors') in the training wands. Some students in the intro classes won't even have lit Wells until late in the semester when they have the discipline to self-light or manage to set up a couple Essence 'lures'. Only the Wizard ranked students with high enough Essence draws that they light their own Well even despite spillage will start the first year classes capable of casting even a Light spell with their own Essence.


Familiars.

This one is trickier. See.. the familiars themselves aren't talking. They aren't people converted into animals... we know that much. But whether they started as animals and became something more or were something 'else' and took on common animal forms... everyone's just guessing. In reality, it doesn't matter much... either way, they're smarter than 'normal' animals and are able to do things and have levels of independence that a normal animal wouldn't. They don't typically have power of their own, which you'd think a summoned creature of the sort you're talking about would... but they are valuable and important to a mage who uses them.

What they 'do' is easier to answer. They are an added 'hand' in the spell casting process. Imagine, for example, that you are casting a spell that requires a complex weave of energies, that at one point come together in an amplification and blending section. Three or four types of Essence flow through the lines prior to that, ready to be linked in... but if only two of them join alone and then the remainder added late, it will shatter the balance of the system. Or, if one or more of these energies are 'crossed' in the process of manipulating, they'll jump courses and cancel each other out. To handle this as a solo caster, the familiar can act a bit like a vice grip in your wood shop... holding or moving one or more pieces in place for you while you weave in the rest. Additionally, the familiar can work as short term energy storage for when you have too much coming in too quickly and you need to shunt it aside without losing it... or set it aside for a moment while you work on another segment of the spell. A familiar isn't long term storage like a properly prepared altar or wand, but they can also move the energy around more quickly than a mage can pull or push energy to a 'true' storage system.

Other things a familiar can do for their mage is act as a focus point for a variety of spells for scouting and surveying purposes... or as a mobile 'buff' carrier. Though such things can put the familiar at risk.


A LOT of basic combat spells rely on basic untainted Essence manipulated in a way to achieve something that could be done more 'efficiently' by a more complex spell. They are, by definition, combat spells... and that requires speed and flexibility in use that does not come from efficiency. A complex ritual can be built to cast a fireball that conjures an accelerant around a highly flammable material and wraps it in compressed oxygen and propels it with telekinetic force. Properly designed and cast, the spell would take a small fraction of the Essence a standard combat fireball would.

Similarly, a standard combat firebolt (not a fireball, as those are generally in the large radius big boom category of attacks) is likely to be not much more than a TK or 'levin' bolt (mage bolt) pushed through a filter that uses some of the energy to heat up the air around the bolt until it is hot enough to have flames. Normally, that sort of bolt is going to burn and leave scorch marks where it hits, and have a small amount of knockback... but it isn't going to set much on fire unless it 'sticks' to it long enough. Making it 'wet' enough to stick will either take pushing even more energy into it or lessening the burn value.

Using Fire from the Elemental plane of Fire isn't something you want to do for a normal 'simple' attack. Fire, capital F, burns. Incinerates. and its inclination isn't to just hit something and go out... Fire wants to burn all the things. So using Fire in a combat fire spell... even refining a low output spell like a simple Firebolt... to use Fire... is going to make it do scarily more damage. Will that cost 'more' Essence overall? Don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on the variant of firebolt you use... or... lots of things. Most importantly, its the sort of detail that only really matters if you're writing a dissertation on the construction of efficient and practical, non-ritual Firebolts for combat use... and since no one's defending that dissertation in universe atm, we don't need that level of detail. Write it however you want to make a good story out of it.