GrimLewd Magic and Corruption overview (Patreon)

Overview:

In the world of GrimLewd magic and corruption go hand in hand. Any exposure to magical energy has the potential to warp a creature's soul and by extension their body, mind and paths.

Magical energies are found everywhere, although they differ in strength and affinity. Humans tend to settle in areas of low level neutral magic to prevent corruption.

Over time, a soul exposed to magic will absorb the magic and become changed by it. The changed soul then warps the mind and body of the affected creature. That process is called corruption

Every living creature has a level of corruption resistance based on their combined class tiers and their corruption level. As a result of that, corruption tends to stabilize over time, unless the corrupted creature continues to seek out stronger sources of magic.

Over millennia humanity spawned new sapient races as a result of large groups of humans settling in an area infused with higher levels of magical energies. These humans would all eventually become corrupted by the local magic and stabilize at a level of corruption consistent with the environment.

When large groups of creatures are exposed to the same source of corruption they tend to change in similar ways. This allows for entire new species to develop with big enough populations to support natural reproduction.

Soul shapes and affinities are heritable and as a result, so is corruption.

Humans and mundane animals have neutral magical affinity, making them magically versatile but easy to corrupt. Other flavors of magic show higher resistance to corruption, making the corruption a largely one way process.

For example: a creature already corrupted by fire magic, will be very resistant to any other magical affinity. It can be further corrupted by fire, or similar affinities.

Mana:

A synonym for magical energy. Almost everything in the world generates mana of differing affinities.

All mana has a "flavor" or "affinity" that decides its nature and what it's best used for. To put it simply fire mana is best for burning things down and life is best for healing or creating life. Affinity greatly influences how corruption changes the infected creature.

Affinities that are conceptually adjacent work better together. Life and Nature work better together than Life and Death etc.

Connections between elemental and emotional affinities are rare but possible.

Affinities can be roughly broken down into two large categories:

Elemental: fire, water, lightning, life, death, divine etc. mostly found in nature.

Emotional: anger, joy, lust, humor, ennui etc. mostly derived from the gods and sentient beings.

You could try to use Joy mana to burn something down but it would be extremely inefficient and difficult to archive.

Uncorrupted humans and animals generate neutral mana. It is not very strong, but able to fuel almost any spell. Strong emotions can generate small amounts of emotional mana, but not enough to corrupt.

Sources of mana:

Souls: every soul generates a small amount of magical energy of its own affinity. The amount is dependent on the being's levels and abilities.

Natural resources: everything in nature generates at least a small amount of mana. The amount varies wildly depending on the resource in question.

Gods: Gods and their tissues are extremely potent sources of emotional and natural affinity mana. Every god has its own mix of affinities.

Rifts: Any area where the membrane between different layers of reality is weaker generates mana. The space in between realms is incredibly rich in all sorts of mana

Souls:

Every sentient being in GrimLewd has a soul. Souls are used to connect to the path and interact with magical energies.

While there is a weak body-mind-soul feedback loop within every creature it is the soul that strongly influences the health of the other two.

A damaged body can house a strong mind and soul.

A weak mind can be in charge of a strong body and soul.

A damaged/corrupted soul will twist the mind and body to reflect itself.

In rare cases it is possible to survive one of these being destroyed, but most often it results in death of the individual.

Nobody exactly knows where souls come from and what exactly happens to them after death.

Magic:

Magic is a practice of applying will to the magical energies in order to make them perform a specific task. The simplest way of doing it is by channeling magic from your surroundings through your soul and giving it intent with your mind. Doing it this way is called "raw magic" and results in high levels of corruption, unless the mana was neutral affinity.

This is where the path comes in. Spellcasting [classes] give many different [abilities] that allow humans to safely channel mana without risking corruption.

All humans can channel "raw" with practice, even without a spellcasting class. A person's ability to channel raw is usually much greater than their safe channeling ability. Using a little bit of extra raw magic is a constant temptation for all spellcasters.

Any spell or magical device works by channeling enough mana into it. Whether they are single use, or work indefinitely, all that matters is setting up the structure and feeding it enough mana.

Spells are instructions for mana, written in one of the many languages of the gods. They can be visualized, vocalized, written down or inscribed into a device. Learning the divine languages is one of the great ongoing works of humanity.

It is also possible to bypass the god languages and use pure intent to direct mana, but it's very very difficult to do.

The same spell can be cast in many, many different ways. A [mage] that knows a spell can for example:

-Visualize or vocalize it and channel mana directly into it.

-Inscribe it into a non magically active material to ease visualization.

-Inscribe it onto a magically active material for others to channel into

-Inscribe it into a magically active material and hook up a mana source to create an easy to use artifact that less skilled people could use by simply activating it.

-Any combination of the above and more.

Example classes and spells:

[War mage] : Pure combat spellcasting class with no buffs to research or spell creation. Each level greatly increases souls mana generation and overall mana channeling capacity.

Example abilities:

[Memorize combat spell] : each tier allows for perfect memorization of one combat spell from a written or spoken source. Each tier grants one more spell slot.

[Arcane quick mind] : speed up the speed of thought for the purpose of spell visualization. Speed increases with each tier.

[Mana bank] : temporarily store mana for later use. Amount and time increases with each tier.

[Arcanist] : Research and spellcrafting class. Each level grants buffs to memory and slightly increases soul mana generation and overall mana channeling capacity.

Example abilities:

[Steady hand] : Inscribe spells more accurately and with greater ease. Each tier increases speed and accuracy of your inscriptions.

[Arcane insight] : Intuitively understand spell structures from sight alone. Higher tiers allow for transcribing spells just from looking at them once.

[Artificer] : Allows for spells inscribed into magically active materials to be channeled into.

[Life mage] : A spellcaster focused on healing. Each level grants increased soul mana generation and overall mana channeling capacity.

Example abilities:

[Life mana conversion] : Convert other mana affinities into life mana at a loss. Each tier speeds up and refines the conversion process.

[Memorize healing spell] : Perfectly memorize one healing spell from a written or spoken source. Each tier grants one more spell slot.

[Healing aura] : channel your own soul mana to generate a healing aura. Each tier increases the maximum range and strength of the aura.