[✓] Mental Magic

[Jon Evaglno 202]

In Asulon, there is a place that all living creatures avoid at all costs: the Wretched Grove. This forest of snow and ice has existed in Asulon for many centuries, and its corruption has led many to fear it. However, this forest is not truly what it seems. It was once home to a people known as the children of the forest. These people were unlike the other races that existed in Asulon, in that they kept no place to live. They did not need one, as they were born of trees, and could survive without a roof over their heads. The children of the forest were connected to the trees, for the trees were their ancestors who guided the race in everything they did. The children of the forest had a power over minds of trees and animals alike. The people loved peace, and hated anything that threatened it. The council of trees soon decreed that all the children of the forest should not reveal themselves to anything in their true forms, be it an animal or another Asulonian race. Many came through the grove, and none learned of the children of the forest, so they soon passed out of memory and into legend.

There was a terrible nation in Asulon that had just dawned. It developed beasts of fire that needed wood to survive. Before long, the nation had destroyed many forests, leaving harsh deserts where lush forest once was. The nation came across what would be later known as the wretched grove. They brought their lumberjacks with fire and axes to clear the forest and burn its wood to feed their beasts of fire. The eldest tree, known as the Tree of Minds, saw the urge to destroy in the people's mind, and entered every being's mind that it could, and drove many away. It could not get all the minds, so it called upon the children of the forest to defend their home. As soon as the children tried to attack, the men brought their beasts of fire to end this squabble. The beast roared, and shot smoke, and threatened to destroy the peaceful grove the children had worked so hard to protect.

After a long and arduous battle, every child of the forest had been killed, and only the Tree of Minds still stood. Even then, the tree was wounded, and continued to fight. However, the losses were not of the children's alone. Almost every person who attacked was either driven away or killed, leaving only a small band among them. The tree changed what they saw, and turned brother on brother. After all had been slaughtered except one, the tree allowed the final one standing to see what he had wrought. In seeing what his fit of madness had caused, he fled, and nothing came to the tree for a long time.

After this event, the Tree of Minds was filled with anger. It cast out everything that came near with violent hallucinations. Eventually, the wound it took healed, and its rage subsided. The tree now appeared to be dead, but was the center of the now almost lifeless forest. It continued to force out almost all creatures. Some creatures, however, were allowed into the tree's inner grove to learn the ancient art of the children of the forest. They were chosen for their curiosity, knowledge, wisdom, or intelligence, and were granted the power to see into other's minds and change their senses. The very few who were granted this power were then cast out to keep the vicious peoples of the axe away from the only source of Mental Magic still existing.

Then, a calamity ensued, destroying the Asulonians slowly. Many of the masters of the tree's art died out and were lost to history. The visitors to the tree became far and in between. Eventually, it could find no intelligent beings, and was alone in Asulon for some time. Then, the descendant races arrived from Aegis. After having been alone for such a long time, the tree quickly repelled all that came near the woods, now using more frightening images than it had during the time of the Original Asulonians. It only saw a squat and war-like people, and people who were fixated on destroying whatever they could to make themselves larger.

After finding so many of these people, it found a tall, twig-like person. This person had neither intelligence, nor wisdom, nor knowledge in a great enough degree, but it had an ample amount of curiosity to be taken to the inner grove where the tree was. Here, the twiggy mind was taught the art of mental magic, and sent off, never to find the place again.

It is unknown whether the tree has had visitors since this twiggy mind, but this is a place for them to come forward, and reveal their places of hiding.

Current Masters:
(Following this format: name(MC name), skill level[beginner, under average, average, above average, almost mastery, master] -alive/dead-)

Jon Evaglno(Jon021), almost mastery -alive-

 

Telepathy and Mental Magic

The mind is a curious thing. It has the ability to make or break a person. It defines a character, person, or a living thing. This type of magic allows the interaction of minds in roleplay by a magic user. Minds, typically, are a controlled chaos of various thoughts and memories swimming about in an intelligent being's consciousness. No two minds are alike, just like the people they belong to, so every mind is a variation, with some varying more than others. Some people have a "filing cabinet" of thoughts, while others have an algorithm for sorting their thoughts, and others have a chaotic barn of thoughts. Everyone's mind is different to navigate.
 

Learning Mental Magic

To learn Mental Magic, you must be taught by a master as shown here, or learn from the aforementioned Tree of Minds. With the Tree of Minds method, I could, for all intents and purposes, simulate this encounter, or, if time zones/other ridiculously annoying stuff intervene, I could just do a quick test to see if the Tree would teach you(if it existed as a player). Since the Tree of Minds isn't going to let just anyone in, the most common way to learn this is by being taught by a master.
 

Tells

Every mental magic user has a tell. This is a certain thing that changes in their appearance when they perform mental magic, E.G. Jon's tell is his pupils expanding. Typically, it isn't a glowing thing, like -Derp's hands and feet start to glow-. It's normally a more subtle change, like eyes changing color, marks appearing on skin, etc.
 

The "spells"

Technically, one doesn't need a spell to enter a mind, but I will refer to what a mind magic user can do when interacting between minds using this term. As per request of the Magic Team, when a Mental Magic user is restrained in any way, they cannot use any spell, no exceptions. In addition, they must take an amount of time to connect with the mind and a proportionate amount of time depending on the size of the spell being used, E.G. a larger illusion takes longer to produce.

Basic Telepathy
This is the simplest spell usable. All the user must do is enter the other person's mind, and think. These thoughts will become speech in the other person's mind. It should not be very exhausting on the user, but extended conversations may lead to fatigue. As one works a muscle, one can practice to the point where they can have longer conversations of this type, and the same is true with all following spells. Telepathy can also manifest itself as a sort of "scan" for intelligent creatures. By lightly extending a mind over a wide area, one can see if any other intelligent minds are nearby. This is more difficult than basic telepathy in that it requires a larger area of effect.

Mind "Melding"
Technically, we aren't melding anyone's mind, Vulcan style, when we do this. Essentially, when you mind meld someone, you are attempting to break into the person's memories or thoughts to gain some information. The key to this is either going unnoticed, or distracting the person's conscience mind long enough to get the information you want. This is more tiring than basic telepathy, and requires much more practice to perfect and use for extended periods of time.

Barriers
On breaking into minds during Melding, the person who is attempting to defend themselves may put up a "barrier" of thoughts. This barrier is essentially one thought, or a montage of thoughts, that the person uses to make the person who is attempting the meld leave their mind. To create a barrier, the victim must separate themselves from emotion. Any emotion that would rouse them to action will disrupt their barrier and allow the attacking mage through. The harder you focus, the longer your barrier will hold. Keep in mind that the enemy mage is trying to make you feel something so that your concentration is broken. If you feel that your character's emotions would be roused by whatever the mage is showing you through illusion, you should break your barrier.

Creation of Illusions/Manipulation of Senses
This is the most difficult and most tiring form of mind magic. This allows the user to change what the person sees, hears, feels, tastes, and smells to produce an illusion of an alternate reality. The amount of fatigue this causes depends on the size of the illusion, the duration of the illusion, and the complexity of the stimuli. For example, a small room with a scented candle is a lot less tiring than an entire field full of many farm animals.
 

What mind magic users can't do:

 

-We cannot make a person think something. We can only influence their thoughts, E.G. we can't make someone feel fear, we have to simulate something that causes fear.

-We can't "delete" memories or thoughts. We can access them, but not destroy them.

-We can't control anyone using this. Similar to the forcing of thoughts, we have to make our victim do what we want with an illusion, not by breaking in and taking control.

-We cannot go into memories through melding and create new memories. We can make new ones with illusions, but nothing more.

 

 

Credit where credit is due:
-Aerinyes, for giving the idea about the mind's organization
-Samsan99, for the idea of scanning, and many more that I may add.

 

Quick note: I reposted this with PtahWithin's permission. It was accepted a while ago, but got archived or something for some reason of which I'm not aware.

[edit]: I made some quick edits to fix some typos and update.

[craotor 617]

Psionic powers.These seem very cool

[IrishPerson 693]

I like it! +1!

[MonkeyCoffee 516]

Sounds awesome. Good work, pop.

[Jon Evaglno 202]

It's funny cuz the MT reviewed and accepted it in Asulon. This is just here for reference, etc. +1ing this doesn't really accomplish anything, and as much as I love my ego being stoked, it really isn't necessary to post on here.

[Purple Llama 4]

I like it!

[JtPv 140]

Me likes.

[Blundermore 2733]

This magic has already been accepted, this post was merely a clarification of such magic. 

 

-Moving to accepted, thankyou for your patience. 

 

-Magic Team

[Blundermore 2733]

Move to Accepted Lore for the next stage. Please hold use till Implemented.

[Supremacy 3357]

This lore has already been implemented months ago. Moved to implemented lore.