[✓] [Complete, Asked Again To Be Posted] Contract Magic

[Jistuma 1995]

Contract magic

Contract magic is the magic necessary to connect someone’s soul to a written contract. This connection is done with the use of the life-force of living creature, making this magic a submagic of the Dark arts. Being the soul connected with the contract, the signer has no means to escape punishment, if the contract is broken. The consequences are normally associated with the degree of the contract, the more powerful contract, can have a stronger punishment.

Punishments:

The punishment has to be associated with an individual; nothing can happen outside a person to hurt him, or incapacitate him. Example: One will lose the ability to move an arm, he will not get hit with something in the arm and not be able to use it again. But, the lost of artifacts can be considered a punishment associated with one, as his mind can make the person lose it. Mind transformations can occur when punished; example is losing the ability to make correct business choices when a trading contract was not followed, these being normally temporary. The punishment is done to oneself, utilizing his own magic essence. As little magic essence one might have, it is enough to create the punishment, as the necessities to a body punish itself are quite small.


Making of the contracts:

No reed paper can be used to write the contract. The place where the contract is written has to be the former skin of a living animal, skin removed after death does not work. While the animal is still alive, the magic has to be casted in it's skin. By means of using the magical essence and life force of the living animal itself, is how the connection of the contract with a soul can be acquired, using this way very little magic of the caster. The power of a contract is associated with the type of skin used, normally skin of farm animals can only be used in weaker contracts than if used the skin of an elf for example. The skin has to be clean of any blood and treated as to not deteriorate in a solution which preserves the skin. The writing on the contract dictates what will happen, so in a badly written one, loopholes can be found. A contract has to be signed by at least one person to be in effect. Contracts affects the those that sign it, the signing being the way of placing the soul connected to the contract. For the signature, a writing of the name with ink, a drop of blood, or name in own blood are used for different types of contracts. The blood of a sacrifice may also be needed as for contracts that require even more external energy; example can be the trading of characteristics between two people. The person writing the contract has to have magical essence, and has to transfer it to the paper as a mean of chanting and the writing of symbols in redstone ink. The one that writes the contract is the same one that made the magic on the skin. Only then will the contract be able to connect with the persons souls, and receive fireproof and greater resistance to destruction. These are only to fool the normal folk, because as anyone familiar with contracts knows the most basic form to invalidate a contract. The protections however, can be done to any type of paper, not only of skin of animals. These might even serve better than in contracts, as in other pieces of paper, there is no invalidating.


List of contracts:

• Liar contract: The simplest contract. A statement is written that is to be proven a truth. If it is a lie, the one who signed the contract is destined to not speak for a period of time; actual mutes lose the ability to write. This contract can be made with the skin of a farm animal (leather) and signed with ink for a punishment of a week (IRL 3 hours). This rises to a month (IRL 16 hours) with normal skin and 6 months (IRL 4 days) with adept skin. This type of contract does not stop a person from being wrong; only if the person signing it knows it’s a lie can he be punished.

• Timed contracts: These types of contracts are only applicable for a designated period of time. These can be used on war truces, merchant suppliers, or even idiotic bets. The contract will have a start time and an end time. The bigger the space of time between the signing of the contract to the end time will require better skin. This contract can last longer than a Liar contract because it only holds the magic until it punishes. With leather, a month (IRL 16 hours), normal skin 1 year (IRL week), adept skin 2 years (2 weeks) and master skin 4 years (IRL month). The contract is signed with ink and punishment consists of impossibility in the mind of the breaker to do things correctly while breaking it; example is with a king breaking a truces contract, he will start making bad choices that will leave him to lose the war or be overthrown. This is possible because the mind will start seeing the bad choices as the good ones. The punishment holds for the same time as the timed contract was made for. If a timed contract was to be active for 5 months, the one that broke it will receive the punishment for 5 months.

• Conditional contracts: Will only be in effect when the condition stated in the contract is verified. The contract will have no purpose unless feeding someone’s heart in fear until the condition is verified. Very useful to be used when waging, this way there would be no way to lose without consequences. This is a pre-statement of another contract. The skin of a non trained in magic is used for it, but another contract has to be written as to state the agreements of the contract. This second contract will be one of the other contracts, be it a liar, timed, trading, promise or live contracts. This contract will only be in effect when the people who signed it know that the condition has been verified. This opens the doors for misleads, as the contract works when the one who signed it believes the condition has been verified. Take for instance a condition contract placing in effect a life contract when a certain one is murdered; if the assassin tries to kill and everyone believes he is dead. But in fact he survived, but makes himself believed dead as to not be assassinated again. The life contract would be in effect because to one to sign it believed that the man was murdered. The contract will lose effect if he discovers that the condition was not verified. A signing of any type is acceptable, as there is no punishment involved in this contract.

• Trading contracts: Consists of a trading being regulated and finished. Anything can be traded. Be it a business deal or a trade done on the spot this is the type of contract to use. It has to have at least 2 signatures, and must be signed with a drop of blood. There are three types of ways the contract can be done. The first one that can be done, it is specified that within a certain time both parts of the trade must be concluded. Another way of using it, is by stating that as soon as one makes his part of the deal, the other has a limited time to conclude his part. The type of skin used will have to be better if the punishment is to be bigger, but at least a skin of a non magical user should be used for any kind of decent punishment. Only with the skin of an apprentice of magic will the effects of the punishment be everlasting. The type of signature changes the type of punishment and all can be used. The third way of using the contract is the most powerful one, and it gives possibility of trading non physical existences. One can trade emotions, fears or addictions with another for any price the other accepts. This is something one would think a lot before accepting, and should only do it if the price is very high, as the one on the other side of the trading would receive the emotions from the other he is trading with. The skin of an adept magic caster needs to be used, yet, even so, it might fail, normally a master caster skin used. Even so there exists things that can not be traded, like the curse of the races.

• Promise contract: The one who signed has to accomplish the promise written in the contract until the date specified in there. Again if the one who signed believes he truly accomplish his promise he will suffer no consequence when the end date comes. Better skins posibilitate less time until the end date.

• Life contracts: When you owe or give someone your life or soul. This contract will be in effect until the person that signed it dies. Breaking the contract will result in death, but could also result in a punishment not as high if the breaking was not total. Until he is pardoned, the contract voided or the one that now owns the soul dies, he will be subjected to the punishment. A skin of an adept is necessary for use to create a life contract. The signing of the contract will have no effect if the soul is not committed. The person will have, when signing it, to be positive that he will use all his life for what is written, or the blood used to sign the contract will leave no mark.

• Soul Contract: A more powerful vertion of the life contract. Those that sign this contract will give their souls to until the end of the one who the one the contract was made to dies. In the ocasion that the signer dies before the one who owns the soul dies, the soul with not leave the realm and continue serving and helping as one can best, becoming a ghost or perhaps a graven, depending on the circunstances of the dead, and the feeling of unfinished business. Until he is pardoned, the contract is broken or the other dies, the signer will remain stuck to the realm to wonder it and continue the contract's words. Even after the contract has ended, there might be reasons for the soul to remain on the realm, but those reasons have nothing to do with the magic. The contract has to be signed with name in blood, and a sacrifice has to be made besides obtaining the skin. For these contracts to be signed, there has to be absolute sure of it, normally only powerful feelings such as pure love or the greatest of trusts can make someone's name stick to the contract. The skin of an expert or master magician is needed to create such a contract. Apart from the sacrifice and the powerful skin, the contract mage has still to deliever more lifeforce as the connection to the soul in this contract is powerful. The life force would come from the contract mage, removing some of his like a necromancer would in creating their magics. It is a great risk, a contract mage can not like a necromancer steal the life force of others, thought with time he might recover.

Note on soul contracts:

• It can NOT be forced on the character. The blood will only stay on the paper if the character is sure fully that he will give his full life and soul for the other. This means any fear, any questioning will mean it will not work.
• It won't work if the player OOC'ly doesn't want to, it can be rp'ed as a minor kind of fear that the character isn't aware of.
• This magic can NOT create armies of ghosts, because of the reasons above, the fact that the contract mage needs to use part of his life force, and the fact that the one who signed the contract still needs to die.
• The one who signs the contract does NOT become a ghost instantly. The contract only assures that if the character is permakilled, that he can return as a ghost with proper lore requirements. Until the character is permakilled, the character would be like before.
• For becoming a graven on time of Permakilling the character, they would have to talk with the owner of the lore and see if the dead was of the requirements or not. This lore only assures that the character can become a ghost, not a graven.
• If the person breaks the contract, first he would start receiving permanent changes in his character, then if he would continue to break the contract, he would receive death. Death would then make the character become a ghost and follow with the reasons of the contract. If he would not follow it, he would be subjected to immense constant pain, so much pain that he would not even be able to move.
• Signing this contract is an OOC agreement that if the character does break the contract, the character will receive punishment, which might include permakilling, and a ghost which would become paralized with pain.

Types of signature:
 
Of the three types of signatures these are their more normal meanings:

•  Signed name in ink  - I have read and agree with the contract.

The person signing it has understood what it is written and will agree with it. This means if he does not respect the contract, the mind will be affected. He will forget things, choosing what he before would never chose, thinking differently. One can forget anything, being it memories, or how to talk.

•  Signed with drop of blo od - I place my body on t he line for this contract

By giving his body to the contract, any consequence but dead can happen. the signing might lose abilities permanently. Being able to see, to move a hand, to have children can be removed. Even the ability to talk (not forget how to talk, lose the ability to do it) can be removed.

• Signed name in blood - I give my being for the contract

He is putting at risk all that he has. He is placing his life and his soul on the mercy of the contract. At least part of his being can be subjected to disappear, be it emotions to never be felt again, concepts to never again follow, or his own life.
 
Types of skin:

The skin is the paper where the contract is written. It is the item where the connection to the void is made, and is also the item the soul associates itself with. The skin has to be of an animal, as a connection to the void in such a degree requires more magical essence than the creator had.If reed was used to make the connection, the magical essence would be too low for the connection to be made. The skin has to be removed while the animal/person in still alive, as the magical essence disappears when the body dies, making the connection to void a very tiring work, normally too much to be made by a normal person. After the treatment of the skin, the time the connection with the soul will last, is associated with the magic essence of the animal where the skin was taken, and it's magical capabilities. This way, the time the contract will last by skin is as follow, farm animals < Non Magical Creature < Apprentice < Adept < Master. The ability of the magical being is based on their tier. A non magical, has no magic yet, an apprentice is one with tier 1 and 2, and adept is one with tier 3 and 4, a master is one with tier 5. The magic associated with the owner of the skin will also dictate the degree the connection can be made. The degree of punishment is also subjective to the type of skin used, if the contracts has a long time, the punishment will be not so great, and if it lasts a shorter time, the punishment shall be greater.

Some contracts need better skins because of the fact that using lower skins, would have the effect of the contract be in a too short time period, to actually make sense to make it.

Requirements:

To be able to cast the magic one has to have knowledge of how the magic is performed, yet the training of it, are byways of first successfully recreate the magic. But once one can recreate the magic, one can not make it more powerful, as the magic power would come from the sacrifice. Afterwards only perfecting can be done, using less magic to create the contract, and improving technique as to more easily use the magical essence from the sacrifice. Torture techniques and many more ways as to open the sacrifice to steal their magical essence are various ways to improve.

An accepted Magic application for Contract magic under Dark arts, contract magic, is required to perform the magic, and an accepted Villain Application for 2c is necessary for the skinning and kidnapping of players for the skin, yet without a VA one can still do the magic to animals. This does not mean someone that knows the existence of the contracts and has a VA for forging, can't recreate a contract that has no connection with magic.

Tiers and abilities:

The magic is quite varied, yet only three spells are necessary. Controlling the mana and life-force of the one which skin will be used and using the mana to create the paper, small magic to write on the paper, and then the optional magic of creating the protection for the contract, to make it very hard to destroy. As such, since there are only these spells, there are only two tiers, while the rest is just improving the quickness and efficiency of the mana and life-force control.

Tier 0 - Learning, the new magician has to understand how magic essence moves and how to reach the life force. The idea of moving mana of some other animal or person being moved to certain locations needs to be incredibly studied. For that meditation, and study of air currents and water currents are needed, as to learn how mana would move. Learning how the mana has to group itself with the life force for the required effect has to be studied as well, probably trained and experimented, normally on cows. This would be the third stage of the training. The fourth would be the simplest of ones, writing on the contract after it has been removed from the creature. It would be a simple placement of mana on special ink, but still would require some study on how the ink behaves and is.

Tier 1 - At this stage, the first contracts can already been done, the most easier ones, which do not use the skin of people with magic abilities. These would still be in study, and as such would fail quite a few times.

Tier 2 - The study on animals is complete, reliable contracts can be done from them. The study on the five races starts. It won’t be easy, and the result will be quite hard to bring forth. About only half the contracts would be able to be done with this, the others would probably fail.

Tier 3 - The start of Tier 3 the person would start to be able to make contracts from the skin of those of weaker skill. In tier 3 the training is to manipulate the mana of the mages. This is done only by training and experimenting. Small protections to the contract can start to be implemented. The most basic of them would be water and oil proofing it. There are many types of materials which can be studied which do not get wet, it’s with the study of these that then the contract mage can protect the contract.

Tier 4 - The start of Tier 4 is marked by the successful making of a contract of a more powerful mage. It is in this stage that the one who knows of contract magic can improve the protection of the contract he performs, creating protections for it. A study of materials which can hold fire and are hard to destroy is done, which would then be transferred into the skin.

Most of the hard things to learn in this magic, is not the magic, but all the other things which are necessary to learn besides it. One must have control of a knife in such a way as to carve into the skin of others without killing them and in a way to leave marks in such a perfect way as to aid the mage to realize the magic. The writing abilities also have to be quite good or the result will be a useless contract. For the manipulating the mana of strong mages, they first have to be tortured, and mind weakened, all this without killing them. These tasks are very hard, and as such as complicated as the magic itself, and they have to be learnt besides it.


How it came to be:

"Thy soul, while acknowledging, shall maul even thyself"

Words stated in the old book Jistuma read on the trip to Asulon. He acquired it from his dead father's belongings, his father receiving it from Jistuma's godfather. Not much is known from where the book can from, but the author name is known, it is the same name as the one reading it, Jistuma.

Jistuma enjoyed that book, and enjoyed experimenting based on the book. While in Asulon he created a town where he did his experiments, his tortures, his sacrifices. He built secrets on the town with help of his dwarven friend and his brother. He placed the book in a library, filled with books of all kinds, notes, results and experiments. He read it over and over again, but always kept it lost in the middle of all the other books, hidden so it would not be read by others. In the book many different types of magics are briefly outlined, giving mainly a small detail on their existence and their uses. Yet contract magic is explained in exquisite detail, what tools to use, how to prepare ink, what words to say, and how to train to say them. It is a complex magic on which details are written throughout the book. Yet at the end of the book, black pages exist, quite a few of them. The use of this blank pages was never known to Jistuma.

As Jistuma's life progressed, there was an instance where he became a mute, the magic could never be done, and he had studied the book time and time again. He stored it in the library and never took a look at it again.

In time he died, and the book stays hidden in the hidden library.

Until someone found it. Rosso was the one to find it, and he took a weird interest in all the different types of things written in it, it was like a horror story. He took it with him in the boats, but his mind was changing, and soon he started to feel that maybe using the things written in that book were not so bad. Feeling himself as dangerous with the book, before he thought he would descent into the dark, he gave the book to a friend.

The proprietor of the book is not to be known, yet coppies have been made, and the knowledge exists in many.

(If you want to learn this magic, please speak to me about it, this lore is left vague for people to be able to learn the magic)

How it would work IG:

The contract should be written in a thread in the rp section, with an OOC statement on who the skin is from, if the contract is fake it should be said as well. The player(s) that would sign it would create a response with the signature. An IG book should be created with the link to the thread. When the book is lost in rp, the contract is not considered null, and should be kept by someone who found it to do whatever he would like with it. If the book vanishes with an rp death, it means the contract was taken by the wind and as such would still remain in effect. If it is lost in an un-rp way (no rp kill, dying with mobs, glitch, etc) it needs to be stated in the thread that the book was lost in a non-rp way and as such a new book will be written. If the contract is thrown into a fire in MC in rp, another book can be created by the person who retrieves it from the fire. A post on the thread would have to be made by the person who retrieve the contract. Great strength is required to tear the contract, it would tire an average size orc. No one can grab the contract and destroy it. Water and fire do not damage the contract. Lava would be able to destroy it.

 

(edited in)

Another way to would be to write the contract fully in an MC book. With one as such, the first page must be an OOC statement of the agreement of the punishment or trade that is to happen when signing the contract IC. The second page states the type of contract, the skin and who it belongs to, the mage, the type of signature and if with space, the punishment if it happens. Screenshots are advised for if losing the MC book un-rp'ly, or if it is thrown into fire when protected from it, and someone regains it back. The book must be signed by one of the signers, with proper IC signing in the MC book as well.

[meg 1993]

Thanks for re-posting this. Original Contract Magic just needed a few tweaks, which have been fixed, and is now formally accepted by the MAT and allowed to be roleplayed (with proper app) Happy Contracting!