Traditional Schools of Magic

This article discusses the traditional “schools” of magic in the Thaumaturgaea Story. This is from before colleges/guilds/covens/etc. became more common, especially leading into the modern age. Each school is associated with a particular color scheme as well, much like how universities tend to have their own color schemes.

Unlike modern classifications of magic and how magical learning is organized, traditional classifications focused less on the functionality/what it was used for, and more on where it comes from. Essentially, it’s dividing magic in terms of environmental magic in most cases. Each school has their own spells, potions, tools, techniques, gemstone uses, elements associated with them, summons, etc.

Traditionally, each person of a school of traditional magic would be referred to as [something]mancer, from “-mancy” meaning different forms of divination specifically. There were no “schools” specifically for divination back then, but instead each one had their own forms of divination that were taught. Some modern covens may still focus on certain subjects based on traditional magic classifications.

Types of Traditional Magic Schools

The following subsections go over the various traditional schools of magic in the Thaumaturgaea setting.

Magimancers

A generic term for a jack-of-all trades magic user. Usually magimancers end up working with at least 3 different schools of magic shown below in the other subsections. Otherwise, if they try to truly be a jack-of-all-trades, they basically only end up mastering basic level skills from all schools. Note that this is still a lot of impressive skills for one person.

They are associated with various colors, usually matching with the schools they learned from.

Astromancers

Sometimes called astrologists/astrologers, their definition of astrology here is different from the modern usage in divination. Back then, this meant magic users who worked with the sun, moon, stars, and other celestial magics in their craft.

They are associated with dark blue and gold.

Geomancers

Magic users who worked with land-based magics in their craft. This can include forests, land animals, mountains, metal, earth, plants, desert, plains, etc.

They are associated with green and dark brown.

Aquamancers

Magic users who worked with bodies of water, such as seas, oceans, lakes, rivers, ponds, as well as the life that lives in them.

They are associated with teal and cyan.

Pyromancers

Magic users who worked with fire, as well as light, lighting/electricity, magma, heat in general, and plasma.

They are associated with red and dark yellow.

Meteormancers

Not actual meteors, but more like meterology. So these are magic users who worked with air and the weather: things like rain, sunlight, snow, clouds, wind, etc.

They are associated with pale blue and grey.

Necromancers

Magic users who worked with spirits and the dead.

They are associated with black and dark red.

Craftomancers

Colloquially referred to as house witches in most cases, these are magic users who worked with various crafts, especially those related to homes: cooking, cleaning, blacksmith, sewing, carpentry, farming, construction, etc. This is one of the few traditional schools that would more commonly put a focus on a specific subset per school, such as a school for only farming magic, a school for only cooking magic, and so on.

They are associated with orange and brown.

Artomancers

Colloquially referred to as bards, especially if they work with music/sound. These are magic users who worked with various forms of art: paintings, sculptures, music, writing, etc. This is another traditional school that would commonly have a focus on a specific subset per school.

They are associated with rainbows of pastel colors, sometimes with certain combination representing specific subsets.

Medimancers

Magic users who worked with the human body (and sometimes animal bodies), mostly to heal. They essentially act as a sort of traditional magic doctor: medicines, potions/salves/etc related to healing ailments in particular, surgery, etc.

They are associated with white and pink, including magenta.

Numeromancers

Magic users who worked with numbers and math: algorithms, equations, etc.

They are associated with purples, including violet and indigo, and silver.

Chemimancers

Also known as alchemists, magic users who worked with chemicals and basic scientific elements. This includes working with actual alchemy.

They are associated with yellow and bronze.

Oneiromancers

Magic users who worked with dreams/ideas and could basically do almost everything the other schools could. The idea being to use your imagination and, with enough skill and practice, be able to channel that imagination and do anything from the other schools. Effectively a true jack-of-all-trades, compared to magimancers. Very rare in modern ages in any capacity, and very difficult to learn (let alone master) in both olden days and modern times. This type of magic is effectively the closest thing to "soft" magic (i.e. no strict rules or laws on how it works/how it can be used) in the Thaumaturgaea setting.

Unlike other traditional schools of magic, there is no real modern day equivalent to oneiromancers. Indeed, the art of oneiromancy in this specific context (i.e. not just divination via dreams) has been largely lost in the modern eras of Thaumaturgaea. Hence why this type of magic is even rarer in modern times, with very few confirmed users. Even then, most of these users are unable to consistently cast this time of magic, with most of it only happening during times of extreme emotions.

However, efforts are being made to research and preserve as much knowledge as possible, and conduct further research and expeditions around the world to possibly discover more about it.

A subset of oneiromancy is logomancy, also known as "word magic". Essentially, a person can cast spells or even will things to happen by saying and focusing on specific spoken words, in combination with imagining what they want to happen in their heads. According to old records, this was apparently easier to master than regular oneiromancy, since the user would use the words as a sort of middleman to channel their ideas into magic and thus manifest them much easier. However, it was still very difficult to try master like overall oneiromancy.

Some records indicate that logomancy was easier to do with magic that you already had an "affinity" for, or otherwise already studied and specialized in. In such cases, logomancy could also be used to cast magic outside of their specialty, as long as they could make a connection between what they were already good at and what they wanted to do. For example, a witch specializing in cold magic could say something like "In the middle of winter, a frozen lake shows a calm surface.", repeating it with focus on the word "calm" in particular, using it to case a spell to calm someone down. The same witch could also freeze someone in place (not literally frozen, just not moving) by repeating the word "freeze" by itself and focusing on that person.

Oneiromancers in general were associated with iridescent and glittery colors, commonly “pearl" and “chrome”.