Glossary

Lore Terms to know!! I just need a place to keep them instead of scattering them throughout oc profiles

Atypical ( AT, 80 )
Humans can shapeshift, although it's a slow and involuntary process.  It is often  triggered by puberty, mental trauma, or otherwise in response to large  changes.  They always remain recognizably humanoid, no matter what new  features they gain(generally they're animal-like, pointed ears are  pretty common but tails and new limbs happen).  People who have features  that aren't the human standard are called Atypical.  While rarer,  human children can also just be born monstrous, and over time either  lose their atypical features or gain even more of them.

There is a  wide array of superstition surrounding atypical humans, ranging from  benign to fear-mongering mainly.  Many believe monstrous features are a  corruption caused by having a rotten soul or making pacts with  fae/demons, or being cursed by fae/demons.  Or sometimes  parents(especially single parents) of monstrous children will be accused  of having copulated with an actual animal to produce their weird-shaped  kid.

Atypical would also cover humans with real-life-type physical deformities (extra fingers, born without limbs, etc).  There's also a lot of solidarity/overlap with otherwise disabled people.

Angstrom
Frigid volcanicly-volatile island nation to the far north.  Used to be a world power(ie: super into imperialism), but a few hundred years back they got blasted into an apocalypse by a siphon-bomb that destroyed the ambient magic field, which is still absent to this day.  Still very militaristic, most of the population is in the handful of cities on the coasts, but nomadic clans formed mostly from fugitives roam the wilds.  They are the birthplace of non-magical technology & power sources(and also like the only place that uses them).  They pride themselves on their adaptability & endurance but also still imprison all of their Augurs bc the state is desperate to control the only magic in the country.

Augur
An inherently magical person, with an instinctive grasp on their domain/area of affinity.  They require no training to cast so long as what  they are trying to do is within their affinity (ex: A Fire Witch is  incredible at manipulating fire, but they'd be as useless at necromancy  as the average novice mage).  

Witches also experience Compulsions  to cast:  They get very antsy if they don't flex their magic regularly,  and if they hold it in for too long it can start...leaking.  Which is  not good.  (ex: A Fire Witch who suppresses their magic would eventually  end up spontaneously combusting the objects around them(or just, their  own body))

Belles 
aka The Belles of Belvite!  Established as a fae-defense-force, since Belvite is built on an in-between and the fae Don't Like That.  Over the years they developed into a more general defense force/justice system.  They still fight fae and rescue kidnapees and maintain The Fence that's enchanted to keep fae out, but also handle disputes & mundane crime in town.  There were issues with corruption/abuse of power a while back but nowadays if you break your Oath to protect and be righteous and just, a demon will crawl out of a well and literally bite your head off and kebab your corpse on a pike in the town square.

Belvite
A town built on an oasis in an in-between desert.  They've just been out here ranching cows and bickering with the fae for over a century.  There's a fence that surrounds the town, enchanted to keep the fae out, but there are ruins outside the fence from where they've had to abandon chunks of town before...

CoL
aka the Coven of Laharr! CoL is an international, Stratah-based organization of mages that was founded on the idea that knowledge of magic and the world isn't worth anything if it isn't shared.  They encourage and provide platforms for sharing ideas and working together with magical peers, initially in the form of a university but over the centuries they've established a multitude of libraries, clinics, & support networks to help people suffering from magical afflictions, on top of expanding their training/exchange programs in places all over the world.

Before CoL came to be, magical knowledge was a closely-guarded secret, cultivated over generations in (mostly) wealthy/noble families.  Those who studied it rarely shared their findings with anyone but their heirs, and even those who were members of covens were resistant to letting their rivals/peers know too much.  It's unknown the amount of knowledge lost to time purely because of mages dying without passing on their work.  

Laharr wasn't the only one frustrated by the gatekeeping & elitism & sheer waste of it all, and they were able to revolutionize the world of mages by letting the secrets of their own family's magical style flow into the world and convincing like-minded mages to do the same.  Those of Laharr's Coven would teach anyone who wanted to know, be it a commoner with no magic experience or uninitiated mages who were just there to be suspicious and/or take everything to fortify their own power.

With the inclusion of lower-class people the Coven expanded rapidly and those still clinging to secrecy either eventually saw the appeal of such a massive network of mages all working together or just followed the zeitgeist to stay in fashion since magic isn't something they can lord over the plebs anymore anyways.

Membership requires no prior magical knowledge or experience, and is comparable to getting a library card.

CoL Certified
CoL Certification is generally accepted as the bare-minimum mark of competency for a mage, and getting work in a magical field without CoL Certification is difficult at best & has sketchy connotations.  Almost any CoL-owned learning center can administer the test for basic certification, but for specialized certification one might have to travel for their testing.

Constructs
Basically a robot, but with magic.  They have to hit a certain threshold of complexity and be autonomous to be considered a construct and not just a machine.  A doll with a demon glued to it that understands simple instructions is a construct. 

Bio-Constructs are living natural creatures(or fucked up genetic chimeras sampled from natural creatures), that are enchanted to alter their behavior and often have artificial physical parts built into them.  Some of them can breed!!  Created to be useful to humans, but without the thousands-of-years-of-careful-breeding necessary for true domestication.  Definitely a controversial topic.

Demon
Similar to fae, except that they are created by humans.  These come in two categories: 'summoned' demons, and 'true' demons.

Summoned Demons are not so much Summoned as they are explicitly created by humans to serve specific purposes.  Summoned demons are simple creatures with one-dimensional personalities.  They live to serve their purpose and that's about it.  Generally without maintenance they will dissolve back into raw energy again eventually.  Maintenance generally just involves a human being around to reaffirm their purpose if they start to forget it.

True Demons are more like Fae.  Humans tend to stir up the metaphysical plane unintentionally through microcasting, which causes magic to condense in 'unnatural' ways.  Once it condenses enough to spill out into the physical world, a true demon is born.  Demons are usually humanoid, or evocative of human concepts in appearance.  True demons are much more stable than summoned demons, and not as simple-minded.  They still need human contact to flourish but are not generally in danger of dissolving because they forgot to keep existing.

Fae
They are ephemeral reflections of life.  The ether condenses around the natural world and once it hits a tipping point it creates a fae.  Fae vary wildly in appearance(though they always resemble something organic, if not several organic things mashed together).  Their level of intelligence varies as well; many are comparable to human intelligence but there are plenty with no more awareness than a blade of grass.

Faerealms
Pocket dimensions fae can create and control, by exploiting their soul anchors.  It's possible to create multiple faerealms by splitting their soul into smaller pieces.  Humans can enter these realms if they come in contact with a fae's soul but it is a disorienting experience 9/10 times.  Depends on how much that particular fae made it look and behave like physical reality, and how much extrasensory ability the person has.

Feywilds
More of a human concept than a point of unity for all faekind.  A feywild is any area that has fae living in it, but no human population.  These come in two varieties: areas that are inhospitable to humans(polar regions, the deep sea, regions that are just unattractive enough to not bother trying to claim, etc), and areas that groups of fae actively exclude humans from for whatever reason.

Human
mostly just a human.  They're much more visually diverse than real humans, tho.  they can have horns and tails and stuff.

In-Between
Swaths of land 'in-between' fae and human territories.  There aren't any hard borders (humans have tried to establish them, but fae generally don't understand the concept and their claim over land varies by the season, or the tide, or the alignment of the planets, we just don't know).  Just a buffer area where anything goes!!  Your baby might get snatched, a grove of sylvans might be uprooted for farmland, no rules just chaos.

Mage
A person who uses magic.  Generally not inherently magical, they have to study and prepare to manipulate the natural energy of the world and do not have any internal power source.  Technically mage is an umbrella term that also covers augurs, but augurs rarely claim the title just because being an Augur is a different experience than studying magic. 

Magic Categorization
Magic is different for literally everyone, and trying to separate magic based based on groupings like 'healing' or 'necromancy' is kind of a headache when you're trying to discuss it scientifically.  But at its most basic it is generally split 3 ways, depending on what you're doing and how you're doing it.

Force Magic, also known as Physical or Physic magic,  has to do with physically moving matter, or 'editing' the default physics of the world.  Force magic can be utilized to levitate or change the weight of objects, speed or slow movement, expand or crush something, etc.

Transformative Magic, also known as Chemical or Alchemic Magic or Alchemy, has to do with changing the properties of matter at a basic level.  Transformative magic can be utilized to generate heat/cold, change a substance's state of matter(liquid/solid/gas/etc), alchemize new materials, break something down to its base components(ex: separating water into hydrogen & oxygen), etc.

Spiritual Magic, also known as Metaphysical or Psychic Magic,  has to do with manipulation of raw magical energy without using it to actually change anything physical, as well as interact with things outside of the physical plane.  Spiritual magic can be utilized to store magical energy in objects for future use, 'summon' demons, provide extrasensory abilities, etc.  Manipulation of souls also falls under Spiritual magic.

Metaphysical Plane
A primordial dimension of concepts.  Not where magic comes from, but still important for spellcasting.  A vital catalyst in the birth of demons and fae.  Inhabited primarily by fae.  The souls of physical beings also exist here.

Monster
Another term for Atypical/AT/80, derogatory.  Also a reclaimed slur type of thing for the AT community.

Microcasting
Extremely low-level magic that is essentially just thinking with conviction, or experiencing strong emotion.  One untrained person's thoughts & feelings aren't going to effect the world, but if you get enough people to believe something fervently enough it can change reality. (ex: if enough people really believe that eating a raw onion will cure an ear infection, eventually it'll actually....start...working...)(ex 2: if a bunch of people die horribly in a small area, it will gain an aura of 'oh fuck something bad happened here')

Plagish (The Plagish Incident, Plagish Bloodline)
A vampiric bloodline, characterized mainly by extreme hunger and violence, and little control over whether a bite caused vampirism in the victim of an attack.  'The Plagish Incident' refers to the intitial creation/outbreak of plagish vampires, which was so horrible and bloody and deadly that creation of new vampiric bloodlines is internationally banned.  There have been periodic outbreaks and purges since, but none of them have been nearly as bad because there are systems in place to deal with them.

Reflections-of-Nothing 
a common phenomenon in mages: they look similar to a ring light's reflection, just without there actually being a light.  Typically only shows up when the mage is actively casting.  Reflections-of-nothing can also be 'x' shaped, if someone is trying to cast but is unable to for some reason.

Souls
The essence of a person.  For humans(and most physical beings), this is a blob of energy in the metaphysical plane, connected to a physical body by an anchor. Humans tend to have no inherent sense of their soul. For Fae this is a physical object or 'creature', connected to their consciousness in the metaphysical plane by an anchor.  Fae are much more aware of their souls and can exploit their anchors to create faerealms.  For demons....we just don't know.

Stratah
Obligatory Floating Island, founded ~1000 years ago by a cult started by a Demon of Love(no longer a cult, but the religion is mainly only practiced on the island). Also the birthplace of the Coven of Laharr, the worlds largest and oldest mage collective.  Still a major hub for magical scholarship, and the arts/entertainment industry.

Vampire
You know, blood-drinky immortal motherfuckers.  Vampirism in this world is the result of humanity's quest for immortality via enchanting their own bodies (first successfully accomplished ~1000 years ago) .  Whether this is a successful result or a curse from the gods as punishment for mortal hubris is up for debate.  There are several different bloodlines of vampire, each stemming from a different Mage Sire.  They all have their own quirks.

It is illegal to start new lines pretty much everywhere, ever since the Plagish Incident.  New vampires are still made, but only by being brought into existing, 'safe' bloodlines.

Witch
another term for Augur in some places, negative connotation