Magic Systems
Overview¶
Magic in Tir Hathar is closer to Krynn than Eberron in terms of restriction and structure, while remaining pervasive enough to support the magitech economy. Access is limited by school affiliation, bloodline, or divine domain — but within those limits, practitioners gain meaningful bonuses that make specialization genuinely powerful.
Three magical traditions exist: Arcane (school-based), Primal (Elven/druidic), and Divine (priestly, domain-locked).
Magical terminology across all nations derives from Scholar Nation language — Arabic-influenced naming conventions, because the Scholar Nation codified magical theory and wrote the textbooks everyone else learned from. A Crimson battle-mage born in the Imperium uses Scholar Nation terminology because that's what the academy taught, the same way Western science uses Latin and Greek regardless of the practitioner's nationality.
Arcane Magic — The School System¶
Eleven schools total. Three are major moon-schools with physical academies, hierarchies, and political power. Seven are minor constellation-schools existing as traditions rather than institutions. One is forbidden.
How Schools Work¶
Wizards join a school, train within it, and gain access to every spell their school has catalogued — which after centuries of operation is nearly everything within that domain. Wizards receive bonus spell slots when casting within their school's domain, making them significantly more productive than generalists on their home turf. Schools also provide unique Focus spells unavailable outside the tradition.
Sorcerers have no school affiliation. Their magic is innate, drawn from Sigil heritage rather than studied discipline — see Sorcerer Bloodlines below. They can pull from across school lines, occasionally doing something no school wizard can, but their known spells are genuinely limited and they advance more slowly. They receive no bonus slots and no school Focus abilities. The academies view them with mild suspicion.
Sorcerers are not weaker than wizards — they're different in ways that matter situationally. A sorcerer's flexibility occasionally produces combinations no school wizard can replicate. But on their home turf, a school wizard is significantly more powerful.
Gun Mages draw from existing schools — primarily Crimson and Wayfarer — rather than constituting their own school. They are new enough that no formal school exists; they function more like sorcerers in working outside formal school structure while using recognized magic in a novel way.
The Schools as Diminished Institutions¶
The schools that exist today are shadows of what they were before the Long War. They survived — some barely — with incomplete catalogues, fragmentary spell formulae, and gaps in theoretical understanding that a century of reconstruction has not fully filled. The moon-schools in particular were military institutions during the war, which meant they were targets. The Crimson school lost more than it admits. The Mirage school's pre-war catalogue is believed to have been twice its current size. Al-Salat's records were deliberately destroyed by multiple parties for multiple reasons.
Practitioners work from what survived. Most don't know what they're missing. The oldest Elves probably do.
Schools and Sigils¶
The schools feel coherent alongside the twelve Sigils rather than parallel and unrelated. The schools study and systematize what the Sigils do naturally. The Artisan Sigil grants innate crafting gifts — the Forge school is what happens when academics spent centuries trying to understand and replicate those gifts without the bloodline. The schools are historically derivative of the Sigils. The Sigil houses predate the academies.
Some Sigils map naturally to more than one school. That overlap is intentional.
The Three Moon-Schools¶
Moon-schools are formal academies with physical locations, established hierarchies, ranks, and significant political influence. They have been operating for centuries and their spell catalogues are extensive.
Crimson¶
Battle magic, evocation, battlefield control
The school most in demand by armies and most politically entangled with military command. Their "combat engineer" identity is more accurate than "battle mage" — doctrine, logistics, and institutional structure matter as much as individual power. Crimson practitioners don't just throw fireballs; they manage artillery lines, fortify positions, and coordinate magical support across a battlefield. Cannons and mortars serve as foci for their larger workings.
Wall spells, area denial, and battlefield shaping are as central to the Crimson curriculum as direct damage. A Crimson mage who only knows how to blow things up is considered half-educated.
Political footprint: Deep institutional relationships with the Imperium's military. Every nation wants Crimson-trained practitioners; every nation is slightly afraid of what a fully committed Crimson corps looks like.
Mirage¶
Illusion, phantasm, misdirection
Illusion has enough breadth to sustain a full moon-school without borrowing from other traditions. Mirage covers both large-scale illusions affecting multiple targets and phantasms affecting a single mind — the latter functioning similarly to enchantments in effect while remaining purely illusory in nature. A Mirage practitioner doesn't change how you feel; they change what you perceive, and the results are often indistinguishable.
Political footprint: Valued by intelligence services, diplomats, and theater commanders. The line between Mirage and Al-Salat practitioners is one that governments prefer to keep blurry.
Al-Salat (common name: The Sirens)¶
Enchantment, compulsion, charm
The formal name is what appears on Scholar Nation university doors. Everyone else calls them Sirens. Al-Salat is shunned — widely acknowledged to be ethically compromised, almost certainly used extensively during the last war, and impossible to ban because every government employs them. A shunned moon-school with full academic standing and a student waiting list.
Phantasms that affect only one person sit in Mirage's domain. Effects that override or redirect a real mind sit in Al-Salat's. The distinction matters legally and almost nowhere else.
Political footprint: Every major court has at least one. Nobody admits it. The peace summit that ended the last war almost certainly had Siren practitioners on multiple delegations. Nobody has proven it.
The Seven Minor Constellation-Schools¶
Minor schools exist as traditions rather than institutions — a lineage of masters and apprentices, a secretive lodge, a wandering order. Smaller, less politically organized, more varied in character.
Haras¶
Protective and restorative magic
A minor school with influence disproportionate to its size. Haras doesn't teach healing — that belongs to the Flame's clergy — but it teaches everything adjacent: wards, barriers, counterspells, and magical preservation. Every government wants Haras practitioners protecting their important people and buildings, which gives the school political leverage it has no right to have based on raw power alone.
Forge¶
Mechanik arts, artifice, magitech theory
Where the theoretical underpinning of magitech items is developed and refined. The Forge school is what happens when academics spent centuries trying to understand and replicate what the Artisan Sigil does naturally. Economically as powerful as any moon-school despite minor status — they understand how the magitech economy actually works at a fundamental level. Strong relationship with the House of Artisan.
The Mechanik trade draws from Forge school theory the way a carpenter draws from geometry — you don't need to have studied it formally to use it, but the ones who did are better at it.
Dama¶
Blood magic, personal transmutation, buffs and curses
Dama deals in living things changed from within — the practitioner's own body or someone else's. Buffs and curses sit in the same school because the magic doesn't care whether it's helping or harming; it's the same process directed differently. This moral neutrality makes Dama practitioners inherently suspect. Their proximity to Blood cult theology — which also emphasizes power latent in living blood — means they spend considerable energy distinguishing themselves from cult practitioners. The distinction is real. It isn't always believed.
Veil¶
Divination and concealment
You reveal what others conceal. You conceal what others would reveal. Both sides of the same practice. Veil practitioners are found wherever information has value — which is everywhere in a cold war. Their relationship with the Shade Sigil house is complicated: the Sigil does some of what Veil magic does, but not all of it, and Veil training can sharpen a Shade Sigil-bearer considerably.
Compact¶
Summoning, binding, spirit relations
Named for the contractual nature of proper summoning. A Compact practitioner doesn't conjure cannon fodder — they study the specific capabilities of entities and negotiate for specific services. The Scholar Nation's academic approach to summoning is the most developed expression of Compact philosophy: catalogue the capabilities, understand the terms, never summon something you haven't researched. Jinn-touched practitioners approach Compact work differently than others — Jinn treat them as distant cousins, and negotiations go differently for them.
Note: Summoning rules require mechanical adjustment from standard PF2e to reflect this philosophy. Dedicated session pending.
Wayfarer¶
Teleportation, translocation, movement magic
Teleportation and its relatives. The school is conceptually straightforward but needs additional depth beyond raw translocation to sustain a full tradition — this is an area for further development. Gun Mages draw partly from Wayfarer theory in their practice, which gives the school an unexpected applied combat relevance.
Note: Additional school depth needed in a future session.
Fitra¶
Nature magic, elemental forces
Academic study of natural forces — distinct from Primal/druidic magic, which is communion. A Fitra practitioner studies fire; a druid speaks to it. The practical results sometimes look similar; the philosophy and the relationship to nature are entirely different, and Elven druids are pointed about the distinction.
Fitra intentionally does not do elemental magic as well as Primal casters. It does it differently — with more control, more academic precision, and less raw power. A Fitra mage and a Thorn druid working with the same storm are doing fundamentally different things.
Overlap with Crimson (fire and lightning as weapons) is resolved by intent: Crimson uses elemental forces as artillery. Fitra studies them as phenomena. A Crimson mage shapes a fireball. A Fitra mage understands why the fireball behaves as it does and can alter its nature rather than just its aim.
The Forbidden School¶
The Unbound¶
Necromancy, binding, soul manipulation
No official name that practitioners use publicly. The Unbound is what everyone else calls it. Deals with magic the other schools agree shouldn't be systematized: manipulation of the dead, soul binding, Geas-level compulsion, and the territory that edges closest to what the Blood cult seeks. Outlawed in at least two nations. Practitioners operate in hiding.
The binding aspect — Geas, oaths enforced by magic, soul-level compulsion — is why the school has never been fully eradicated. Someone always wants that capability, and someone is always willing to provide it quietly. The necromancy is the part that gets them burned. The binding is the part that keeps them funded.
Overlap with Blood cult theology is significant and uncomfortable for both parties.
Primal Magic — The Elven Tradition¶
Entirely outside the school system. The moon-school academies have no jurisdiction over Primal magic and cannot fully study it.
Druids are Elves. Elves are Druids. Non-Elf druids exist but answer to Elven authority. Governments don't know how to classify them. The Flame church doesn't trust them.
The Thorns — Elven eco-activists operating outside official Elven political sanction — are the most visible expression of Primal magic in the wider world. They are repairing what the war damaged, and they don't ask permission.
Divine Magic — Priestly Tradition¶
All priestly magic is domain-locked. A cleric's access is determined entirely by their patron deity or order. This restriction is offset by meaningful bonuses within their domain.
See the Religion document for details on specific faiths and their clerical traditions.
Sorcerer Bloodlines and Sigils¶
Standard PF2e sorcerer bloodlines do not fit Tir Hathar's cosmology. Sorcerer bloodlines are tied to Sigil heritage instead.
A Sigil bloodline in a sorcerer manifests differently than in a properly Sigil-marked individual — the power is present but unstructured, coming out sideways as sorcery rather than as the clean focused ability of a Sigil-bearer. A sorcerer with Artisan-adjacent powers who doesn't carry the Artisan Sigil is viewed very differently by the House of Artisan than a properly marked member.
The Aberrant Sigil bloodline as a sorcerer option is a natural fit — unpredictable, unstructured, and feared for exactly those reasons.
Healing Magic — Restricted¶
- Wizards do not teach Heal spells. It is not a classroom subject in any school.
- The Medicine skill works at diminished capacity for most characters. Several rules-as-written Medicine feats are severely reduced.
- Catfolk use the Medicine rules as written — this is the Healer Sigil's primary expression at lower levels, not spellcasting.
- Serious magical healing requires the Flame's healing clergy — high-rank priestesses who are mothers, politically powerful and not casually available.
Accessing real healing is a story beat, not a resource management decision.
Summoning¶
Summoning moves away from combat bodies toward the AD&D model: knowing which entities have specific abilities suited to specific problems. The Compact school is the formal expression of this philosophy. Mechanical adjustments to standard PF2e summoning rules are pending a dedicated session.
The Spell Ceiling¶
No wizard, sorcerer, or divine caster in Tir Hathar has reliable access to spells above 6th level through normal means. This is not a rule anyone made — it is a fact of the world that nobody fully understands.
The schools teach up to 6th level spells because that is what survived in their catalogues after the Long War. Some 7th level formulae exist in fragments — partial texts, corrupted records, accounts of effects without the mechanics behind them. A complete 7th level spell is a discovery, not a curriculum item. Anything above that is effectively mythological to current practitioners.
The same ceiling applies to divine magic. The planar scars — damage done to the connection between Tir Hathar and the planes beyond it — limit what the surviving gods can transmit to their clergy. High-level divine spells require a clarity of connection that no longer reliably exists.
Exceptions: - The two gods who walk the world can access up to 8th level spells personally, and grant up to 7th level to nearby followers. See World History document. - Pre-war artifacts occasionally function above this ceiling. They are extraordinarily valuable, politically dangerous, and not well understood. - The Scholar Nation's locked archives contain partial texts for spells above 6th level. None have been successfully reconstructed yet.
The death of the God of Knowledge is widely understood to be connected to this ceiling. The complete theoretical framework for constructing high-level spells was maintained partly through divine tradition — a tradition that died with that god. Whether this is recoverable is the defining magical question of the current age.
Design Notes¶
- Bonus spells over adjusted DCs — school benefits manifest as bonus spell slots within domain.
- Focus spells are school-specific and unavailable to sorcerers or out-of-school practitioners.
- Schools and alignment — schools are tied to the concept of their magic, not to alignment.
- The fourth moon — may exist as a hidden campaign revelation. Three visible moons anchor the setting at the start of play.
- Wayfarer school depth — needs additional content beyond translocation in a future session.
- Compact/summoning rules — mechanical rewrite pending dedicated session.