Important Words

Important Words: Lexicon

“Isn’t it great how we both speak the same language, but I don’t know what the flying fuck you’re saying?”

“What is, Johnny Lee, le’s go air some twigs.”

- Anonymous

Road Slang

This section covers a few sets of words: some everyday slang among adventurers, and some magical words you’ll be hearing a lot.

Note about Wadi: Wadi has very few hard consonants; the “k” and “g” sounds are the same in Wadi, as are the “s” and “th.” So, “praduku” and “pradugu” are both correct when written in English. Not all Wadi phrases have entered into any sort of common usage, but Wadi, along with Jugrag, are the most common Etherans spotted outside of the Nazro continent, and both tribes use the same language.

0-9, Oh-Nine: A demon, or a jerk.

3M: Metal, magic, mattress. Repair gear, find new gear, stop by a talismonger or trinket shop, and find something to drink, eat, screw, and sleep on.

88: An ex-airwoman or military pilot. Not typically to be messed with (see whip).

Abracapocalypse: Any major cataclysm in which magic plays a major role; the last influx of magical energy.

Agent: An unnamed source who gives adventurers jobs. Often wearing a black suit, carrying a black briefcase, and wearing a very expensive looking watch. Not trusted too often because they don’t often disclose the full details of a job.

Air: A Magus battle, a dance, to stab someone, or a music man beating on someone.

Alki: Any form of alcoholic beverage.

Amble: To wander aimlessly.

Ambo: Beer.

Angel: A gracious host. One who doesn’t kick an adventurer out of his or her home the first sign of light.

Ankle Biter: Any critter that’s small, a meat eater, comes in swarms, and isn’t scared of people.

Animal Crossing: Someone who complains a lot.

Anthill: A big city.

Applesauce: Baseless flattery.

Avos: Everything will be okay.

Babysitting: An escort job for archaeologists at ruin sites and fossil hunts.

Badge: A liquor flask.

Bait: To talk too much or make too much senseless noise. Like, say, using a bullhorn outside a city to call someone’s name.

Barrel: To beg.

Basher: A warrior who specializes in big weapons.

Basket: Someone who wears a cozzie, but isn’t an adventurer.

Bas’sach/Bath-ag: Dangruffi for “Holy shit!”

Be Breezy: Be cool.

Beaded Honor: A promise of honor that, to be broken, signifies death for the oath-breaker.

Beat your Teeth: To talk.

Beastman: Anything that looks like you slapped a human and an animal real hard together.

Beef: Something expensive.

Beefer: Someone who throws money around.

Bemmer: A Fernian. Derogatory.

Berries: Coins of any sort.

Big Bang, The: The Great War.

Bird, Nightingale: A golem who sings.

Bitzt: To have been attacked by something that bites (bits of this and bits of that).

Blanket House: A cheap flophouse or other facility for sleeping for free or at excessively low cost.

Blaster: A mage who specializes in doling out massive amounts of damage.

Blother: An expression of distaste, usually comes first in a sentence; “blother! Do you have to keep doing that?” Contracted from “Bloody Mother.” See Izza.

Bobbin’: Searching.

Botter: A painful lesion, more accurately, a bot fly.

Box: A television.

Buff: To increase one’s capabilities using magic.

Bug Soul: A Purifier toxic mage, due to the six-limbed and antenna laden nature of their aura.

Business: An illegal or under the table job.

Business Trip: A caravan of adventurers.

By the Eyes: A long way off.

C
C-Cash: Anything that’s as annoying as hell, from Charnra's monetary system.

Cage: Small town. So named because no one will ever earn the money to move out.

Carb: A non-golem.

Cash or Check: Asking for sex.

Cat Bait: Someone who doesn’t know squat about magic or spirits.

Cataclysm: Choose your own apocalypse: plague, famine, war, or depression. The word subs for any of these.

Chariot: Car.

Chummer: A hunter who baits predators. Not a compliment. Also used as a term for “cheater.”

Chopper: Any fully automatic .45 weapon, for its effect on humans.

Cig Girl, Cigarette Girl: A female adventurer who favors guns.

Copasetic: Excellent.

Connected: A magus who is “anchored” to the spirit world. Anchoring in this way results in a surge of near-vomiting euphoria. It lets a magus see auras and utilize his or her powers. Some magi become addicted.

Cork: To die.

Corpse: An empty beer bottle.

Cozzie: An adventurer’s unique outfit.

Cranked: Crazy, insane.

Crash: To, out of nowhere, aid an adventuring group, without any expected return or aid of your own. Common practice.

Crasher: An adventurer, especially one who has a history of signing party forms just for one or two jobs. Common; not an insult.

Croc-Peeling: An old punishment. Tie a man down in a prone position and sling an angry alley-croc by the tail onto his back, then drag.

Crop Duster: A job entailing the removal of a monster or monsters from farmlands.

Cryptid: A monster. Technically, a spirit that has mass.

Cryptid Blood, Blooder: A human with monster blood. Wings, fangs, horns, odd tails, strange legs structures, antennae, or what have you can literally appear on such a person’s body. For others, it’s not so blatant.

Curse, Curses: Equivalent to “damn.” There’s no damning in Gaiism, but there’s plenty of cursing. See etheran.

Dad: A male member of the Orthodox Gaian church, typically working for Agency or is a Holy Knight.

‘Dane: A person without a magical background.

Dassit?: Asking if there’s any more to a story, cash payout, meal, etc.

Deathwalker: A bipedal predatory animal. One of the top predators anywhere on mainland Arna. Anywhere from twenty to fifty feet long with a large head. So named for what follows in their wake. Any one of those species.

Dee: A mage of any sorts who specializes in reducing his or her opponents’ capabilities.

Dero: An adventurer who doesn’t actually take jobs.

Dewdropper: Anyone who sleeps during the day.

Dice It: To take unneeded risks.

Dinje: An adventurer’s clothes.

Dispense Juice?: Used to ask if it's okay to attack a given person or animal.

Dodder: An Auran, or anyone from Lafié. Derogatory.

Doll: A golem with a face that moves.

Drake: Anything scaly that uses weapons and tools on a regular basis.

Dresnau Compact: The compact that set the Dresnau All Kingdoms Law, the set of laws that allows adventurers to act in a vigilante fashion, as well as ignore some security when crossing kingdom borders. Signed in 3376.

Dry Clay: A tightly built woman.

Dry up: Stop being an idiot.

Eartapping: To keep talking.

Earthbound: Someone with their head on their shoulders.

Edge: Marijuana.

Escort: A job involving protecting a given person or group, or getting said person or group to another place safely.

Etheran: Denizens of the Nazro continent. Considered cursed due to their poisoned souls (see rotter). Legend says Gaia herself cursed these people at the end of the Magitech War.

Eyeball: To look at.

Eye Opener: To down the alki in the morning.

Feilkets: Do you understand the words that are comin’ out of my mouth? Dangruffi. Correct response is a nod, followed by drawing two fingers in a half circle. Speaker then states where he or she is from.

Fetch Quest: A job devoted to picking up or dropping off parcels.

Fields, Ashen Fields: Where the dishonored or sinful dead go to become purified. Strange horrors stalk the landscape. Used as an expression: “What the fields?”

Finger: An adventurer’s pack (also, lifesaver).

First Day: An excuse, also, to beat someone near to death or a new scar, “I’m gonna first day him,” or “he’s got a nice first day.”

Fish: A new adventurer.

Fizzler: A magic effect that didn’t do what it was supposed to. Also, a bad mage.

Flash Party: An adventuring group that gets together to perform one task before suddenly disbanding.

Flop: To sleep.

Flushing: A term for when a magi, instead of capping his power, lets all his MU hang out for the world to see. For some magi, it improves their level of control since they’re not focusing on keeping their power bottled up, for others, there’s no choice in the matter since they never leaned those controls to begin with.

Fried: A burned out magic user, or a magus who stays connected all the time.

Front Burner: Anything current.

Gack: To overkill. “Gack the mage first!”

Gaia: Means something different to everyone. See The Whisper.

Game Trail: A path through the weed that adventurers regularly follow. Also, a carnivore’s hunting path.

Glow: An animus. “Read his glow, gimme the news.”

Godstench: The fumes and vapors left behind when a god becomes trapped in its domain and dies, then decays there.

Golem: An android. Named after the fact that they shouldn’t work scientifically, and they have an aura like a living creature. Common use by 3440.

Goods, the: Important information that you’re looking for.

Gramps: Any adventurer older than thirty.

Grazer: An adventurer who works alone and is good at it.

Greaser: A bandit. So named for their trademarked hair.

Greeb: An Asreyu. Derogatory.

Grimace: A problem.

Gusaga spore: The literal spore of a plant from the toxic realms. The outside shell is pulpy and fleshy when boiled, and the interior is a gooey consistency with a spongy core. The plant actually tastes different to magi than it does to non-magi, owing to the magically active creatures that it wants to be eaten by.

Halfie: A half-etheran or half-auran. Non-derogatory.

Heavy Sugar: A large amount of money.

Heeler: A bad adventurer.

High Hat: Someone who’s not very nice to adventurers. Also, a snobbish person.

Hissa: A statement of annoyance and exasperation.

Hoggin’ the Varnish: To either try to get the last few licks out of a wine bottle, or try use magic when you’re tired or your power source of choice isn’t available. Can lead to serious injury or death.

Horn: The phone.

Hopper: A small creature, about turkey sized, with toe-claws built for puncturing the windpipe of like-sized animals, grasping forelimbs, and enough sense to learn simple phrases of the local language.

I
Ice Job: A bounty head.

Ice Palace: Fancy place, glass house.

Icer: An adventurer who takes bounties exclusively.

In Color: Rare.

Ink: Cheap alcohol.

Insect Spirit: A spirit of insects. There are multiple types, and most of them simply possess features people apply to insects. Their job in the spirit world is to devour poisoned mana, leaving only the clean stuff behind.

Iron: A car or other vehicle.

Iron Man: A Reisan mark.

Izza, Izzabella: An expression, similar to cursing; “Izza, that hurt!” From Izzabella Moquain III, the Bloody Mother, a murderous scion of the Orthodox Church whose death resulted in reforms to the church’s methods and requirements for those in power. Equivalent to “geez!”

Ja: A statement of affirmation, similar to “hey,” “oy,” or “yo.”

Jane: A female adventurer.

Jobber: An adventurer.

Job Jumper: An adventurer who takes random jobs.

Johnny Lee: A generic term for a male adventurer.

Juice: A given magi’s magical power.

Juice Flusher: One who is an obvious magus; the air trembles, sparks dance, flame erupts, etc, dependent on their element (see flushing).

Jusso: To fight.

Kale: Cash.

Kelly: A tin can or pot that an adventurer uses to boil water in to either make tea, rice, or just kill the beasties that might be living in the water to make it drinkable.

Kink: Bad adventurer.

Kinked: Bad quality.

L
Lair: A place to sleep, also a verb, “where you lairin’?” Also, to fortify or strengthen against animals. “Lair up that turtle so we can flop.”

Leather Boy: A rich kid.

Lifer: A cell phone.

Line: A fake story.

Linker Tree: Before the Dresnau Compact, adventurers were hired by folks putting up cloth with a job written on it nailed to a tree along a game trail, and a lot of these old trees still exist, some with old pieces of cloth still stuck to them, and some small towns even use them to contact wanderers.

Lifesaver: An adventurer’s gear bag.

Mad as a cut Reaver: Should be self-explanatory.

Mage: A magic user, active or not.

Magitech War: A war that occurred nearly four thousand years ago. Its end supposedly brought on the influx of the Savage Realm that wiped the world nearly clean of the ancient power and technology.

Magus: A magic-user who manipulates raw spiritual power. Known for generating a lot of destruction in a short amount of time. Their bodies work like a lens, so they get tired as the “lens” “heats up” during use. Also, since they can flex the element of their focus like a muscle, they can end up with a brain Charlie horse, so to speak. Not altogether pleasant. Many magi focus on techniques to avoid this eventuality.

Mana: The inherent magical properties all things possess.

Mana Seed: Quartz crystals with more than their fair share of mana. Magi can use them to draw a bit of power without tiring themselves out.

Martyrbox: A chest, urn, or other receptacle, typically sitting alone in the middle of the floor, that is almost certainly trapped.

Miasma, Vapors: The effect of toxic background magic on the surrounding area. An odorless, tasteless poison gas derived from oxygen that leaves an oily feeling on the skin.

Mom, Mother: A ranking member of the Orthodox Church. Among adventurers, the term just means any woman working for the Church. See Orthodox Gaian Hierarchy.

Mom City: Poroit, seat of the Gaian church.

MU: The amount of magical energy present someplace. Also used by magi to denote how tired they are, “Almost out of MU.”

Munitions: Makeup.

Music Man: A martial artist. Unarmed martial arts stem from the practice of musicians, who once regularly crossed kingdom borders, who were unable to bring weapons with them. They developed their own fighting techniques to defend themselves from people and animals.

Mystery Meat: Any hidden or otherwise incredibly powerful enemy hidden within another group of bad guys.

Nancy: An experienced adventurer who regularly trains others.

Necrotheans, Necros: An organization begun by a philosopher and mathematician named Entropous in the early fourth century to study the mathematical functions of the universe as they pertain to life and death. The practice continues this day, and the term now almost literally means any number of black leather and buckle-clad adventurers who are ritualists, whether or not they are interested in Entropous’ philosophy.

News: Information.

Nikki: A cigarette.

Nobber: Derogatory term for an Aquan.

No-Skirt: A female adventurer who sleeps around with non-adventurers a lot.

O
Obana-sera/thera: Wadi phrase meaning mother. Extra syllables increase the honorific, so adding an extra “O,” becoming “oh-obana-thera” turns the phrase into “honored mother,” or “grandmother.” Habano-thera is father; ha-habano-thera is “honored father.” Women phrasing. Men add a “-thero/sero.”

Occultism: Magic utilizing the Godstench. Occultism does not contain any form of “block” to protect the spellcaster from the harmful depths of infinity that he or she sees when casting a spell, so the human mind can’t often handle what it sees, and practitioners often go dangerously insane. Occult spells can make the practitioner ill, often for several days.

Occultist: A form of spellcaster who utilizes the energy drained from dead and decaying gods (see Godstench) to fuel their magic. Occultists like to use words like “aeon-dead,” “protomass,” and “indescribable” an awful lot, often in tandem and succession. See Occultism.

Old Soldier: A revolver.

Oliver: A skilled martial artist.

Openin’ Your Lunch: Farting.

Orchid: Something pretty surrounded by death or ugliness.

Overalls: Full plate armor.

P
Panic: Any big reaction.

Parapets: The Heaven’s Road in Lafié.

Perforate: To blow big holes in with a gun, explosives, or magic. More specifically, to shoot with a shotgun.

Pikeman: A male adventurer who uses a rifle.

Pinger: A warding glyph in a ruin that doesn’t go away and hurts anyone who comes near it, usually by firing a bolt of energy.

Plant Pusher: A new adventurer trying to be a lone wolf.

Plywood: An adventuring woman with little or no visible breasts to speak of. Not usually something mentioned in their presence, since the term also denotes a well-defined musculature.

Poke: To shoot at, rile, or otherwise disturb; ”me and the crew are gonna poke that stumper.”

Pond, The: The Scarlet Sea.

Pradugu: Partake of yourself to help me. Wadi.

Purifier: A Toxic Mage who uses magic to purify local magical energies by taking the poisoned magic from the area and dumping it into effects. The result is a blast of poisonous and excessively damaging energy that dissipates, leaving only “clean” magic behind.

Q, the: The city of Mile.

Quag: A swamp.

Quate: A ritual circle.

Quiff: A cheap zoot; a slut. Male or female.

Reaver: A big hopper, named for its effect on the human body.

Relic: A “magic item.” Relics are easy to spot. They’re either well known, or, when passed between two people, a short burst of static electricity fires into the new holder. This is the transfer of the taint (see taint).

Ride: A regular traveling partner or sex partner.

Ritualism: A form of magic that uses a lot of free time and requires the caster to be good at math. Not very popular.

Road Kid, Squire: A young adventurer or one held in bond by a Nancy.

Root: A euphemism for fuck.

Rotter, Rot: An etheran. So named for the general feeling one gets on the skin while being around them. Usually derogatory.

Roundabout: When a new adventuring crew decides to stick together after a first day, it's proper etiquette to divulge deals gone sour, bounties, contracts, deals with dark powers and other dirty laundry so it doesn't cause problems later. What's spoken of in the roundabout stays with that crew, even if the crew splits up.

Ruketsu: A martial art involving firearms. From Grogesh, meaning literally “Gun-dance.” Rugei-ethu, meaning dancing with a rifle in your hands, actual connotation of the root phrase is performing diplomatic actions with intent to betray later.

Says You: A reaction of disbelief.

Seed: A mana seed.

Shiv: A home made knife.

Shuffler: A big herbivore.

Sil: A golem.

Slicer: An adventurer who uses small, pointy weapons, usually knives.

Slog: An abandoned rice paddy.

Slummer: A city-dweller outside town. Mostly means scientist and archaeologist types.

Spirit: Any biological entity which doesn’t (usually) have mass.

Spoon: To mess around, sexually or to adventure with no real direction.

Spot: A dollar. One unit of money of any sort.

Sprig: Tea.

Squibber/Squig: An Aquan. Derogatory.

Static: Heavy talk; difference of opinion, difficulty communicating.

Stake Your Beads on It, You Can: A sure thing.

Steward: A rude secretary at an adventurer’s guildhouse.

Stiff: A drunkard.

Stilts: Legs (also gams).

Stoog: A non-adventurer.

Streaming, Stream Shaping, Shaping: When a magus attempts to channel and focus raw power as opposed to learning solid techniques. Magi who exclusively stream don’t often live very long, since they run a high risk of literally blowing their brains out.

Stringers: Chicken, boiled, stripped into strings, soaked in vanilla, then dipped in chocolate. Creates a chocolate “string” with a gummy interior texture that tastes like vanilla.

Stumper: Anything with big teeth and a bigger mouth than a human body part.

Sugar Daddy: An older man who showers his younger girlfriend with gifts in exchange for sex.

Summoner: A magic-user who, well, summons a given spirit, called an Avatar, to do things for him.

Sweathead: An idiot.

Tagged by a ‘scraper: Someone with hefty and deep scars. From rootscraper, an easily riled herbivore with three-foot long forearm talons.

Taint: The bad part of a relic (see relic).

Talents: People with abilities beyond the norm for their species. Humans who can run up walls or wield a sword like a grandmaster with only a day or two’s practice.

Tank: A tough person, usually carrying a big, intimidating weapon.

Tasty: Good, appealing.

Techniques: Focused abilities of Magi. As opposed to Stream Shaping, Techniques are practiced over and over again. Some are true and time-honored, such as classic fireballs and watery blades, but others are unique to their user. Techniques are something similar to martial arts maneuvers, and make it easier and safer to use magus powers.

Tick: An adventurer who sticks with a party for more than a year.

Tin Man: A male-looking golem.

Top End: Reisa.

Torpedo: An adventurer (especially a blaster) who specializes in hit and run tactics. Also, an exemplary cigarette girl.

Tox, The: The Nazro continent.

Toxic Mage: A magus whose powers are corrupted by a poisoned soul. They come in two types, Purifiers and Corruptors.

Trapspringer: A really big and tough man, for what you do with them.

Treat: A woman, often naïve, from outside normal civilization, usually tribal. Someone you shouldn’t piss off or mistreat, ‘cuz they fight shraks with knives.

Tsa: An expression of distaste and anger or frustration. Adding ‘kara’ turns the phrase into one of mild annoyance due to one’s own errors or errors not corrected; literally “I or you did something stupid.”

Turtle: An abandoned guard post, with nearby fences with steel-pike-tipped tops and concertina wire nearby. Aesca’s got a lot of large predators and big animals, so to better keep a lookout, guard posts were built like bunkers. During the Cataclysms, many of these posts were abandoned and are in use by adventurers.

Twig: Folks who’re known for trying to cheat adventurers.

Unity Bread: Hand-crafted bread without yeast. Used by Etherans to greet and say goodbye to friends. Crunchy and not very tasty, usually sour.

Unreal: Cool.

Up himself/herself: To be cocky, to have a high opinion, “she’s really up herself.”

V
Varnish: Alcohol, or magical energy (see hoggin’ the varnish).

Vejjo: Someone who eats a lot.

Wall, The: The Heaven’s Peaks and Gray Caps, on the east side of Arna. See parapet.

Wallhog: An adventurer who doesn’t go more than a half-day’s walk outside of town.

Walljack: A job devoted to defending someplace from something or things.

Waterproof: When a woman’s natural look seems like makeup. Cryptid bloods sometimes have this.

Weed, The: The jungle.

Weedranger: An outlaw or adventurer.

Weed Salute: The act of brushing away flies.

Weekender: A type of adventurer, one who otherwise holds a paying job but adventures and does odd jobs on the weekends. Not often looked on with much respect by other adventurers, since weekenders often feel they’re doing a “service” to the homeless adventurers.

Wet Clay: An attractive, yet “round and bouncy” woman.

What is: I know what you mean.

What’s Bitin’ Ya?: What’s up?

Whisper, The: The phenomena of knowing the word 'Gaia,' despite language, religion, ethnicity, gender, nationality, or creed. That all humans know this word first, even if it is not the first word they speak.

Whip: A small woman who practices martial arts. Often an 88, since smaller women fit into cockpits for luftgears and planes, and they were trained for close-quarters combat for emergency purposes.

Wife: A female adventuring buddy.

William, Willy, Billard: An adventurer, usually male. Named after the backpack most of them carry, the most popular brand name due to its low cost and rugged construction.

Wired: The internet.

Witch: A Magus who knows Ritualism. Male or female.

Yanked: Arrested.

Yellow: An earth magus.

Z
Zed: A magic-user who (knowingly or not) specializes in negating or reducing magical capabilities of others or is resistant to active magic.

Zoo: An adventurer’s guild house.

Zook: An adventuring woman who also acts as a prostitute.

Zozzed: Drunk, high, sleep deprived, or all three.

Magic Words

This is jargon used by mages and physicists. These words’ll be real important later on, most especially in the “magic” section.

Animus: A living aura. Plural animae. Animae are difficult, if not outright impossible to affect directly by magic.

Animus Bleed: The effect of an animus when it overflows into nonliving objects worn by a living thing. Also called Pattern Suppression.

Animus Fading: When a living creature dies, it progresses through stages of decay. It also passes through stages of pattern transformation, from a living aura to a nonliving aura. This is called animus fading, and it is why it is still difficult to affect corpses with magic. The stages are Animus, post-animus, mesoanimus, promus, and pattern.

Aura: Patterns and animae are commonly referred to as auras. This is the Near or astral reflection of an object, place, or thing.

Aura Trail: The path left behind by an animus, or the prints left on a wall or on the ground. An aura trail fades before too long.

Bubble: A small capsule between Realms that contains an infinite amount of space and obeys its own laws of physics. A bubble can have whole worlds within its confines.

Capsule/Membrane: The dividing line between anything, the non-perceptible “border” that forms the edges of a world.

Connection: The ability possessed by a magus that allows him or her to perceive auras, allowing a skilled magus to identify and observe different patterns and animae.

Corruption: The effect of a toxic pattern on a proxy.

Cryptid: Any living creature that has mass, but is not subject to the law of natural selection.

Domain: A portion of a realm that owes its existence to a powerful spirit.

Godstench: A form of toxic mana created solely by the decay of a dead god.

Kami: A spirit that lives inside a pattern, similar to a hermit crab.

Line: A ley line, a place where mana flows like a river. Often over Stream deposits or near where mana crystals grow. Lines shift their position over time, since the world is in magical flux.

Manatouched: Places where the prime membrane thins.

Magic: The application of mana to an object or form.

Magically Active: Anything which has extra magic to be used (as in the case of a magic-user or animal with magical abilities). Humans can be both magically active or passive, making them one of the more adaptive creatures in the world.

Magically Passive: Anything which does not have “extra” magic; normal.

Magus: A form of magic-user who directly manipulates patterns based upon broad elemental paradigms. Earth (solids), Air (gases), Water (liquids), and Fire (energy). Magi claim the manipulation behaves something like a muscle in one’s limbs. Magi are key concepts to the theory of subconscious networking. Magi focus the mana in patterns like a lens. This can cause injury or death, particularly if that mana is corrupted.

Mana: The inherent potential energy all auras possess in the near realm. Mana also serves as the “building block” for auras.

Mana Realm: The parallel universe where magical energy is ever-present.

Manastream: The veins of the planet. Filled with Stream.

Membrane: See capsule.

Mesoanimus: The third stage of the transformation of an animus into a pattern.

MU: The unit used for measuring magical energy. Also “Mercer,” or “mercer unit,” named after the first man to discover and detect the mana waves crashing into the physical world.

Near Realm: The closest form of the Mana Realm. The Near Realm is where auras and many spirits dwell.

Nexus: A representation of an element: a churning field of lava, a boundless blue lake, a giant mountain. Often tied to the Near Realm.

Node: Where lines cross. These are as shifting as lines.

Occultist: A magic-user who uses re-worded prayers to aid in opening small holes into ancient god realms in order to steal Godstench to use to fuel magic. This form of magic is dangerous and causes insanity and should not be performed by anyone, ever.

Paradigm: The overriding thematic of a given magic. For example, Occultism’s paradigm is rot, disease, and madness. Paradigms are also broad limits imposed upon specific spirits or types of magical application by subconscious social acceptance. Paradigms cannot be overwritten through any form of effort but they can be overwritten by consensus or time. Objects that are part of a given concept’s paradigm typically do not operate when removed from that concept.

Pattern: A nonliving aura. Patterns are much easier to affect directly by magic.

Peng: The energy fluctuations within an animus; the energy students of the Sevenfold Path of Peng seek to control; the balance of elements within an aura.

Post-animus: The second stage of an animus as it transforms into a pattern.

Power Rank: The safe limits of a given magi’s power. The highest power rank recorded is twenty.

Prime Membrane: The membrane of Aesca Prime.

Promus: The fourth and final stage of the transformation of an animus into a pattern.

Proxy: The physical form of an object or individual. Also called a form.

Relic: A nonliving object that has an animus.

Ritualist: A form of magic-user who utilizes patterns to form an equation stating the complex relationship between proxy and aura, and forcing a minor paradigm shift for a single pattern, which hopefully initiates a chain reaction to bring about a desired (usually small) effect. The favored magic of mathematicians and chaoticians.

Somatic: The same as Magically Passive.

Spirit: A living creature that has no mass on the Prime.

Stream: The purple goo inside the Manastream of Aesca. Planet blood.

Subconscious Networking Hypothesis: Also called “Collective Unconscious Hypothesis.” The idea that all humans are connected through a subconscious network of which humans are all part. Gaia is quoted as stating “no matter where you go, everyone is always connected.” A part of this hypothesis states that magi operate like the limbic cortex, since that constitutes ten percent of the brain, and that ten percent of all humans are magi, and magus powers appear connected to dreams and the limbic unconsciousness.

Talent: A living being with an aura altered by the “grafting” of additional mana to the animus at either birth or, more typically, the onset of puberty or other life-changing event.

Toxic Aura: An aura tainted by toxic mana. A magus with a toxic aura can funnel toxic mana without a problem. In some cases, they can even clean it.

Toxic Mana: Mana corrupted by intense negative emotions such as pain, despair, or terror.

Undead: Any nonliving being which once was living, but did not pass through the stages of animus fading.

Vapors: The physical effect on the proxy of gases by a toxic aura. Can cause serious health issues if attached to an animus by breathing.

Vortex: A swirling, chaotic mass of magical energy that represents damage to a membrane.