Magic

Magic in Ara is much like magic in other fantasy worlds; with wizards, witches, mages, and the occasional person who just has magic shooting out of their butt for no particular reason.

The Practice of Magic
The average person doesn't have access to magic (though that varies by race to race and some, such as Faries, usually have access to magic).

People who do have access to magic are almost always born with it, and in Lu Arla scholars have determined that there are two things that affect ones access to magic: affinity, which is how easily one can use magic naturally and power, which is how powerful one's magic is. Both of these improve with regular practice, though there are different categories for people with different magical affinity and power. These are both grouped under the term Magical Potential.

Classification of Magic Users
The group for people with low affinity and low power is classified as Mundanes by those in the magical community. Most of them just have a small spark of magical potential that's not really enough for anything.

One of the groups is people who have low affinity, but high power. These people often have trouble controlling their magic and may only be able to tap into it during periods of high stress, or their magic may just build up until it all comes out at once. Due to the negative effects that these outbursts of magic often have they have been branded as Witches by most of society. The fact that many of them turn to using various different strange ways to channel their power on demand and many of the rituals and focuses can be disturbing at times doesn't help.

While close to Witches in terms of having their magical power being higher than their affinities, people with low magical affinity and medium levels of magical power are called Adepts since they could learn how to harness magic, though they probably won't attain very high levels of power.

Another group is people who have an high magical affinity, but lower levels of power. Their talents often come in much more calmly than the other groups and are the most welcome since they have very little risk of anything going wrong by accident. Such individuals are called Wizards.

The last and rarest group is people who have both high affinity and high power, such people can perform magic on a whim and often revel in their magical abilities. They are called Sorcerers.

Applications of Magic
Healing magic is most promient use of magic. Using Positive energy Healers can coax a patient's body into rapidly healing wounds, mending bones, and even reattaching severed limbs.

Magic is also often used for entertainment purposes as in evident in the grand celebrations in Lindin Cardelle. Curses and Blessings are not uncommon as well.

Otherwise magic is often used on the fields of battle where teams of War Mages hurl magical spells at opposing forces.

Utilitarian uses for magic are not widespread, though they can be extremely useful as in the production of Mythril.

The Elements
The reigning philosophy in Ara is that there are 15 elements, or rather concepts, that influence and make up the world around them, for visual reference they are usually arranged in layers.

The Pinnacle
Referred to most commonly as the Element of Life, but also as Magic, Pinnacle, and/or the God Element; there have been few in the history of the entire world that have successfully harnessed this element. The deeds of those who did though have usually been nothing short of spectacular. It's unknown what exactly one can do with this Element but most agree that the wielder of it would be able to do basically anything they wanted as long as their willpower held out. It is believed that one must understand all of the other Elements before they can even begin to tap into this one.

The High Elements
The Elements of Positive and Negative energy sit on this layer. Similar to the concepts Yin & Yang and/or Good & Evil in real life. Positive energy is usually used for healing and Negative energy is used for harming (in addition to the outlawed practice of Necromancy). Most philosophers believe that one should strive to collect Positive energy in their lives and minimize their amount of Negative energy by putting their lives in balance.

The Inner Elements
The forces of Mind, Body, and Soul rest on this layer and most believe that these are what make a person truly sentient. Mind represents critical thinking, consciousness, and so on. Body represents instinct and the senses, most animals are believed to have this but only have limited amounts of the other ones. Soul is believed to be the domain of emotion and the sub-consciousness.

The Primary Elements
These are the Elements that most see or refer to in everyday life. They also are believed to be influence one’s emotions and how one thinks.

(Note: Someone who is actually mentally retarded is believed to be lacking in one or all of these elements.)

Fire
Fire is linked with over one’s more active and burning feelings, such as anger, passion, and head-on determination.

Earth
Earth is associated with “steady” feelings such as unwillingness to change and oftentimes maturity. Also associated with common sense.

Water
Water is linked to more still feelings such calmness and level-headedness as well as feelings of depression.

Air
Air is associated with carefreeness, silliness, and immaturity as well as change in general.

The Secondary Elements
Elements that seem similar to the Primary ones in function, but they are poorly understood in what they can do or even specifically what they really are. Right now the list of elements is fuzzy, but it's believed to be something along these lines: Time, Metal, Lightning, Order, and Force. They seem to have nothing to do with emotions or thoughts or all like the Primary elements but they seem to have similar effects when brought into the world.

(Note: this is just what the people in the setting believe these elements to be, you should be able to figure out what they really are if you’re smart, maybe.)

Even further layers
No one really knows what mysterious Elements are out there and there seems to be a tendency for those who try to discover and/or harness them to go insane if they delve too deeply into the secrets of the universe.