The Book of Coins

The Book of Coins

I am writing this in order to perhaps correct some of the more glaring misconceptions I see in various pieces of writing on similar subjects which have been committed to paper at earlier times. Perhaps these thoughts may offer some insight for those who wish to understand that which surrounds them in their every brightening affairs. Understanding is the great light of Orod, and I hope to perhaps spark some understanding in others with this.

-Adrian de Aquinas
Alchemist and Scholar

On the Nature of Reality
First, one must realize that for anything to exist it must have substance. It is this substance which we see, which we touch, which we smell and which we hear.

The nature of this substance we will delve into later, for now it is enough to know that this is a substance. This substance has certain characteristics, the first of which we will refer to as Definition and the second we shall term Movement, there are others but these are the most important.

Definition is an important part the substance itself as it defines the shape of the object. It exists not absolutely, but as part of a scale. On the one end of the scale we have Independent and on the other we have Dependent. Every substance exists on this scale. The more Independent an object is, the more it defines itself rather than letting the surroundings shape it.

In order to understand the matters of scale, let us turn to the abstract concepts, for instance Chaos and Order are not mutually opposing forces. Chaos is merely a lack of Order. So if you have absolute Order on one end of the scale, the further you remove yourself from Order, the closer you come to Chaos. We can see this in the Triance and the fall of Jorel, he lost his connection with Order and has since travelled further down the scale towards Chaos. Without Order, Chaos becomes meaningless.

A dependent thing is therefore not the opposite of a Independent thing, they both exist on the same scale, they are merely on different ends of the scale, different ends on the same staff if you prefer. So a substance which is dependent is therefore a thing which moulds itself after what is around it. To choose two different substances, we can show a rock and some water. If you were to pour water into a jug it would take on the shape of the jug, but if you were to take it out of the jug again, then it would change shape yet again depending on where it was poured, so it is dependent on the jug to shape it. A rock, if put through the same process would retain the same shape all the way through, so its shape is independent of its surroundings.

No substance is entirely Independent however, even rocks can be moulded and shaped according to wish. The skilled makers of statues are a good example of this.

However, one should not think that these two examples explain prime examples and that there is no middle ground. Certain substances can share both independent and dependent traits in one object. For example, if one keeps pounding on custard it retains a shape which is independent, although shaped by the hands which are forming it, and as soon as the pressure is removed it becomes dependent running down one's fingers.

The second scale on which all things are made is called Movement. It moves on the scale of Falling and Rising. Things which are falling fall, things which are rising, rise. Generally, the larger an object is the further into each category it is. For example, a large boulder is heavier because it wants to fall to the ground more than a pebble. At the other end we have things which are rising. Those things that are Rising are usually such thing as smoke, fire and other light things. It should be noted again, that things are on a scale, so that if you place something which is more Falling on something that is less Falling than itself it will sink. Place a piece of lead in water and you can see how it sinks. However if you repeat the process with a piece of wood it will float. So again, you can see that all things are on this scale and are relative to each other.

Substance is, however, capable of being transformed. One can apply fire to water and it will become steam, which is Rising rather than falling.

On Matters of Heat
Heat is, as has already been stated, the great transformer, it is what allows us to shape metal to our will, it is what heats our meals for us. In most cases Heat is Illustrated by the Element of Fire. There can be no doubt that heat can affect the other properties of a substance. Heat, in the form of fire allows us to make the very Independent substance of iron into the Dependent form it takes when molten which allows it to be so easily moulded.

Heat is therefore a scale, ranging from Hot to Cold, but when you change the heat of an item you might also change its substance. Substances also interact when it comes to heat, if you place a hot object next to a cold one it will leech heat quickly enough and the two will cancel each other out. If the cold is stronger than the heat, it will remain cold, though lessened, and if the heat is stronger it will become hot.

The Problem of Life
Clearly all this is very good for explaining how a rock behaves, or water, it does not however explain how life exists.

It can be said that there is four forms of life, there is that of the plants, that of the animals, the non-corporeal and that of the sentient races.

The plants clearly show themselves as different from other forms of life, in that they are capable of living without any of the parts of the body which an animal or a sentient race has. There is, of course, talk of such things as the heartwood, and a tree has sap, which may be likened to blood. But the plants have no mouth with which they eat, they may feed off the very air itself, or water.

Animals are a different matter, they are similar to us in that they have a body made of meat, the blood which courses through them is similar to ours. However, they lack the thing which we do, reason, intelligence and sentience. There are of course exceptions to this, some animals may possess some manner of intelligence through arcanic means. However, these are the exception and not the rule.

The non-corporeal are those living things which require no body at all, though it is improbable if such a thing has a life in the manner which we think of it. It lives, but it has not got life. Life ends in death, these things may be spared from death. Such things are everything from small spirits and ghosts. And I shall claim no great expertise on this subject.

The sentient races are a different matter, foremost among these can be counted Aelyrians, humans, elves, dwarves and orcs. The races created by the Gods. It is presumed that the younger races were created through various other means. They all have one thing in common though, they were created through some manner of divine intervention.

The creation of life does not conform to the standards of other things. While they all clearly have a substance, such as a rock or a puddle of water, they have the ability to manipulate this substance. It is this ability to manipulate the world around them which sets them apart.

In order to understand this we must look further into what sets a living creature apart from others.

On Essences
All things are made up of Essences. A fire contains fire essence, just as water contains water essence. Mages talk about Essences all the time, though their knowledge of Essences is rather trifling outside their own pet Essences. Mages restrict themselves to one or two Essences and have a certain understanding of what these Essences do. For example a mage will know that allowing enough Water Essence to trickle into the Material Plane will lead to there being a small puddle of water.

In order to understand the Material Plane though, one has to understand not only a couple of Essences but see how they all interact. The Material Plane consists of a myriad of Essences, so many that the full amount may be uncountable. Part of understanding the Material Plane is also to understand that these Essences are not only present in everything, they are also impure.

No object from the Material Plane holds only one Essence, a fire from an Elementalist will hold only the Essence of Fire, whereas a fire born on the Material Plane will hold hundreds, if not thousands, of other Essences.

For example, one can take a leaf. If one presupposes it has an Essence which makes it what it is, say, Leaf Essence, it could not be constructed entirely of this, if it was made entirely of one Essence it would not last long, you can see first hand how quickly the Material Plane breaks down a spell. So therefore anything depending on purity is inherently fragile. A leaf for example would consist of several essences, many of which compete for prevalence during the life of a leaf. A leaf will fall to the ground where it will decay and become a part of the earth, hence the Earth Essence wins out over the Leaf Essence.

On Relations between Substances
On the Material Plane all substances work together. There is no thing which does not follow on into the next. A leaf which falls from the tree become dirt with time. No substance is not touched by the things around it. If you place a hot stone among cold ones it will heat them or they will cool it.

It is the same thing with Essences as it is with heat, a plant which grows low to the earth will have more Earth Essence in it and one that grows tall will have more air Essence since it is exposed to the winds.

Thus any substance changes with time, because it is exposed to other Essences constantly. Arcanic spells depend on the purity of their Essences for their stability and power, and as such face difficulties on the Material Plane where all is not made of one Essence. I believe the Dispel technique taught to mages is merely a way of speeding this process up, by polluting the spell another mage has created with raw Ara.

On Essences in the Body
On a very basic level the only difference between a sentient being and a rock is the Essences that infuse it. When the first sentient races were made, prior to the fall of Jorel there were no faults, because the Essences in a body was in perfect harmony.

However, when these Essences are put out of their harmonious state the body becomes filled with emotion, or even disease. What Meephos wrought is not some simple unattached thing but a profound disharmony in the body itself. A healer's task is therefore not only to patch up the symptoms of a disease, but to regain the balance of the body. This can be achieved in any number of ways.

The blood is a constant carrier of Essences through the body, understanding which parts of the body produce which Essences can allow someone to alleviate the pressure of Essences, though this requires a minute understanding of the workings of a body. Often this is done through the use of leeches, or merely allowing a vein to be opened.

One can replenish Essences one is lacking in by ingesting food or plants which are full of the Essence one requires. This is often a good way to rid oneself of diseases and Herbalists often have an extensive knowledge of what plants contain the right Essences to heal diseases and injuries, though their knowledge is a purely practical one, lacking the theory which might have aided them in mastering this art. I suspect some might have looked upon the truth, but theirs is not a craft of research, theirs is a very practical craft and one cannot fault for them for this.

It is also possible to exploit such Essence instabilities for ones own purpose. For instance by inciting anger in a person, or by inciting love in a person. Such as is the case with concoctions that a Herbalist might make to induce someone to love another merely by changing the Essences in ones body. Mages are known to do to this in various ways, the Druids for example use their Forest Calm spell to influence the body to be calm. Mystics however, cut straight to the mind itself, since that is their purview, and as such need not rely on the imbalance of Essences and are much freer to manipulate a person.

The Soul and How Much It Has To Say
While there can be no doubt that each and every one of us has a soul, Jalat does, after all, collect them and send them on to be judged before the Sun Throne. However, how much does our soul decide our choices for us if we can be manipulated through having the Essences of our body manipulated?

By far the most likely theory as to this is that the soul is merely the sum of the Psionic Essence in our body, which means that it is an integral part of the body, and thus is affected by whatever affects the body. The soul being an integral part of the body, it is therefore more of a collection of what has happened during the course of our lives.

The other theory is that the soul is somehow separate from the body, as in some manner of spirit, however, if this was true then the soul would have an entirely different role in our lives and would not be an active factor in our life. More of a bystander and observer than an actual participant.

It is believed that it is this soul which the Mystics concerns themselves with, manipulating it directly in order to change our emotions or perceptions, most likely the soul is not a singular construction, it works in a constant symbiotic relationship with the body, thus forming the mind. It is this mind which processes both our thoughts and the impulses we receive from our body, both of which influence each other. The soul acts as the active agent in the matter, deciding upon actions, whereas the body is the receiving, passive partner. It is in the meeting place between the two that actions are created however, one cries out in pain only if the body registers pain and relays this to the soul, likewise one cannot grasp a cup without the soul telling the body to grasp it, but it also relies on the observation of where the cup is. One cannot be soothed by the calm lulling of a brook for instance, if one cannot hear the brook, in such a way does the body and the soul interact.

The Soul in Relation to Arcanomechanics and the Planes
In order to understand the subject of Planes it is important that one removes ones mind from that of the reality of Telath. The Planes are not realms, sharing boundaries in the manner of Aelyria and the Xet, while they may be connected, they are not sitting nicely next to each other on a level playing field. Most of them could not even be said to be connected to any others at all. The Plane of Shadows for instance is said to spiral through most other planes, with there being an opening in Aslan's Forge.

However, there are different types of Planes. There are the Essence Planes and what we shall call the Planes of Existence. The Essence Planes are usually seen as the standard eight of the spheres of Arcana. However, there are a myriad, untold thousands of Essence planes.

Though, one should not see these Essence Planes as planes in their own right, rather they are the the sources of these Essences, the purest possible gathering of such an Essence. And even though life exists on these Planes, in the manner of for example Elementals, they are not life in the way we know it here on the Material Plane.

The Essence Planes filter back into the world through the Astral Plane, which overlaps everything. Absolutely every Plane out there, there is not a Plane which does not contain Essences, so we must understand the difference, between the Plane of Shadow and the Essence Plane of Shadows.

Essences leak through to the various Planes of Existence from the Astral Plane, much as water leaks through a sieve. With the various Planes receiving different amounts of Essences, the Plane of Shadow for example, as already mentioned, would be gaining a lot of Essence from the Essence Plane of Shadows. The Material Plane is unique in that it achieves a balance between all these Essences, ending up with the world we have around us.

What a mage does when using arcana is, if we continue to use this metaphor of the sieve, merely opening one of the holes in the sieve a little larger to allow the flood of one Essence into the Material Plane.

While some claim that such an act is merely a mental one, I choose to disagree. Even in the act of gathering Essence from another Plane the soul cannot act without the presence of the body. Without knowledge of where the spell would need to be placed around the caster, how would one know where to cast the spell? Like such mental pursuits as mathematics, it relies on the body to tell it where it may be writ down, or where it may be put to practical use.

The soul, therefore, is capable of what the body is not: leaving the Material Plane to access other planes, upon the death of the body every soul migrates towards the Sun Throne after all, bringing themselves before the final judgement. The full ability of the soul to travel the planes, however, has not been thoroughly researched, such Planes as the Dream Plane, Essence Planes, Aetheria and Aeternia may very well be merely the beginning.

The Vis Confusion
The current essays on Arcanomechanics are hopelessly vague and confusing when it comes to the concept of Vis. The concept is stated as organized and personal Ara at one point, with Ara being the constant free flow of Essences that can be found everywhere on the Material Plane.

That Vis is an organized type of Ara cannot be doubted. However, there is some confusion as to the exact form of Vis. Some claim that the Vis is anything of a physical nature, in other words a stone is Vis. However, a person does not change his own body when using his Vis to make spells, a giant does not have larger reserves of Vis when casting spells than a Fae and neither diminishes in size when doing so. So, it is obvious that when a mage expends his Vis stores, he does not expend himself, or his own Essences. However, there is still something being expended, mages report of being able to only cast a set amount of spells before they run out of Vis, so something is being expended, but it has no connection with size, or mass.

Therefore we have two definitions of Vis, the Material and the Arcanical. The first being the Vis of Substance, which is what is present in anyone and everything, the organized Ara which enables Essences to pile together to form objects. The other is the Vis of the Mind, which allows a mage, first to enter the astral plane and then to gather an Essence there, mix it with his own Vis, some Ara and then shoot it out in the manner of a spell. Some third term would clearly be useful in explaining this difference. For the purposes of this book therefore the term Mat will therefore be the equivalent of Material Vis, or the organized Essences which make up an object.

So, organized Ara is Mat, while the Internal Vis of a person remains under the name Vis. This Vis acts, not so much as matter, but as a tool of the mind which can be harnessed given the right set of circumstances, in this case, unbinding. After all, Mat is constantly mixing with Ara which breaks it down and causes such effects as ageing and deterioration. However, Vis only interacts with Ara at the behest of the person wielding this Vis, the Vis acting as a form of funnel for the Essence from the appropriate Essence Plane.

On Arcanical Pollution
The Material Plane exists in a balance of Essences, which constantly mingle and interact. Whenever someone pulls Essences from another Essence Plane, they are not quite bringing something foreign into the Material Plane, as the Primer to Arcanomechanics would have it, rather they are bringing in an Essence that is much purer than what can be found on the Material Plane and hence getting a reaction from it which could not be found on the Material Plane without purifying the Essence.

As already stated, the problem is not bringing in foreign Essences, the problem is that these Essences essentially disrupt the local balance of Essences. As the spell dissipates the Essence brought in returns to the local Ara, potentially disrupting the balance. Ara continually passes through Mat, which might cause a vital Essence in the make up of the Mat to be replaced, causing damage to whatever Mat is disrupted by it. Of course, one should be aware of the vastness of the Material Plane in this matter. A few small spells are unlikely to do anything much, however many powerful spells over a duration in a small space might just have a highly marked effect on the local environment. For example the Blackbarch in Silrosia, or the creation of the Katta and Dorin by a wave of Arcanic energy. Neither were intentional results of the spells cast, yet they were what happened.

Naturally such a thing might not be for the best of those casting, such places as Zerdargia might be scarred by the amount of Arcana wielded there for the foreseeable future. One should utilize caution when wielding arcana, not enough research has gone into the side effects of intense use of arcana and what little has been made is not uplifting.

I choose to end my foray into the matters of reality with this warning, and I hope those of you who read this take it to heart. I fear bad things may result from our constant reliance on arcana and I hope that we will be able to find ways to do without it, unless needed. Tools are the most subtle of cages, after all.