Angels, the beings God created first, could access Divine Energy directly. God soon saw that this was not going to work, as the power corrupted some angels and they began to think of themselves as equal to God. This led to strife and battles between angel factions.
So God made a second type of beings, humans, without a direct connection to Divine Energy. However, humans innately sensed this absence of power and craved what they did not have. This yearning drives an obsession with magic to this day.
Magic requires energy to function. Magical energy can be gathered from the following sources:
Divine Energy is limited only by the strength of the connection, which is related to the rank and/or strength of the divine user.
Beings who use Divine Energy:
Ardor is the original energy of conception. God used it to create the universe, angels, and humans. God allowed Ardor to linger on earth so that angels could create and populate the earth with lower life forms and terrestrial features, an effect intended to last only a short time. However, some angels exerted their free will and abandoned heaven for earth and propagated half-human offspring (Nephilim), which resulted in Ardor remaining on earth.
Ardor lingers for as long as Nephilim remain in a land. When Nephilim leave or are driven out, Ardor fades and thins and becomes like wisps of mist that come and go as if carried on a breeze. By the 14th century, Ardor remained dense only in Ireland.
Beings who use Ardor:
Relics are items fabricated by God or angels (e.g. the Ring of Solomon) or in intimate contact with them (e.g. the True Cross of Jesus). Words and symbols of power were uttered or written by God or angels (e.g. angelic grimoires). These provide a thread of connection to Divine Energy; however, they are too powerful for humans to wield and end up corrupting their users.
Beings who use Divine Relics, Words, and/or Symbols of Power
Witches and sorcerers can use their own Life Energy to power minor or midlevel spells. It exhausts them much like vigorous exercise. Excessive use can cause physical disfiguration and wasting of the body.
Stolen Life Energy can be extracted from humans and Nephilim, always resulting in their death. Infants have the most malleable life force, which can be accessed by harvesting their fat. Note that murdering children to power spells is well established mythology, often being cited in witch trials and appears in biblical references. Older people need to be burned or boiled to collect any usable energy.
Beings who use Life Energy:
Runes are symbols that can bend, shape, and block magic. They were developed in ancient times for working with magic, but bestow no power of their own. For example, a witch can make her divination spell more accurate by inscribing runes on sticks before she tosses them. A witch hunter can paint runes on the skin of a witch to block her from using spells.
All magical beings, and humans that have learned to connect with Ardor, manifest a True Name – it’s like their magical phone number. A magical being is given their true name in the Otherworld before birth into this world. A human practitioner may or may not know their own True Name; it is typically learned in a dream or a vision. If someone learns a being’s True Name, they can exert strong, almost unbreakable, magical power over that being.
