Magic
In the Riddle of Flame setting, magic is the practice of using the ethereal energy, specifically known as aeth, to cause specific effects. Aeth is an overlapping field across existence that those trained and attuned to its presence can use. Aeth is a force without intelligence or reason, but it can spontaneously create creatures sapient or simple, benevolent or malevolent, and human or inhuman. Aeth is the force that spontaneously creates monsters in the world with seemingly no reason. It has many uses and it along with the use of the energy will by religious clerics has allowed RoF's civilizations to advance in certain areas that surpass their visual tech level. Aeth (and Will) allows for less deadly births, increased longevity, reduction of the mortality of disease, the creation of structures and items that would not be possible with past mundane means, and more.
Learning the Control of Aeth
It is possible for anyone to control aeth if they are born lucky with the predisposition to it and if not then the other option is the intellectually rigorous process of becoming a magic-user. On average, it takes a student seven years to complete training in aeth use. Along with this, the tuition fees to institutions that teach it are exorbitant leaving the connected or rich to be the only groups that could reasonably be given that education. In the Epoch of Flame, the Institute of Magicks of the Uhlionic Republic, the Magery Schools of Thrale, and other factors have opened up magic use to a larger population.
A school of magery before Epoch 1 would be around $500,000 in cost. The Institute is a government-sponsored project that raises mages to be loyal to the masses and to the Republic. It is free but also requires taking disadvantages such as Duty, Vow, and Sense of Duty. The Thralish schools cost around $100,000 but there are many opportunities for scholarships. The Arcanium is also free but within it is a brutal school of intense hierarchical backstabbing and power accumulation where those who graduate are those who know the supremacy of magic and how to use it against their rivals and the lesser mundane peoples.
Magical Artifacts
There are those items that are powered entirely by aeth to produce supernatural effects. One large example being crystal balls which allow communication and sight at long distances. This differs from magitek by being entirely magic-based.
In GURPS terms, a character may take the Debt disadvantage and have their tuition serve as their reason for adventuring and accumulating wealth. A character going through character creation that chooses to attend the Arcanium must roll a 3d6. On a 12 or higher their character dies during the school year and must make a new character. Those who survive are required to take the Megalomania disadvantage.
Magic-Blooded
Magic blooded are those with the genealogy either direct or distant to be naturally talented with the use of aeth. Those descended from dragons, djiin, elves, and anathema among others inherit their ancestors' gifts. They are attuned and knowledgable about magic around them. Their control is not perfect and they may cause magical mishaps, even as young ones. Sometimes these are dire. Before the Epiphany of Saint Bromae, humans would claim their magic-blooded spawn were changelings that had stolen their young away and then would leave them on a hill to die of exposure because of that danger. After the edict, more tolerance was held for the mishaps and the parents were taught ways to temper them and lessen their destruction.
Magic blood has been claimed a source of refinement or superiority in certain cultures. Those of the Scale Principalities, dragons and the Dragonborn beneath them, tauted their natural ability as proof they were superior to other subjects.
In GURPS terms, they would be characters that started with Magery 0 from birth.
Magitek
Magitek is an umbrella term for a number of different practices. In the Epoch of Flame, it is almost always used to denote the use of aetherium, expensive and scarce crystals that are imbued with a constant flow of aeth, and the technology that it is used within. However, the runic magic of the dwarves which use special symbols and materials to also create a consistent magical outflow can also be considered magitek. Runic magic often has strictly narrow uses and its effects are not quite as powerful as those produced within aetherium. However, runic magic is also extremely useful for making walls and defensive structures magic dampening or nullifying. Its use is one of the reasons cannons and later artillery will become extensively used in warfare; though even those lands that can afford it can also have mundane ranged weapon dampening applied. It is extremely expensive, however and not used as much as magic dampening.
Aetherium is a purple crystal that pulses with power. It can be broken into smaller pieces and shaped in different ways and still work but at proportional capacities. Aetherium can be "taught" to create certain effects by a manner of tinkering and experimenting. Once taught, it will perform that effect until the rigorous process to reteach it occurs. Recycling aetherium is extremely important in its long term use. Its scarcity cannot bare waste or destruction.
In general magitek allows for engineering feats not possible by mundane means. A weapon that can pierce straight through dragonscale and hit the dragon behind it. Large aeroship engines that are combined with mundane engineering and runic sighs to allow the airborne vehicle to lift and fly at fast traveling speeds. Tools that can create muskets at ten times the speed of a craftsmen before the use of industrial manufacturing and advanced iron processing is found.
However, magitek is limited by the design of the mundane around it. It can leap ahead of mundane tech in use and ability but it is always constrained by the design it was engineered for. Unlike magical artifacts, magitek and aetherium have narrow uses that they are trained in. The crystal in a piercer will not allow for one to shoot through the entirety of earth and have the projectile come out the other side, no matter how one tweaks it. Furthermore, aeroship engines require large shaped crystals to be used and overdrawing upon their power can destroy the magical crystal found within.
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