Editing Practitioner (section)

==Types==

There are many systems of classifying Practitioners, just as there are many systems of magic,<ref>Pale has about 100 magic systems interacting with each other. At the baseline/core of each of them, you swear an oath that your word will matter, and lose the ability to lie, with your promises becoming binding, and use this to interact with ambient micro-spirits, spirits personifying concepts, and various other systems including magic diagrams and magic items. The story walks you through it. - [https://old.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/p6qv6t/_/h9fcrn0/ Wildbow on Reddit]</ref> these below are some of the broader ones:<ref name=":0">The final school we will discuss here (though there are a variety of other ways of classifying practices by school, including combat practices, material, immaterial, and those focused on greater powers), the Schools of Wages are those practices that bear the highest costs or risks. The practices of the Heartless, the Host, of Sacrifice and Blood, and those that channel power from sources that would devour them with but one mistake, such as the Harbinger or Cultist, fall within the scope of this category. - excerpt from [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/12 Bonus Material: Demesnes Text]</ref>

=== Conjuration/Excorporate ===
Deal in practices which are relatively easy to evoke, with little needed but [[power]],<ref>It is an excorporate school of practice. What does that mean, Solisse?”<br><br>“Makes stuff [...] The schools that can take power and make stuff.”<br><br>“There are a ''lot'' of schools that can take power and make stuff. How is it different from enchanting objects, or creating a ward?”<br><br>“Out of thin air.”<br><br>“Yes. Out of thin air. Or, more technically, from ''us,'' our bodies, our power. Excorporate forces include elemental, echoes, and celestial bodies. They’re easiest to bind, banish, and create, when we have a mind to." - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/01/19/vanishing-points-8-4/ excerpt] from [[Vanishing Points 8.4]]</ref> but fragile or easy to taint.<ref name=":7" /> Includes the [[Elementalist]], [[Shaman]], [[Echo|Echoist]], [[Necromancer]], [[Evangelist]],<ref name=":7">In the Schools Excorporate, also known as conjuration schools, we count those practices which deal in those forces both flighty and fundamental, which may be banished, brought, wrought, and bound most easily. The elementalist, shamanism, echoist, necromancer, and evangelist schools can be counted in this number, all with some ready ability to translate power to the apparent Other or that Other’s actions.<br>[...]<br>The greatest difficulties for these practices are the point of expenditure where they must pay the cost of bringing their creations and effects through, and the relative fragility of their creations and effects, with a propensity toward taint and outside influence. These may be mediated with the practice. - excerpt from [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/demesnes-text/ Bonus Material: Demesnes Text]</ref><ref>These are other excorporate Others, vestiges, echoes, spirits, and even a cracked cherubim. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/01/19/vanishing-points-8-4/ excerpt] from [[Vanishing Points 8.4]]</ref> [[War Mage|War Magic]], and [[Summoner]].<ref name=":1">[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jdkBJa3YEJW03X7UPed-vEOczdwQjuuYy7NAjENJiqg/edit Pact Dice]</ref>
=== Divine/Structural ===

<blockquote>''Main article: [[Greater Powers]]''</blockquote>

Schools which deal with the greatest powers of this world, that give structure to the universe,such as [[Deities]].<ref>“The morning’s topic is an elementary lesson in ''healing'',” Durocher said. “A springboard to discussion of ''structural'' practices, which, I’ll note, are different from ''realms'' practices.”<br>[...]<br>“Sure thing. Right now, those of us who are canny enough are changing roles. Used to be we provided definition and structure. Now your species is doing that for itself. We’re smaller, we keep more to our own selves and family branches, and we game the systems if we’re smart.”<br><br>“Structure, you said?” she asked. “We put gods under the broad umbrella of structural practices.”<br><br>“Your call. It works.”<br><br>“Why does it work?”<br><br>“Because we build, we create from raw clay, beams of light, and from ourselves. [...] Blow a bit of life into a vessel, doesn’t matter if they’re a man or a clay dog. Or do a bit of repair to their fundamental structure, patch a hole, carve something out. Most gods get to be gods because they have that faith backing them and they have the tools to do that creating. Sometimes it’s one and the other follows, other times? We’re like this, right out of the tin. Grown and gorgeous.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/vanishing-points-8-1/ excerpt] from [[Vanishing Points 8.1]]</ref> Especially effective at breaking rules or creating life.<ref name=":4">Most often, however, one will want to put a small amount of power into the Demesne to have the objects take shape. This is initially a fragile process, discussed in more depth in chapter nine, but suffices to add basic features. The nature of the power employed will determine a great deal about what comes about; visceral practices, Others, and realms fuel the tangible first with art coming second. The immaterial may provide the artistic elements, or ambient changes such as mood, warmth, or weather. Divine practices and those from greater powers are better for the changes to the rules, and for those who wish to create life, the divine breath is adept at doing so. - excerpt from [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/demesnes-text/ Bonus Material: Demesnes Text]</ref>
=== Wages/Prices ===
The most costly or risky Practices, but with concomitant rewards. Include [[Heartless]], [[Host]], [[Blood Magic]], [[Harbinger]], and [[Cultist]] schools.<ref name=":0" />
=== Security/Protection ===
Schools which excel at warding off harm, whether passively or actively. Can include [[Ogre Mages]], many [[Incarnate|Incarnate practices]], [[Law Magus]],<ref>'''The Schools of Security'''<br>Those schools of practice that deal in warding off harm are second only to the Realms practices in their relationship to the Demesne. These means of warding off harm can vary from the martial to the passive, deflection to avoiding the circumstances or consequence of harm entirely. Practices of warding; rhythm, chant, and mantra mages; many Incarnate practices, and the practices focusing on karmic law fall into this category. - excerpt from [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/demesnes-text/ Bonus Material: Demesnes Text]</ref> [[Sealing]], [[Warding]], and [[Chronomancy]].<ref name=":1" />

=== Contrivance/Tools ===
These schools focus on [[Magic Item]]s. Includes [[Item Crafting|Item enchantment]], [[Collector|Collection]], and [[textual magic]]; as well as some <em>[[vodun]]</em>, [[Sympathetic magic|Sympathetic practice]]s, [[Chosen]], [[Goblin King]]s, [[Faerie Magic]],<ref>'''The Schools of Contrivance'''<br>In schools of this heading, the practice is dependent or focused on the physical object, wielded, honed, or made the focus or endpoint of the practice itself. Enchantment, collection, textual, some ''vodun'' and sympathetic practices can be counted in this broad category of schools, as may the practices of those chosen by a greater power, or those who negotiate with Others such as goblins or Faerie for magic items and tools. - excerpt from [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/demesnes-text/ Bonus Material: Demesnes Text]</ref> and [[Luck magic]].<ref name=":1" />

=== Material/Visceral ===
<blockquote>''Main Article: [[Visceral]]''</blockquote>Practices that deal with physical beings. Tends toward the brutal. Includes [[Scourge]]s, [[Goblin King]]s,<ref>The church, if the church was abandoned for two hundred years. Wind blew through broken windows and carried choking dust. Something lay dying and twitching on the broken glass of bodies. “The visceral. Physical power. Brutal, unforgiving, often with a way of biting the hand that would use it… sometimes as an always thing, sometimes it waits for the chance. The price is that it will take chunks out of you, or your lifeblood. In goblin practice, it may poison you after it pricks your flesh. In the Abyssal, it may cut you deeper, longer to heal.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/05/leaving-a-mark-4-6/ excerpt] from [[Leaving a Mark 4.6]]</ref> [[Alchemy]],<ref name=":12">'''Visceral Practices'''<br>–'''Material Fundamentals '''– Basics on Others and practices dealing in the physical.<br>–'''Once Human '''– Peri-, periodic, and post-human Others, practices, diseases.<br>–'''Dark Locales '''– Twisted and Othered locations on Earth, urban and rural.<br>–'''Goblins '''– Goblin summoning, practice, tools, binding, and extermination.<br>–'''The Warrens '''– Goblin realm, day trips, non-Goblin denizens of the Warrens.<br>–'''Scourging '''– Horrors, Scratchings, Bogeymen, and related dark practices.<br>–'''Self Defense '''– Offensive practices, dealing with hostile Others, practitioners.<br>–'''Alchemy '''– Creating Visceral Others and Things through Material practice. - 4.1 Bonus Material: [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/20|BHI Information Packet]</ref><ref name=":2">'''Schools:''' Halflight (Heartless var., Visceral) [...]A man dons an animal skin and stalks a forest trail. Another drinks an alchemical admixture, and becomes a beast of another sort.<br><br>A feral thing wears his victim’s skin and goes to the man’s home to eat a dinner, his family unnerved but unable to say exactly why.  A gossamer wisp of a creature dresses itself up as a babe using clay by the riverbed and the flesh from a dug-up corpse.  Then it wails, and a woman finds it.  The corpse it dug up was that of her baby, recently lost, and she is stunned to long silence by how it resembles her child. She brings it into her home.<br><br>Walls separate man and monster. Artfully addressed, halflight practices aim to capture the best of both at once. Once we begin the journey, however, the way back to normalcy is hard, if not impossible. - [[List_of_Books#Quasi|Quasi]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/03 |Bonus Material: Bedtime Reading].</ref> some ("Halflight") [[Heartless]],<ref name=":2" /> among others.

In [[PactDice]], the Material practices are [[Alchemy]], [[Elementalism]], [[Blood Magic|Blood Mage]], [[Collector]], [[Technomancer]], [[Item Crafting]], [[Warding]].<ref name=":1" />
=== Lore ===
Practices which focus on gathering information. Tend to require a lot of effort building up knowledge. Include [[Augury]], [[Heroics|Heroic]] and [[Historian|Historic]]<nowiki/>practices, [[Crossways]], [[Alchemy]], some [[Binding]], and the [[Priest|Devout]].<ref>Schools of Lore dwell on collected and collecting information, on Sight, and the associated forms of awareness. Augury, Heroic and Historic practices, Crossways practices, Alchemy, some Binding, and practices of the Devout can fall into this field.<br>[...]<br>The weaknesses inherent in Lore practices are often relatively straightforward, with a high initial knowledge base required, the years required for many of the workings, and less applicability to combat and direct confrontation. These things, however, are not easily amended by the Demesne, and so the Lore practices often lean more heavily in the direction of executing the strengths of the practice more effectively. - excerpt from [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/demesnes-text/ Bonus Material: Demesnes Text]</ref> A common practice in this field is the ability to look at recent past with a minor ritual.<ref name=":1" />

=== Relation/Interaction ===

These schools deal with [[connection|connections]], misdirection, and interpersonal interaction, including powers that must be constantly negotiated with. Include [[Illusion]], [[Oni Mage|Oni Magic]], [[Faerie Magic]], [[Enchantress]]es, [[Shaman]]s and [[Finder]]s.<ref>''Relation'' practices are those which dwell on connection or the interaction of practitioner and another. Practices of illusion, deception, misdirection, and those practices where the power is drawn from sources that must be negotiated with each time they are used will fall in this field. The Oni and Faerie practices can be both, while Enchantresses and Enchantment may lean into the former, and Shamans or Finders the latter.<br>[...]<br>Relation practices are focused on other individuals and when taken to a Demesne, are almost always a place to invite Others to. The space can be customized and part of that customization may be to make it more hospitable or comfortable. In other cases, it may be a lens to work through. - excerpt from [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/demesnes-text/ Bonus Material: Demesnes Text]</ref><ref name=":1" />
=== Realms ===
Practices which are focused on a particular place. They are especially adept with [[Demesne]]s.<ref name=":3">Those schools of practice that dwell on realms are interested in travel and in places both mundane and esoteric. Virtually all practices draw power from Other realms and Other influences, and the Realms practitioner often travels to or through these sources, such as the Scourge, the Fae Walker, the Warren Runner, and the Dreamer of Paths or Chaos Mage. In other cases, they remain rooted, but bring importance to areas, such as the the macro-scale practitioner or Astrologer, the Technomancer, the Nomad Shaman, or the Draoidhe Caller.<br>Realms practices have some unique interactions with the Demesne, and as such, are given special focus in chapter three. For the time being, we will save the examples for more discussion there, and simply state that any and all of these practices can have special applications or benefits from the Demesne.<br>[...]<br>In each of these cases, the rules and default assumptions of the Demesne are looser. It is, for Trinette, an escape hatch, always within reach but with its price of time. For Ivan, it is a means of travel. For Titface, it is something that moves, extending at the ‘head’ and crumbling at the tail.<br><br>None of these aspects are tied explicitly to their practices. A walker of the Faerie realms could use the escape hatch, and a Finder could make their Demesne a perpetual additional room or space adjacent to whatever region of the Dream they are traveling, one they understand and have a connection to.<br>[...]<br>The practices that affect wide areas and regions, including Astrologers and Callers, can benefit from their own unique rules and relationships to the Demesne. For Langley, the Demesne can reach out to adjacent areas and influence them. For a Caller, it may be a way to transform the effect as a great power is called on to flood an area. - excerpt from [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]], quoted in [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/demesnes-text/ Bonus Material: Demesnes Text]

</ref> Common practices include the ability to open doors. Include [[Scourge]], [[Finder]], [[Astrologer]], [[Technomancer]], [[City Mage|Nomad Shaman]], [[Draoidhe]],<ref name=":1" /> [[Faerie Magic|Fae Walker]] and [[Goblin King|Warren Runner]].<ref name=":3" />

Realms Practitioners can be further subdivided into two types. There are those who deal with [[Realm|other planes]] - [[Scourge]], [[Finder]], [[Faerie Magic|Fae Walker]], and [[Goblin King|Warren Runner]] - who can often modify their Demesne to interact with those places. Then there are those who enhance a place in the real world - [[Astrologer]], [[Technomancer]], [[City Mage|Nomad Shaman]], [[Draoidhe]] - who can often extend the power of their Demesne out across an area.<ref name=":3" />

Combining multiple Realms practices is extremely dangerous; anyone or thing caught in the distorted space can be horribly mangled and/or distorted, potentially producing a [[Horror]].<ref>“Oh.  Yeah, huh,” Zed said, but his eyes were a bit wider.  “In case they didn’t tell you, don’t mix realm-type practices.  Any rituals or powerful items that open doors to the Warrens, don’t blend that with doors to the Ruins.  Or paths you make with technomancy.  Or Avery’s Lost stuff.  That’s 101 type Realm stuff, front of the books for beginners, in the Essentials text that any family dealing with that stuff would get when they come of age. [...] Horrors and derivative things.  That’s a good way to go from being a practitioner who’s trying to make a quick portal to Paris or wherever, to having your arms and legs broken as space folds around you.  If you’re lucky.”

“And if you’re unlucky?” Lucy asked.

“Being a broken creature stretched out across two realities at once, infused with aspects of both.  If you’re ''really'' unlucky, your Self or the spirits that drive you, uh, corrugate, at the same time.”

[...]

“Roughly half the time it won’t do much more than screw up the ritual and scare the crap out of you,” Zed said.  “For the other half, well, half of ''those'' times it’ll go wrong, but wrong like being hit by a car and maybe things aren’t as straight or proportioned as they should be after.  But you can keep going down that rabbit hole of bad ends and half of the times you’re not ''that'' lucky, horror.  Then horror with a corrugated spirit, then a chance of being something that would make you wish you’d gotten off as easy as being a horror with a corrugated spirit.  And so on.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/08/03/summer-break-13-1/ excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.1]]</ref> Thankfully, this risk primarily occurs when the distortion is being actively created or destroyed (e.g. opening a portal); opening two portals near each other is very dangerous, but opening a single portal inside a stable pocket space is not.<ref>“And is it a problem if we’re opening an Alcazar?  Or if we have Avery in there some time in the future and she opens a gate to some Path?”

“Shouldn’t be.  The big moments of weakness and stress on everything are when the doors are opened, a little less so when they’re closed.  Don’t open two doors at the same time, definitely don’t stand between them while you’re doing it, and practice extra good ritual hygiene and practices while you’re making a door.”  - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/08/03/summer-break-13-1/ excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.1]]</ref>

=== Immaterial ===

Practices which deal with more abstract, less solid forces, like [[Spirit|Spirits]] and [[Incarnation|Incarnations]]. Include [[Augur]]s, [[Necromancer]], [[Heartless]], [[Luck magic|Luck Mage]], [[Astrology]], [[Finder]]s, [[Chronomancy]].<ref name=":1" /> Tend to lend artistic or ambient effects to a [[Demesne]].<ref name=":4" />
=== Combat/Conflict ===

Mentioned in [[List of Books#Demesnes|Demesnes]].<ref name=":0" /> In [[PactDice]], the Conflict practices include [[War Mage|War Magic]], [[Harbinger]], [[Goblin King]], [[Scourge]], [[Oni Mage]], [[Heroics]], and [[Ogre Mages|Ogre Mage]].<ref name=":1" />
=== Deals ===

Include [[Summoner]], [[Host]], [[Sympathetic magic|Sympath]], [[City Mage]], [[Faerie Magic]], [[Binding]], [[Sealing]]. Only known from [[PactDice]] rules.<ref name=":1" />