Magic 1.2
—With the fall of the gods, their powers returned to the word. A person known as Merlin discovered ways to harness their power which was later called "magic." – In-game Loading Screen
Modern magic in Verdantverse works largely as it does in canon, but exists as the imperially enforced interpretation of older magical practices—a framework imposed to translate lived magic into something governable. Spell circles, somatic components, and physical foci endure not because magic requires them, but because they codify what Verdant names the Mosaic.
Once a tree, now a mage, Verdant is learning to interpret the world through mortal eyes.
At its core, magic represents unrealized potential under pressure. Magic is what happens when the world contains more possibility than its current structures can safely express.
Magic in the Verdantverse is the pressure of unrealized possibility, and every spell is a decision about who gets to decide how the world resolves it.
—And with "magic" returned the world, the unravelling of its potential began. It has been the job of every Merlin since then to further untangle this metaphysical knot. – Unknown Text
Modern Floramancy
Excerpt from Foundations of Applied Floramancy,
Imperial Lyceum Press, 3rd Edition“Plants offer the novice mage a merciful entry into the practice of magical reading. Flowers, in particular, present clean symbols and predictable responses, making them ideal instructional instruments. Students are cautioned against attempting readings from non-flowering species, subterranean growths, or fungoid life, as such organisms lack the necessary stability for meaningful interpretation.”
—Arch-Reader Selathe, Preface
Plants that do not yield stable patterns—fungal mats, parasitic vines, deep-rooted reeds, and migratory mosses—are classified as arcane noise in imperial taxonomy. These organisms are excluded from sanctioned reading practices, their signals deemed unreliable, contradictory, or dangerously subjective.
Verdant knows this “noise” is not absence of meaning, but excess. It is magic speaking in too many directions at once—a chorus of the Mosaic that resists understanding or reduction.
Anecode 1
[In which my magister, Verdant, explains how they reconciled their understanding of magic through the natural world with the codified imperial system taught through the Lyceums and Arcane Council, to another Merlin]
"The imperial codification of magic certainly was…troublesome, to reconcile with how I understood the world.”
"It seemed so…harsh, and unnecessary to impose a Their Order over my Mosaic, which had it's own beauty."
"But then I was looking some jasmine blossoms from the Lyceum grounds, cruelly dead-headed before their prime, with their petals so desperately reaching out, and I began to see a pattern that reminded me of some of the rudiment spell forms I was struggling to memorize…"
“And in that moment I made a connection that I could never completely revoke. The lines of the sigil appeared over the curling veins of the blossom, echoing out its shape.”
“From that point on the Imperial Order never felt entirely separate from my Mosaic. It was a foreign dialect I might learn. Not love, but interpret and translate into my own cadence. An uneasy fluency.”
(Other speaker ->) “But what then, was the spell?”
“The meaning was…peaceful dream. Broadened to peace, and to calm, under Imperial decree. Not a bad interpretation, but—”
“The cost remained. The blossom consumed and seared to ash.”
Verdant clasps one hand over the other, as if to hide the blossom in their palm from their sight. A moment later, they uncurl their hands to reveal an intact jasmine.
“Peaceful dreams. Something I think you, and a lot of us, could use more of.”
