Loresammlung: Magie

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Magic is the lifeblood of Tyria. The entire world is infused with it, and it flows through everything via ley lines that criss-cross the planet.

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All creatures in Tyria have a natural ability to access and use magic. It is EXTREMELY rare that a person is born who does not have access to magic, and current theory implies this happens only when magic is at its lowest point in the world—after the dragons have been awake and consuming it for some time.

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In other words, spellcasting in Tyria is a basic life skill like cooking, riding a bike, or swimming—it takes discipline and practice, and each family has its own way of teaching it, but learning how to master that basic life skill starts early.

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The average citizen has basic magic, but people who use magic everyday as a soldier or order operative have had a lot more practice and experience, so they’re able to cast bigger and more powerful spells more regularly. Think of it as a natural talent like singing or athletic ability—if you’re blessed with a lot of that talent, but don’t exercise it/practice it, you won’t be as good at it as someone who does.

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Magic surrounds the inhabitants of Tyria like air surrounds us. We’re only aware of it when it asserts itself in strong winds and air currents. Occasionally we can (with fanning) move and accelerate air to do our bidding. Our bodies burn oxygen and air produces our breath. Think of it like chi/ki/the Force. Tyrians draw magic from around them to fuel their spells. Some have learned how to do this more effectively than others. And yet, air remains visually invisible to us most of the time.

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Soure Doomsday: Something's not right. I smell fire magic.

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Councillor Flax: You've certainly found something, but is that item anything of consequence?

[Player:] Hard to say without more extensive research, but it's steeped in powerful magic. Can't you feel it? It's fairly crackling with arcane energy.

Councillor Flax: I believe I do feel it, yes. It's hard to deny that artifact's considerable presence. Your VOED may be about to win you the Snaff Prize.

Councillor Flax: First, we need to know more. If you could just—hang on. Does anyone else feel that? It's like a highly pressurized wave of ionized particles—a magical storm!

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Vigil Marksman: Sir, I sense a great deal of nature magic at this site.

Squad Leader Perun: Well, we are in nature. Is there something special about it?

Vigil Marksman: I think so. I encountered this once before, in the jungle. It feels...druidic.

Squad Leader Perun: That's ancient magic. Don't anyone let your guard down.

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Marjory Delaqua: That tower was veiled with illusion magic until just a short while ago.

Kasmeer Meade: I found the perfect spell. It was luck really.

Marjory Delaqua: It was fantastic. The sky darkened, and—

Kasmeer Meade: I could sense the magical framework. A mesmer had formed the illusion.

Marjory Delaqua: She just closed her eyes and raised her hands towards it. Magic crackled from her fingertips.

Kasmeer Meade: I found the crack in its cloak. A magical poke in the right place, and it dropped like...

Marjory Delaqua: Like a norn fart at a moot.

[...]

Kasmeer Meade: Perfect timing, just like at Dragon Bash. I couldn't have hidden us much longer. I was already drained from bringing down the tower veil. It was quite a powerful mesmer spell.

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An individual’s level of experience and knowledge affects how effectively she utilizes the magic available to them. For the most part, she can channel magic without fatigue or risk to her health. However, if a person were to stretch too far, say by using an item she’s unfamiliar with or attempting a spell more powerful than what she’s used to, then that person is taking a risk. An uncontrolled spell can do terrible damage. For this reason, most intelligent magic-users stretch carefully into spells and magical items they don’t understand.

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Spellbreakers specialize in counterattacks and destroying enchantments.

So, you can dispel enchantments?

Destroy, not dispel. It takes a lot of training, but we've learned to sense the weave of magic and strike where it is weakest. Most mages never see it coming.

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Kasmeer Meade: Hold on. I'll cast... Wait. Something's wrong!

Marjory Delaqua: What's the matter, doll?

Kasmeer Meade: I can't form a portal. Something here is blocking me.

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The reality, however, is that only the most powerful have the time and energy to do this. It’s like getting two doctorate degrees, one in medicine and one in engineering. Few have the time to do this, and usually, an individual doesn’t want to turn her back on everything she’s already learned to start a new magical discipline. She’d much rather continue advancing her knowledge in the discipline she’s invested decades in. Some, however, may dabble and experiment with specific spells. If a master elementalist can find a mesmer to teach her to produce an illusion, then she may explore ways to combine them. Most professions keep their secrets close to their chests though. And, the danger of a conflict between magical energies and thus, an explosion, is very real.

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Sharing techniques with local thieves has allowed us to learn the art of deception. We've also developed ambush techniques based off their stealth attacks.

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Some modern magic users can cast spells without a weapon, but it is much easier, more efficient, and far more prevalent to use a weapon because that's the way most magic-users were trained. In-game, a Guild Wars 2 player is obliged to use a weapon because that's how our skills and skill progression systems are set up, but an example of a spell being cast without a weapon to focus the magic occurs in the Human Commoner Personal Story when *Spoiler Alert* Countess Anise uses illusions/mesmer magic to make the player, Logan, and herself appear to be bandits, and does so without using her weapons. And just to be clear, I interpret "weapon focus" as a weapon (sword, axe, mace) PCs use to channel magical attacks, and not a literal focus (i.e., the in-game off-hand weapon), so: nearly every weapon a PC can carry in Guild Wars 2 is a weapon focus. You start at Level 1 with a basic weapon that you improve/add attacks (skills) to by using it, which is a way of saying you're learning to channel magic through your weapon to make it more effective in combat.

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Warriors and engineers absolutely can use magic. Most of their skills are presented as nonmagical, but they do wield magical or magic-infused weaponry, so the lines get blurred (and the debate you’re describing occurs). Take the warrior’s torch skill Flames of War, for example. It creates a mobile flame field that follows the player around and explodes when it expires. There may be a non-magical weapon that can do those things, but a simple knotty branch with a burning oily rag tied to the end isn’t one of them. Likewise, the engineer’s pistol produces a lot of different effects—poison, burning, bouncy lighting blasts, glue—and it’s pretty hard to say there’s no magic involved in a pistol that serves as a dart gun, flamethrower, arc thrower, and glue bomb (and never needs reloading).

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A person’s magical ability and familiarity with a given healing spell is far more important than the caster’s knowledge of the patient’s anatomy or the caster’s current physical state.

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Mesmers routinely cast convincing illusions, some of which have substance, so their magic is more than just tricking people’s minds. But they do have control over what people see or how they see it, so that things that aren’t really there seem to be, and things that are really there seem not to be—this control is limited by their power and experience in casting illusions.

Using the Tower of Nightmares as an example, there was mesmer magic concealing the huge tower so that anyone who happened by wouldn’t see it. The spell that concealed the tower was on the tower itself, rather than on all the people who might happen by.

As Angel and Yojimaru said, top-level mesmers may be able to exert genuine mind control, but if they can, they’re keeping it secret—if everyone knew, someone would work out a countermeasure. Apart from that, most mesmers use spells to create something like a post-hypnotic suggestion rather than turning a sentient being into their puppet. As such, they can get people to do small or seemingly unimportant things based in misdirection, but the larger or more obvious/contrary to their preference the thing a mesmer wants them to do is, the more likely the target will resist/their brains will say, “Hang on, why am I doing this again?”

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This depends. Casting an illusion that can only be seen by one person is an extremely advanced skill as it requires getting directly into an individual’s mind. Only the most skilled of mesmers can do this, and mesmers don’t talk about this ability. If people were to find out that mesmers could do this, it would prejudice people against mesmers and damage the trust and love mesmers work so hard to inspire in others. No documentation of this ability exists outside the Mesmer community because the targets of this kind of spell don’t realize they’ve been duped. No one else can corroborate their experience either, so… it’s often explained away as battle fatigue. Even within the mesmer community, knowledge of this kind of spell is “need to know” only, which means only the most elder and experienced are initiated into the circle.

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I see the chronomancer as much more a case of manipulating the local perception of time rather than manipulating time itself. The Continuum Split skill text specifically mentions a rift in time and space continuum, but I’m like you in that I take that to mean “continuum” as a perceived possibility that the chronomancer is working with rather than an actual time jump. It visually appears to let the chronomancer rewind time, but functionally it’s a highly advanced, specialized mesmer clone that players directly control for a short duration while their real body is phased out—thus any damage, etc. happens to the Continuum Split clone (who disappears when the skill expires), and the PC resumes control of their real body unchanged from the moment they activated the skill (although they do retain any XP, etc. they garnered while in Continuum Split).

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Those who practice the shadow arts (such as thieves) utilize a combination of physical prowess and magic. Their magic enhances their stealth and other skills, but they have also worked hard to get good at the arts. Just as a guardian has a deep understanding of combat strategy and can read a battlefield in the blink of an eye, a thief can read the landscape of rooftops and find just the right place to step. Magic, for any profession, is nothing without the knowledge, diligence, and alertness that any user brings to it.

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Thieves started favoring rifles. Then they figured out that shadow magic can be used to sharpen eyesight.

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Trahearne: My necromantic servants have never been alive; thus, they are immune to the ravages of Orr.

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[Character name]: Glad to see you made it. I'm also pleased we won't be coming back here when we die.
Scholar Glenna: Agreed. The Eternal Alchemy must be more impressive than this frozen dirt hole.

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Revenant legends do have personalities and opinions and we do catch glimpses of them, but each legend also represents a snapshot of the character, a Mist-echo of the actual person and not the person themselves. As such, the revenant legend doesn't necessarily have the full range of memories & thoughts as the original.

Rytlock certainly could interact with the Glint legend he summons, but that legend wouldn't automatically know everything that Glint knew/have all the knowledge that Glint acquired during her life. Given their history, I agree it would be interesting to see what Rytlock and a sentient snapshot of Glint might say to each other in the present-day game situation.
Revenant Legends (the entities a revenant summons to access their skills) don't have to be dead to be summoned--they aren't ghosts or spirits of those entities, they are echoes of that persona that exist in the Mists; snapshots, if you will, of the entities, who are routinely high-profile, powerful personalities that had major impacts on the world.