The Strength of Fang Stonedrop 2: What is the Strength?
The Strength is a type of magic. It does not work like any other system of magic. It is more akin to Natural Magic than Drawing Magic.1 Drawing Magic is fueled by the Realm of Power. Practitioners draw sigils and glyphs to perform their magic. The Strength is completely unrelated to Drawing Magic.
There are hidden systems in the Living World. They are energized by the Realm of Power. Performing certain actions in certain places or saying special words can cause magical effects to occur. This is Natural Magic. It is most commonly practiced with Keygrams.
The Strength can be defined as leaching energy from nature to achieve a desired result. Everything found in nature has its own energy. Every rock, drop of water, mote of dust has energy. Every fish, bird and human has energy. Anything that springs forth from nature has energy. Even dead people and animals have entropic energy, that is to say that formerly living tissue that is breaking down has its own unique energy.
Objects that have been fabricated into new items do not have energy. The stone from a quarry has energy. Once that stone has been shaped and stacked into a building, the energy is gone. Clothing made from wool has no energy. The wool sheared from a sheep still has its own energy though. We do not know why this happens. Careful experimentation will yield the same result, should you care to try.
A wielder of the Strength can feel, find and grasp this energy. It is leached from the source and changed into a magical spell that achieves a desired result. The source material, then having lost its Essence, that which made it what it was, crumbles into a gray powder. This powder is referred to as leach dust. The object’s strength is gone and the object utterly ceases to be.
Leach dust has the consistency of sand but it is gray and cold. People have experimented with it and discovered that it cannot be heated. No amount of boiling, warming or direct application of fire will cause leach dust to warm in the slightest. As such, it has uses in potion making and other magical endeavors.
A sorcerer can leach the Strength from living things. Sadly, the same result occurs when the Essence is removed from a person, plant or animal. It is wise to make sure that nobody is around when you are learning to wield the Strength. A fledgling sorcerer can accidentally leach the Strength from someone nearby. This can be fatal if too much Essence is leached from an unintended victim.
It is also a good idea to wield the Strength as infrequently as possible. A world full of sorcerers actively doing magic would cause everything all around us to crumble into leach dust. The aspirant must learn to balance their practice to avoid leaching the world all around them.
The Strength of Fang Stonedrop Part 3 covers how to use the Strength. It is exclusive to KOLA and the Supreme Compendium.
Editor’s note: Magery (the practice of summoning spirits) had not yet been discovered at the time of this writing.↩