Time Magic

Time Magic has been a marvel for as long as it's been around, and potentially longer still. Long have the peoples of our world sought dominion over time itself, and the studies of temporal dynamics have granted many an ability to - at least somewhat - do just that. It might be limited and subject to numerous checks and balances as an intrinsic part of its spellcraft, but it's a truly special tradition of magic regardless.
— Alraud Mezzier, Professor of Arcane History at Torana

Time Magic is a very old form of magic indeed, and one of the few pillars of magic with limitations defined as far back as the age of the Hysilens that even today remain intact. The power of time magic is great, but its restrictions do heavily stem all but the most insane from trying to push the limits of its practice, though that doesn't detract from its widescale adoption.

History of Time Magic

Before the Gates

The time of the Hysilens saw quite an intense study of time magic, engaging with its powers and learning its limitations as a means to amplify the already-impressive abilities of the fox-folk. It didn't take the Hysilens long to uncover the foundational upper limits of time magic - that being its exponential Aether costs and its inability to reverse time - but that didn't stop them from exploring it to its fullest. Indeed, in many ways it can be seen that unlike many other traditions of magic, the Hysilens really did effectively push time magic to its limits, with no real developments made since their time that fundamentally revolutionised the theories and practices of chronomancy; the techniques and ideas of the Hysilens are still in use today.

Early History

As a direct result of this, the only real discoveries that took place during early history involved more spells and such techniques that could further time magic's reach and capabilities, but many of these forays were severely hampered by the Terran government of the time, which began to crack down on Chronomancers following a catastrophic time travel engine - the Spark Drive - experiment by the official Chronomancy Guild that saw the test craft - a guild vessel identified as the C.S. Yurihama - crash during the time travel test within the city of Reno, causing a catastrophic arcane anomaly that engulfed the craft and city alike, and threatened to expand continuously. The Terran Navy's only recourse was to glass the surrounding region with anti-magical weaponry to prevent the continuous spread of the anomaly. Indeed, this event is known as the Sparking of Reno, and is one of many events responsible for the Terran Empire's crackdown on magic in this era - and is yet still responsible for Earth's modern distrust, but begrudging acceptance of spellcasting today - and as the direct form of magic responsible for the Sparking, the Terran Empire's crackdown on Time Magic was among the most stringent in the cluster at the time. It was so extreme that when the Shard Ritual was discovered, the Terran government explicitly forbade its use with Temporal Shards to create new Chronomancers, generally leading to the few Chronomancers of the era laying low or seeking refuge in nations and regions less antagonistic towards magic and chronomancy.

Modern History

Nowadays, time magic's position is fairly secure academically, as the cluster's myriad nations understand its power and allow its training across their space. Even Earth, for all its leery attitudes and posturing, does allow Chronomancers to reside and train their kin in Terran space, with the only significant restriction being that no spellcaster is permitted on Earth without explicit approval from the government, and that in general a spellcaster living in Terran space is recorded to a Terran database for surveillance. Even still, the uncertain times regarding the Terran-Elaiennan cold war are threatening to jeopardize the tenuous stability that Chronomancers have afforded for themselves.

Temporal Shards

Temporal Shards are a very strange case indeed, with conditions that share almost no similarities between the cluster at large and Aldrin specifically. In the cluster itself, temporal clusters are generally fraught with danger to harvest, being located close to natural celestial dangers and cosmological features, with famous deposits being found around black holes and neutron stars. A few specific areas are replete with them, however; Earth's Sierra Nevada and the site that Reno used to be located in is home to truly incredible growths of temporal shards, so grand that the Terran Navy has to be brought in every few years to keep the shards in check, the latent temporal energies of the Sparking causing the shards to be near-ubiquitous there, but incredibly difficult to harvest safely. Many Vekh hives also cultivate temporal shards, and the Vekh bioships themselves are all well-known to be comprised of a small number of them, which they use as part of their combat tactics. On Aldrin, the stories of the temporal shards is far... murkier. The shards don't naturally occur anywhere on the planet, but are replete in the currently-undiscovered region of The Great Empty. Indeed, they've very much overrun the region and made it a treasure trove of arcane knowledge, but one that cannot ever be inhabited due to the replete shards of magic. The regions surrounding The Great Empty have a few limited outcrops of the shards, but even these see few harvests, owing to the current depopulated state of Aelnar.

Crysium Shards

Material | Apr 9, 2025

Crysium Shards are magically-infused crystals known to exist in space on asteroids and meteors, as well as on a precious rare few planets, such as Aldrin. Many tales are spun with regards to the origin of the shards.

Aldrin History

Time Magic on Aldrin is... a VERY complicated matter indeed, as it didn't naturally appear on the planet; the Hysilens were noted as having it, but its knowledge was never passed down to Aldriner natives. Indeed, the story of chronomancy's arrival on Aldrin is one inexplicably tied to Chronomancy's storied history at large. The magic arrived on Aldrin a few years after the Sparking of Reno occurred on Earth, the C.S. Yurihama somehow ending up displaced through time and space to arrive on Aldrin, damaged beyond repair and crashing in the region that would become The Great Empty. Nobody survived the crash of the Yurihama, but the temporal energy ruined the region, while seeping to neighbouring regions in much safer amounts. Over time, the temporal energy began to have a very observable impact in the form of Chronomancer bloodlines beginning to appear in the Elves of Aelnar, but that same energy would have a heinous role to play in the greatest catastrophe of Aelnar's history; the Arcane Shattering. Following the Shattering, the refugee elves brought the Chronomancer bloodlines east with them, and that led to the suffusion of time magic across all of Aldrin in time.

Uses of Time Magic

Chronomancer by Rudi Indra

Temporal Perception

Temporal Perception is an important initial type of time magic, as these spells alter the subject's progression of time; generally, this makes them fairly benign, used for practical jokes, minor curses, and other such frivolity. As a result, though, it makes for an excellent entry into time magic for aspirant Chronomancers, as the skills required are the same as minor and major chronomancy, but the Aether expenditure and effort required are far lower. Additionally, when things do go wrong with these spells - and they will, as they're a foundational pillar of learning time magic and failure is a key part of that process - those mistakes and miscasts are far easier to correct, as they're merely altering the perception of time rather than changing it directly. As a result of these facts, complete mastery of these spells are vital for a Chronomancer to be allowed to begin learning minor chronomancy, with most magical institutions placing a requirement that a budding Chronomancer must be able to use any form of temporal perception spell, at any moment, with no mistakes or miscasts, before being allowed to begin training with minor chronomancy.

Minor Chronomancy

Minor Chronomancy is the most elementary version of the 'true' facets of time magic, concerning smaller scale alterations of time itself to speed up and slow down its passage, generally only for a single person, these spells are the bread and butter of a Chronomancers toolkit and are what make their form of magic truly special. The Aether costs of these spells are a stark increase from Temporal Perception spells, notably, which does catch a lot of beginners out, as jumping from the quite economical perception spells to the extremely Aether-hungry chronomancy spells is a dangerous step indeed.

Major Chronomancy

Generally referred to as 'true' Chronomancy, major chronomancy spells are where the type of magic gets truly impressive, beginning to affect large areas, with tailored effects - slowing enemies while hastening allies is a textbook example of a major chronomancy spell. Major Chronomancy is incredibly versatile, being able to affect time for a wide selection of targets or just a single target; indeed, a pertinent subset of this magic are the so-called Immortality Spells, which can be used to slow down - but not completely halt - the aging process, though, like with time itself, it cannot reverse the process. In general, these spells are highly potent due to the raw power required to constantly channel Aether to maintain their effects. The power available to one who can adjust the passage of time to suit their own needs cannot be overstated, and those who can harness this power must learn to respect it.

Timestop

The pinnacle of time magic is one many strive for, but never truly reach, as it requires incredible amounts of focus, resilience and Aether reserves to make reality. A well-known fact of temporal dynamics is that as magic is woven to slow down or speed up time, the cost of that magic's Aether exponentially grows. This is especially true for magic that slows down time for an area, with only truly gifted mages learning slowing magic sooner than middle-of-the-road expertise in time magic. The true pinnacle of the art is something very few mages can ever hope to learn; generally speaking, it's only wielded by the long-lived races, as well as magical prodigies who have a mastery of their Aether reserves. Should they be able to learn and wield it, however, Timestop spells are exactly as powerful as it sounds, allowing for magic that can halt the flow of time entirely. Generally, a Timestop will halt the flow of time for everyone in the area aside from the Chronomancer who casted it, but there exists those exceptional few who can move beyond this restriction.

Aspiring Chronomancer by Kudos Productions

On the nature of Temporal Dynamics

One of the key discussions that routinely comes up when the topic of Time Magic is broached is that of its most mythical capability; time travel. Many scholars ponder the viability of temporal manipulation, with critics of the theory pointing to the infeasibility of even supplying the Aether to use time travel - as the rate of temporal manipulation increases the Aether-cost of time magic exponentially as it gets faster or slower, meaning that to manipulate time so much that a being can move even dozens of years into the future would cost an inordinate amount of Aether - calculably more than the cluster even has available to be manipulated at present - and is infeasible as a result. Proponents of the theory point to similar scientific and arcane revolutions - such as the discovery of the Void - as a basis for their case, but also the far more firm reasoning that Vekh bioships appear to utilise time magic to 'skip' forward in time. The reality is that both sides are correct, and - as is so often the case - they're mainly talking past one another; time travel forward is theoretically possible, but the further one wishes to go into the future, the exponentially more Aether is required - and as time cannot be reversed even with infinite Aether, reversing any temporal journey would be impossible. This is why the Vekh are capable of time travel, but only use it to jump bioships and their occupants a few seconds into the future at any one time, to conserve Aether.