Six Magics of Aridryn: A Guide to Power, Risk, and Legacy

✨ Where Magic Comes From

Welcome to Aridryn, where magic is inborn and no one is sure which child will receive a gift. Only a few people are born with magic, and it is tied to them at an elemental level. Magic cannot be denied, transferred, or removed. If you are born with power, you must learn to control it—or risk being consumed by it.

There are six known types of magic in Aridryn:

• Berserkers wield fire and unmatchable strength.

• Wights alter the physical world, becoming invisible and blending objects.

• Druids control the elements: earth, water, and air.

• Oracles see what is hidden, both future and past.

• Empaths, only born on Anduan, feel and influence emotions.

• Dark Mages, the only inherited type, interact with the dead in the Void.

Though magic is not always visible, those with power can often sense one another. Some see auras. Others simply feel the presence of magic. Some are drawn to it like gravity.

Magic behaves like any other human ability. With practice, a person can expand their reach, but every user has limits. Magical energy depletes and must be recharged—recovery takes time, ranging from minutes to days depending on how exhausted the person became.

Historically, magic was respected and widely used. But the rise of the Ashkren Empire changed everything. For over 350 years, the Empire has hunted the magical. Magic became synonymous with threat.

Each magical gift is both a burden and a blessing. It can build or destroy, isolate or unite. It can become the very reason a person is hunted—or the very thing that sets them free.

In The Dark Mage, magic isn't just a force of nature. It's identity. It's survival. And it's legacy.

Here’s a deep dive into each of Aridryn’s six magical paths, the dangers they carry, and the power they offer to those brave enough to wield them.

🌲 Druid Magic – Rooted in Earth, Air, and Water

Druidic magic is the most prevalent—and the most trusted—form of magic in Aridryn. It is the magic of the living world: earth beneath bare feet, rain on skin, wind whispering through the trees. Druid magic feels familiar. Tangible. Ancient. It doesn’t challenge what is natural—it honors it.

Most druids are aligned with just one elemental force—earth, air, or water—though rare, powerful individuals can command all three. Even then, the magic has limits. It cannot conjure something from nothing. It amplifies what’s already there: coaxing seeds to grow, pulling water from roots, splitting stone, calling wind, calming storms. The strength of the magic depends on the druid’s connection to the world around them—and their respect for it.

Unlike other types of magic, druidic spells require gestures and incantations, often passed down through lineages or regional traditions. The more complex the spell, the more time it takes. Summoning rain on a cloudy day might take seconds. Calling it in a desert might take hours. Working with granite is slower and more exhausting than reshaping soft sand. Every interaction is a conversation with the land—and the land does not always say yes.

Historically, druids were the builders and healers of communities. They dug wells, redirected floods, carved temples into mountains. They could coax crops from dry earth and clear insects from a field with a well-placed gust. Because their power was so often used to help, they became beloved. Even under the Empire’s iron rule, druids were more likely to be overlooked than executed. Their magic, while still illegal, seemed… useful. Harmless. Gentle.

But it’s a mistake to underestimate a druid.

Esrin, the most prominent druid in The Dark Mage, can wield all three elements. His magic is elegant, sometimes even showy—like frosting someone’s wine glass or dancing leaves in the wind with artistic precision. But when called upon, he can summon gale-force winds or channel a river’s force into a single devastating blow. His magic is patient, but it is not weak.

And for Ren’wyn—though not a druid herself—there is a quiet reverence for the world druids belong to. The same wonder she holds for plants lives in the bones of druidic magic. It’s a love song to the natural world. A promise that the land itself can respond.

Druids are not just people with powers.They are those who listen—and the world listens back.

🔥 Berserker Magic – Fire and Fury in Human Form

Berserker magic is the most volatile and wild of the six powers—raw, visceral, and untamed. It pulses in the bloodstream like magma, and if left unchecked, it can destroy the very body that holds it.

Those born with berserker magic possess not only superhuman strength and endurance, but the ability to channel fire through their bodies—flames that can erupt from fists, cling to weapons, or blaze outward in waves of destruction. They are the sword and the wildfire, destruction and defense entwined.

But here’s the truth of it: berserkers are not monsters. Not inherently.They are people with power too big for their bones, people who must learn control every single day—who fight themselves as much as any enemy. Their magic is bound to emotion, especially anger and fear. If they suppress it for too long, it builds like pressure behind their ribs until it explodes.Unchecked magic leads to hallucinations, psychosis, or full mental collapse. The cost of bottling it up is far higher than releasing it.

Because of this, ritual release is essential to survival. Most berserkers practice “the Passage,” a series of weapon flows and body movements inspired by martial arts and tai chi—equal parts dance and warform. It’s both a release valve and a meditation. Fael, our leading berserker, practices the Passage with a kind of reverence. He knows what lives inside him. He respects the fire and does not let it burn uncontrolled.

Fael’s favorite form of expression is sparring with another powered fighter. He loves testing limits—his and theirs—not to dominate, but to understand. There's joy for him in combat, in physicality, in challenge. He is all heat and wild grace, but his soul is fiercely loyal and deeply soft beneath the burn.

In imperial times, berserkers were both revered and feared. The Empire has long outlawed magic, but berserkers are the only group occasionally co-opted into service—often as brutal enforcers or feared war generals. That past clings to them, staining how the world sees them. They're called volatile, dangerous, unpredictable.

But Fael is proof that fury doesn’t always lead to ruin. That fire can be held with care.That some of the most explosive people in the world are also the ones working hardest to be safe.

Berserkers live with the constant threat of their own power turning inward. But those who endure that struggle—who find balance between chaos and control—become something truly extraordinary.

🖤 Dark Mage Magic – Death and the Dead

Dark magic is not evil.

It is not wicked or cursed or vile.

But it is feared—for good reason.

Dark mages are born with a tether to the dead—a thread between the world of the living and the shadowed place beyond, known as the Void. Of all the magical types in Aridryn, theirs is the most mythologized, the most reviled, the most profoundly lonely.

Their magic is inherited, passed most commonly to the firstborn of a dark mage—though inheritance is never guaranteed. When their power awakens at age ten, it comes not with celebration—but with a visit from the Void.

That first encounter changes everything.

Each dark mage is accompanied by shades—ghosts bound to them in a spiritual bond that often lasts their entire life. These shades are not malevolent but are often the unsettled dead: those who died with unfinished callings, or violent ends. In Ren’wyn’s case, her shades are the souls of three siblings miscarried after her birth—a haunting that is both tragic and tender.

Dark mages are custodians of the forgotten. They see what others cannot. They speak to those who no longer have voices. They are not death itself—but its witness. Its steward. Its reckoning.

They can summon cold winds, call mists from the Void, and rend the veil between life and death with ancient gestures passed down from one dark mage to another. The strongest can awaken shades to fight, even kill, on their behalf. But there is always a cost. If a dark mage burns too bright—if they drain their magic before sealing the rift—they risk being dragged into the Void themselves.

Long ago, they were judges, death-priests, and ritual keepers. The best among them traveled the land, helping souls pass with dignity. The worst became executioners for hire, weaponized by kings and feared across continents. Even before the Empire’s purge of magic, dark mages lived on the fringe—feared, needed, and never fully trusted.

Today, they are hunted without mercy. Their power is not just disrespected—it is reviled, because it reminds people of what they want to forget:

Death is always watching.

And sometimes, it looks back.

Ren’wyn, our Dark Mage, is quiet and kind. She speaks to the dead with reverence. She settles what others leave undone. She is a reminder that gentleness can exist even in grief, that kindness does not require light, and that sometimes the ones closest to death are the ones most desperate to preserve life.

To fear a dark mage is to misunderstand what power really is.

Because death isn’t evil.

It’s simply the end of one story and the beginning of another.

🫥 Wight Magic – Transformation and Invisibility

Wight magic is a quiet thing.

It doesn’t announce itself with thunder or fire. It doesn’t demand awe like storms or prophecy. Wight magic slips past you—already watching, already shifting, already gone.

Wights are the changelings and the unseen. They bend the physical world: blending objects together at the molecular level, changing shapes, camouflaging themselves so completely they vanish from the human eye. Some manipulate items to fit a user’s exact body or intentions. Some merge weapon and shadow. The most powerful can reshape themselves—subtly altering their features until even their closest friends pass them by in a crowd.

There’s something eerie about them, something that unnerves people—not because they’re monstrous, but because they’re unknowable. You never know if a Wight is watching. You never know if a Wight is someone else entirely.

Historically, Wights were spies, assassins, inventors, and artisans. Their magic is detail-oriented, almost obsessive. They’re often introverted and careful, preferring solitude to spectacle. They don't wield brute force—they alter the rules of the game. In a society that values control, this makes them both valuable and terrifying.

Like Berserkers, Wights must discharge their magic regularly or face psychological deterioration. But where Berserkers explode outward in violence, Wights implode. Unspent power causes increasing paranoia, fractured identities, and eventually death. Some lose track of their original forms altogether.

Wights see the world as malleable. They are artists and architects of reality—not because they don’t respect it, but because they see what it could become. Their magic asks: What if this could be something else? What if you could vanish, remake, or redefine?

They are the keepers of secrets.The shapers of silence.The ones you never quite notice—until it’s too late.

And yet, not all Wights are sinister. Some simply want to belong without being seen. Some use their magic to protect, to preserve, to disappear from pain. In a world that punishes difference, Wight magic offers escape. Autonomy. Reinvention.

Their very existence asks the question:

Who would you be, if no one was watching?

💫 Empath Magic – Emotion Made Tangible

Empath magic is not just powerful. It’s personal.

Born only on the island of Anduan, empaths are tied to the land as much as they are tied to feeling. To be an empath is to be a living conduit of emotion—not just sensing the feelings of others, but absorbing them, reshaping them, and reflecting them back like sunlight on water.

Some empaths are blunt instruments—broadcasting joy or sorrow across a room like a wave. Others are as subtle as a sigh in a crowded ballroom, nudging a single emotion in a single person with surgical precision. The strongest among them can turn tides of battle, soften hardened hearts, or sow fear and unrest without speaking a word.

But every use of empathy comes at a price.Because to wield someone else’s feelings, an empath must first feel them fully.

Grief, anger, terror, desire—they pass through the empath like electricity through a wire. The more emotion they manipulate, the more it costs them. Too much, too long—and they break.

Empaths must train early. Without shields, an untrained child can unintentionally flood a classroom with panic or joy, creating emotional chaos with every passing thought. That’s why Anduan—still neutral in the Empire’s war on magic—remains a haven. Empaths are honored and protected there, given the resources and space they need to build boundaries between self and other. But those shields must be maintained with constant care. One crack, and the weight of the world comes rushing in.

Empaths were once valued above all others in political courts and royal houses. A skilled empath could smooth the tension of a delicate trade negotiation, sway a noble’s resolve toward justice, or bind together the wounded spirits of a broken army. They are diplomats. They are healers. They are living lie detectors and emotional architects of peace.

In The Dark Mage, Peria embodies the best of what empathy can be. She’s fierce, grounded, and wise far beyond her years. Her emotions run deep—rage and mercy and longing—and she’s learned not to be ashamed of any of them. She knows her power can shape the people around her, and she chooses to wield it with care.

When she senses injustice, she does not weep quietly.

She amplifies resistance.

She guides people home to themselves.

To be an empath is to walk through the world bare-skinned, braving every storm of feeling—and still choosing to offer comfort to others before retreating into your own pain.

👁 Oracle Magic – Time, Vision, and Prophecy

To be an oracle is to live in fragments.

Oracle magic is the most mystifying and least understood of all six gifts in Aridryn. Where druids command weather and empaths shape emotion, oracles are shaped by something far more elusive: possibility. They glimpse what might be, what once was, and—sometimes—what must come to pass.

It begins early: a child who speaks of things they could not possibly know, who dreams of moments yet to happen. As they grow, visions may strike at random—brief flashes, entire scenes, or cryptic riddles that refuse to be explained. Some oracles scry with mirrors or water. Others are pulled into trances with no warning, caught in a web of futures they cannot untangle.

The strongest oracles don’t see a single future.

They see many.

And it drives most of them to the edge of madness.

Because how do you live in the present when you can feel the pull of every future—some bright, some bloody, all incomplete until they unfold?

These seers were once cherished by kings and queens, sought for counsel, protected in temples or hidden in mountain sanctuaries. But too often, the power of foresight became a prized commodity, and oracles were stolen, manipulated, or broken by those desperate to control fate.

Now, most oracles live in seclusion by choice. The truly powerful ones retreat from the world entirely, building lives of quiet ritual and stillness, hoping the visions might come more gently—or not at all.

Not all oracles are consumed by prophecy, but all are changed by it.

In The Dark Mage, the presence of oracle magic is more myth than reality. Master Li, a teacher at Spyre Academy, is rumored to be one of the last. Whether that’s true or not… well, some truths are hidden on purpose.

But even without an active oracle on the page, the impact of their gift echoes through the world. The Empire fears them, because they cannot control what they cannot predict. The rebellion hopes they still exist, because sometimes a vision is all that keeps the fire alive.

🕯 Power Always Has a Price

Magic in Aridryn isn’t flashy or infinite.

It’s personal. Intimate. Bone-deep.

It doesn’t come from a spellbook or a blood rite—it comes from within. From who you are, not what you do. And like any part of our identity, it shapes us in ways we don’t always get to choose.

Each type of magic has its gifts, its burdens, its temptations. A druid may grow forests—or drown a city. A berserker might protect the innocent—or burn everything to ash. Even an empath’s compassion can curdle into manipulation. Because power is never simple, and in Aridryn, it’s not something you can hand back.

And maybe that’s why I created this system the way I did.

I didn’t want magic that could be learned. I wanted magic that could be survived.

So many of us live with invisible powers and wounds. Chronic illness. Mental health struggles. Trauma. Grief. Rage we’re told to swallow. Tenderness we’re told to toughen. And I wanted The Dark Mage to honor that. To show characters whose power makes them dangerous and beautiful. Characters who are feared and needed. Characters who must decide—again and again—what kind of person they want to be, even when the world has already made up its mind.

I still don’t know which magic I’d be born with. Some days I feel like a dark mage, heavy with ghosts I can’t name. Other days I long to be a druid, listening to trees and asking nothing of anyone. My empathy makes me raw. My rage makes me sharp. My anxiety makes me imagine every possible future, just like an oracle unable to stop scrying.

Maybe I wrote these magics as a mirror. Maybe Aridryn is just the shape of my own inner landscape—a place where softness survives and power costs something, but where love is still worth the risk.

And maybe that’s what I hope readers feel, too.

That there’s a place for their power.

For their pain.

For their quiet, raging, radiant self.

Magic doesn’t have to be loud to be real.

It just has to be yours.