Shades of Grey: Mages

Mages are ordinary, mundane muggles who've had their eyes opened to the rest of the world. Often times it happens because they almost die--or actually die--and Awaken to the abilities they have. While most people see their lives flash before their eyes, Mages experience a sort of spiritual journey where they look deep into themselves and find the ability to do what they need to do.

In addition to not dying when killed, Mages are gifted with magic. They can call forth spirits and summon up fire and all that jazz. When they awaken they are usually (and often quickly) found by the Mages' Association and they are either learned in the ways of magic (generally made to understand the rules of magic and then dumped on an apprenticeship). Some find that their modest or miniscule talents aren't worth it, and they don't bother practicing the Ars Arcana. They see it as too difficult to become skilled, too dangerous. Others do, and are the ones who go on to become Mages.

Their greatest task is to make a Pact with a Phantom and protect society at large.

I'll deal with the laws of magic later. For now, the Mage's relationship with Phantoms.

Mages are human beings who can tap into spiritual energy, the same energy that powers and makes up spirits. They can use their willpower and emotions to manipulate that energy, allowing them to perform magic. Now, there are many different forms of magic, from tracking to just plain old shooting fireballs, but one of the most important things that mages do is making a Pact with a Phantom.

The Pact isn't really so much an agreement as a binding process. The Mage enables themselves to channel mana into their Phantom, allowing the Phantom to use more power. They also embody the Phantom. Embodiment will be covered later as well, but the short version is that they give the Phantom a physical form.

Together, the mage and the phantom form a fighting team. Of course, it's perfectly possible for them to talk out any differences that they have. Possible, but not likely. The life of a mage is never a simple one, and there's a reason most of them live in seclusion.

While the Minister and Magister are likely in their partnership to take on any number of supernatural baddies to keep the place safe, the original Pacts were formed to deal with Shades. More on those later as well. The short story: Evil spirits.

That's about it for now. Later I'll get into how magic works, why bad magic is bad, and of course Phantoms and Shades.