Nishiiwa Aurora's Magics

The Art of Chaos

The core of Rora's belief is that reality is "layered"--that some things are true at one layer that are not true at others. Magick is the process of either shifting one's perceptions to attune to one of those layers, or to work through them to affect your own.

In order to do this, however, one must first find a way to access those layers. Rora refers--when she thinks about it this deeply, which is rare--to the layers as "smoke" [an ephemeral and difficult to manipulate substance] and the techniques used to access them as "mirrors" [a means of changing perspective]. Hence, all magick is a matter of "smoke and mirrors"--a pun which pleases her chaotic nature to no end.

Getting specific:

Manipulating the other levels of reality really is generally likened to manipulating smoke, understandably. Her various Paths each use different means to do so; these means tend to be influenced heavily by her teacher in the Path, though taken to different degrees.

Blowing Smoke: Names, Chants and Prayers. Names were one of the first ways that man altered the world around him. Chants and prayers, too, amount to "blowing smoke"--they shape the chosen layer of Reality to conform to a specific form, meeting the needs of the caster. Note that precision is ESSENTIAL--just like blowing a smoke-ring, if you get it a bit wrong, all you end up with is a mess. Likewise, it must be verbalized, though a whisper is acceptable--simply running through the chant in your mind is insufficient. Shadowcasting, Fortune and Weathercraft use this; so does Summoning, now that she has started learning that Path. These are her most 'Hermetic' Paths, as they involve control through the caster's Will, focused through Words of Power.

Breathing Smoke: Altered states of consciousness. Almost an inversion of the previous technique, this entails raising one's senses to the level of reality you wish to work with, and then affecting them directly. In doing so, you draw the stuff of the other layer into yourself--Breathing Smoke. This is how she envisions her various ecstatic states; a concept reinforced by her awareness that drugs can be used to do so [although she hasn't resorted to that method, yet, prefering the tantric meditation techniques she's learning from Grace as more "natural"]. Mana Manipulation, Oneiromancy, Divination and Fascination all use this approach.

Filtered Smoke: Making the formless substantial. Like those old anti-smoking demos where someone blows smoke through a rapidly-yellowed white cloth, it is possible to make smoke solid by catching it with the right filter, making it more lasting and effective. Of course, each filter is a new trick in and of itself--this is the method behind Enchantment and Alchemy/Herbalism. As with any exercise in blowing smoke, precision is key--set the weave too loose, you trap nothing; set it too tight, and you trap something you don't want. Her mixes and objects are filtered at just the right weave for what she wants them to do [hence the reason that moving too fast on mixes can have undesired side-effects, and her items occasionally do, as well--she can't properly filter for things she can't anticipate]. These Paths tie into her folk magic learning--the 'filters' she uses are often based on folk lore and urban myth, which she regards as 'natural filters', which she then refines.

Twisting Mirrors: Mirrors alter the way one sees things. They can distort and obscure, or they can clarify and allow a more encompassing vision. They are, in themselves, windows that lead to the other layers, and so allow the caster to use them to reach out and manipulate that layer directly. Conveyance, Conjuration and Pakua all use such means, in different measure. Another Hermetic-esque technique, emphasizing the dominance of the caster's view of reality.

Breaking the Mirror: Shattering an image entirely, to make it anew. Currently the only path that uses this approach is the first she learned, Skinchanging. This one draws on folk-lore, again, of the superstitions around 'body doubles' and dopplegangers.

There are a number of secondary aspects of her paradigm, as well.

The first of these is the notion of the importance of 'secrets'. Rora firmly believes that, just as Magick is a trick of perception, sharing one's perspective not only shares power, but diminishes it. A view which is not unique has less power than one which is known to only a few. This is one reason pop-culture "magic" doesn't work--even if a few centuries ago, the techniques were valid, by being mass-marketed, they've been dilluted to the point of losing power. In order to be truly effective, magick can only be taught to a select few--and a secret stolen is more potent than one learned "above board".

Mana/Quint is viewed by Rora as the space that's "between" the smoke tendrils--that's why she has to breathe the smoke in and become one with it [ie, achieve an ecstatic state] to work with it directly. While she calls it 'Juice', she thinks of it more as 'pure air'.

The distinction between Sleepers and Sorcerers is now pretty clear--Sleepers lack the PoV. If they were to develop their own means to achieve a truly unique perspective--one that tapped into the upper layers of reality in their own way--they could work magick, too, and it would be unique to them.

Awakened Magick, OTOH, is a mystery to her. She literally believes that Mages such as David Chemehandra have spent the effort on learning countless individual "mirrors" in order to achieve their effects, as opposed to having an all-encompassing understanding of Forces and Correspondence. She just doesn't get where they get the time.

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