Types of Magic
Magecraft is the art of drawing aether into your body, typically using a specially cut crystal, guiding its path through a series of runes, and releasing it to a specific effect. It is both mentally and physically taxing, and very dangerous if done incorrectly. As such, magecraft is usually practiced by those who have access to experienced teachers; untrained mages rarely make it past their first few experiments without badly injuring or even killing themselves.
Some beings, notably fae and elementals, have natural physiological structures for aether to flow through. These conduits, typically known as spellveins, can be utilized with minimal thought or effort, and often produce less strain on the body as they provide less resistance to the flowing aether. However, they tend to be narrow in effect, compared to the infinite versatility of magecraft. And while fae and elementals can study magecraft, many struggle to work around their spellveins and to go against their instincts.
In the modern era, the most common form of magic in daily life is runetech. Rather than risking their own bodies through magecraft, people have long sought to offload the dangers of magic onto objects. The principals are similar--shaping some sort of tube or piping into a series of runes, filling it with a conductive liquid, and using a crystal lens to draw aether into it. In the past century, advances in glassworking and artificial crystal creation have sparked an industrial revolution of mass-produced runetech, which is used in every aspect of life--manufacturing, military, consumer goods, and more.
