Magic

For the majority of people in the empire, the world is a mundane and material place. Magic is the stuff of stories, and most of it vanished at the end of the Third Greytide after Valon passed through the Empyreal Gates. Valon's final words to his companions apparently included a direction that nobody should study magic or the Other Side. There is a stark lack of writing about magic, apart from allusions to it in broad terms, in what few historical texts exist, and most believe that writing about magic invites ill fortune. Tales are still told, though with over half a millennium having passed since the Greytide, their veracity is open to question and specific details are scant and frequently contradictory from one storyteller to the next. Imperial law, and indeed the law of much of central Elthos, forbids writing about magic or the Other Side, although even in places not subject to imperial law, such writing ceased long ago. Even in Hadash, the most recent entrant to the empire, there is no tradition of studying magic, because it was ultimately a fruitless endeavour by would-be arcanists.

There is still magic in the world, but it is rare in most places. There is no prohibition on having or using a magical item, in principle, not that such items are available in practice. A few places are believed to be imbued with magic, such as the Icespire or Wayguard.

There are exceedingly rare instances of individuals being born who manifest innate powers - such people are called godtouched, and whenever one is found, they are swiftly taken as a ward of one church or another, regardless of their age. Godtouched are believed to be an ancient phenomenon and their power is understood to be of divine origin. None in the Empire could say what distinguishes godtouched from mages, but the idea that there is a distinction is firmly engrained. Godtouched never hold any power or position of consequence in any church. As far as most are concerned, that is simply how it is, though the more cynical might speculate about the reasons. Although the powers wielded by godtouched pale in comparison with the might of ancient mages of myth and legend, the people who some assume must have cast back the First and Second Greytides, they are still potent, but come with a cost: they can be extremely draining to the godtouched, sometimes even dangerously so.

The people of the Commonwealth of Hana and Lonin are by far the most likely to concern themselves with magic, although for them, it is often a horrifying prospect, brought by creatures that come south from the Terror. Some believe the Icespire, the citadel of Vilslev, home to House Albalaski, to be of magical origin, such is the size of the fortress and apparent strength of its walls. Others wonder if the fertility of the Whitewater Plains, amid otherwise desolate tundra, is a consequence of magic - many more believe it is thanks to the beneficence of the totems.

The Other Side, the Empyrean and the Grey Below
The magic that people used is generally held to have been drawn from the Other Side. Most believe that the Other Side is or was a magical or spiritual realm, but what exactly it entails is a mystery lost to time, with no more than speculative stories about it today.

Another spiritual plane, called the Empyrean, or Heaven, is generally believed to exist. That too is deemed to be a spiritual realm and home to the central Elthosian and Dyrian gods, and to the spirits of their dead worshippers - River and Sun and northern totems are believed to be very much present in the real world and the spirits of the dead remain with them. Generally though, most churches keep their teachings grounded in the material world.

The Grey Below is believed to be another spiritual plane, but one typically only mentioned in the context of the stories of the Greytides, and even then often without actually naming it, or in the vows of people such as the Knights Custodian. Discussions of it are quite a faux pas. Even naming it is an ill omen in some quarters.