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 the following: "Mages, even the mightiest and most faithful, shall no longer perform their art. No document pertaining to power drawn from the Other Side shall be kept. Routes to the Other Side shall be sealed. Ensure that none undertake to reopen them." Valon's followers were thorough in destroying every written mention of magic that could be found. Even Valon's own words are not written down, but rather known in the oral tradition of the Cult of Valon. Oral history generally maintains that mages in Elthos lost their power after Valon departed the world. Imperial law forbids the study of the Other Side.

There is still magic in the world, but it is rare. A few items or places are imbued with it, and their usage is acceptable to imperial law and society. Best known of these is a healing device of tremendous power known as Yatric's Gift, kept secure within the Houses of Healing.

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, 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 Spire of Ice, 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, most often the Yak.

The Other Side, the Empyrean and the Abyss
The ban on the study of the Other Side and inability of people to access it means that there is virtually no real understanding of what it really is. There is though a commonly-held view that there is or was a magical or spiritual realm called the Other Side, but what exactly it entails is a mystery - while a passing mention is unlikely to raise eyebrows, ongoing talk is quite a faux pas. 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 gods and to the spirits of the dead. Most churches keep their teachings grounded in the material world and talk of the Empyrean is, although acceptable, relatively uncommon; it is enough to them to state that people's spirits will go to their gods' sides when they die. The Abyss is held to be another spiritual plane, but one 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. Naming it at all is considered in many quarters to be an ill omen.