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Worldbuilding Wednesday #4: Species and Magic
🕑 Added 2016-12-08 03:42:43 +0000 UTC Magical aptitude is based on a number of variables, such as the strength of the sun's radiation present when exposed at birth, but the most immediately obvious factor is species. Since magical output is directly tied to a person's biology, such as their metabolism and heart rate, certain differences in species can create more ideal conditions than others.The biggest one is the difference between Endothermic and Ectothermic (warm and cold-blooded, respectively) species.
Warm-blooded species, such as mammals and birds, spend a lot of their energy both internally producing, and radiating heat, and as a result, they produce a steady stream of magical radiation. This means that they will excel at any task that requires an atmosphere with latent magical energy, and can more easily power magical objects by themselves, but it also means that their magical reserves burn out more quickly and unintentionally. They also don't get to enjoy many of the benefits that come with stockpiling magical energy for long periods of time, unless they are a species that take periodic leaves of hibernation.
Cold-blooded species, such as reptiles, take all of their body warmth from outside sources like the sun, and waste very little energy on controlling it. While this does make them more sluggish on average, a reptile that can maintain a regular sun-basking cycle will have an extremely generous magical reserve that will last them for years. Some of the benefits that come from these reserves are accelerated tissue growth and healing, prolonged life, and heightened magical awareness. So reptile species will often grow very large very quickly, live extremely long lives, and be more sensitive to magical changes in their environment, at the expense of being less active than their endothermic counterparts. Tortoises especially are famous for their naturally long lives, with at least one example having survived for 1,500 years.
Some very specific examples of species physiology affecting magical interaction are:
-The heat pits in snake heads allow them to directly read the magical radiation around them, which has been discovered to reach both slightly backwards and forward in time, which makes them natural clairvoyants to some degree. The Serpent Kingdom is held in high regard for their prophets and detective minds.
-Species that practice echolocation, such as bats and various marine mammals, can add magical radiation coding to their cries, creating a "stealth" message that will only be picked up by a specific target listening in for a matching frequency. This was once widely used for covert warfare and rebellion during the days of the Canine expansion, but has fallen out of practice as codebreaking units of the same species have become more common on all sides.
-Since a person's unique magical radiation is carried through their bloodstream, the horned lizard has found a bizarre side effect to its already bizarre defense mechanism of squirting a blood mixture from its eyes. The blood strikes a target, and once hitting the open air, gives off a specific frequency of radiation that can be detected by the lizard over large distances, and will persist even after a few washings. As each lizard has their own slightly different magical signature, this makes them effective trackers even with multiple active units.
Opossums, of course, suffer a major detriment, due to effectively having their magical frequencies inverted. Their body is under the strain of affecting magic without having a pool of their own, which wears out the organs over time, most of all, the heart. They've developed a faster natural metabolism, which further complicates matters, resulting in their famously shortened lifespans.
Next Wednesday, I'll be discussing the global mechanics of Winter on Flora.
