Just a curiousity that perhaps you Lore folks can answer for me; one thing I've always disliked a bit about Elder Scrolls lore is that magic seems to be fairly effortless, omnipresent, and have few drawbacks for the use thereof. This is based only on the portrayal of magic in the games, which is hardly a very solid basis upon which to decide if the setting treats magic very well.

So the question is; from whence does Magic come? Was it a gift from the various Gods, is it a mysterious "Force", are there consequences or dangers from the use of it?

This is your chance to change my mind about this aspect of the lore. Thanks for any help.

Magic comes from the sun (aka Magnus).

supposedly its supposed to be dangerous to use but that never showed up in the games. morrowind had a spell failure chance but no penalties. i used a mod that was based heavily on lore where you could cast higher level spells than normal but you ran the risk of stat and/or fatigue damage if it blew up in your face. i wish they would do magic that way cause it would make playing a psychotic mage more interesting if all you did was use high level spells from the get go and burn yourself to death from time to time.

Aetherius. When Magnus left the world after creating it, he punched a hole in the sky to escape through. That hole is the sun, and leads to Aetherius, which is a world of pure magic. The light (magic) seeps through, and well, yeah.

The energy that showers down from the sun to be harnessed by mortals is magic. Given its origin, you shouldn't be surprised that it is readily available.

Aetherius, where it all comes from, isn't just a ball of magicka, it's the orderly half of the universe that the Aedra come from, and more important than magicka is the matter of creative potential (creatia) that the Ayleids harvested and the Daedra lords use to construct their realms.

Well, I'm not really surprised it's readily available, just disheartened since I generally prefer low magic settings. In the case of TES though, I'm willing to make the rather large exception.

Since Magic comes from the sun, is there any reason that it shouldn't be less powerful during the night hours? I remember Daggerfall had Light-based and Dark-based casting, so is there a rationale behind this that I'm unaware of?

Would you care to satisfy my curiosity and provide an opinion?

People use the terms high- and low- but they don't always seem to be talking about the same thing. What do you consider a low magic setting and what is a high magic setting? Why does the difference matter to you?

It comes from the sun but mortals and Mundus are already saturated with it, so eight or nine hours of darkness every day doesn't dramatically decrease the readily available magic in the world. It's like the same concept as a solar panel or something. A powerful mage has lots of magic stored up at his or her disposal. The sun doesn't have to be shining directly on you to cast a spell or anything.

The stars are also portals to Aetherius, so they can also be tapped into. Apparently enough comes from them to still be easily available to whomever wants to use it, except for those certain few (as represented by those Daggerfall disadvantages) who work better with magic from the sun or the stars, I suppose.

EDIT: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-magic-sky being one of those who were apparently more attuned to the stars, so that's apparently not just speculation on my part.

The Spirit of Nirn. Yes.

And aren't the stars smaller versions of Magnus? Magic would seep through them, as well.

Come on, not all magicka comes from the sun, just a very large portion of it. There are also the stars, but they're smaller holes than the sun.

Even if a half of Nirn is shadowed by itself magicka still streams into Mundus from the sun-hole so doesn't "dry up".

It's really just personal opinion, I've always found overabundance of magical items, spells, or locations unsatisfying. Something about "Oh, there's another Wizard." or "So we travel to the flying fortress with our rings of Levitation..." that bothers me.

My absolute favorite setting is the Warhammer world, which isn't really -low- magic, just extremely dangerous and twisted magic.

As far as what I define each as, high magic is something like the Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms or The Elder Scrolls settings, while low magic would be the Song of Ice and Fire setting or Middle-Earth. The actual separation between the two doesn't mean I'll automatically like or dislike the setting (Not a big Middle-Earth fan, but I like TES).


As for the responses, I appreciate the clarification. One thing I like about this is that it makes sense in the cosmology, rather than just "being there".

so basically nirn is filled with superman clones. :sadvaultboy:

I understood low-fantasy to mean science and the laws of physics govern the world, while high-fantasy is a world governed by myth and the laws of magic. In a low fantasy, magic is subordinate to science(!). In a high-fantasy, the gods do something, and, all of a sudden, there's magic. Apparently, my understanding was wrong.

Cosmology says magic pours from the sun. Regardless of origin, the Spirit of Nirn is magic, and all humans share that spirit, so magic is truly from within; God is within, and it wants communication.

That is also my criteria for calling ES the highest of high fantasy, but in practice the distinction seems to rather more... stupid.

Aesthetics will win-out, because we're trafficking in symbolism.

Not totally wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy

I didn't claim it was; in fact, I specified that I like the TES setting all the more because it's not just irrational "magic", it actually makes sense when you consider the creation of the world.

I also think there's a distinction between high magic and high fantasy, so I'm not really sure how that conversation started. There's no denying that TES is very high magic, and is also high fantasy.

I still mostly prefer the more gritty, dark settings, but when I get a hankering for something a bit lighter, the fact that TES seems to have a fairly rich storyline and background beyond what is convenient for the purposes of the game series makes it far and above the best choice I've seen so far. Again, this is all just a personal opinion on it, I'm sure many people on here think I'm an absolute fool for liking the Old World.

I wanted to talk about it. :turned:

Magic seems to be inextricably linked with light in the ES world; there is the whole Magnus/Aetherius thing, and when you think of it, Welkynd stones and other random crystals in Ayelied ruins are always light-giving objects.

And the idea of magic being widespread is actually rather subjective. We see Tamriel as the player character, whom is naturally given access to magicka or a high percentage of enchanted items because of gameplay. But that's not to say everyone and their dog can whip out a fireball on command. Why would they need a Mages Guild if this was the case? My view was that magic items are fairly availalble - especially if you have money - but actual innate magical ability is not quite so common as we, the PC, are lead to believe. After all, from a purely gameplay standpoint, how many random NPCs have spells in their arsenal? Not many.

I disagree. Magic's most comparable to music, and spells require all the precision of a song. Magic abounds, yet few learn spellcasting.

Yes, being too available does somewhat lessen the mystery. Though I think it comes down to shoddy world building. In that respect a low magic setting restricts the possibilities more, thus automatically forcing thoughts about more creative alternatives. But if it's done properly though I don't think it should matter at all.

Kinda like smart phones these days.