Ars Magica
A Few Words on Magic:
What the uneducated call “magic” is in fact mind-control through sensual pleasure. A so-called “Charming Lie“.
While the subject enjoys something, the source of that joy (“charm”) can implant suggestions (“compulsion”) in his or her mind. These compulsions, depending on their strength, may cause the subject to engage in any sort of act, limited only by his or her abilities, even in direct violation of his or her will.
The Five Modalities:
Over its long history of use and abuse, charm has been systemized and refined into schools based on sensory modality, ordered hear from “high” to “low.”
Sight: Enpiction. Very fast-acting and explicit, but require eye-contact. Used in most civil compulsions.
Sound: Enchantment. Carries over distance, but affects all hearing people in area. Used in war and police action.
Taste: Enpotation. Can be deployed sub-consciously, but short-lasting in effect. Used in medicine and esoteric religious ritual.
Smell: Enfumation. Effective over large areas, even subconsciously, but uncontrollable. Used legally in ecstatic religious ritual. Also by bandits, pirates, and mob bosses to create minions.
Touch: Ensensation. Can act invisibly, but requires contact. Used legally to counteract other charm. Also in assassination, seduction, and witchcraft.
There also exist sub-school and cross-school charm, such as Enscription (the primarily Islamic charm of calligraphy), Engraving (the primarily Christian charm of sculpture and relief), Kinesthetics (dance), and Enprinting (the so-called meta-charm, recently invented and poorly understood).
Further Important Considerations:
Compulsion is separate from the content of the source of charm. A picture of a man murdering someone does not necessarily compel the viewer to murder someone.
Compulsion only works as long as charm continues. Once one stops paying attention to a work of art, its power ends. Enpiction is especially prone to being ignored, as the victim can simply close their eyes to shut off the charm. Most charmers combat this tendency by adding a pay attention or remember this compulsion to their work.
The strength of compulsion depends on how much one enjoys the art one is experiencing. It is weaker for other charmers (especially in the same sensory modality as the author’s preferred modality). Even people with little talent for art can desensitize themselves to charm through repeated exposure or by cultivating a jaded sense of superiority.
Some aspects of charm are universal (especially Enpotation, Enfumation, and Ensensation, the so-called lower modalities). In many cases, however, charm works only within a specific context of shared references. Enchantments designed to compel audiences in Istanbul, for example, lose potency outside the Ottoman cultural sphere. For this reason, it is imperative to expand this sphere.
