Notes on the nature of magic and sacrifice

Though the gods made constant war on each other, up until fairly close to the end they were surprisingly civil as to how they went about it. They chose a battleground together, and they reached a mutual agreement about many of the tools and weapons they used, such as the well of magical power that they created for their worshippers to wield against each other.

Magic is a power source. Discounting the corruption that now festers in its depths, it is value neutral. It is a source of energy that was designed to react to the will and desire of its users, and to conform easily to structure imposed from outside. Thus, rituals used by those with a firm purpose in mind will draw power from the well and cause it to shape itself into different forms.

There are those that say that magic itself has a kind of sentience, a rudimentary intelligence that responds to and communicates with those that try and use it, that consciously shapes itself in conformance with the desires of the mages wielding it. This has never been widely accepted or proven, and if true, nobody knows what effect the corruption has had on that mind.

While there is no consensus as to whether or not magic is alive in and of itself, it is clear that magic reacts to life, and is tied to life force in some way. Natural plants and animals will draw up and store a small amount of magic by themselves, and can even use it in rudimentary ways. Thus shamanistic mages have found ways to use plants and animals as intermediaries between themselves and the raw force of magic, sacrifices of plants, animals and people can give access to a sudden burst of power, and natural ingredients can aid mages in the casting of their spells.

Some shaman have found ways to use sacrifices to place a barrier between themselves and the corruption at magic's heart, or at least they believe they have. The idea is to use another person or being to cast a spell through, allow the corruption to infest that person, and kill them at the height of the spell, this gaining both an extra boost of power and a filter for the corruption and it's effects.