Vis

Vis (pronounced “WEES”) is pure, unbound magical power, and is sometimes found stored in physical substance or partially constituting it. Vis bound into a physical substance is called raw vis and it has many uses for magicians.

Raw vis is almost always associated with a particular sort of magic (such as certain type of elemental magic), and may also appear in a a sort of matter appropriate to the art it is representing (for instance, vis associated with air magic may be in feathers, while earth vis may be found in certain stones). Once used, the power of raw vis is lost and the physical form is usually somehow changed or degraded – for example, stone containing earth vis might crumble.

Alternately, as magic is necessarily a force of Chaos acting upon the fabric of Law in the universe, raw vis is Chaos bound within the substrate of Law, and as such typically has most of the mundane properties of the existing item; for instance, the feathers above dealing with air magic vis will be soft and light, and the earth vis stones will typically weigh the same as normal stones and can be used for things as per normal stones. However, the Chaos within often causes some glaring change that would be considered supernatural or miraculous, and can often be identified as special. (Unfortunately, this often means there are a large number of fakes.)

Raw vis can be used for a number of things:

• Casting spells without expending a memorized spell (typically, one pawn of vis per spell level)
• Strengthening spells (such as forcing penalties to saving throws, extended range or duration, etc)
• Performing rituals
• Enchanting magical items or creating scrolls and potions (depending upon the requirements of the item, ink or potion)
• Magical research

Raw vis is very rare, and as such, to find an ongoing source of raw vis is a great boon to a magician. Many magicians will go to great strides to hide the sources of their raw vis and secure them for their own use. As such, it is unlikely that any sources will necessarily be publicly known.

Raw vis is also used as a kind of magical currency among magicians. One unit of raw vis is called a pawn. Ten pawns are said to make a rook while ten rooks make a queen which is a near-legendary amount of raw vis, highly unlikely to be possessed by a single magus.

The value of raw vis varies according to its form, but the value of a pawn of raw vis is typically around a stone of gold (about 1250-1500 GP).

Just because an item is used in a formula for a spell, ritual, potion, magical item, etc., or has a magical property means it is raw vis. Remember, raw vis is unbound magic in its purest form, while the ingredients are items that have a particular magical or alchemical nature.

The idea for vis and some of the notes are adapted from the game Ars Magica by Atlas Games.