Devonian School

“Essence is the Law of Creation”

Devonian Sorcery

The Devonian School of Sorcery, sometimes referred to as the Darician School, is a highly influential school of sorcery within Creation today. The First Age sorcerer Devon (whom the ancient texts speak of as a student of Hano established a school and approach to sorcerous study that was highly analytical, based on experimentation and reference to objective factors. To the Devonian School, Creation is based upon a single principle, a master law, which dictates the behavior of essence and the nature of its reality. The goal of the sorcerer is to study and test theories in order to work towards that ultimate law, that Golden Rule. Even Devon did not achieve formulation of the Golden Rule, but he and members of his school proved able to formulate spells and (particularly) artifacts. The entire discipline of magitech is based upon the work of the Devonian School, and nearly all of that field’s most powerful and ancient works were forged by Devonian sorcerer-engineers.

The Devonian School holds that sorcery is universal and consistent: no matter if one is Solar Exalted, Dragonblooded, spirit, or enlightened mortal, sorcery demands the same input and offers up the same output. Where there were differences, they studied them to find the reason, to discover the shared root and the factors which made the end result SEEM to differ. This was then crafted into laws, which were compared and refined in an attempt to unify them and to reach the Golden Rule. In order to properly record and analyze, Devon and his followers were forced to draft new forms of mathematics, which bled out into not only other sorcerous schools but into the lives of Creation’s residents, to fuel complex architectural designs and financial instruments.

The center of the Devonian School was the sorcerous academy at Sperimin, which was regarded as the center of sorcerous study even by rival schools, its glories and acclaim unsurpassed. However, those who have access to the most ancient of tomes learn a most strange and disturbing development: the sorcerer Devon, whose school has had such influence across Creation and across time, not only through direct adherents but through its descendant schools such as the Theanoan School and Kinetropic School, met an unsettling end. One day, the sorcerer cast a great spell which instantly destroyed every text, spell, theory, and word he had ever put to paper. He then handed control of Sperimin to the sorcerer Salina, whose Salinan School had been a bitter (and entirely incompatible) rival to his own. He then vanished, without ever offering clarification as to his reasons.

This was a severe blow to the Devonian School, stripped of their master, the vast body of work he had accumulated to uncover the Golden Rule, and their well-funded sorcerous academy. Rivals asserted that Devon had realized his errors, had seen that there was no Golden Rule to be found, and had turned away from his system (Salinans going further to claim that he had gifted his school to the sorcerers his analytical mind knew to be correct). The Salinan School rose rapidly in the esteem of those not directly involved in sorcerous studies, and with its new power was directly enabled to accomplish the Salinan Working, an effort bitterly opposed by most Devonians.

However, the School was not merely one sorcerer. While many students, such as the theory-obsessed Theano, split from the Devonian School, Devon’s most acclaimed student Daric took the reins of the Devonians. Out of respect for his efforts to preserve the school, and anger at the actions of their founder, most Devonians took the name of the Darician School to describe their efforts from that point forward.

While Daric was a poor organizer and readily recognized as an awful writer, the School persisted on the strength of its artifice, even as its sorcerers dwindled and saw new students favour different schools. The Daricians were unable to halt the end of several major magitech projects, such as the Creation-spanning intelligence I AM. Some Sidereal Exalted (affiliated with the Bronze Faction of course) have theorized that the loss of infrastructure seen after the Usurpation would have occurred regardless, as Solar sorcerers left the Factory Cathedrals to pursue far different forms of sorcery.

Today, the Darician/Devonian School remains present in Creation, mostly amongst Scavenger Lords and states or tribes who interact closely with the relics of the First Age, but the vast majority of studies have abandoned the School’s focus on finding an underlying universal cause, and while they might retain the name are in practical terms part of the Kinetropic School.

Devonian Absorption

Source: Adapted from the White Treatise pp.22

School Minimum: Lore 3.

A Devonian sorcerer must believe in the repeatable, calculable nature of Essence and the power of careful observation, logic and experiment. His learning of sorcery will involve conducting extensive experiments in natural and supernatural science alongside and as part of his Sorcerous Initiation.

A sorcerer with the Devonian Absorption gains access to the following powers:

- Efficient Attunement: Manse and artifact attunements are repeatable experiments. With a successful (Intelligence + Lore) roll, difficulty ([Manse or Artifact rating] x 2), a Devonian sorcerer can attune to such a thing in 20 ticks instead of the usual twenty minutes. If he ever succeeds on the roll for a given object, thereafter he may always attune to that object in 20 ticks, without need to roll again.

- Extended Analysis: When a Devonian sorcerer analyzes a supernatural effect, his player’s (Intelligence + Occult) roll may be made extended (even if the initial roll fails to provide an answer). Each roll after the first represents a week of research and experiment, adding successes to those originally rolled (and, as they do not constitute a second attempt, not incurring retry penalties). Given time, the Devonian sorcerer can probably puzzle out any supernatural effect. A single botched roll means the analysis ends in failure — even the Absorption cannot solve every puzzle of Essence.

- Fundamental Pillar: Deep study of the rules and causes beneath each spell they cast helps a Devonian sorcerer cast spells despite interruptions. When the character’s Shape Sorcery action is disrupted, she may reflexively apply any Occult Excellency she knows to the (Wits + Occult) roll to carry on with spellcasting (an exception to the rule disallowing any Charm use during Shape Sorcery).