GODDAMN RIGHT YOU CAN

So I suppose the thing that bears mentioning that the way magic works in Alleirat is that a magic user (called a ‘worker,’ except for those who use fire magic) has inherent ability for a mode of using magic—they can channel magic in fire, in water, in plants, in metal, whatever, but they can’t do magic in anything else.  Someone who can channel magic through living plants can’t do the same with thread or water or fire, and they’ll never be able to learn.  So this can get REALLY specific really fast—someone might specifically be a silk worker, for example, or a bronze worker.  It’s more common, however, to specialize into a wide category, like ‘weather’ or ‘metal,’ so I’ll cover a few of the more common and/or pertinent ones.

• Fire magic, obviously.  Fire magic is revered as blessed by the Wanderer, the Alleirai god of fire, battle, and lies.  Brenneth, the main character, is a smith, which—in this universe—means that she’s specifically a broadly trained blacksmith with the ability to work in fire magic.  (Fire magic users are called fire smiths, not fire workers.)  This is pretty much what it says on the tin, with one major exception: unlike most fantasy universes where a mage can summon and throw fireballs, this is mundane fire, which means it needs fuel.  A fire smith of sufficient power can project a pillar of fire, but it’s incredibly short lived and impractical as a weapon.  Combat fire smiths generally carry small grenade-like packages that splash flammable oil over their target, when they can then ignite with ease.  

• Brenneth is something of an exception to this rule, because her trademark is something called white fire—white in Alleirat indicating death/deadly.  White fire isn’t actually white in color, but it’s the colloquial name for dragon fire, which needs no oxygen and no fuel save for the magical power and anger of the wielder. Brenneth earned her title of Fireheart by her preferred fighting style of igniting her sword with white fire—she refuses to teach this trick to anyone on the argument that it’s a dangerous technique with the potential for mass destruction, and she expects it to die with her.

• Weather magic, also obviously.  Weather magic is revered as blessed by the Lady of Stars, the Alleirai goddess of storms, stars, and fallen things.  Crispin is a powerful weather worker—and a fallen thing, and yes I am very pleased with that goddess.  Again, pretty much what it says on the tin, although to varying degrees.  Some weather workers expend themselves completely bringing down a single lightning strike, others—like Crispin—can rally hurricanes and still be standing.  Crispin is one of only a very few weather workers in history to be powerful enough to summon winds that are sufficiently strong and precise to carry him.  Much like fire smiths, combat weather workers often use an aid to direct their magic—it’s energetically taxing to aim lightning strikes, more so the further from one’s self the strike is going, so many weather workers carry rapiers.  They strike the rapier, which is close to themselves and strongly conductive, and then direct the charge at their target.

• Plant workers are also pretty much what it says on the tin, with the exception that a lot of plant workers have actual plant heritage—briatan are tree-people, descended from the universe-equivalent of dryads.  The briatan are more powerful, but less precise than pure human planet workers.  Isla Akekrei, generally known as Krei, the daughter of Brenneth’s old right hand woman and Brenneth’s new military ally, is briatan and a powerful plant worker—akekrei means oak. Krei, like many briatan plant workers, has tattoos in various plant-based inks on her arms, which she can manipulate and move around at will, and, also like many plant workers, she wears cuttings of vines and other plants on her person, which she can use as weapons.  You know that scene in Sky High where Layla flips out?  Yeah, like that.

• Flesh workers, ironically, are probably the most feared people in Alleirat, save Crispin himself.  Flesh workers channel magic through living flesh, which means they’re the magical healers in-universe.  However, a flesh worker is equally capable of healing a mortal wound or of clapping their hand to someone’s chest and making their heart explode, making every bone in their body shatter, or flaying them alive. The moment blood stops moving through the body, a flesh worker’s power is no longer capable of affecting an individual, but up until that point…  As long as they have skin-to-skin contact, a flesh worker can do pretty much whatever they want, no matter how physiologically improbable it is.  The only thing they really can’t do is reattach a completely severed limb. Incidentally, this is the most common kind of worker overall—and again, there are degrees—and the most common type of worker to go full dark side.  There’s a whole cadre of flesh worker assassins because, shocker, they’re the best at it.

• Death workers, on the other hand, are viewed in a similar way to healers in most fantasy universes—people literally cannot fathom a death worker going dark side.  Death workers are basically a variant on necromancers, with the ability to see spirits who’ve become trapped on the “wrong side of the day” (Alleirai religion says that spirits exist between days/on the other side of a day, and keep watch on their loved ones) and raise the dead as…puppets, I guess.  It’s very rare that the latter ability is used, and generally death workers are sort of like grief counselors/priests, responsible for performing funerals and speaking to the bereaved.  

• That being said, death workers are fearsome in combat.  There are stories from back when Alleirat was a bunch of small warring city-states, millennia ago, about death workers at war, and this is how they usually go.

• Two armies have been at war for years, and one, City-State A, is finally losing.  They know that if City-State B wins the war, they’ll sweep in and slaughter everyone left in City-State A, burn their cities—the traditional Sack of Magdeburg-esque situation.  So, a powerful death worker who’s been serving to ensure that all the spirits of the dead are safely on the other side of the day goes to her lord.
• “Lord,” she inevitably says, “I have the power to end this war, here and now.”  
• Her lord demurs, because what she’s offering is horrific in the Alleirai culture—you never ever tamper with a dead body except to put them to rest in the manner specified by the dead person.  This is a capital crime.
• “I will do this, and you cannot stop me,” she says.  “So bring in all the guards and tell the camp to go to sleep, and I will save us, and then I will die for what I’ve done.”
• Her lord agrees, because what other choice is there?  And the camp goes to sleep, and the death worker walks out onto the battlefield, where the bodies of the dead are neatly laid out and waiting to be laid to rest.  She stands in the middle of the dead, and she reaches out her hands, and all around her, they stand and take up weapons and march toward the enemy lines.  There is a single night of battle.  Every enemy soldier who falls is raised to march in the death worker’s army, and there are always more dead bodies to drive forward.
• The sun rises. The camp wakes.  The enemy lines are decimated, littered with dead bodies, and some distance away, somewhere with a clear view of the entire battle, the death worker lies dead.

• The worker wreaking havoc as a weapon of a lordling when Brenneth and Crispin come back to Alleirat?  A death worker fallen through from Earth named Hoshiko, with no friends, no support, and a conviction that she’s going insane.  ILY Shiko, I’m sorry I’m mean.