Magic is a broad and diverse concept that underpins the primary diversion of the fictional world of Offetstine from the real world. Practicioners of magic, often referred to as mages, form a diminutive yet significant subset of the total population of the world of Offetstine.
Practices
Various magical practices exist in the world of Offetstine that usually have parallels to real-life pseudosciences or schools of magic in fantasy fiction. In many cases, the same name refers to a family of independently derived practices, which are often quite different in nature. Due to the fundamentally underground nature of magic as per the Masquerade, developments in magic very rarely trickle back to human science, although the fields are nonetheless considered pivotal to each other in their shared quest for applied, empirical knowledge.
While it is impossible to offer a comprehensive list of magical practices, for the same reasons as it is impossible to offer a comprehensive list of demi-human species, as the art of species taxonomy nonetheless aims to create. To that extent, this list is incomplete.
Editor's note: This section is very incomplete. There is no world in which the two most important fields of magic are "alchemy" and "necromancy". Fix urgently.
Alchemy
Full article: Alchemy
Named for the real-life pseudoscience of alchemy, often understood as the forebearer to modern chemistry, and its subsequent reifications in fantasy fiction, alchemy refers to the diverse set of magical arts in Offetstine that focus on the craft of potions and other materials that bear magical properties.
Necromancy
Full article: Necromancy
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Culture
Mages are generally known to form isolated communities when possible.
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Concepts
Demi-humanity
Full article: Demi-human
Demi-humans are a rare and diverse class of magical species that roughly demonstrate some form of humanity, usually in the form of sapience and humanlike bodies. While their exact nature is difficult to pinpoint, demi-humans are most often the result of magic affecting the body of an otherwise biologically human individual (such as with vampires and harpies), or causing a humanlike entity to manifest in a human-populated area (such as with spirits and deities).
While demi-humans are magical in nature, only a subset of them are themselves mages. Most demi-humans have magical abilities and powers, commonly including shapeshifting and various psychic powers, and they are generally not considered to be mages in their own right. Only some demi-humans are able to command a full, general-purpose school of magic and are considered mages.
Magical epistemology
Magical epistemology is the idea, named for its respective branch of philosophy, epistemology, that magic is a fundamental branch of the pursuit of knowledge as it pertains to humanity and demi-humanity. Many fields of science (especially anthropological and humanitarian, such as archeology and medicine) and magic regularly overlap in scope, and to that extent, it usually benefits mundane humans and mages alike to ensure that information and knowledge is exchanged between the two parties.
While no overt relations can exist as a consequence of the Masquerade, and under threat of the endangerment of many humans at the hands of more powerful mages, and vice versa, mages of the belief of magical epistemology often attempt to communicate knowledge and best practices across the barrier.
Despite this, due to the fact that magic often has a knack for violating certain laws of physics, especially those of thermodynamics, and the exact nature of this relation prevents many magical innovations from reaching the human world, or even being used to affect large swathes of people.
Some mages have used their talent to excel at human arts, such as the somewhat infamous schoolteacher, mathematician and aerospace researcher Eliza Teak, who has markedly used her magic to aid with space travel, chemical production and engineering and silicon fabrication. However, this is a niche use case and magic remains a largely private art.
Will of the People
One of the most prevalent ideas of magic in Offetstine is that concepts are often reified by nature that are prevalent in the minds of people, often referred to concretely as the Will of the People. Many concepts in the world of Offetstine, including magical species such as spirits and deities, are usually considered to be born only because of their prevalence in the minds of people.
Similarly, many common species, especially those that have notable ties to folklore such as most subspecies of vampire may usually trace their progeny back to a time and place in which the folklore was especially culturally prominent, such as in fictional storytelling, religious mythology or superstition, again implying that they were "willed into existence", as it were, by the people.
The exact mechanism of this phenomenon is still unknown, and notoriously difficult to harness despite the abundance of humans who have attempted to leverage this known phenomenon to confer magical power unto themselves. The relation of this power to social concepts of ethics and sympathy is unknown.