Modern scientists in the real world have discovered that all matter is composed of some 100 elements. Everything we know is built of these elements in different proportions and configurations. These elements interact in a way in keeping with natural laws which man attempts to understand through study of physics and chemistry. In the fantasy multiverse of Karador, all things have about them something else in addition to the chemistry of the real world from which they are formed. These are metaphysical substances refereed to as Essences, Primes and Vanderants, and there are thousands of them. Consider the vast reality about you in the real world and the great possibilities that come from merely 100 or so basic building blocks. Imagine now what possibilities exist with thousands of metaphysical ones.

"Magic" is in essence the metaphysical chemistry and physics of manipulating Essences, Primes and Vanderants. Though you might think that this is what wizards and other mystical creatures do, it isn't. Actual casting of real magic is exceptionally rare. What most spell casters do is refereed to by those few in the know as " invoking the contingency". Thaumatergy and magic in its real form of producing desired effects by controlling interactions of Essences, Primes and Vanderants is EXCEPTIONALLY complicated. Most deities even lack the knowledge of how to work and weave true magic with any skill.

Before the world as we know it existed, there were a group of beings known to only a rare few as the Diablum. There numbers were only some 900, but each was many more times powerful than the deities we know of today. It was these beings who existed before practically all others that knew of the Essences, Primes and Vanderants within all things, and learned to manipulate them as modern scientists have learned to use chemistry and physics. The Diablum did not live only on one world, or even one plane. At that time, all of creation was their home. Many of the creatures that have existed have been created by, members of the Diablum through one method or another. Though the Diablum were capable of creating life, they saw the path of evolution far more thamaturgically pure than spontaneous generation. Thus the Diablum manipulated life to only the most minimal levels to produce their desired effects. When wishing to produce a creature, it was more sound to alter DNA slightly with the knowledge of what results wit would produce in many thousands of years than to form a being of the stuff around it. To a great degree, the Diablum were the gods that mortals suspect that the deities were.

As Elemeray would have it, the Diablum even in their great knowledge were not perfect. They too waged war upon each other, for reasons we do not know. Factions formed, and armies of servants were created. how long this "war" lasted, none is sure of. One thing is sure, though known by such a rare few. For them, their knowledge of magic had grown, and so did their need for its more efficient use. No longer were the Diablum content to practice magic in its lengthy form as they had. Rather the contingency began. Simply at first. Only the most progressive or cunning of them began. It gave them such a profound edge that soon all of them began to work their own contingencies. In the end, what happened to the Diablum is unknown. Perhaps they destroyed each other. All we know is all that is left of them is great remnants of their armies which would seed all the multiverse, and of course the contingency

What is the contingency you ask? Well lets start with explaining a bit more about Essences, Primes and Vanderants. These are three types of forces or energies that exist within all things. Unfortunately not all things contain all of the thousands of different types of theses. Creating magic first requires that you have the proper Essences, Primes and Vanderants, just as creating a can of Coca Cola requires that a skilled person have all the basic ingredients. Now.... If a particular thaumaterical process requires you have Essence, Prime, and Vanderand A, B, C, D, these must be obtained not by finding them individually, but by finding something else which contains three forces to be used in that process. Thus many odd materials were sought for their containing of various forces, rather than simply the forces themselves. By the same kind of logic that when Coke is producing their beverages, they obtain water, as a base, rather than a bunch of hydrogen and oxygen and binding them together. It just makes more sense. Secondly, the contingency is kind of misleading. There is not one big network, but thousands and thousands of smaller independent ones. Now, what exactly is a contingency? In essence a contingency is generally an elaborate set up, often an entire mountain hollowed out, or great vaults in some moon or other, which have a great and complicated thaumatergiacal set up in place such that powerful magics will in essence perform themselves at the request of an operator who can often be anyplace. Many such sites provide energy and materials to other sites. To a great degree, they function in a way like several Thaumatergical perpetual motion devices which produce more reaction than they require to maintain themselves. The number of such sights throughout the multiverse are unknown, but there must be many, each well hidden and guarded. Few single sights were meant to be used on their own. Rather a sight might produce one or more Essences, Primes or Vanderants. Other sights would produce thaumatergical processes of manipulating these forces. Sites would generally be activated by their creators, and later by other, by means of special words, gestures, symbols, phrases, etc. Thus one of the Diablum would no longer have to endure long thaumatergical processes on the field of battle, rather with the pre prepared contingency, he could simply invoke words and phrases to have the proper forces conjured and manipulated to produce the desired effects. Thus the beginning of "spells". For the most part however, the Diablum did not need pre determined formula of the necessary invoking of their contingency. Rather they understood the process of thaumatergy and their contingency sights well enough that they could invoke as needed on the fly. Eventually however, members of the Diablum began to teach their most trusted servants to use their contingency by means of pre prepared formula that the servant seldom understood yet would produce a single reliable effect. This is the first example of a "spell", and is none too different from spells mages use today. Mages like the servants of old don't understand too well how forces are being manipulated to create desired magics. The mage has a vague understanding that by saying " ya, Ackab, yin, toth lokum" water turns to dust, but don't know exactly how or why. Continuing with our Coke analogy, I know when I put the right sized metal discs in the big red box and press the right button a can of Coke comes out. I kinda understand that Coke is made of water (H2O), sugar, syrup, and other stuff, I most certainly could not go home and make myself a can of it. Further into the Diablum war, It is though that members of the Diablum would raid each other's contingency sites and destroy or subvert them. As this practice continued, more and more servants learned contingency invocation, and soon, races began to develop spell use ( some with the teaching and blessing of their masters, others without). Thus was the beginning of spellcraft as we know it today. Still today countless races struggle trying to invoke more of the contingency more efficiently. Different races have vastly different magic systems, based upon the working of the particular bit of the contingency they have inherited knowledge of. Now with the Diablum gone, the living try to build systems of understanding what is perhaps the second greatest creation to existence itself.

Spell casters today DO NOT understand real thaumatergy or magic. What they do understand, and are becoming more proficient in is the manipulation of contingency effects that they have knowledge of. At this point in time, the greatest mortal mages on Karador have knowledge to access about .22% of the total existing contingency in the multiverse. The dragons of Karador have near .8 % knowledge. Deities, Arch Demons, devils and the like in their "infinite" wisdom generally use 1%, with the most devoted to the cause often nearing 2-3 % The biggest drawback to using the contingency is that it focuses energies from god knows where through the caster. This is exceptionally taxing on a mortal. After all, it was never designed for such. Members of the Diablum had no such difficulty, neither did their greater servants. This is why Mortals are only allowed the casting of a particular number of spells in a day. It is simply too taxing on both their body and their own thaumatergical make up. As casters become more experienced, they become more adaptive the energies flowing through them. Even deities can only do so much, as impressive as it is. A second great drawback to the contingency use it how complicated it is. Not only are the combinations arcane and complex, many are redundant, and some seem contradictory. Much of this is because the magic system used my most mortals on Karadon are those of three different members of the Diablum, and none of these three in anyplace near their entirety.

There are a rare few practitioners who practice what is known as Diabolism. Diabolism is a very basic, almost primitive by comparison, practice of producing effects using a mixture of real thamaturgy or magic and a bit of the contingency. It is performed by using more of the actual required essences, primes and vanderants from materials used. To some degree appropriate manipulation of those forces is achieved by other more basic processes. Obviously this is slower, more material intensive, and much more complicated, but it's effects are more pure and a user can create more potent effects than his body or spirit could handle because the contingency is not focused through it. Practitioners of this are known as Diabolists, and most of their art derives from formula passed down long ago when the Diablum were still creating the contingency yet needed their servants to aid in its creation and fight their wars with at least some magic.

As is evidenced by the existence of magic, sites of the contingency still function today. They were built by immortal creatures to last a lifetime as it were. Over eons, it is a safe assumption that some of these sites have been destroyed or simply run out, though magic is far from dead. After all there were many members of the Diablum, and for the most part each of them built their own versions for their own ends. Practically any site that is lost, there is likely to be a redundant one someplace, or several others that in conjunction can produce the same effects. The problem with a site being destroyed is that lord only knows what effects it will have to who. Generally the contingency is so vast, the multiverse so big, and so much of the contingency undiscovered in the first place, the loss of a sight sight might never be noticed (by Karador's mortals, dragons, or even gods that is). For the Game Master's knowledge, there are 6 such sites on Karador, and 37 others on planets, moons and other celestial bodies that share her sun. 4 of these 6 have at one time or another been discovered and explored by somebody or another ( generally groups of deities). Remember that these places are incredibly magnificent, and practically beyond comprehension anyways. They were designed to be hidden and protected even from the likes of other members of the Diablum. Only Deities have much of a chance there, and even that is slim. Perhaps I will talk about some of these sites sometime if people show interest. This information is presented not for real in game use, but more for the GMs Information just in case.

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