Illusionist
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Combat Style: Magic Combat Rating: Mystical Magic Style: Illusion,Enchantments Magic Rating: Low Preferred Races: Gnome Preferred Alignment: Any Preferred Weapon(s): Staffs, Staves Skills: Firebolt, Chilling Touch, Illusionary Flame, Obliterate Skill Weapon: Magical Skill Centers: Mage Training Centre
Description
Illusionist may seem a precise term, but it does, in fact, have many variations. Regardless of this, it is limited to what the caster is capable of envisioning in their mind. Many Illusionists will spend much time reading to broaden their minds; naturally, people with overactive imagination tend to have the advantage.
Illusionists, as part of their art, have to learn to hold complicated images and ideas intact to succeed in their minds. They often become rather good at making elaborate plans and schemes, making a skilled illusionist a powerful, valuable, and reliable ally but a lethal foe.
Novice
An amateur illusionist will often generate plain images with no real power behind them, using them merely like distractions to disguise physical attacks, such as attacking someone under the guise of a highway bandit while stabbing them with a real knife. Or, mages who practice multiple disciplines may disguise a real fireball under a string of soap bubbles.
Nightmarish illusions have been known to cause heart attacks in victims who believe them (more on believing below).
Some illusionists also tend to rely on the creation of imaginary creatures. This uses a lot of power and requires quite a solid mind-model to accomplish. Illusionists who can create convincing, mobile creatures are a bit more advanced than a novice, but not necessarily masters.
Master
Master Illusionists are extremely rare because usually, it's just easier to learn other types of magic for offensive spells. Someone who masters illusions must genuinely love it as an art form.
Masterful illusions are so convincing that the victim's brain harms the body in ways that defy natural law (but not arcane law, in which all bets are off). If a master illusionist casts an illusion of himself breaking a victim's knee cap with a bat, the victim's brain will make the knee cap shatter. It's a psychosomatic effect that only master illusionists have been able to pull off.
Believing Illusions
Regardless of the illusionist's skill level, all illusions require the victim to believe the spell. If the victim successfully disbelieves the spell, the illusion vanishes from the victim's mind's eye.
A victim who is frightened and repeats to themselves, 'This is not real. This is not real!' is not successfully disbelieving the spell. They are scared because, on some level, they believe the illusion could be real.
To successfully dispel an illusion through disbelief, the target must calmly and deeply intuit and know that the illusion is false. Only if they are secure in their knowledge do they succeed in disbelieving an illusion and erasing it from their mind's eye. This isn't easy to do in the heat of battle, and there is often a delay between seeing an illusion and calmly disbelieving it.
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