Glossary of Headworld Terms

Agent: A being that is entirely made of very dense solid magic. These beings are the result of a natural process whereby minds and personalities develop inside stable solid magic. Magic of this nature naturally tends to destabilize and break up, turn into things or create effects to burn itself up. The only places where magic does not act this way is in hotspots where magic enters the world and in the bodies of already existing Agents. When an Agent is born, they must have a certain mindset and attitude to connect to magic to stay alive. When they achieve this, magic flows into them as it does into hotspots. They have no need for food or water.

Agents have immense power at their command, as magic is continuously pouring into them, making them the closest thing to living gods this universe has. They sense the world through the magic atmosphere, seeing around and through things in all directions. Their natural tendency is to be insatiably curious and delighted by the act of experiencing the world, but they also find it tiring, so most Agents sleep more hours than they spend awake.

The appearance of an Agent is governed by their mind, their mental history, self-concept and history. No two Agents look alike.

Centocutane: A humanoid with an animal-like face and head, slightly paw like hands and feet, a tail and a body covered in fur or whatever the normal animal has covering their skin. The bird-types also have an additional pair of limbs in the form of wings.

The centocutane are the result of humans’ skin being infected with magic that had been thinking about an animal. The spell starts out superficial, allowing individuals to continue having children with humans, though the children will also have the spell. After so many generations though, the spell sinks in too deeply and damages too much DNA, making having children with uninfected humans impossible, as the child requires the spell from both parents to form properly.

Most do not know they share ancestry with humans and they are believed to be a separate species, though they show many signs of being human, like disease susceptibility.

Dryad: A humanoid creature with elongated limbs and torso, bark-like skin, leaves and branches on the head like hair, and long ears with (usually) three holes in them. Dryads, like their mythical name-sake the hamadryads, are tied to trees. They bond to a tree as preteens and rely on the tree for sustenance for the remainder of their life, taking on the bark texture and leaves of their tree. The Dryad’s spell makes the tree become a magical filter feeder, filtering magic from the air to channel to the Dryad. In return, the Dryad takes great pains to keep their tree safe and healthy in their symbiotic relationship.

Dryads are placentals, similar to mammals.

Elementalist: A magic user who sacrifices being able to command magic across any subject so they can use simple commands, like a single word or gesture. They must choose a single narrow category of things, an “element”, which magic approves of as being sufficiently narrow. Elementalists can be identified by their hats, which are designed around their element of choice. These hats are used by Elementalists to ritualistically request their element from magic - if the “element” is too complex or broad a concept, magic will destroy the hat to signal it’s refusal. When they are accepted, the hat becomes a tool to tell magic “listen to me,” so they can take it off and not worry about accidentally using their power words.

Fairy: A simple creature, looking somewhat like a very abstract human with insect like wings. All fairies have a small chunk of solid magic in them. There are many different varieties, and some appear spontaneously when magic is let loose.

Fairy species include: Common Fairies, Fairy Kings, Carrion Fairies, Odd-Wing Fairies, Bitter Fairies, Glass Fairies, Lantern Fairies, and Joysuckers

Laughing Dragon: A furry mammalian creature with a long body, short limbs, and stretchy skin that can be outspread from the wrists to allow for gliding. The most striking thing about these creatures are their faux-teeth: large triangular white plates that grow from their skin around the outside of their mouths, with small hooks to allow them to zip up and stay in place, creating the appearance of an impossible and permanent smile.

Magic: A natural, semi-intelligent force that creates and reshapes the world at its whim, it can be directed and commanded by any means of communication, or be used in the make-up of an organism. Magic exists separately from the rest of reality, allowing it to take up spaces that already have something in it, but can also move through reality, and often must if it is too dense.

Magic Weaver: A magic user who adheres to the Weaver religion, which is based around the concept of the entire world being literally or figuratively woven like a blanket or tapestry. Their magical creations are woven, in imitation of the creative process of their god/dess. The act of magic weaving is highly spiritual. The religion originated in Saratoa, and is mostly adhered to, strictly or flippantly, by Saratoans. The Great Weaver, their god/dess is usually depicted as a spider, though s/he can be depicted as any creature.

Magiphage: A creature that eats primarily magic or fairies and can not be otherwise categorized. While many one of a kind creatures are magiphages, most are the result of a reaction that stirs up bits and pieces of magic and combines them into a creature. When creatures of this nature die, their traits break apart and are left in the environment for the next generation of similar reactions.

Melliferians: A race of intelligent, sapient hymenopteran insects, resembling honey bees or paper wasps with an upright stance and humanoid hands and mannerisms. They live in hives of several thousand individuals that functions much as a beehive does, but also in some ways like a small city. There are other Melliferians that do not look like bees, but rather like roaches, spiders, moths, and many other arthropods. These individuals are created by the bees and are really more like hybrids. These non-bees are always created for a specific job or purpose which best uses the adaptations of their species.

Potioneer: A magic user who uses materials of various types to create magical effects that can be applied directly to the body internally through drinkable liquids or externally through balms and salves. There are two kinds of potioneering. A more simplistic variety which creates weak or non-existent effects which is popular and widely practiced, and a more complex variety called experimental potioneering which is much more potent, complex and dangerous and is done by a rare few.

Saratoan: See Saratoic Dragon
Saratoa: see Saratoic Dragon

Saratoic Dragon: A species of humanoid creatures with muzzled faces, ornate webbed ears, very long serpentine tails and brightly colored skin. Saratoic dragons are the majority population of the Island of Saratoa and so are synonymous with “Saratoan” though anyone from there is technically “Saratoan.”
Saratoic dragons live approximately 200 years naturally, and reach puberty in their mid 30s. Between 13 and 30, they have a life stage separate from childhood and adulthood, sub-adulthood, when they are physically prepubescent and small but mentally have much of the maturity of a young adult human of the same age (though not all). Sub-adults are also called sprites.

Spell: Any instructions for magic to carry out, including instructions created by magic itself in natural processes, such as in the bodies of magical creatures.

Spell material: Stable magic that has been pre-programmed with spell instructions. Will naturally carry out it’s instructed duties as long as provided with adequate magical energy to do so.

Spell writer: An individual who writes spells, spells written by spell writers are by nature long and elaborate and results are highly linked to the results of previous uses of the spell, regardless of what the spell appears to do, it may not do that due to previous usages turning out wrong.

Stract: A creature created by magic overshooting and taking acting like something is there as instructions to create that thing. The creatures created are thus imaginary friends and hallucinations made real. Stracts life span is based partly on how much the “creator” continues to add to the spell in the Stract’s body by interacting with it. Without this further refining, the spell tends to be weak and shoddy. Stracts can live for as little as a week, a few have lived over 90 years, most die before 5.

Thing In A Jar: Just what it says on the tin, the Things In Jars are… things what are in jars. Each thing in a jar has a name and personality, which is expressed entirely through letters. It is unknown how they go about writing letters, but their letters appear on them or near them, addressed to nearby persons. They can also manifest other items, including money, which they often use to pay “rent” to those they live with for the shelf or windowsill space they occupy in their homes.

It is unclear where they get the money from.

Things in jars are never seen to be moving, but do move from place to place, or even adjust their position inside their jars when they are not being observed, and sometimes they will move while a person is blinking.

All the Things In Jars are kindly or at least indifferent, and exceedingly proper and polite in their language. Some can be somewhat sarcastic, but they never drop their stilted tone.

There are a fixed number of Things In Jars, whoever or whatever created them isn’t making more.

Weaver: See Magic Weaver.
Weaverism: See Magic Weaver.