Cley

[sythyry]

For Monsters Only: "What Is Cley?"

Cley is the currency of magic on the World Tree. A cley is a purely magical object (viz., it is wholly immaterial, and can only be percieved by magic sense) in the form of a key ending in a spray of possibilities.

Primes get a supply of cley each day at dawn, by a sort of universal magical tide. (Well, I daresay Rhedwy gets hers at midnight, but that's wicked and unusual.) Most people get, oh, half a dozen or so -- the exact number varies a bit from day to day. People who use their magic more extensively learn to get more -- I get, oh, fifteen or sixteen, more or less. My ~mother~ probably gets twice that.

You lose all of the previous day's cley when you get the new day's, of course. So most mages get up a bit before dawn and cast spells to avoid wasting the cley that is about to get lost. This goes badly with debauchery, of course.

Most spells take one cley to cast. Spontaneous magic takes up to three. Feather casting lets you cheat the gods (most of the time) and cast weak spells without cley. Enchantment piles masses and masses of stuff, including cley, into a poor hapless innocent physical object until it sort of ferments, I guess you might say, and starts getting its own magic.

You can get more cley during the day, by meditating (I meditate in a fire for better effect), but that's slow and only gives a couple. Or you can share cley with someone else, but that's inefficient (about half of the cley you share gets lost) and requires a close embrace. Oh, sometimes you find cley in fruit or something -- I never have -- or get IOUs from gods or such as that.

Comments

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

If someone is selling cley, how is the transfer of cley effected from cley-seller to buyer?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

By a close embrace, of course.

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Hence the humiliation.

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

"It's not what it looks like. We're just transferring cley!" :)

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

I see a business opportunity in that: an establishment that caters to the debauchery needs of people who wish to use their remaining cley just before dawn.
It would open at dawn and provides appropriate services until, say, noon.

Is debauchery more fun when one has a lot of cley handy, or when one is drained of cley? I'm sure your world's aesthetic philosopher/practitioners have had something to say on the matter; I wonder if you've heard it?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, some people are quite miserable when they're out of cley. I don't think of anyone who was happier out of cley.

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

. . . unless they'd just sold their last to you, right? ;-)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Um ... *blush*.

[wave-cannon.livejournal.com]

So, cley sounds very much like, if not identical to what I've often heard refered to as "dross," or "magic points" yes?
I've seen people regain their magical energy from drinking from enchanted/ensorcelled fountains. Perhaps you could devise such a contraption?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard of any things like that around here, and, well, I have grandparents who would probably know such things.

I know a bit about offworld magic [but not enough to really be aware there's more than one kind of it -bb], and isn't it sort of triggered by the caster's personal life force or something? That sounds more fountainable than cley, to me.

[wave-cannon.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, yes. These mana-fountains alternatively tap into the energies inherent in the land itself, as some lands and landmarks of importance are magical in and of themselves, or are a repository of magic that was donated previously...
Such fountains are, thus, considered to be extremely valuble, and are usually located in temples, or similiar places.

[mufi.livejournal.com]

A fountain of mana?

That sounds like something in the realm of Merklundum Harnipsundum the Dog who Killed a Fish to me..

I wonder how so many folk found access to a grace or glory, for it to be such common knowledge!

[wave-cannon.livejournal.com]

Apparently, it surprises many a people that I get my knowledge from reading...