Phantom World Magic [Complete]

Magic

Primary Magic: Phantom World
Secondary Magic: N/A
Caster or Holder: Caster
Description:
Short version: The caster has two main abilities, open portals to the Phantom World, control the inhabitants of the Phantom World.

Long version: The first and foremost item to address when understanding Phantom World is that it is not summoning magic. A brief skimming of the magic will indicate it is a summoning magic, watching it in action will indicate it is a summoning magic. However it’s rules, mechanics and functions are radically different. The core of this magic is the accessing of a different layer of reality called the “Phantom World.” The caster of this magic uses portals between this world and the Phantom World to do battle with his foes. This next part is where it can be confused for a summoning magic. In doing this he is able to bring over phantoms from the phantom world to aid him in combat. The caster of this magic is not a phantom summoner, he is a phantom tamer. Part of Phantom World magic is the ability to tame and control the inhabitants of Phantom World. Without a Phantom World mage about these phantoms are completely autonomous, free thinking, individual creatures separate from each other and the caster. As such this magic is much closer in nature to for example “beast taming,” over “beast summoning.”

The Phantom World itself is vast, diverse and weird. For battle purposes The Caster has created his own personal “house,” cut off the from the rest of the Phantom World where he and his phantoms reside and operate from. This enables him to make the most of having access to an alternate dimension, without any of the weirdness seeping in.

This explanation from here will be broken up based on the two core abilities.

First being the portals to the Phantom World. There are many ways to open portals to the Phantom World each with different benefits. Phantom World mages will generally choose the portal type that best compliments the phantoms under their control. This variant uses a portal style called “Mirror of Souls.” The Mirror of Souls is actually 6 mirrors so it would be better called the “Mirrors of Souls,” but without the plural it rolls off the tongue better. The mirrors are oval wall mirrors of average size, most notable of their appearance is their freaky bone frame. Being portals this appearance is mostly aesthetic. The basic abilities of all portals are as simple as “whatever goes through one goes in/out of the phantom world,” naturally depending on what end it enters through. Normal portals only allow phantoms, phantom constructs and Phantom World mages to pass through, to others they are intangible and everything else simply cannot touch them. The Mirror of Souls is unique if three distinct ways, first they are all able to alter their size indefinitely(they could become planet sized if they wanted but there is no real use to that), they can move, and they are all connected. Normally portals are summoned in one place, server their purpose, then disappear when they are done so a Phantom World mage is constantly creating and dispelling portals. The Mirrors of Soul behave more corporeally, once they are summoned they stay summoned and fly around as directed by the caster. The real signature ability of the mirrors is that what goes into a portal can actually appear in a number of different places. Normally is a stone is thrown in Portal A Human World Side it will come out Portal A Phantom World Side, with the Mirror of Souls the stone can go to Portal A, B, C, D, E or F on either side.

Phantom Control is much easier and shorter to explain. While training his magic the caster encountered many phantoms within the phantom world and identified those which he thought best worked with his portal style of choice. Then through some magic and grueling hours of trust building exercises he was able to tame 4 phantoms. The Rider, The Guide, The Clown and The Assassin. Now he is able to will these phantoms to do as he wishes more or less with ease. From there it is a simple matter of sending the phantoms he has tamed out through the mirror of souls to do his dirty work for him. Each phantom has unique abilities, skills and individual health however they all share one magic pool: The Caster. As he refers to them by their “The Names,” his phantoms refer to him as The Caster. Being all phantoms together who share a mana pool they cannot harm each other by accident, note the on accident part.

So end result: The Caster hides inside the Phantom World and sends out his phantoms to do the fighting for him.


Strengths:
-Safe Spotting: The Caster can hide in a private dimension where he is completely untouchable by outside forces while still being able to observe the battle and direct his phantoms. Pretty safe way to fight.
-Strength in Numbers: The Phantoms are capable of all fighting together at once. They are probably better off fighting individually, but hey its an option. More important is that if you want to pick a fight with The Caster, you’ve got 4 big spooky problems to deal with.
-Thinking with Portals: The greatest power of The Caster is that he can manipulate the portals so that he can decide where everything goes when it enters. The Clown, The Guide and The Assassin are all equipped with projectile weapons allowing them to make great use of these portals, throw a weapon in one portal and then have it come out somewhere else, it is a deadly combo. The Rider however does not throw a weapon, he throws himself. More on that later.
Weaknesses:
-I will be your opponent! Just kidding I’m a pansy: The Caster has no power of his own. He is entirely dependant on his Phantoms to do the fighting for him. Once his phantoms are defeated he is powerless.

-Someone’s Gotta Do It: The Caster can see the land of the living throug the eyes of his phantoms allowing him to coordinate them from the Phantom World. However that means he needs a phantom to be out there in order for him to see. So while it is possible to safe spot from the Phantom World, someone has to be out there to take the heat.

-Connected: The Phantoms have been mentioned to have projectile weapons but their weapons cannot enter the land of the living without them being out there too. So for example The Clown, The Guide and The Assassin can’t just sit inside the phantom world throwing projectiles through the portal while The Rider dodges attacks outside. If they to fight, they have to be on the front line.

-Mana Pool: They have 100% MP to split between 4 entities. Sure one could hog it if they wanted but it would screw over the other 3.

-They be dead: For something to be a phantom it must be dead first. So that means something had to kill these guys. That something might just work again.

-A captain goes down with his ship: A spirit link is required with a mage's phantoms to control them. The cost comes in that should all of their contracted spirits be defeated at once The Caster will be rendered unconscious and ejected from the Phantom World.

Lineage:
Unique Abilities:
-Mirror of Souls: The Caster can manifest and control 6 size altering portal mirrors. Most of the details have been described above. But short recap: They can fly about, are immaterial, can only be used by phantoms and related, what goes in one can go out any other one, and give access to a spooky ghost dimension. Just to clarify each mirror has two ends, Human World Side and Phantom World Side, it isn’t like 3 mirrors on one side 3 on the other. 6 on both sides. In battle the mirrors generally set a “dome range,” around their foes and float around the surface of the dome facing inward passively until needed for a specific action. The Clown, The Rider and The Assasin need to stay inside the dome range to make the most of their abilities while The Guide is best fighting from outside of it. There is no limit to the size of the dome range but making it too big makes it useless and too small makes it impractical, it can adjust freely just as the size of the mirrors can. On average the best dome range creates a 30 meter in diameter circle. Foes are not trapped within the dome range, but the mirrors will follow them to maintain the dome around them. So yes you can move freely within it, no it does not trap you to a single spot, yes it is possible to get out, but no that won’t be easy. A quick burst of speed like a sprint or speed boost spell may make it practical to get outside the dome but it shouldn’t take long for it to catch up. Terrain like forests or jungles may complicate the mirror’s formation, it is best suited to clear open areas.



-The Clown:

Spoiler:

The Clown comes to battle with 52 razor sharp phantom playing cards. Also telekinesis. It would be hoped how he combines these abilities needs little explenation. In life The Clown would dance around the battlefield throwing his cards like daggers with his hands, in death he flies around throwing his cards like daggers with his mind. The cards are stronger than steel and can be formed into walls and the like to block attacks but are primarily for attack. He is best described as a glass cannon for his deadly attacks and his low ability to take hits. It should not take much damage to defeat him however delivering that damage will prove troublesome. In battle he likes to throw his cards into the mirrors to launch multi-directional surprise attacks. His spells center around advanced card throwing techniques.
HP: 20%

-The Rider:

Spoiler:

The Rider is the closest this collection of phantoms has to a tank. Which is to say this collection of phantoms does not have a tank. Being a melee fighter compared to his ranged peers he is capable of taking the most damage but in the grand scheme of things he is going to be dodging way more than blocking. He comes to battle with a weapon, an ally and a power. A spear, a horse and lightning. His spear and horse are for obvious purposes, he fights as you would expect a cavalry based unit to assuming they had access to portals and assuming the horse can fly. Being a phantom horse, the horse can in fact fly.  But its flight is essentially running on air and is no faster than traveling on the ground. It only flies because it is easier to use the portals while in the air. That overexplained, The Rider fights by charging about the battle field and impaling all foes in his path with his spear. He uses the portals to save time turning around and to increase his already impressive mobility. The best way to defeat a cavalry unit is to survive their charge then attack while they are turning around to make another charge, in fact this method was used to kill The Rider in life, with the Mirror of Souls this method cannot be used on The Rider. Now his lightning is mostly a side ability and is rather weak only allowing him to manipulate at will pre-existing non-magical lightning and electricity. However his spells allow him much greater use of this lightning.
HP: 54%

-The Guide:

Spoiler:

The Guide is a summoner. That much is no mistake. His lantern allows him to summong weak ghosts called “poes.” Poes are small orb like white ghosts that fly and attack the enemies of The Guide at his will. When a poe attacks they fly in at an enemy and bites down on them, their bites are all but completely harmless, it is what comes after that makes them dangerous. When a poe bites an enemy it sticks to them and becomes a “heavy poe.” When a poe is created they have a set weight assigned to them from 1kg to 50kg, The Guide can generate up to 50kg of foes per post. When they become a heavy poe their weight becomes tangible and it weighs down on their prey. They can be destroyed(and by consequnce removed) if crushed with ample force(more than a poke but it shouldn’t take any real effort either) but if done they explode with force equal to their weight. A few individual poes aren’t dangerous but swarms of them can be, so take the pain or let yourself get slowed down and eventually immobilized your choice.  The Guide himself mostly floats around outside while sending his poes within the dome range to fight. Damaging him is only really practical via projectile attack, which is good for him because he can’t take a ton of damage. More than The Clown or Assassin sure but that isn’t saying much. He mostly takes on a support role to the other phantoms and has the best team work out of all of them. He and The Rider make a particularly good combo. His spells are centered around summoning special poes.
HP: 25%

-The Assassin:

Spoiler:

Yeup he’s a ninja ghost. Rather he is a bunch of ninja ghosts. The Assassin has the ability to clone himself at will. Every post he can generate a new clone at no real cost. However this is not an all powerful ability, rather it is necessary just for him to function in battle. As anything that can honestly and fairly be called an attack will kill Assassin. Any one punch, any one swing of thy sword, any one spell, heck a single spell that targets multiple people could take out several assassins. If it can deal damage to a proper opponent, it will almost certainly be a fatality for The Assassin. The Assassin does not have a “true body,” or anything like that each clone is just as good as the original and his “one clone per post,” can be created from any of the assassins. So end result: It doesn’t matter which one you kill as long as there is an assassin left he can still fight and make more, all of them must be exterminated. There is a maximum of 20 assassins that can be created at any one time, The Assassin will always prepare this many well in advance before going into battle. So recap: He starts with 20(counting himself), and can make another every post but cannot go over 20. Defeating him will require either high speed and frequent attacks to outpace his cloning or a couple allies.

Needless to say the strength of each is incredibly low and they are only dangerous in a swarm.

Onto how he actually fights. The Assassin comes equipped with a multitude of throwing knives which they throw with deadly accuracy, they are all identical kunai, each assassin has their own supply of about fifty created when they are cloned. Considering the average lifespan of an assassin they will rarely run out before they die and even if they do they can pick more off their fallen comrades. The Assassin is also highly trained in hand to hand combat but considering their fragility are only good at hit and run. They use the portals with their knives much like The Clown does, but in addition they also throw themselves through the portals like The Rider. They combine these two options to create a storm of projectiles and sneak attacks. Thier numbers, skill and projectiles make them a dangerous opponent. To some Assassin is unbeatable, to others he is a pushover, it all depends on the skill set of the enemy. His spells are centered around enhancing his base abilities.
HP: < 1%


Note On Phantom Slaying: The health of the phantoms are relative to the base HP of another B-Rank individual. All their health values added together equal 100%. But once a phantom is destroyed in the physical world they must return to the Phantom World to recover. This takes them out of commission for the remainder of the thread(except in cases where a timeskip occurs mid-thread assuming it is of ample length for all players to recover completely to 100% hp/mp in that time, the phantoms could also become battle ready again.)
Grader Tip: All the D-Rank spells are the same copy and pasted. The only differences are marked by (*) and are generally towards the bottom of each section.

”D-Rank Spells”:

End of copy-paste land! Yay!

”C-Rank Spells”:

B-Rank Spells:

Covering this,