View source for Item:Shimmering sanowret crystal caught within a cage of golden arches

{{Item
|noun=crystal
|look=The sanowret crystal glows with a soft light and is shaped into a perfect cube.  Thin lines of silver reinforce the crystal in a complex lattice.
|MTag=sanowret crystal,crystal,gold, silver
|ptype=jewelry
|verby=Yes
|pcrystal=No
|atmos=No
|istone=No
|wearloc=generic
|type=magic, sanowret crystal, trainer
|metal=-
|weight=2
|appcost=100,000
|rarity=incidental
|lsize=1
|wsize=1
|hsize=1
|enchanted=No
|feature-change=No
|generator=No
|sourcetype=-
|itype=sanowret crystal
|fname=No
}}
This item is a [[sanowret crystal]] and trains [[Arcana]] on use.

You gaze intently into your sanowret crystal, seeking the promise of hidden knowledge as light dances across its surface.
A soft light blossoms in the very center of the crystal, and begins to fill your mind with the knowledge of Life Magic.

Knowledge from your sanowret crystal about Life Magic rings clear in your mind:
Life magic is perhaps the most mysterious realm to Kermorians, lacking the scholarly body of the other three conventional realms and the critical eye placed upon Arcane magic.  Broadly, it derives its power from the cycle of life and death, expressions of biological order and entropy.

Knowledge from your sanowret crystal about Life Magic rings clear in your mind:
Despite the name, Life mana is strongly identified with the natural processes of decay.  This has been a matter of some confusion, since common sensibilities would place the 'magic of death' as being Necromancy, but this is not the case.  Necromancy deals with perversions and unnatural permutations of life and death.  The actual process of dying and decaying into constituent parts is part of the power of Life.

Knowledge from your sanowret crystal about Life Magic rings clear in your mind:
While sufficient Life magic can accelerate or delay the march of time upon an organism, the central principle of Life magic is 'Life cannot defeat Life.'  Life magic, again, draws its power from life's cycle, and it thus has no power to totally usurp or stop it from happening.  This chiefly creates two problems: Life magic alone cannot forestall death beyond a certain point (usually 100 years), and Life magic cannot create whole life out of nothingness, it must work with energies and organisms that already exist.

Knowledge from your sanowret crystal about Life Magic rings clear in your mind:
Despite this, both the Empaths and Rangers have made an art out of stretching the limits of what Life magic can do.  While it cannot defeat death, it can bring someone back from the furthest brink. While it cannot create life, it can channel existing energies in living beings to incredible ends.

Knowledge from your sanowret crystal about Life Magic rings clear in your mind:
Life mana is created by or resonate with (depending on your point of view) with vibrant ecosystems.  Places with great concentrations of birth or death will spill out Life mana, while even serene places that are static or slow to develop will stifle it.  While great wilderness regions are the iconic example, busy cities are by no means bereft of Life mana either.

Knowledge from your sanowret crystal about Life Magic rings clear in your mind:
The history of Life magic is incomplete, in large part due to the disbanding of the Imperial Healers Guild in the Imperial era. Fragmented records suggest that there was a vastly sophisticated understanding of biology and Life magic over a thousand years ago, but for an unknown reason the guild did not survive the empire. While the Empaths are famously scholarly, there is only limited scholarship across the intervening centuries to try and recapture some of this body of knowledge.

Knowledge from your sanowret crystal about Life Magic rings clear in your mind:
Conspiracy theorists claim that the Empath Guild is suppressing knowledge of the history and advanced applications of Life magic, but there is no proof of such claims (which, admittedly, may simply be the sign of an effective conspiracy).  The Ranger Guild, while it has scholarly members, has never been focused on the production of high theory, so has not contributed to the debate.

The light and crystal sound of your sanowret crystal fades slightly as you come to the end of the knowledge about Life Magic.  You feel quite enlightened, if a bit mentally tired.