Guild Wars 2

This is just my theory, fill free to poke holes if you would like.
Magic and Ether create form. Magic is the embodiment of thought, and ether is the embodiment of essence.

Preservation is the magical enhancement or hampering of form. It induces the magic inside of a form to change the form. Its called preservation because magic is not lost in the process. The natural state of the form is preserved after the magic fades.

Aggression is moving magic in or out of a form to create a change. As well as using magic to move form out of form, such as drawing the light out of a campfire. Its aggressive because the change requires messing with the inherent physical and magical structure of a form. And after the magic fades the natural state of the form has been aggressively altered.

Destruction is using magic to create form. You call in ether from the mists then bind it to magic. Only elemental forces can be created. This product is destructive because the available amount of ether and magic has now decreased because it is bound in form.

Denial does not deal with form. It deals with ether and with magic. You gather ether and run magic over its surface. By this process you induce the ether into behaving in certain ways. The process is called denial because you are continually trying to prevent the ether and magic from coalescing into form. Very rarely coalescing is allowed, but only for things such as light and darkness, the very earliest of creations.

Here are some examples using the assumed professions and their schools.

A Guardian raises his hands and uses magic to shelter himself from outside blows, solidifying the light around him. As he is doing that he spreads magic around himself forcing his body to speed up its healing. When he is done the light fades.

A Necromancer draws on the dark energy in the world and in the conditions she has on herself. She pulls that energy into herself and uses it to pull in ambient vitality. She is healed. However the magical conditions are gone, they have had part of their existence removed and can no longer exist.

An Elementalist calls out to ether from the mist, drawing it in with magic. It turns into a healing mist as it makes contact with their magic. The Elementalist breaths in the mist, gaining some of the healing and condition cleansing properties of water.

A Mesmer calls out to the ether from the mist, drawing it in with magic. It is not allowed to make contact. The Mesmer imbues the magic with the concept of vitality. As the Mesmer runs the magic by three of their previously living ether constructs, the magic in them enhances the magic in the soon to be made construct. The Mesmer then places the ether inside themselves and releases the magic. As the magic enters the Mesmer it assumes this is a yet to be made construct, it adds health to the Mesmer just as a newly formed illusion is given health before it comes into the world. Eventually the ether dissipates, as there is no magic that it can bind to. As it goes the reality it created converges and the Mesmer is healed as if the ether body had been the real Mesmer. The magic goes back to the environment and the ether fades back into proto-reality.

Why do we blind from dark AND smoke fields? And explanation of fields and finishers.
Darkness: drains sanity, and we cant see without the illumination of tools
Smoke: blinds, we cant see even with the illumination of tools.

The finishers cause a magically imbued field to attach some of that magic to the projectiles, surround the person, or surround the people in the environment.

When you put darkness in a persons eyes, they are not blinded, its called wearing sunglasses.
When you surround yourself with darkness, everyone can still see, its called standing in the shade.
However when you surround everyone with darkness that is called night. And everyone is blind until something removes the darkness.

When people get smoke in their eyes they cannot see.
When you surround yourself with smoke, people cannot see you.
When you surround an area with smoke, people cannot see each other.

I’m personally not a fan of Plato’s metaphysics at all so I’m immediately biased against using “forms” and “essences” to explain magic. My opinion is that magic is the manifestation of a more fundamental force, in the same way that light is a manifestation of the electromagnetic force, which in turn is ‘made up’ of photons, the quanta (fundamental unit) of light.

Similarly, my hope is that magic has a fundamental quantum unit and can be explained by particle physics. I believe that a fifth fundamental force would be required. I’m calling this the psychothaumatic force for now since we have many hints in-game eluding to a deeper connection between mind and magic. My theory is that they are two aspects of the same force, just like electricity and magnetism.

I’m not sure yet how the bloodstone fits into all of this, or what its function even was in the first place so I’m holding off on trying to fit it into my theory just yet.

I’m also uncertain about how this force would interact with protomatter to (re)structure reality. This theory is still a work in progress so it’s not completely fleshed out yet.

Athrenn.9468:

I’m personally not a fan of Plato’s metaphysics at all so I’m immediately biased against using “forms” and “essences” to explain magic. My opinion is that magic is the manifestation of a more fundamental force, in the same way that light is a manifestation of the electromagnetic force, which in turn is ‘made up’ of photons, the quanta (fundamental unit) of light.

Similarly, my hope is that magic has a fundamental quantum unit and can be explained by particle physics. I believe that a fifth fundamental force would be required. I’m calling this the psychothaumatic force for now since we have many hints in-game eluding to a deeper connection between mind and magic. My theory is that they are two aspects of the same force, just like electricity and magnetism.

I’m not sure yet how the bloodstone fits into all of this, or what its function even was in the first place so I’m holding off on trying to fit it into my theory just yet.

I’m also uncertain about how this force would interact with protomatter to (re)structure reality. This theory is still a work in progress so it’s not completely fleshed out yet.

You would make a good asura. If you want to flesh it out you should start with the fields and the finishers. Such as what is intrinsic to fire, that when you magically create flames and then force part of that energy into the air, it binds to people and strengthens them.