On enchantment,

Foreword: I would like to dedicate this work, humble as it is, to the Magus of Enchantment, Magus Adiya Bagdadi, who accepted my suggestion that she ought to shave and be bald, as per our traditions, in a good mood. I still think she should, her husband disagrees with me.
..she is probably prettier with her hair though

Enchantment while definitly not my own speciality, is a very interesting school to work with, it like illusion, affects the mind and body of a target albeit in a very different way, whereas illusion changes the surroundings to impart an effect upon the subject, the school of enchantment seeks to affect the subject directly disregarding the surroundings.

This gives the school some strengths, and weaknesses, as opposed to illusion, the most obvious strength being that it does not need to rely on changing the surroundings and work with making the subject believe them, the weakness is that it is far more obvious once the affect wears off, whereas a person walking through a room may never realize that the wall really is an illusion, not even when leaving.

To sum up what enchantment does, the way in which it affects the mind, can best be described by explaining that each body consists of a duality, the soul and the body, both are residing within the same shell of the skin, the body is the muscles, the brain, the heart, the lungs, the sinews and blood everything that allows you to move.
The soul is the thing that controls the body, enchantment works by targetting the link between the soul and the body that is the brain, it affects this and changes controls normally only held by the soul of the body, it is forcible, it is unpleasant for the soul, even if it may not always recall it afterwards. Enchantment does however not just take over the body it rather affects the passage between the soul and the body, so that the instructions sent to the body and from the body to the soul, is changed to the spells set effect.

Offensively the school has spells that yields roughly the following effects: sleep, paralysis, charm, domination and confusion, defensively it has heroism. All of these are mind affecting, yes even those causing the subject to be physically controlled. I shall in this short treatise on the school go through some of the basics of the spell effects, how they work and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Charm,
This effect is the one with the least visible effects to the subjects, when cast the spell changes the subjects disposition adding into the theoretical possibility that the caster and the subject where long time friends, or lovers. (yes my dear reader, this spell can be used to “score” with if you are that kind of hedge wizard without pride in your craft).
While the effect however are without nothice in the subject, it should be noted that the surroundings who knows the subject becomes immediately aware of the subjects alteration, this spell does not justmake the subject a very good friend of the caster, it draws the caster to the forefront of the subjects mind and heart, something that anyone who knows the subject, or even watches the subject, will nothice. A frown will turn to a warm smile, a hateful glare into an admiring look, repulsion can turn into desire and a very different form of quickened heartbeat.

The spell as such is best used in circumstances where you do not care about the surroundings and their reactions, or in a situation where the subject and the surroundings are not aware of what is happening, preferably before they have even seen you the first time. Examples of this can for example be to cast the spell silence while invisible, no one hears the words, but as you dispel the invisibility the effect will be much like the subject had love at first sight or something similair, it will seem less arteficial then.

Finally, it should be noted that trying to make the subject do anything that is utterly against its nature causes the spell to fail, so no dear boy. You cannot make that lesbian girl fall in love with you, you can however make you her friend. Temporarily at least. May it soothe your aching teenage heart.

To sum the effect up and the reasons it work:
1) It creates the possibility of a connection where there was none before.
2) It changes the disposition.
Strengths: very useful in many different social situations.
Weaknesses: Limited options, cannot go against the subjects nature.

Sleep
While some may think that this spell works through affecting the weariness of the target, that is the level of energy the target posseses this is not true. Manipulating the level of energy that empowers a living (or dead) being is in the school of necromancy, not in the school of enchantment.

Rather, the fatigue is on a mental level, the level of fatigue you can earn by reading many hours, or thinking long and hard of a problem trying to solve it, the weariness that can be felt after a deep emotional conflict being resolved where the subject just needs to sleep and recover on an emotional level. The spell as such is mind affecting, not physical.

While very powerful, it is also one of the easiest effects to resist, it can however be used on a subject who allready is asleep to drive the subject into an even deeper sleep should such be desired, this can make it easy to say move the subject or do other things to the subject which I, for ethical reasons, will not describe in detail.

To sum it up:
1) It inflicts mental fatigue, not physical fatigue
2) It works my manipulating and imposing a reality on the subject that was not so before
Strengths: imposes a condition that naturally exists in the subject.
Weaknesses. Can be obvious, elves are immune.

Paralysis
This effect is perhaps best demonstrated through the spell hold person, as with so many other enchantment spells the first glance may think it simply physically freezes the muscles rigid stopping the subject from moving, however such would be under the transmutation or necromancy schools depending on wether it was a physical change or a change in the level of energy used. Instead this spell simply disconnects the mind from being able to control the body. To use a rather simple analogy. Many amongst my readers will have at one point or another woken up with a “sleeping limp” that is a limp that “fell asleep” and needs blood circulation before you can move it again, until that happens you simply cannot control it. While causing that affect is pertaining the energy level (thus necromancy) the effect of an enchanter causing this effect would be that the body would retain the energy, thus the limp would be fresh, it would in fact remain where it was just prior to the spell taking effect.

In other words, the spell type causes absolutly no physical damage to the subject, whatsoever, however as the subject retains both will and body these two will constantly strive to get together, as such the subject can and will make continuous attempts to wrestle control back.

Should the spell succeed though you won’t need much time to incapacitate or kill the subject completly though.

To sum it up:
1) The spell inflicts a seperation of the mind and body, thereby causing a paralysis.
2) It works by forcing this on the subject, unlike with charm and sleep there is no natural condition for this.
Strengths: Great for ending combat.
Weakness: Very hard to maintain as the subject struggles.

Domination
One of the best known spells of the school, dominate person, animal, monster or any other variant of the domination simply enslaves a persons mind forcing the person to do as you wish, even if it is contrary to its nature. (Though ordering subjects to do suicidal things tend to give the subjects a sudden burst of energy and a second chance to resist your spell), and yes unlike the charm person spell this spell can cause the subject to make love to you, even when lesbian. (your mother must be so proud if you take this course).

This has, other than amusing party tricks, also battlefield use, the subject can be ordered to do litterally anything it is capeable of, including turning on its former friends, however just like with the spell paralysis the subject is never in doubt what happens or who causes this to happen. You can, in theory, circumvent this by hypnosis (if you know how) while the subject is enthralled, but it will be a risky venture at best, thread carefully.

Like other spells it may at the first glance look like it is the body that is being controlled, this is not exactly true, the thing you control is what controls the body, that is the mind. However the conscious part of this mind, the will of it if you prefer that terms

To sum it up:
1) The spell works by taking control of the subjects mind,
2) The subject will remember you, the subject might be able to resist your spell if ordered into something suicidal.
Strengths: You can litterally do anything you want with the person.
Weaknesses: ...nearly none, only the duration and the greater potential of resisting should the subject be ordered to die or something like that (and why would you toss away a perfectly good puppet like that anyway?)

Confusion
In essense this spell effect works by twisting the sensory perspections of the subject, while this is done better by illusion in general this spell type has some advantages. Firstly the subjects lose complete control. Secondly they do not get any additional chances to resist the actions they commit, regardless of how suicidal they are. Thirdly they need not be aware you cast it. Only that they where affected by a spell making them lose control of themselves.

The drawback here is that you cannot control them either, they act completly at random, confused. They may attack you, they may just stare at you.

Technically spoken the category works by disturbing the connections between the senses and the body and that of the controlling mind, so that the subject may wish to do one thing but is unaware that it causes the body to do a completly different thing, this causes the subject to continue to try to regain control and stop the actions of the body, but even trying to do nothing is an action that, while under this spell, will cause the subject to acts randomly, the block of the sensory perceptions is on the mental side however, so that the signals the brain of the subject sends out will be scrambled and different to those intented.

To sum this category up:
1) The spell works by distorting the subjects connection between mind and body.
2) This effect is applied through scrambling the signals the mind send the body.
Strengths: The subject, once affected, cannot recover on its own.
Weaknesses: The caster has no control over what the subject does.

Heroism:
This spell-effect is the only spell in the school which is directly and only positive, many of my readers without a doubt will have heard that the body is capeable of more than what one would think, or that your mind can do more, or that you only use a small percent of your brains capacity.
Well, this spell changes that and unlocks abilities of the body through strengthening the connection between the mind and body, it allows the soul and the body to work in a greater connection and unlocks abilities that the whole never knew possible, it is an inherently positive thing that has absolutly no long term drawbacks whatsoever. Heroism is truly a blessing from an otherwise negative school.

To sum this category up:
1) The spell works by enchanting the subjects connection between mind and body
2) This effect is applied through letting the subject use more of his mind and body than he thought he was aware of.
Strengths: It improves your senses, your ability to resist negative influences, it helps your coordination.
Weaknesses: It “only” lasts for a set time? There is no true drawback to this spell.

Summary
This should give my readers a basic insight into the school of enchantment, an insight that I hope will prove useful, and pardon the fun, enchanting.

Nathra Zurn
-Loremaster of the Thayan Enclave of Kortuga.