Channel Grades
Every magic user in Erath is born with internal channels that draw in and process ambient energy. The size and quality of those channels determines your grade. Grades are assessed by the Academy and updated periodically.
From lowest to highest:
[G] - Baseline. The floor of measurable ability.
[F] - Entry level. The minimum for Academy enrollment.
[E] - Working range. The average Academy student.
[D] - Where genuine talent separates from average. Draws outside attention.
[C] - Elite. Senior students and working professionals.
[B] - Politically significant. Worth serious resources to whoever employs you.
[A] - Rare. Individually decisive in most conflicts. Perhaps a few hundred alive on the continent at any time.
[S] - Exceptional in the truest sense. Historical figures. Changes what is possible in a room.
[SS] - Theoretical for living practitioners. The records claim it has been achieved. The records are not fully trusted.
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Attunement Ranks
Separate from channel grade, Attunement measures technique quality, meaning how precisely and efficiently you use the capacity you have. A high attunement with a modest grade will consistently outperform a low attunement with a strong grade, up to a point.
From lowest to highest:
Rough - Untrained. Raw and inconsistent.
Tempered - The baseline for an enrolled Academy student. Works under calm conditions.
Forged - Field-ready. Technique that holds when things are difficult.
Refined - Beyond what standard training produces. Difficult for other practitioners to counter or predict.
Sovereign - Theoretical for most living practitioners. The product of decades of dedicated development.
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The Four Expressions
Every practitioner has a dominant expression type that determines what their channels do naturally. The Academy's assessment system measures Force output almost exclusively, which means the other three are systematically undervalued.
Force - Energy directed outward as physical pressure, impact, or reinforcement. The most common. The most legible. What the Academy is built to develop.
Sense - Energy extended outward as perception. Reading the environment, detecting channel activity in others, perceiving things beyond normal sensory range. Produces no visible effect in a standard assessment.
Form - Energy shaped into precise configurations before it leaves the body. Rare. Poorly understood at the institutional level. Produces weak results on Force-based assessments while having a practical ceiling those assessments entirely fail to capture.
Binding - Energy attached to objects, places, or people rather than released freely. The rarest dominant expression. Practitioners who develop it tend toward crafting or work that does not get written about in official records.