While most of the mechanics of spells and magic remain unchanged from the original game, the rationale behind them is different, as the author wants to explore some weird but hopefully fun ideas.
SOULS
The origin of magic ultimately comes from living creatures with souls. While many untold thousands of years have passed since magic was first created or discovered, it came about because soul-bearing peoples were able to tap into the mysterious energy potential carried within their souls. This allowed them to tap into magical energy, the fabric of reality, and other dimensions.
Souls themselves can be drained of magical energy, but rarely can be destroyed completely and will regenerate themselves over time. They seem to tap into a great many planes of existence simultaneously, and mastering how to use this phenomenon is how spellcasters are able to create many powerful reality-bending effects.
Often soul sparks merely act as a catalyst for spells, using only tiny slivers of energy from the soul itself, with much of the bulk of the energy coming from other dimensions, beings of great power such as gods, or the SoulSpace.
AN OVERLAY OF MAGIC
All Eleven known worlds are naturally occurring worlds and their nature and real age is well known to many scholars. If all magic were removed, they would still function as normal life bearing planets.
Magic however forms an 'overlay' over all of them, saturating them completely, allowing humans to access magical power at almost any place. However, it is possible for this 'ocean' of magic around each world to have small gaps in it, or to have zones where magic energy may be distorted in some way.
THE SOULSPACE
The souls of living beings perform a very important magic-related function besides just acting as a bridge for magical power for spellcasters to use. They also create the SoulSpace, also called the Ether, that creates the magical field around each world that allows magical effects to perpetuate beyond just cast spells.
Every moment it is alive, the energy of a living soul feeds into and expands the SoulSpace. It only stops when the person dies and the soul moves onto other planes. In other words, the souls of every person who has ever lived has added to the SoulSpace, expanding its area and influence and available energy throughout their lives. In this way a soul can be likened a faucet that is constantly pouring a small but steady stream of extradimensional energy into our plane of existence as long as a person is alive. Spread out over the many billions of people who have lived throughout history, this has created a vast reservoir of magical potential that is ever growing.
The SoulSpace creates the ambient magical energy held in potential, sometimes known as Mana, in almost every cubic centimeter in every nook and cranny of the world, from miles below ground to far above the atmosphere. However, it is more than just a physical energy field. It exists across numerous adjacent planes closely aligned with the material universe, and often can take on a very abstract nature depending on how it is used and accessed. It occupies space yet it doesn't. It measures the ticks of a clock and yet it also ignores them. It can take on material form, yet is also as insubstantial and purely conceptual as a dream.
Many magical phenomena originates from the SoulSpace, such as magic used by various mythic (non-soul-bearing) animals, conjurations, phasing, pocket dimensions, and others.
Strangely, the Gates that connect the known worlds don't seem to draw their power from the SoulSpace, despite being one of the most potent known examples of magic. How exactly they work is known only to the Guild of the Gates, and they aren't talking.
OTHER DIMENSIONS
Powerful magic users and clerics can access higher dimensions, using the SoulSpace as a gateway to other planes of existence. However, they are very reluctant to talk about what awaits there, only saying that dimensional travel if fraught with terrifying dangers and potentially mind-shattering horrors. Many use higher dimensional access for various powerful spell effects, but those few who can travel to them do so only reluctantly.
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