Polkdot Magic

Polkdot breaks magic down into several things.

1. Summoning
2. Creation
Summoning magic is everything to him.
Creation magic he says is largely unobtainable.

Summoning:
Rules: There are several "rules" with summoning.
1. Everything summoned must eventually return to where it came.
2. Everything summoned generally comes from somewhere.
3. Summoning is not precise, expect some "elasticity" to where things end up.
4. Past
Though the past can be summoned, the past does not fully exist and can not be changed. Events and people and things in the past seem to be either:
Significant or Insignificant
There is no "butterfly" effect. Significant events, if you attempt to change them, will correct themselves with insignificant events.
Things that are insignificant don't matter, so though you can "change" them, it makes no difference.
5. Present and Future
There is no actual future. You can summon the future but you are only summoning your concept of the future and this can lead to tunneling from which you may not emerge.
6. The "8 foot" rule. The "8 foot" rule Polkdot uses to explain the elasticity that summoning can have. For example, summoning your watch may remove it from your wrist and bring it into the circle but when it returns it may not return exactly onto your wrist but somewhere nearby.
Similarly summoning your watch, absent of a circle, will likely place your watch generally nearby.
The 8 foot rule is also why some things may stick around longer or shorter than expected, or generally not work quite exactly as you thought it might. Because of this you should allow some "wiggle" room.
7. Summoned things, either when summoned or returned, can not share space with something that already exists.
8. Summoning circles need not be a circle, but are generally called circles anyway.
9. Physics can not be "broken" but can be manipulated.

Magic tends to fall into two categories:
Slow
Fast
But it is actually all "slow," summoning. However, some techniques allow for shortcuts which is what is considered "fast summoning." Such shortcuts would be like not fully writing out runes, but intoning the last few needed. This technique can also be used as a safety measure to prevent a spell from accidentally triggering if it is left properly incomplete.

All summoning magic consists of two of the following
1. Pushing
2. Pulling
3. Inventional
4. Force
Push summoning tends to send things places.
Pulling summoning tends to bring things to you.
Inventional is the "polite" form and similar to knocking on someone's door and asking for them.
Force is a violent pull similar to kidnapping to someone.

Things are either:
1. Unique
2. Common
Within those things they are either
1. Bound
2. Unbound

Bound items have specific places they belong
Unbound items are generally unaccounted for and can tend to belong anywhere.
Unbound items still must return somewhere but where they exactly return largely does not matter which enables some to seem to stay around.

Sentient beings capable of moving are technically bound and unique but to where exactly may change.

When summoning sentient beings it is best practice to Inventionally Pull them. But this also means they may not come.

Writing/Scribing Runes: What and how runes are written on and with can have some effect. Runes can "burn out" and more the robust and durable the material the longer they can last, be re-used, and in some cases be easier to empower.
The "easiest" to procure is stone which tends to be a good balance of qualities so it is often used.
Paper with ash writing tends to be the worst and sometimes can't even last through the casting.
Polkdot frowns on the use of powders as it can be too imprecise. If given a choice between laying out a runic circle with powders or just scrawling in the dirt he opts to just write in the dirt.
The precision which the runes are drawn also effects the casting, which is another reason he stresses learning and practicing to write the alphabet over and over even if one already feels they know it. Proper penmanship is important.
The ideal implement for writing is scribing stick/wand. But these are nearly nonexistent. Yes he has one, no you can't borrow it, or touch it. It is his most prized possession and he is quite proud to have one. How exactly he came to have it seems to change each time he talks about it. In some versions he stole it from a demonic lord, changing which one when telling the story, at other times he says it was gifted to him. Other times it was stolen for him, and gifted to him by the thief.

When all else fails you can write out a spell "long hand," but this can be incredibly tedious and costly to cast. For example if you were to try to summon a rock but didn't know the "summon" runes, you could write out in runes the actual word "summon."

The runic language taps into mantras or intonations. The majority of these can not be made by any single being, so the runes are needed. Though technically frequencies, some of them run into a realm of "spiritual" frequencies which can not be reproduced or tested for with on a frequency spectrum.

There are two important symbols in the runic language.
The Scroll - This signifies an end or finished but also signifies a statement of fact.
The Half Scroll - Similar to The Scroll but with less certainty.
A book may have the scroll symbol on the cover but you'd never put it on the last page but rather use the half scroll. On the cover it signifies this is in certainty a book, on the last page it would signify an end of the book and that all the contents inside are encompassed within and there is nothing more that can be associated with it or the contents. So, if you were to follow the meaning of the symbolism and the scroll appeared on the last page, you wouldn't even mention it or anything about it as there would be nothing more that could be said of it.
It is important to grasp the nuances of it as culturally many beings follow it. For example if the demonic council were to agree to a course of action or pass a rule, they would "stamp" it with a scroll and there is no further discussion. Attempting to say anything after this finalization about it would be culturally taboo and lead to angering them and/or being ostracized.

On Reality


About "other" paranormal things?
Polkdot kind of dodges again on this subject but does say reality is fragile.
There are 12 voidale plains. Each Voidal Plain has 3 sub plains in it.
1. The over plain
2. The stage plain
3. The under plain
Each plain possesses different attributes of sorts. Some are "writable" meaning things can be created there, some are not. Some of the writable pains things are only temporary there and cease to exist when you leave.
We are on the 4th Voidal plain.

The 4th voidal plain is obviously writable.
When the "They" created this world on the 4th plain they created a procedural system. This procedural system can generate things as needed. This has caused the world to move further and further away from "magic" and with each movement and discovery it gets more hidden.

The 4th plain consists of this world and several remnants.
The remnants he believes are very early practices at creating something.
Remnant 1: "The Bowl"
Remnant 2: "The Hills" (This is the area Lucien ended up.)
Remnant 3: "The Field"

Greylands
Polkdot doesn't call them the greylands but just as "between spaces."
He also frowns on having contact with them. Sloppy or bad casting usually results in opening holes into these areas and attracts things to come through. Though he also admits that sometimes it happens and can't be helped.
He speculates that these areas are the results of bad casting or some sort of "magic overflow" or part of a bigger mechanism in order to sustain areas like the hells. Exploring these areas he sees no point in it, likening it to checkers vs chess, or digging in a child's sandbox and beneath that of a true practitioner.

Meditations
After letting you try to light the "exercise L box" Polk will "guide" some meditation practices.

Polkdot, "Don't try to light the candle, don't try to summon a flame. Concentrate on the rune and go back, remember a time years before you were born, your first sound, there are no past lives, you were nothing but followed it before you knew it, instinctively and it is still there. Just as the Tortoise has continued for millions of years past, and the Tortoise has again continued for as many million years as all of the tortoises in the past it follows it to next order of tortoises to come woven out of an eternal fabric of silence.
Your life, a path through the forest, intertwines, meanders, erodes, gets blocked, retreats but always advances. You are not the memories, or intersections, or detours, move down the one path, the single path you know.
You are a ball of yarn, an unwinding yarn, a single thread reaching all the way back to the beginning, each step you've taken has unraveled it leaving a trail. This thread is you, unwound across your travels terminating before your beginning, and here at your end. It is this thread, you move, you move it to the rune, you know it and its position, and touch the two."

After many long session Percival finally is the first to light his box. Any delight is quickly dashed as Polkdot laughs. The flame extinguishes and Polkdot says, "Sorry that was me, I couldn't help myself, this is infuriatingly slow. I had to break the boredom." As the sessions continue from time to time Polkdot pulls this "trick" again every so often on both of you.

What is a thing? Some Polkdot insight on the 8' Rule
For summoning, a thing tends to be treated as the sum of its parts.
IE: A pen, is a complete pen. A gun is a compete gun, but does that mean ammunition comes with it?
If you can summon part of a pen, can you summon part of a person?
Generally no. If you tried to summon Bob Henderson's lung, it would bring bob henderson. A lung is its own thing, but Polk points out, there seems to be a distinction and difference in how entities are handled, plus he'll ponder, is a lung actually a lung if it exists in such a way that it can no longer lung. Or it could be because technically the runes may not be set up to handle what a lung is, and that in order to get something like that, you'd have to devise a framework defining that.
Polkdot notes that there is a lack of runes covering anatomy, though it is possible to write it out.

If this is confusing, think of it maybe like in certain contexts a "B" is a letter b and in word processing it can mean "bold."

Entities are mostly governed and defined through the runes by names or true names and that seems to qualify them as a complete unique thing.

Polk: "This, concept, a thing is a complete thing, so to is here, here. Here and now. Again we see a bit of room here so don't go chasing zeros. Here is the present, and here is here the location. Granted there is no actual present, you look in a mirror there is a delay so you aren't really looking at yourself now, you are looking at yourself a tiny bit behind, but like I said, don't chase zeros. The 8' gives us time to play with. Which is also why you might see some things seem to pop immediately in while others take a moment when being summoned....assuming they answer right away.

But this gives us a problem, there are real runes for governing space and time. The location here is defined more or less by the summoning area, the time here is defined as now. But you, you want to go somewhere, enter the Necromatic lords. Remember I told you they are runes of navigation? Well we add a parser of sorts, a translator. See, there is this idea that the Necros ran amok destroying everything but this is only partially true, based on...eh...problems.
The Necromatic lords had to know when something's time was up, and where they were. So when we need to interact with those, we borrow from them, we use bits of their runes. ...But it is dangerous. Get it wrong, and you'll end up...I don't know what is worse, to end up nowhere, or somewhere.
Our runes tend to...eh...well, here is here, and contains what it contains. The runes won't break that, they'll try to work around it, but when we bring Nectomatic runes into it, we can end up occupying and occupied space. ...go get a job at darpa or some place and maybe by the time you retire they'll show you the pictures of what happens when they fuck it up.

"we've seen what happens when they mess up, people die, half in a wall or a floor."

Size and Shape:
Polk explains the size, is the size of the summoning circle. If a square or other odd shape is used though it doesn't make perfect corners but rounds off a bit.
The height is generally the height it needs to be. If you were standing in a circle of protection it would be just a bit higher than you are. If you sit, it tends to shrink down. If two or are in it then it maintains the height of over the tallest.
The Shape: The shape, seems to be cylindrical with the top being a slight dome shape.

Etiquette: You should always try to make a circle big enough to accommodate what you are summoning.

It is possible in the summoning to define the area by something other than "this circle," but this can have strange results. IE: Making a circle but defining the protection or summoning to "this room," leaves the runes to interpret and this may result in more or less space than anticipated. It might also decide a bed is or is not part of the 'this room" and try to form around it.