Mods/Thaumcraft/Magic

Magic in Thaumcraft is used for several sorts of crafting, enchanting, and building, including items which can project various spells or give other abilities. As with vanilla Minecraft, the player's abilities don't change overtly, though they do unlock recipes and gain magic-related skills such as research and node tapping. Thus, there are no "spells" -- everything is done by one of several forms of crafting, producing tools or weapons that can produce various effects. The ../Thauminomicon/ maintains a current record of the information, abilities, and recipes that the player has accumulated.

The "essence" of magic, Thaumcraft's form of "mana", comes in various "flavors" called Aspects, which are inherent in all blocks, creatures, and other items. There are 6 Primal Aspects, but aspects can be combined with each other pairwise, to produce new Combined Aspects. There are 44 Combined Aspects, for a total of 50 Aspects. The player cannot themselves combine the aspects of vis, but must harvest the more advanced aspects from the environment. However, proper equipment can break down the advanced aspects into their component types, such as separating Victus into Aqua and Terra.

Aspects which have been separated from their objects are called ../vis/, which can be collected in wands or other tools, or condensed into a liquid form called essentia. Vis can be obtained in several ways:
 * When monsters die, along with their experience they drop "aspect orbs" (of primal aspects) which can be collected by a wand.
 * Scattered around the landscape are Nodes, which can be drained with wands or other tools.
 * With ongoing research, other devices for draining nodes become available, and almost any object can be broken down in a ../Crucible/ for the aspected energies they contain.