The Realm of the Elderlings/Concepts

This article concerns the concepts and IDeaS featured in The Realm of the Elderlings, Robin Hobb's fantasy world featured in her first three trilogies.

The Skill

The celebrated hereditary magic of the royal Farseer line, The skill allows mind to mind contact that can be used to accomplish anything from mind to mind communication to causing pain and even death. During the time of King Shrewd's father, skill training was limited to members of the royal family until the creation of Galen's coterie. After the death of Will, the last member of that coterie, there were no skillmasters or coteries until Tom Badgerlock returned to Buckeep fifteen years later to train Prince Dutiful and others in the skill.

Origin - It's been theorized by The Fool that the skill is a remnant of the communication between The Elderlings and Dragons, and those who have the Skill are the descendants of people who had interacted with Dragons.

Coterie - A group of people trained to skill together. the closeness established by members of a coterie is such that if a member dies it causes pain and loss to all other members of the coterie as well as a loss of overall power. worse is when one member of a coterie kills another member of the same coterie. since all members of a coterie are sworn to their ruler, [...] one amounts to treason to The Throne.

King/Queen's man - While the skill has many uses, a coteries main duty is to provide skill-strength to their sovereign. A single person can also act as a King/Queen's man as Burrich did for Prince Chivalry or Fitzchivalry for Prince Verity.

Communication- Possibly the most commonly used ability available to a Coterie, they can communicate mind to mind over any distance with each other.

Skill-walls - a Skill user can establish mental walls that block out other skill users from entering their mind. There are ways around skill walls, such as using brute force or allowing oneself to "seep" into a persons mind.

Healing - The Skill can be used to speed up the healing of an individual. This process draws on the bodies energy stores however and can leave the recipient exhausted for days or weeks after the process.

Pain barrier - A Skillmaster might create a barrier within a students mind that causes pain whenever they attempt to Skill.

Causing pain and death - the skill can be used to inflict pain on another, and even death. Such use is considered immoral and [...] another skill-user with the Skill can leave the person without the ability to skill until suitable healing is done.

Leeching - Skill strength can also be drained off another unwillingly. While this can cause death, it is unlike the other in that the person chooses to die rather than give up all their strength to the cause.

Skill-block - A person can be blocked by a skill-user from all other skill-users to keep their secrets and power to themselves. Prince Chivalry is said to have done this to Burrich.

Skill-walking - A Skill-user can travel vast distances with their mind, and with enough power actually enter another persons body for a short period of time.

Dream-walking/manipulating - Certain Skill-users are adept at the spying and manipulation of other peoples dreams. Nettle's Dream-Manipulations are especially powerful. It seems to be her specialty. When Nettle is in a dream, she can even force someone to stop dreaming or render them powerless

Skill-commands - The Skill can be used to imprint certain instructions into another's mind. the range of this ability can range from a simple command, to a completely fabricated loyalty that the recipient is completely unaware exists.

The Wit

The Wit is despised magic that allows humans to share thoughts with animals and form bonds (known as wit bonds) with one animal. The population GeneRally believes that the magic endows its users the ability to speak the tongues of beasts. A common misconception is that a person with the Wit can transform into an animal; in reality, this is impossible, although members of Wit-bonded pairs will slowly assume behavioural traits of the other species. It is also possible with the Wit to Repel another person; this is a mind blast of feral rage using the emotions of the witted person. "Repelling" halts the target in their tracks, and in some cases, if the Witted is strong enough or their emotions are very powerful, can cause the target to run away, or even throw them backwards. The opposite of repelling is also possible - the ability to send out a calming influence.

Scrying

A form of divination, which allow people to see distant event while looking in a bowl of water.

Hedge magic

Hedge magic are enchantments mostly practised with amulets by witches. They also predict future by looking at the hands of people.