Smokemagic bears two elemental charges — fire and air. Fire-charged magic is mana, and air-charged magic is aether.
In the cycle of arcana, water quenches the roaring flame, bearing billowing steam and smoldering smoke upward on the wind to the air. Mana takes on the flavor of the Smoke domain as crosses the midpoint of its ascent in the cycle. Mana becomes aether as a dying fire draws smoke upward on the wind.
Smokemagic is an emissive magic of transaction, exchange, reciprocation, and reprisal. Its folk and its wielders understand mana and aether through paying — or exacting — the fair price for every boon. Smokefolk trade cause for effect intuitively, but human practitioners must learn methods of warlockery, the harnessing of Smokemagic through oaths, names, and contracts.
Wielding the power of exchange either by innate affinity or through warlockery buys and releases the stored power within living creatures.