Luminate

Luminates are individuals with the rare ability to form a mental connection with an elemental. This can happen unconsciously and without training, making such connections potentially dangerous if the elemental carries out the violent subconscious desires of a child, rather than the conscious will of a trained thaumaturge.

Throughout the ages, otherwise mentally sound people have experienced ghostly events, hauntings, strange sounds and manifestations. Objects move without visible reason, voices scream in strange tongues, they are plagued with visions of unearthly light, and invisible hands intervene to defend them from harm. These events usually begin in adolescence, and are attributed to ghosts, demons, gods or mental illness.

The truth is that some humans have the rare ability to be form a direct mental bond with elementals, rather than using the complex system of formal invocation used in thaumaturgy. These people were described as luminate, since they attract elementals like moths to a light. This ability (or curse, to the uninitiated) is normally only achieved by magisters after decades of study and hard work. In former times Rasia actively sought out luminate children, as they have the potential to become powerful practioners. If not - for the skill is often subconscious and erratic, particularly if not mastered at a young age - the masters of the Academy could at least explain the benign nature of the visions, and suppress the ability.

Bonding between a simple elemental and a luminate individuals is believed to be one explanation for the development of deitals, or god-spirits. In the High Period of the Rasian Academy, a group from the College of Gnosticians was tasked with discovering luminate individuals and eliminating the elementals they had come into contact with, so as to prevent the development of dangerous new gods. As a result, they were known as the Godkillers.