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It is a lovely Saturday morning. Feathered children are watching cartoons; furred adults are eating brunch; scaled teenagers - one scaled teenager in particular, actually - is arguing with the proprietor of a magic shop.
"How did these items get made if there's no way to learn magic? Are the magicians homeschooling their children and not writing any books? How did you learn?"
"Half this stuff is antiques," says the shopkeep. "Look, asking me a dozen times isn't gonna make the answer more to your liking. I don't have Hogwarts in the basement, deal with it."
"But where do you get the stuff that isn't antique - who made the Avalon itself? - isn't anybody panicking about the medallion supply? -"
"Kid, nobody knows how to make medallions."
"But some people apparently know how to make luck charms and protection amulets!"
"I'm not going to give out my suppliers' personal information. I wouldn't do it even if you weren't annoying."
"There have to be books -"
"Does this look like a library to you?"
maybeso
maybeso
May grins, and opens the textbook.
It can matter what you scribe your inscriptions on and with. Not, usually, because the material changes the spell, but because it can throw off your runes if you carve them in jello or drizzle them in mustard. They need to have straight lines and good curves. Standard rune construction involves a compass and straightedge; it is permissible to use a protractor; final designs should all be in a single material to allow the magic to ignore compass markings and stray pencil smudges; you should be sure your pen does not drip or jitter, and that it won't tear the paper (this can have unpredictable and therefore sometimes fatal results). If drawing on the ground it is advisable to use larger runes so that small irregularities make up a smaller fraction of each symbol.
It can matter what you scribe your inscriptions on and with. Not, usually, because the material changes the spell, but because it can throw off your runes if you carve them in jello or drizzle them in mustard. They need to have straight lines and good curves. Standard rune construction involves a compass and straightedge; it is permissible to use a protractor; final designs should all be in a single material to allow the magic to ignore compass markings and stray pencil smudges; you should be sure your pen does not drip or jitter, and that it won't tear the paper (this can have unpredictable and therefore sometimes fatal results). If drawing on the ground it is advisable to use larger runes so that small irregularities make up a smaller fraction of each symbol.
asteptotheright
"I'm going to cultivate extremely precise handwriting. Extremely small scrolls would be very useful." Hmm. "I wonder if you could get something reusable by making grooves in an object and filling them with new ink or what have you for every casting."
maybeso
"Oooooh," exclaims May, and she flips to the index. "...Well, if you can, this book doesn't know it or doesn't have it under an obvious index term."
asteptotheright
"It seems worth the experiment, in any case. There's only so much book; one can hardly blame them for focusing more on how magic works than how to practice it efficiently."
maybeso
"I don't know, it could stand the extra three pages it would take to describe that trick, but yeah," she sighs.
Back to the chapter. Anything written or drawn outside the main circumscription will not affect the spell, unless you're doing one with two diagrams (chapter six); it is customary to write your inscriptions (incantations) down so you don't forget them mid-sentence; they should be about yea long and yea complicated and yea exact; here are some examples in various languages, Polish alas not among them but French is in there.
Back to the chapter. Anything written or drawn outside the main circumscription will not affect the spell, unless you're doing one with two diagrams (chapter six); it is customary to write your inscriptions (incantations) down so you don't forget them mid-sentence; they should be about yea long and yea complicated and yea exact; here are some examples in various languages, Polish alas not among them but French is in there.
maybeso
Most of the examples are in English anyway, clearly marked FOR THOSE WITH ENGLISH AS A SECOND (OR SUBSEQUENT) LANGUAGE ONLY. Things like "rise, flames, consume the structure before me in fire and heat". "Flesh, knit together and leave no mark nor pain". "Hide me from all sight and let the world be seen through me".
"Oooooh, I wanna turn invisible," sighs May. "And fly to school."
"Oooooh, I wanna turn invisible," sighs May. "And fly to school."
maybeso
"Well, not even all critters have wings. But I do, and I want to use them. There's not enough room here."
asteptotheright
"I suppose it's still possible that I am something and just don't know it. I'm not sure I want to, if I am--yet, anyway. I don't currently feel the lack of wings, but if it turns out I have them I'd rather wait to find out until we've worked out invisibility."
asteptotheright
"I wonder why fire is coming up disproportionately often. It doesn't seem like it would be very important..."
maybeso
"I think it's easy to do. I found a lot of fire runes doing my data entry project. Oh, and the letter to the publisher will go out Monday."
asteptotheright
"I think I've found some stylistic similarities between some of the runes and Norse runic alphabets, but nothing sufficiently concrete that I can be sure it's not confirmation bias."
asteptotheright
"I think it would be showing, not telling--if I had any similarities solid enough to firmly define, besides the fact that both tend to be fairly angular, I'd be more confident it wasn't confirmation bias."
asteptotheright
"If you check yourself and don't see anything, I can point out my observations later; I'm less confident that the reverse is true. So the latter option is probably preferable."
maybeso
"Okay. Spreadsheet first, though, I think."
Textbook. Principles of how to compactly arrange runes and in what order. Spatial location of runes has a variety of fuzzy effects on spells that the author burns a lot of words trying to explain without getting very far. She does repeatedly assert that one develops a feel for it and it's mostly only a problem with particularly gargantuan or high-precision spells.
Textbook. Principles of how to compactly arrange runes and in what order. Spatial location of runes has a variety of fuzzy effects on spells that the author burns a lot of words trying to explain without getting very far. She does repeatedly assert that one develops a feel for it and it's mostly only a problem with particularly gargantuan or high-precision spells.
asteptotheright
Well, they'll certainly want to cast gargantuan and high-precision spells eventually. Notetaking notetaking.
maybeso
Aggressive notetaking with beautiful handwriting.
Here is a section of two chapters in a row about what the one- and two-word summaries of rune function mean in more detail, and cases where two runes may be listed as having one aspect alike but actually differ in crucial ways unless all of their other effects are totally suppressed.
Here is a section of two chapters in a row about what the one- and two-word summaries of rune function mean in more detail, and cases where two runes may be listed as having one aspect alike but actually differ in crucial ways unless all of their other effects are totally suppressed.
maybeso
It is!
"This will complicate the hell out of my spreadsheet. I'll have to color-code it or something."
"This will complicate the hell out of my spreadsheet. I'll have to color-code it or something."
asteptotheright
"Well, people who didn't use spreadsheets at all managed. Although not well enough, it seems like."