Author: Sam

Hello, my children,

Today we must speak on the immense ocean that is familiar ownership. I must assume that some of you are quite familiar with the concept, yet to others it remains my obligation to educate. Familiars, admittedly, are a trendsetter’s magic– some traditionalists even perceive it to be on the level of lowly minstrels in terms of the flamboyant, magical whimsy required to conjure and subsequently tame such fey spirits. I, on the other hand, see it no different as the realm’s court magician walking the streets with their guard composed of flesh and bones. Whatever you surround yourself with, however you hope to express your practice, it matters little when the result is the same: a pickpocket will find it harder to approach when you have an owl on your shoulder turning its head back and forth in constant vigil.

Common familiars as possible by the first domain of spellcasting are conjured fey spirits, yet they take the form of any mundane animal one can think of: dog, cat, owl, rat, hawk, whatever your natural reference deems useful. Familiars, more often than not, are another set of eyes in which a mage may see-through. One can evoke this power by letting them roam free as you sit in your bed, supposedly drifting to sleep. At the very same time, your cat may slip into a courtesan’s mansion where your colleague asks of their escorts just the most outrageous, diabolical, salacious favors one would never hope to be revealed to the public.

Familiars too, once one finds their way to an elevated magical understanding, can be used as focusses for one’s magical energy. The stronger one becomes the more capable they are of summoning creatures that may heal you, may enchant others, or may even have the capacity to kill. Other, rarer such things include spectral spiders, fairy dragons, and imps of the underworld.

Students will ask me whether or not their pre-trained, mundane pets may still convert into a familiar. This is a question predicated on one’s already strong bond with an animal, and I understand that it may be important for one to be working in the field with a creature they can trust. I suppose that many animals possess the same function as familiars, but riddle me this: is it preferable to leave the rat you told stories to under the floorboards in their cage, or would you rather see it squashed under the boot of a random passerby. 

Animals cannot be reconstituted in the same way as familiars. If you are so inclined you may spend the resources to recover the lost soul of your pet to its former mortal vessel, yet I believe the matter may be so petty that The Mother would cast a curse upon you and your lineage for disturbing her eternal slumber. Familiars, since they are fey spirits, are tied to a different coil of existence. If they die, then one must simply summon them back to our plane (yet this does not excuse the frustration and anger from having gotten them into that position of death in the first place). 

Well, this has been a brief introduction to familiars and the wonders of fey ownership. Who knows what next week may bring, and I encourage you all to remain curious and studious as always.

Until next time,

-The Magician

Hello, my children,

There is much debate as to the validity and purpose of differing magical components. As you all know, our tradition of magic is proud and monumental with accounts and precedence dating back millennia when the first folk had carved runes into the rocks of the caves of creation. 

 Such matters are important to consider, yet they are far from perfection. Everything shall be questioned, for these tales are but premonitions, constructed realities meant to support the “understanding” and rich historical narrative which those at the very height of magical comprehension spin in order to make it more difficult for students to shake off the boundaries of their education.

However, as a people’s magician, I hope to facilitate your ever extended search for powers great enough to subjugate worlds and realms infinitely large and incomprehensibly complex.

In order to do such a thing, we must first strip back the most basic components deemed necessary for these processes. The gold and effort one spends hampering their magical equations with this drivel is ludicrous, and it is time you know the difference between deceptive components and those of true substance.

Exhibit A: lavender, and all other components related to essential oils or scented balms, are likely to not have any place within our magic traditions. Now, of course, such things are useful in herbal remedies or in the relaxation of one’s mind before setting out to perform one’s daily rituals, however, this relatively recent addition remains a sign of mere minstrel-ship. 

Do not concern yourselves with simple medicines. That is not our goal, and the act of filling one’s ritual circle with flowers freshly picked from the meadow limits the purview of study within but a few months out of the year when harvested.

Similarly, honey is not useful when applied to medical salves or magical potions. Everything of that sort is useless and superfluous to merely make your products taste slightly better, a simple carnal distraction for working individuals.

On that note,

Exhibit B:

Blood is a tricky substance. One’s colleagues may be enamored with collecting, categorizing, and displaying their immense access to various creates and their nutrient byproducts, but it is not nearly as simple as finding your nearest cow and inserting a spout in its side like it were a tree brimming with sap. Furthermore, it is not as simple as asking a friend or subordinate of yours to volunteer a hand and let the blood spew forth just to get some samples.

The blood one collects for their rituals is distinct and purposeful for different types of magics, as many of you would also know, but the blood of the common human folk is absolutely not useful, There is nothing arcane about the blood of a human. Small folk and elves on the other hand are what one should collect to enhance their rituals.

Students often ask me as to whether what magic is, which I find to be an inane question that all should already have understood before coming to study at this institution of ours. I say that human blood does not possess any magical properties, yet the same is not true for those of sylvan descent… what could possibly be the origin of this strange distinction?

In our ever marching desire for a complete comprehension of the world around us, it angers me to need to highlight my own ignorance when providing a full explanation for your questions. I don’t know why sylvan blood is magical and human blood is non-magical, there is no known reason, substance, or property that we can trace, it is merely a fact that I am woefully underprepared to provide a satisfactory conclusion to your burning curiosity. 

But you all must trust me when saying that some substances provide us with no use, and others serve such an integral purpose to magical processes.

Until next time,

-Samuel Turner

Hello, my children,

The characteristic sign of any sort of civilization is a wizard’s tower. Power is held and distributed by those at the top, so what a wonderful metaphor for these imbalanced structures set into place as the structure of our civilization for millennia. Folks fear those who stand tall above them, they cower beneath such deified figures when instead, such magically inclined people are just as flawed and scarred as the rest of us lowly folk (in different, more complex manners).

Now I may merely be a lowly magician, for I possess no obtuse obelisk as brash as The Headmaster’s pointy stick at the center of town, but I digress. There is no shame in sequestering yourself to a humble cottage at the side of a river, or a cozy 9 person shared room in the slums of the west end of the city. Such is the life of a magician of lesser stature than myself. I assure you, my most devoted students, that you will find yourselves easily to the middle stratum of magical labor (to be honest, high society isn’t realistic for you all).

As you all understand, the title of Wizard is a highly coveted political status, and the way of asserting your mindless dominance over the rest of the community is to retreat to the highest point in the highest city where no other person can reach you. You cackle at the humble congregations and convents, you mock the puny scale of the university, you spit at the 15-foot walls which are meant to protect the law-abiding citizens of this settlement.

Who is there with you? No one; a wizard can never manage time for a partner. Who is there to comfort you when you small little universe that you’ve created crumbles at the realization that there exists another wizard more powerful than you, a wizard whose tower extends beyond even the clouds, and you must take it, you must breathe in the same air as a greatness and profound intelligence that you may never achieve. These wizards, they are higher than kings. They are higher than gods. What happens when your deific power is pitted against another force of unimaginable magnitude? Well, you must once again assert your position on the theoretical totem pole. Climbing the ladder, riding high, falling down, rinsing, repeating, cutting the throats of your colleagues, destroying the final enemy in your ultimate pursuit of academic dominance. What is it worth when your bones crumble the same as your pitiful tower, and your precious memory remains only on the tongues of street minstrels speaking of your deepest misfortunes decades later?

No, wizard towers are defined by their unapologetic expression of superiority and idiocy. Hubris, it is all hubris, and the lower one is to the earth, the easier it is to see the absurdity of removing oneself from the restful hands which birthed all life. 

I apologize, again. I may have gotten sidetracked and expanded our time…

Until next time,

-The Magician

Hello my children,

I hope not to bother you so, for exams persist and tensions run high amongst all folk within this humble college of ours. However, even in the most extraordinary of circumstances, as the most extraordinary of people, one can feel quite insignificant and alone. I don’t even know why I would feel this way. I know, logically, that what I am experiencing is merely the natural course and consequence of having lived so long. However, it does not change my profound frustration by its implications: slowly, but surely, your beloved professor is dying.

Today I wish to speak about the aging of elves, and instead hope to return to discussions about subjects of levity at a later date.

Now first for some context: elven aging occurs far slower than that of most other folk. Smallfolk, strange as they are, display age rapidly and will remain that way until they shrivel up into a senile bundle of wrinkles and coal dust. I will take their word upon the noble virtues of working until death deep beneath the earth.

Humans, like a passionate flame that burns quickly through its wick, persist for but a fraction of an elven lifespan. However, they age at a far more consistent rate than feykin or smallfolk, and this reminds them constantly of their purpose. Humans are liberated from unmotivated mediocrity by their immediate mortality.

Elves, on the other hand, are the most perfect of beings. Our beautiful youthfulness is as warm as honey and preserved like the sweetest of wines. This, of course, is true until the very final years when we find ourselves as the face of death. If you cut the roots from a flower, it immediately begins that painful process of vanitas. Likewise, an elf leaves just as quickly, yet mysteriously, is unable to provide evidence of their disappearance. To my horror, when bathing yesterday, a hair fell from my wonderful locks only to theblack stone below, a wispy grey sliver of color spelling the coming doom.

This is what scares me the most, my children. The days seem to get shorter and shorter, and don’t know how to describe it. It’s almost as if time itself has wrapped its long, wispy fingers around me personally just to tamper with my perception of the world. I suppose that is the natural state of an elf, a point of time in one’s life where all must come hopefully not to a bitter end, but instead to a slow gradient into unknowing all that they have been privileged to have learned in the first place.

That doesn’t stop me from fearing the end. Something finite is scary to us folk. We enjoy boundless freedom and the endless possibilities of thought, but to have that stripped away from you as if it were ice exposed to a flame is indescribable. Or maybe, even, it is not my perception, it is not that my end comes closer, but that the world plays tricks on me and everyone here. The Earthmother plays games with mortals, especially those who hope to supersede her eternal, vast, unending influence. As you may already know, that is my whole identity.

Seeing this grey hair, and calculating the life that I already have lived, I at most have fifty years longer to study. Can you believe such a thing? I must take advantage of these twilighting elven years of mine, see the world in its entirety, and find once again what it means to be a person of study. After, of course, exams have ended and vacation comes. Thank you for listening to my musings every week, and I hope that your lives bring upon you answers instead of useless, ongoing questions.

Until next time,

-The Magician.

Hello my children,

Hello all, welcome to another week’s programming. In preparation for the coming spring equinox, I would like to celebrate by examining the most ancient forms of magical mastery in recorded and recoverable history: golems and elementals.

It is important to first define what is different between these commonly interchangeable words. Golems are constructs formed out of the hands of human interaction and a desire to replicate what had been seen around them. Elementals, on the other hand, are naturally occurring creatures imbued with the raw energy of The Earthmother herself.

Golems are uniformly made out of physical materials by past and present folk: clay, wood, iron, steel, flesh, and rock are all common building blocks at which an elemental focus is surrounded. This is to say, golems are not and never have been composed of the same material as fire, wind, and water elementals because the common peoples of this land are capable only of working in terms of which they are naturally inclined. As the mighty angels above may spin silk out of clouds, and the humble imp below may tickle with glee as it animates fire to do its bidding, we are meant only to skip stones and arrange bark into our desired image. 

However, I of all should know better that a magician’s journey is to rise above the confines of our natural disposition in order to conquer what was, supposedly, never meant to be conquered. That is precisely what elevates us common folk, and that is what has led to our continued fascination with these four elements. What reason is there to study nature except to surpass and disallow ourselves from standing idly by as it consumes us all? We will not be the hunter, but instead the hunted.

That, in my humble opinion, is what first motivated the folk of this land to create golems. Such creatures are an early form of programmed magic with one intention only: to protect the creator and the creator’s property (be it innate or sentient). An easy principle to relate to, no? This is why golems have been found dating back thousands and thousands of years, and in the opinion of people smarter than myself, even to before The Court’s first ascension. Having performed some fieldwork under the guise of a ratcatcher, I can state with humble confidence that the prevalence of golem creation has predated every single empire, every city of high repute, and every magical stronghold on this continent. 

The interesting thing is that in one’s adventures, one can observe the evolving design philosophy of golem production. When first attempting to recreate their natural world, artisans had little artistic president as compared to modern, masterful proportions and sculptural technique. This is why that, when delving into tombs of forgotten horrors and riches, the easiest measure of age is the complexity of golem-like constructs within the tomb.

In order to create a golem one requires a magical focus of some kind– usually by crushing up and binding together refined magical residuum. I hope I need not explain to you the significance of residuum, but for the uninitiated, let me point to the green crystals found within these animated geodes. Pictured beside them are two examples of an object that constitutes a magical focus: one is a smaller unrefined geode found just 100 leagues from this university, and the other is a modern design of my own.

By pulverizing the crystal and suspending the dust in an arcane conductive medium, we are able to arrange our material bases in many more complex structures than any of our ancestors could have dreamed of.

I’m afraid I have run up time again with my ramblings. No matter, for I will have time to speak more about this subject as we inch closer and closer towards the spring equinox where we will find elemental power at its peak.

Until next time,

-The Magician