Advanced Arcana Foreword
Welcome back to a very special Nefarious Knowledge. Boy it's been a while! The following is an excerpt from our recent book Advanced Arcana (on sale now). This foreword (as well as an Appendix, which we'll be putting up this Thursday), tell the story of how the various spells of Advanced Arcana were assembled, through the fictional character of Kabaz. As I'm sure you're already aware, there's a lot more to the book than fiction - 65 new spells and a number of extra features like new familiars, new cleric domains, new sorcerer bloodlines, and more!
A Foreword by the Compiler of this Tome
The fact that you hold this book in your hands means that you, like myself, are a true student of the arcane arts. We hold great reverence and awe for the magical powers which, with great work and study, can allow even the simplest of shepherd’s sons to rewrite the very nature of reality, if only on a small scale. Further, we have a deep and inexorable hunger, an insatiable desire—not for the power that such magic can bring, but instead for knowledge: knowledge of the cosmos, how it works, and what our places are in it. You, my gentle and inquisitive reader, are always asking questions, always seeking answers beyond the next horizon. If you are anything like I am, the most common question you find yourself pursuing is one of “Why?”
It was such a question which led to the creation and compilation of this tome, as well as a number of the spells it holds. The book you hold in your hand is the effort of decades of exhaustive research, both of the metamagical variety, experimenting with subtle alterations in the methodology of casting certain spells, and of a more direct method, attempting to build on the works of mages who came before me. In the creation of this tome I have spent countless hours working in my laboratory attempting to perfect slight mutations on existing spellcraft, I have pursued dozens of vague rumors—often to remote corners of this plane, as well as others—in search of other sages who might be able to aid me in my quest for knowledge, and I have delved deep into archives, digging through tomes like an archaeologist might dig through the ground in search of the relics of lost civilizations. I do not tell you this to inflate my own image in your eyes, but rather because I want you, my dear reader, to understand and appreciate that this tome you hold did not come about overnight. The effort involved in creating it was extensive, and I consider it among my finest accomplishments as a mage of the Ivory Order. You should value and treasure it, for its contents were hard-won.
As I said, this tome is the result of my attempts to answer a question which had been plaguing me. It is not often that I find such a problem profound enough to prompt such extensive action, so know that, in this humble scribe’s opinion, the question at the core of this book is one that, if properly explored, could rock the very foundation of magic as we know it. It is for this reason that I have published this work, for I believe that a matter this profound should not rest with a privileged few, but instead should be made available to all who wish to pursue the great art of the arcane. Indeed, it is my profound hope that this tome will promote great debate and further study on the issue, bringing about a golden age of enlightenment that will advance the world of magic in decades what might normally take centuries.
This problem, then, this question, which I believe is fundamental to the very core of magic as we know it, is insidiously simple on the surface. It is nothing more or less than a matter of, “What is the true cost of a spell?” According to the ancient sage Drawzi of Astocthes, the cost of a spell is measured in mental energy, with spells being classified in nine tiers based on the amount of energy the spell consumed when cast. Though modern sages agree that this method of envisioning magic is not perfect, it is still widely accepted to this day as the closest working model of the cost of a spell on its caster. It is indeed true that spells require a certain expenditure of mental energy and willpower in order to cast, but is that the only cost of magic? In recent years there has been growing evidence for the conservation of magic theory, and while I am by no means willing to claim that the ideas espoused therein are true, I find the very fact that the theory has yet to be properly disproven to be indicative of how very little we truly understand about the cosmic force which we so regularly take for granted.
For my own part, my desire to examine this matter and question the currently accepted model of the cost of a spell came from two entirely separate directions. The first is a long-standing issue I have had with the Astochthan model of spell nodes. Ever since I was an academy student, I had been disappointed with the system’s inability to cope with the fact that while any combination of two spells from the lowest tier are clearly far less potent a force, magically, than a single spell of the ninth tier, a mage is supposedly unable to use the mental energy which would be applied to such a spell to instead power two of these weaker spells. Clearly, if the matter were simply one of expended energy, this would not be the case. The answer must be that another force, one about which we know very little, is instead the cause for such restrictions.
The other quandary which led me to my question was entirely unrelated to the previous, and far more practical and mundane in essence. Having watched more than my share of mage’s duels, and been in the unfortunate position to have to use my magic for offensive purposes on one or two occasions, I was keenly aware of the fact that one of the mage’s greatest weaknesses in practical, “real-world” applications of magic, and combat in particular, is that spells require a great deal more time investment than swinging a sword or firing a bow. A skilled swordsman can, with training, make several attacks in the time it takes a skilled mage to cast a single spell. With the use of certain metamagic, a spellcaster can sacrifice a great deal of energy to enhance a spell’s celerity, but even then he is lucky if he can cast spells at half the rate the swordsman can swing his blade, and he will quickly find himself without any energy left to cast his spells, leaving him completely defenseless.
In a way, then, time is as much a cost of magic as anything else. Unlike the previous issue with the Astochthan model, this is a boundary that we have already bent: the aforementioned metamagic alterations, for one, as well as a small but significant number of spells which have been designed with speed in mind, such as the classic feather fall. If this rule can be bent, so too, perhaps, can Drawzi’s principles be bent, worked around, and, perhaps, in time, abandoned. That, dear reader, was my goal in creating this tome: to challenge the currently held perceptions of what a spell should require of its caster in exchange for the magic it provides.
This tome focuses on challenging these assumptions and breaking these boundaries primarily in three separate ways, which I will outline here:
The first type of spell is the type of which I am most proud to be able to include in this book, and which I feel is the most revolutionary of those included here. I have tentatively termed them, collectively, “fountain” spells, in that they allow you to further draw from your own metaphorical well of spellcasting ability when you cast them. That is, these spells, when cast, perform their effect and then restore access to one or more spells you had previously used up for the day.
The exact nature of the recovered spells varies, depending on the spell you are casting. Note that as of this publishing, I have not been able to find a way to create limitless magic in this way, as the spell returned is always of a lesser tier than the spell expended, but I am optimistic that, with further research, sages may one day be able to overcome this obstacle. A subset of the fountain spells are spells I have referred to as “cascading” spells, as that is what they were referred to by the only mage I could find who had invented such a spell. These spells technically do not restore any lost magical energy, but instead are, to use a bit of metaphoric flare, “tightly packed,” and contain, within a single spell, the effects of multiple, less powerful, spells.
The second revolutionary type of spell contained in this tome is the “segmented” spell, so named because it is a spell with such wide-reaching effect and exceptional magical potency that, in most cases, such spells are beyond the scope of even the most powerful tier of spells. In order for these spells to be able to be cast, they are broken down into segments, which, when cast in succession, act as a single spell of exceptional power.
Finally, this tome contains a number of spells which are designed to be able to be cast swiftly, for mages who find themselves in situations where such things are necessary. Though this is hardly the kind of innovation found in the other kinds of spells, note that these spells are modal in design. That is to say, if you cast such a spell quickly, it will have its effect as normal, and will take only a moment to cast. If, on the other hand, you take the proper time to fully cast the spell, it can provide much greater benefits, making these spells highly versatile and useful to a mage who must operate in the field.
I have, of course, included a number of other spells as well, mostly spells which I discovered in pursuit of this book’s creation, and felt would be of value to anyone who enjoys the study of magic. Note that I have included a number of spells in this book which are not only offensive in nature, but are downright evil: magic of the blackest sort. I have done so not because I condone their use, but because I believe that by studying the way in which they work, we can better deconstruct the problem of the nature of “a spell.” Such spells should be viewed as an academic exercise only, and not put to practical use.
It is my belief that, from this point on, it is best to allow the spells which I have included to speak for themselves. There is a time for theory, debate, rhetoric, and philosophy, and there is a time for direct, hands-on experience. I have told you, gentle reader, what to look for as you examine the rest of this tome, and I encourage you, as you do so, to think, in the back of your mind, about the nature of a spell, and what it’s true cost really is.