Title: A Brief Description of Inscription Author: The Librarian Forum Name: Azoth Category: Inscription Date: March 19th 2017 First there is a point and from this point flows a line. Rotate this line and you get a circle.Point. Line. Circle. The source of all letters in the manifold alphabets of the Lands of Sosaria, from the angular earthy runes of the Far North to the swirling fiery calligraphy of the South. This is the story of inscription, not just the sounding of words, but their visual power, the abstract geometries that create the letters, the mysteries of the letters themselves, plus the myriad combinations of words and phrases in the potent combinations of magical spells. The individual creative, gifted and then disciplined enough to handle these elements of magic is a Scribe, a master or mistress of Inscription. The greatest masters of this art can inscribe on air, water and fire, and some even claim they were taught secrets by the mythical BookWyrm, whose very scales bore spells, with individual letters blinking in its eyes, but most today practice the more down-to-earth skills of inscriptions on physical matter. In museums and archives you can still occasionally find inscriptions on specially prepared arcane materials, each with a sophisticated chain of correspondences between the stars and spirits of heaven and the mundane creations on earth. Some of this Lore still continues to be practised: we have the same Eight Spell Circles that have been passed down since antiquity, but our practices have somewhat diminished in scale. Any youngster nowadays has heard of the sets of eight spells connected with each of the eight spell circles, but few will know that in the past a different material, quill and ink used to be required for each level. For spells of the First Circle the requirements were relatively straightforward: you needed the hide of a goat, scraped clean so that it became vellum, a quill from a goose and the blood of a hen mixed with lampblack, so that you could write the spell carefully on your parchment. Things got increasingly difficult, however, the higher the level. A spell from the Second Circle, for instance, required the skin from an Mongbat, Feather from a Harpy, and blood from an Orc. Imagine how difficult, indeed almost impossible, it was to fulfill the requirements for a spell of the Eight Circle: the hide of an Ancient Wyrm, a quill from the wing of a Chaos Daemon, and Undead Dragon's Blood! Even with the advent of paper the preparation of blank scrolls is still a difficult business. Lumberjacks chop the trees, Tamers convince trolls to chew the wood-chips into pulp, then ettins stomp on the pulp (and occasionally on an unfortunate troll), until the paste is spread thin on the ground, and finally dragons toast the mixture until it dries into thick paper. You think smiths and carpenters only make weapons, armour and furniture? You'd be wrong. When business is slack they can be found pounding this thick paper with wooden mallets until it's thin enough for high quality scrolls. Even tailors have got in on the act, using old rags as another source for finer quality paper! Some of that anniversary clothing you see being snapped up on the Forum may well be being used to make a cover for an arcane grimoire or a necromancer's tome! From time to time you will hear of people coming back from adventures with an Elvish Tome. Most people don't realise that these are not empty spell books, but rather grimoires of ancient magic that require special conditions for even viewing the spell, let alone working it. Often the viewing of the spell requires a particular location, usually a place of importance to the Elves and then must be read at the time of a particular moon, a waxing moon for White Magic and a waning moon for Black Magic. Many Elvish spells can only be read at night and sometimes different spells appear on the same page, depending on whether it's a Blue Moon, Wolf Moon, Hunter's Moon, Harvest Moon and so forth. The specific colours of these Elvish Tomes also give some indication of the varieties of spells they contain. Nowadays, all you need is a good eye and steady hand, a retentive memory for all the arcane symbols and mystical words needed for your spell craft, books to practise copying texts and then blank scrolls to be inscribed and sold as individual scrolls (the most popular being Recall, Mark, and Gate scrolls), or fill spell books with the full complement of 64 spells and sell them on a vendor. Scribing can be extremely rewarding and the ideal combination with Magery for developing a familiarity with magical rituals and creatures. Take great care, however, with your inscriptions. They are like doctor's prescriptions and a misspelling could give you an entirely different result. Magery schools expect a high degree of "Hexactitude" from their students! Make sure you don't accidentally invoke a Swarm of Hornets at your Spelling Bee!!!
