Magic: Not the card game
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
(for those of you who didn't bother to read the title, I am not talking about the card game.)
Magic itself is a ancient science involving the direct study of the universe, how it works, how to work it, and why its there.
That it allowed the researchers (called, at the time, Magicians, which later was shortened to Mages) to hurl fireballs at people
they didn't like and to make people they did fly (among other things) was just a side effect.
It was such a ancient science simply because there are no tools needed to study it. People did not have to invent micro- or
tele- scopes before they could look at the universe, simply because looking at anything was looking at the universe. This made
research rather easy, as no fancy laboratories where needed. In fact, a mage needed only his mind to do his job, as
knowledge of the-universe-does-this-when-that-happens is sort of built in by the time one is born. Therefore, what people
had where a bunch of old people who sat around thinking who could on occaison spontaniously build an invisible wall in
front of an attacking army, fuse someone's arm back on, or generaly impress people.
This was a rather taxing weight upon the general populace of the time (which was something a few hundred years before
the romans), as one just couldn't have a building next door that blew up if the owner said the wrong word at the wrong time,
or a old man who could do a day's worth of farming in nine seconds. Therefore the Mages grew farther and farther apart
from normal society. Sooner or later, it came that any coupleing between a Mage and a normal person was almost unheard
of, and Mages sooner or later went into semi-myth (this occured around the times of the Romans) to normal peoples.
And so it became, that known only by a few Humans, the Mages became their own slightly diffrent species: Wizards,
or Homo Magicus. This was in fact quite fitting, as by this time the technology of spells had been fully developed.
And by a dramatic miscalculation, many of these spells where finished in a slightly altered form than intended: they
were, technicaly, alive. To many wizards, this was slightly unsettleing. To have some other living thing sharing the space
inside one's brain was more than a bit creepy. However, the living spells worked out to become more powerful than the
inanimate ones. It was very convienent to have a fireball suddenly know to change course when one's foe was running in
another direction, or to have something else to help thinking about which tendon goes where and nearby which bit of
torn flesh.
It also opened the way for numerous undead-creating magics, which will not be discussed here.
It came about, however, that the wizards, not really even trying to hard to hide, where found by the normal populace again.
By then one would expect society to be ready for such a thing as wizards, untill one remembers that people where having
a hard time dealing with people of a diffrent skin color. People who could, among other things, throw lightning bolts at
one's house would of course cause problems. And so occured the historical witch-hunts *.
It is important to note that there was no rational reason for this to happen. The wizards where perfectly innocent of any
charge exept that of having "supernatrual" powers. Also there was that most wizards simply went away from the areas
in which witch-hunts where common, and only one or two out of the hundreds accused where actualy wizards.
This lead to the general mass of wizards taking offence and going into hiding. Since they went into hiding in several
diffrent places, without telephones, the study of magic took several diffrent turns from that point. This resulted in the
diffrent species of spells:
Arcanus Simplicitus: spells that where, as the name suggests, simple. Mainly cast by wand-using wizards, these spells where
geared toward doing a simple task quickly. For example, these spells were the sort that moved things around or simple
methods of self-defence.
Arcanus Difficulitis: spells used by most every type of wizard, as it is a rather broad catagory. Basicaly spells that did a more
complex task in a bit more time. Such as spells to create or build things, or more complex methods of self-defence and
offence.
Arcanus Difficulitis Escapus: a race of Difficulitis spells that seemed to flee the wizard's mind after he or she cast them.
Arcanus Rituasa: Spells that needed intracate prepareations in order to cast. These invariably had the greatest effects of all
the spell types to cast, but it was really tedious for the wizard.
You might recognise these patterns of spells from fantasy books. In fact, shame on you if you don't. The reason for this is
simply that fantasy 0writers (a species in their own right, Homo Scriptorus Fantasticus) have recently made contact with various factions of wizards, and tended to base the wizards in their own novels on those they had found in reality. (see the entry titled "Wizards: a (badly-written) essay on this most odd of species.")
*: No, I don't know why they where called witches. Probably no wizard cared to stay around to correct them.
Magic itself is a ancient science involving the direct study of the universe, how it works, how to work it, and why its there.
That it allowed the researchers (called, at the time, Magicians, which later was shortened to Mages) to hurl fireballs at people
they didn't like and to make people they did fly (among other things) was just a side effect.
It was such a ancient science simply because there are no tools needed to study it. People did not have to invent micro- or
tele- scopes before they could look at the universe, simply because looking at anything was looking at the universe. This made
research rather easy, as no fancy laboratories where needed. In fact, a mage needed only his mind to do his job, as
knowledge of the-universe-does-this-when-that-happens is sort of built in by the time one is born. Therefore, what people
had where a bunch of old people who sat around thinking who could on occaison spontaniously build an invisible wall in
front of an attacking army, fuse someone's arm back on, or generaly impress people.
This was a rather taxing weight upon the general populace of the time (which was something a few hundred years before
the romans), as one just couldn't have a building next door that blew up if the owner said the wrong word at the wrong time,
or a old man who could do a day's worth of farming in nine seconds. Therefore the Mages grew farther and farther apart
from normal society. Sooner or later, it came that any coupleing between a Mage and a normal person was almost unheard
of, and Mages sooner or later went into semi-myth (this occured around the times of the Romans) to normal peoples.
And so it became, that known only by a few Humans, the Mages became their own slightly diffrent species: Wizards,
or Homo Magicus. This was in fact quite fitting, as by this time the technology of spells had been fully developed.
And by a dramatic miscalculation, many of these spells where finished in a slightly altered form than intended: they
were, technicaly, alive. To many wizards, this was slightly unsettleing. To have some other living thing sharing the space
inside one's brain was more than a bit creepy. However, the living spells worked out to become more powerful than the
inanimate ones. It was very convienent to have a fireball suddenly know to change course when one's foe was running in
another direction, or to have something else to help thinking about which tendon goes where and nearby which bit of
torn flesh.
It also opened the way for numerous undead-creating magics, which will not be discussed here.
It came about, however, that the wizards, not really even trying to hard to hide, where found by the normal populace again.
By then one would expect society to be ready for such a thing as wizards, untill one remembers that people where having
a hard time dealing with people of a diffrent skin color. People who could, among other things, throw lightning bolts at
one's house would of course cause problems. And so occured the historical witch-hunts *.
It is important to note that there was no rational reason for this to happen. The wizards where perfectly innocent of any
charge exept that of having "supernatrual" powers. Also there was that most wizards simply went away from the areas
in which witch-hunts where common, and only one or two out of the hundreds accused where actualy wizards.
This lead to the general mass of wizards taking offence and going into hiding. Since they went into hiding in several
diffrent places, without telephones, the study of magic took several diffrent turns from that point. This resulted in the
diffrent species of spells:
Arcanus Simplicitus: spells that where, as the name suggests, simple. Mainly cast by wand-using wizards, these spells where
geared toward doing a simple task quickly. For example, these spells were the sort that moved things around or simple
methods of self-defence.
Arcanus Difficulitis: spells used by most every type of wizard, as it is a rather broad catagory. Basicaly spells that did a more
complex task in a bit more time. Such as spells to create or build things, or more complex methods of self-defence and
offence.
Arcanus Difficulitis Escapus: a race of Difficulitis spells that seemed to flee the wizard's mind after he or she cast them.
Arcanus Rituasa: Spells that needed intracate prepareations in order to cast. These invariably had the greatest effects of all
the spell types to cast, but it was really tedious for the wizard.
You might recognise these patterns of spells from fantasy books. In fact, shame on you if you don't. The reason for this is
simply that fantasy 0writers (a species in their own right, Homo Scriptorus Fantasticus) have recently made contact with various factions of wizards, and tended to base the wizards in their own novels on those they had found in reality. (see the entry titled "Wizards: a (badly-written) essay on this most odd of species.")
*: No, I don't know why they where called witches. Probably no wizard cared to stay around to correct them.
