Editing The Wyzard Setting Essays (section)

== Magic ==

During the latter parts of the Amaranthan empire, a famous wizard compiled the Summa Arcanum, a set of ten massive volumes that organized and simplified the study of arcane magic. This text was violently suppressed during the Long Night, but the Thracians briefly popularized (and then quickly banned) it. The first two volumes lay down the theory, practice, and notation of arcane magic. The next six each correspond to one of the Orders of spellcraft (first level spells are First-Order spellcraft, etc.) The last two cover magical engineering and artifice. Each of the books covering an Order of spellcraft contained the twelve spells that the author considered to be most illustrative of the core principles of that Order, with only minor consideration given to usefulness.

While the Amaranthans were thoroughly in favor of any citizen who cared to spend the time learning magic, later civilizations (and jealous archmages) have found this undesirable. It is now no longer possible to find a complete copy of any volume of the Summa, even fragments of the individual volumes are of great value, and an intact copy of the entire series would represent wealth and power beyond dreams of avarice. Provided, of course, that you could dispose of it before being removed from circulation.

The seventy-two spells originally contained in the Summa are still by far the most commonly known dweomers on the planet.