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Grrl Power #1183 - Smng

🕑 Added 2023-08-28 10:00:07 +0000 UTC

Comments

Slaygor

In many of Leonardo da Vinci's blueprints, modern engineers have found mistakes and omissions that can't be anything but deliberate. The most common theory for this is that it was a measure taken by Leonardo da Vinci himself to prevent others from stealing his ideas. As smart as the man was, I doubt he was the only one to think of this. As such, I find it hard to believe that any records of "Alchemy" and/or "Magic" would be lacking such basic security, even if written in code. This is the reason that I personally will never say that "real world magic is not real." We may have just lost the "Key" knowledge that would let us access it. That doesn't mean that I think magic is real. Just that there is room for reasonable doubt'.

eddi_TBH

In actual works of alchemy, every writer used their own code and shorthand to describe the processes. So each book was totally different with only a few illustrations to suggest what was being described. And they were full of symbolism of their own, not always consistently used.

eddi_TBH

Fell off the chair laughing. The phone always rings when you're in the tub.

Woodrobin

I like the idea that's used in D&D where it takes time, expense, and an Arcane Knowledge (Arcana) check to copy a spell from another wizard's spell book to yours, but it's simple to re-memorize the parts that let you shorthand it (basically, you charge up most of the spell and thus are able to cast the last bit to set it off, enabling slinging a quick Fireball in combat; you can also do it the long way with a lot of spells as a ritual, but that takes basically the time it took to prep the quick-to-cast spell, because you're doing it from scratch). The reason for the expense and need to do a skill check is because you need to translate the weird, arcane, half-insane nonsense that comprises how the other mage views and records magical formulae into the *different* weird, arcane, half-insane nonsense that comprises how you view and record magical formulae.