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The Key to Projection

Author: 
Abnur Tharn

Lavinia,

I've enclosed the crystal used to imprint your image on the illusion gear. You'll need someone to focus the crystal on you as you speak. Be sure to hang on to the main crystal. Should you need to change your speech, you'll need to use it to reattune the projection.

This is delicate spellwork. Do not lose the crystal. Your part in the plan is not so critical that you cannot be replaced.

Tharn

Simple Illusion Magic

Author: 
Ninaleon Sightbinder the First

A beginner's guide to illusion magic, as prepared by Ninaleon Sightbinder the First!

CHAPTER I : Sight
CHAPTER II : Sound
CHAPTER III : Smells and Tastes
CHAPTER IV : Touch
CHAPTER V : Multi-Sensory Mastery
CHAPTER VI : Simulating People
CHAPTER VII : Light That Fights
CHAPTER VIII : Beginner's Rituals (Do Not Perform Without Supervision)

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VIII.d: Ritual Life Force Binding For Sustained Illusionary Projection: Completion

To end the ritual, simply tune each crystal in turn. The colors of the lights to either side of the crystal will combine to create a new color within. Red and Yellow into Orange, and so on. A sound will also be heard when you have it right.

Beware. Without maintenance of the spell-lattice, the ritualist can quickly find her life energies consumed in the illusionary suspension she has created.

Shadow Draining: A Hypothesis

Author: 
the Glimmering Foxbat

Anyone who studies the so-called "shadow magic" of the underworld's night blades is familiar with the siphoning spells, which drain life force and health from the injured to the injurer. The question before the scholar-arcanist is to explain how and why this works. After prolonged study, primarily through low-grade siphoning of my menials and their families while they slept, I have arrived at a hypothesis.

It appears to me that the magical siphoning of health is related to the instant translocation spells insofar as it creates a transliminal flow of essence from the target to the caster. Through the hyperagonal magicka sense, the night blade perceives the target's transpontine deformation and "pierces" it, and in the resulting disruption absorbs the essence that is lost by the target. Thus, instead of "stepping through shadows" as in translocation, the mage is "shadow draining" from one location to another.

Or so my experiments indicate.

 

Shad Astula Curriculum

Author: 
Anonymous

Fledgling Members of the Academy:

Rise and shine! We have another education-filled day ahead of us. Another chance to develop your gifts of mysticism and magicka, leadership and military strategy.

The first few days of study have flown by, and you have proven worthy of the honor of enrollment at this prestigious Academy. You have not only demonstrated the requisite acumen for your studies, but also confirmed your ability to keep up with the modest tuition payments that keep Shad Astula's welcoming doors open. For these reasons, we are pleased to offer you the opportunity to select your own course of study for the next ten days.

Please choose the introductory course you wish to pursue and properly petition the instructor of that art. For the next ten days, you will diligently work to master one of the following disciplines.

Understand that these designations exist solely for the purposes of teaching. They do not represent any formal schema of organization within the Mages Guild or any similar organization.

ALTERATION I: This introductory course teaches simple magical methods of physical manipulation, including techniques for strengthening and weakening basic materials.

CONJURATION I: In this introductory course, students learn to summon simple weapons and shields, such as daggers or bucklers. Note that knife fighting and defense are not covered in this class.

DESTRUCTION I: As a prelude to later studies, students learn the basics of the elemental manipulation of flame and frost. An additional security deposit is required to cover the unlikely event of damage to persons and property.

ILLUSION I: Learn simple manipulation of light and shadow, sound and silence, in this introductory course. Your first project will be to create magical candlelight.

RESTORATION I: This introductory course teaches the basics of the healing arts, as well as the fundamental principles of manipulating life force. The purchase of various small animals may be required, in addition to any other course-required materials.

Completion of any of these basic courses will serve as a prerequisite to later studies. A student is free to select a course from ONE of these options. Upon completion of an introductory class, the student is eligible to pursue a second introductory class, if instruction time and class size allows.

The study of the ARCANE ARTS awaits you! No doubt you will prove yourself worthy of the instruction and patronage you are receiving.

Failure to complete a course of study may result in additional tuition charges to cover the cost of taking make-up instruction.

Good luck!

 

Stepping through Shadows

Author: 
The Glimmering Foxbat

There is no magic in the nightblade's repertoire more useful than the spell of instant translocation. Over time, its casting becomes almost a matter of reflex: one is HERE, and then, by an act of will, one is THERE.

In fact, to the experienced practitioner, translocation becomes so routine that one almost forgets how difficult it was at first to learn. It is traditional to refer to this magical art as "stepping through shadows," and indeed, the key to its mastery is the ability to "peer sidewise" and perceive the shadows cast by each entity and object in the Aurbis.

These are not, of course, the literal shadows cast by the blockage of light by an opaque object, but the emanation of the limen each object possesses—the depth-impression its existence makes in the local reality of the Mundus. This requires learning to focus the hyperagonal sense through which the practitioner perceives the flow of magicka. Once the nightblade can "feel" local transpontine deformation, it becomes almost trivial to make the transliminal saltation to any point within range.

Ritual of Unbinding

Author: 
Anonymous

The Ritual of Unbinding cuts an entity's ties, mystical and magical, to release him or her from all links to mortal and immortal realms. Chant the ritual and invoke the runestone's power to channel energy through the runestone into a binding stone.

Once invoked, the runestone creates a key which can later break its connection to its binding stones. The runestone's key must revoke the energies at each binding stone. Most rituals use one or two binding stones; more powerful entities require three. Legends speak of rare creatures that need four.

Note: One can avoid the bound entity's death by invoking the Rite of Proxy. For this, use the runestone on a willing sacrifice. That person's life will be forfeit, and the bound entity is freed. The key thus created will be energized with the soul of the proxy sacrifice.

 

Ritual of Resonance

Author: 
Anonymous

The Soul Shriven shriek and writhe in Coldharbour. The Harvester of Souls digests them, makes them mutter and despair. They whisper their secrets to the dead winds of Oblivion, and those with ears attuned will know them and use them.

Gather the implements
A steel needle, nightshade, frost salts
The crushed bone of a sacrifice
Splintered tooth of a daedroth

Inscribe the circle:
The names and the symbols. Sower of Strife. Lord of Brutality. Corner of the House of Troubles.

Create the tool:
Purify the needle over a fire of nightshade. Cool it in frost salts. Place upon it an enchantment of sharpness and one of weak shock.

Prepare the body:
Create a draught of bone and tooth and hold it in the mouth. Inscribe the names and symbols on the flesh of the palms.

Open the gate:
Place the needle in the left ear's entrance. Insert so slowly as barely to move. Worldly sounds make way for the cries and secret dreams of the slaves in Coldharbour.
 

 

Sorcery is Not Necromancy!

Author: 
Divayth Fyr

A mage of supreme power and erudition such as myself may be called upon to exercise his skills in almost any corner of farflung Tamriel, so for a native of Morrowind I am widely traveled. Thus I can tell you with the authority of personal experience that petty local officials, regardless of race or culture, are universally suspicious and ill-informed. "A sorcerer, eh?," they say. "Well, we'll have none of your raising the dead in this jurisdiction, is that understood?"

I cannot tell you how many times I have been subjected to some variation of the above conversation. These ignorant and self-important functionaries have no conception whatsoever of distinctions within the arcane arts. As far as they are concerned, every manipulator of magicka is just waiting for midnight before skulking off to the cemetery to animate the corpses of their neighbors and ancestors.

Imbeciles. Fools. BUREAUCRATS.

Now, it is true, of course, that conjuration is a common tool of sorcery, and we sorcerers often resort to summoning aid from Oblivion when a problem is best solved by judicious application of vicious brute force. It is also true that summoning Daedric spirits to possess and animate corpses, or calling up the souls of the dead for information or other services—in short, necromancy—is a subset of the art of conjuration, albeit inherently distasteful and degrading. However, to infer from this that all sorcerers are de facto necromancers as well is false, misleading, and libelous.

That said, everyone was young once, and it's typical of youth to experiment with things dangerous and forbidden. It is long since I was a lad in Tel Aruhn, and my memory of the early First Era is inexact, but it's just possible that as an apprentice I may have tried out an animation spell or two—never on corpses of anyone I knew, of course (or at least, nobody I knew well), and never for long. To my recollection.

So, at any rate, I know whereof I speak when I say to you: sorcery and necromancy—there IS a difference.

The Origins of Conjuration

Author: 
Anonymous

Imperial mages have arguably advanced the study of conjuration magic far more than most, but it first fell to Elven wizards to crack open the door to Oblivion without its screaming horrors spilling uncontrollably into Mundus. Corvus and Calani Direnni and their clan first lit the torch and peered into this unholy darkness, lighting the path for the magical school of conjuration. Their precise binding chants are still used to this day when summoning lesser Daedra.

Nonbelligerent atronachs offered something of a boon to Clan Direnni, acting as protectors and occasionally servants or familiars. Even the naturally mischievous imp was easily coerced into behaving. But one can always count on the natural curiosity, and almost calamitous pomposity, of the Elves, who swung the door open still farther—a door to the Daedric planes that became impossibly difficult to shut.

Late into the First Era, Direnni acolytes first attempted to cajole enthrallment from Greater Daedra. Although the most skillful of conjurers succeeded reasonably against these chaotic agents, some Elves were weak, and the portal to Oblivion can now never be completely sealed. Subsequent catastrophic confrontations with Daedric princes turned our lands to turmoil. Thus, it falls to every mage in Cyrodiil to actively dissuade traffic with the Greater Daedra in the strongest possible manner. Communion with them is strictly forbidden.