"Ed Greenwood - Volos Guide to All Things Magical" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

So, many mages make their own magical items-or at least try to make their own. It is rare to find a clear and complete set of instructions on how to make an item thoughtfully written down by a wizard, because the same suspicions that most wizards harbor about the world' lead them to hide any writings they make, encrypt or deliberately distort what is written, and even split their writings into different formats and hiding places so that all pieces must be assembled for the process to work and as many pieces as possible are dangerous to anyone following what they say in isolation. For example, an item involving the summoning of an elemental might have its process split into a fragment that takes the follower to the point of bringing an uncontrolled elemental to his or her presence, a second fragment that describes governing the elemental through what it is needed for and then releasing it from all control, and a third fragment that details how that elemental can be safely dismissed. Any mage lacking that third fragment is placed in great danger by following the writings.

It is also true that in the making of potions and items, perhaps more than in any other aspect of sorcery, there are many ways to achieve a desired end: one mage's wand of magic missiles may be made in a very different way than the same item made by another sorcerer, even though this is a relatively simple, straightforward item.'

Typically, the making of an item begins with design, some experimentation follows, and then comes the refinement of the design until a mage believes she or he has hit upon a workable process And then, as the old saying goes, "Chaos storms in."

Simple (single function) items may be made by casting an enchant an item spell on a suitable physical object, usually one made to the finest specifications and specifically to receive an enchantment. Then the necessary spells to preserve the item, imbue it with power, and establish control over it are cast into the charged object. Items with multiple effects-even something - as simple as a classic wand of lightning, which can emit forked or straight bolts or instead unleash its powers in a shock attack tend to be more stable and to have more chance of operating properly when done if constructed by a more complex process.

Most wizards make very few permanent items in their lives, and them. The necessary time, trouble, and expense of such processes-not just the weakening of Constitution involved in working a permanency spell-are important reasons why.

In this guide, I present a sample method for the making of a multifunction magical item modeled in part on craftings I participated in when training under Raedolphyn of Starmantle and upon several processes I observed in the towers of various mages in Baldur's Gate, Saerloon, Telflamm, Tsurlagol, and Yhaunn. Examination of this method should yield suggested routes for crafters of magical items to follow in the making of other items.

The Effects of Overenchantment
it has been observed that some wizards become distant, withdrawn, and even mentally unstable over time. Although there can be many reasons for such behavior, if it is accompanied by occasional wild magic results from proper castings of normal spells and by a shadowy or vaguely blurred appearance to the spellcaster's body, it is probably spell hollowing brought on by too much enchanting of items in too short a time. The susceptibility of mages to this condition varies with the individual, but all mages should beware it, for a spell-hollowed mage who comes into contact with the wrong combination of spells can be transformed into a wizshade

Item Entrapment
One of the classic horror stories among wizards (told by many a mage to keep the least bold of his or her apprentices from unauthorized rummaging) is the tale of an item sucking the essences of any living beings touching it into itself. Such trap items do exist, often created by liches or would-be liches to gain themselves younger, fresher bodies, but they are not as common as legend would have you believe. (Incidentally, to bring any such item into a Mage Fair is grounds for disintegration on the spot.)

It has long been suspected that Szass Tam, Zulkir of Necromancy in Thay, has established several such items in his various holds and towers as traps for ambitious Red Wizards seeking to unseat him and adventurers hired to destroy him. The royal bedchamber in Castle Tethyr once sported a glowing, jeweled broad sword that floated enticingly above its own purple-cushioned plinth beside the canopied regal bed. it is known to have claimed the wits of several would-be assassins, whose drained, lifeless bodies were found collapsed beside the plinth on several mornings down through the decades. Where it came from and where it has gone to are both mysteries lost in the history of strife-torn Tethyr, which only recently has come out from under its long civil war, but at some time previous to the struggles, the Sword of Doom vanished from the bedchamber.

Doors that accomplish the same fell end are rumored to be in use in Halruaa, and legends insist that at least one noble family of Waterdeep -the house of Zoar, now outcast-had a door that operated with such powers only when specially activated. This deadly portal made rivals vanish during seemingly innocent feasts and meetings held in House Zoar.

More common are "trap" items willingly entered by wizards and priests who have prepared them as hiding places or instruments to preserve their essential selves in bids for immortality through lichdom or other means. It should be noted that most humans lack the strength of will and depth of experience to keep from going insane in the experience of so transferring their consciousness to a storage item. The archmage Nathaglas of Tashluta once described the experience and its dangers as: A dark, detached confinement, where there is no sound but your own screaming, and nothing to be seen but your own memories in an ongoing display. This replay of memory can all too easily descend into obsession and mad repetition of favorite moments to the exclusion of all else-including sanity." Mages contemplating a stay in such a vessel should seek training and experience in dream magic or obtain means to gaining far-sensing to guard against the deleterious effects of self-induced oblivion.

The Enchantment of Items
Even young children in the Realms-if they pay any attention at all to the tales their elders spin by firesides and over tankards know the basics of how wizards and priests imbue items-inanimate, often quite normal objects-with the eternal fire of magic, making them mighty and valuable things that can last for centuries and serve many hands to work major changes on the Realms. But few folk, even among experienced wizards and priests of high rank and long, devoted service, know the specifies of enchanting anything beyond a simple single-use or one-function item (that is, making an item that can do more than duplicate the effect of a single spell). Priests can pray to their deities for guidance. In fact, they had better do so if they contemplate crafting anything beyond simple potions or weirdstones, as most deities take a dim view of mortals who act on their own without divine consultation while professing to diligently serve a deity. But wizards are on their own, save perhaps for occasional moments of insight sent through the grace of Mystra or Azuth and prefaced by years of hard work.

This is, in the view of many other inhabitants of Faerun a good thing. The lack of clear, widely known, safe instructions causes accidents that remove some of the most ambitious and dangerous wizards from the Realms. It also helps to slow the remaining sorcerers down in any wholehearted effort to produce items by forcing them to spend much time in experimentation and in the procurement of rare, hard-to-find, and often ultimately unnecessary ingredients.

Despite years of searching, I have been unable to find a complete, clear, fully detailed account of the making of a complex item. Such things are too well disguised and guarded by their owners. I have, however, unearthed scores of fragmentary processes, several chests worth of cryptic notes, and some talkative learned priests, liches, archliches, and baelnorns who could explain things. Adding these aids to my own admittedly paltry experience as a wizards I am now prepared to reveal in these pages two sample processes for the enchantment of a complex magical item.'

So read on, and learn something that a few armies of wizards have died seeking knowledge about down through the ages. All spells mentioned in the process that are not already widely known are detailed fully at the end of the relevant example (wizard or priest).' Bear in mind that the presented process is a general outline, not an ironclad one true way.

Beginnings
The process of making a complex magical item begins with an initial plan for what the item will do and preparation of the necessary stones: gems that hold the spell powers of the item until its component magics are combined into a coherent, controllable whole. (The types of gems that are used in magical item construction, including those that make the best focal stones, are detailed a later section of this chapter.) The necessary spells to create the effects the future item will release are gathered or researched. Note that what spells can be best adapted may be a matter of some speculation and is not necessarily clear-cut and definite at this point-and mistakes made at the outset can doom an otherwise well-conceived item.

Primary Casting
When sufficient spells and focal stones have been gathered, the wizard or priest governing the process casts, or hires others to cast, the desired spells into the focal stones by means of dweomerflow spells that link the cast spells to the stones. In rare cases, minor magical items may be magically miniaturized and enchanted so as to be encased within a spell-generated focal stone. They can then be made part of a larger item-though it should be noted that such cobbled-together items are never as stable as one generated from the raw and are generally mistrusted.

Abeyance spells are then cast on the focal stones to hold the enchantments within them for a indefinite time while the rest of the item creation process is carried out. Many priests and wizards across the Realms have caches of focal stones that they have been adding to for years as they await the proper time, sufficient wealth, or the procurement of other ingredients necessary to create the finished items they envisage.

Shell Creation
The physical form of the item is then planned. It can be an existing item or several items magically melded together if such are properly purified, but more often it is a newly created item crafted of magically prepared materials. If an item is to be made permanent, as is most common with multifunction items, it is important that inorganic substances-such as gems, metals, or stone-predominate in volume over organic components in the created shell. The exceptions to this principle are wood-or rather certain woods which have an affinity for enchantment-and items primarily concerned with necromancy, which can have bone as their principal component.

Most staves, wands, and rods are made of wood, as the old saying goes: of these three are great magic born, With silver cut. oak, ash, and thorn.

To these famous three woods, known in many magic-using planes and worlds, can be added certain Faerun ian varieties:' blueleaf, calantra, chime oak, duskwood, felsul, hiexel, laspar, phandar, shadowtop, silverbark, suth, vundwood, weirwood, and zalantar. The "silver cut" of the saying refers to the fact that wood intended for magical uses can be carved with anything, but should be initially felled or severed from its living tree with a silver-bladed implement such as an axe, hatchet, saw, adz, or sickle.

To be used to construct an item, inorganic principal components of an item must have been affected by or in contact with a similar type of magic as one of the properties the finished item is intended to produce or command-for example, energy discharge, healing, or translocation. Or, at the very least, these inorganic components must have been soaked in tinctures" of substances that have been affected by or been part of such magics or natural powers (such as lightning, fire, or decay).