Inspired by receiving my copy of Definitive Ed. I wanted to share something I worked on today.
Agaric Certes was my first ever magus, played back in 1993 at UNi, with Adrian, my amazing SG. Agaric was your typical nerdy mage, who's gift manifested after accidentally eating the wrong mushrooms (I was quite enamoured of them myself back then, such that his name and sigil refeected that.) A little later he ran a scenario wherein he spoke about the Law of Economy of Magic, (the villain used multiple small spells to achieve something bigger) that had been something his DnD wizard Panarfan had written about. That stuck with me and over the years I've given thought to and written about it, but never shared it. I may even have mentioned it to some of you at the first UK Grand Tribunal. Anyway. Agaric started out at Mistridge (because of course he did) and absent an SG to allow me to play him, he just moved into my head, and then from Mistridge to Cad Gadu. Essentially, that mention of the Law of Economy for a Bonisagus magi, was like catnip. He figured that Spontaneous Magic could be utterly economical or wildly costly, and thus, where better to study economy than where Spontaneous Magic has come. Of course, he couldn't actually study with Diednan Mages, but he could go to Cad Gadu and study with Ex Miscellenea.
Ultimately that little RPG prompt/Plot device turned into one of those obsessions that you keep circling back to. I wrote the Agaric's take, with reference to in-game incidents and oblique references where Code infractions may have happened. Could have been an article, but I prefer to just share and get feedback. So here is a Tractatus on Magical Theory in three volumes, by Agaric Certes: (using both Mark Shirley's old article and cannon naming conventions). Hopefully you might get some use from this, possibly in story seeds. Let me know what you think.
Cannophorus Agaric Certes filius Iudiciae scholae Bonisagi ab Cad Gadu
Tractatus on Magic Theory in 3 Volumes:
De Usu et Oeconomia Artis Magicae
(On the Use and Economy of the Magical Art)
I. The Law of Economy
No effect should be accomplished by greater magic where lesser magic, properly applied, will suffice.
The wise magus does not ask, "What spell will achieve my purpose?" but rather, "What is the least magic by which my purpose may be achieved?"
Exempli gratia - a magus needs to cross a courtyard watched by guards who have been told to stop anyone wearing the red robes of his covenant. He could make himself invisible, disguise his entire appearance, or create an elaborate false image.
Instead, he changes only the apparent colour of his robes from red to brown.
The guards let him pass.
That, apprentice, is pure Economy. The objective was never “become unseen” or “become someone else”. It was simply “do not appear to be the man they have been told to stop.”
II. The Law of Leverage
Magic should move the world only where the world may thereafter move itself.
Do not think to magically crush the intruder. Move the catch holding the millstone. Do not magically raise the portcullis - release its counterweight. Do not expend vis burning a barn - create a spark.
This is perhaps the most important companion to Economy, and one which I have seen my good friend Piraeus ex Flambeau demonstrate to memorable effect, though not, I should add, entirely as he intended.
III. The Law of Division
That which is costly as one effect may be achieved more economically as several.
Separate detection from response. Exempli gratia: Intellego discovers that an interloper is present; Muto alters the shape of a catch sufficiently to release it; thereafter a suspended weight falls and strikes an alarum bell.
Thus:
detect living man → alter catch → weight falls → bell sounds.
This is preferable to one elaborate enchanted effect required both to discern the presence of an intruder and itself provide the alarum. Each part need accomplish only the smallest task necessary to permit the next.
IV. The Law of Indirection
Where direct magic is resisted, act upon that which is not.
A gate need not be broken down if its hinge may be loosened. A vessel need not be lifted if the water beneath it may be displaced. A flame need not be extinguished if its fuel may be removed.
Thus the economical magus does not contend always with the thing itself, but seeks instead the circumstance upon which it depends.
This principle must not be mistaken for licence to circumvent the Parma Magica against a sodalis, save where Wizard's War or other lawful authority permits. The Code judges the deed, not merely the Art by which it was accomplished.
V. The Law of Substitution
Never perform by magic that which may be better performed by artifice.
A bell is better at making noise than Creo Imaginem. A sprung bow is better at moving an arrow than Rego Terram. A lens may be better than Intellego Imaginem. Magic ought supply only what mundane workmanship cannot.
It is the very principle upon which Verditius studied, invented and practised, though this guiding principle of that revered Founder has too often been eclipsed by ars gratia artis.
VI. The Law of the Smallest Cause
The magnitude of the consequence bears no necessary relation to the magnitude of the magic.
One magically displaced pebble can start an avalanche.
Search specifically for the critical intervention point. You may find that a vessel of water need not be heated throughout if a minute application of Creo Ignem to the flaw in its glass is sufficient to crack it, spill its contents upon the brazier, and extinguish the flame upon which the entire experiment depends.
VII. The Law of Thresholds
Know only as much as you need to know.
If the alarum we have been discussing needs merely to establish that a spell above a certain magnitude has been cast, do not build an effect capable of determining its Technique, Form, magnitude, caster and purpose.
The answer to the question “Has someone cast a powerful spell using Vis?” or, “Has someone cast a spell of an order of magnitudes equal to x?” should be a binary and the spell, simply needs to address that.
In my humble experience, Intellego magi are particularly tempted to seek information rather than answers. They look beyond the minimum knowledge required for action and are, as a consequence, slower to act.
Consider the lesson of Siriex ex Tremere, who hunted members of House Tytalus in the years following the discovery of their corruption. Upon discovering a magical alarum of precisely the kind we have been discussing, he sought first to determine its nature, its maker and its purpose. The magus who had set the alarum required no such understanding. He needed only to know that it had been triggered.
Siriex learned the rest when the magus killed him.
VIII. The Law of Preparation
Magic spent beforehand is cheaper than magic required in haste.
Prepare the room. Prepare the device. Prepare the trigger. Prepare the escape.
The magus who has anticipated the problem should rarely need his greatest Arts when the problem actually occurs.
IX. The Law of Persistence
Prefer the lasting consequence to the lasting spell.
Why sustain by magic that which may, once altered, sustain itself?
Rego need only dislodge the stone. Thereafter, its own weight carries it downward.
Creo ignites the lamp once. Oil keeps it burning.
This saves magnitudes spent on Duration and is very much in the spirit of the Law of Economy.
X. The Law of Independence
No part of a magical work should depend upon magic unless that dependence is necessary.
An effect which relies upon another effect inherits its weakness.
If a magical detector releases a mundane catch, let the catch thereafter act without magic. If an alarum may be sounded by a falling weight, do not enchant the bell merely because you can. Where one enchanted part is broken, dispelled, exhausted or bypassed, the remainder of the work ought, where possible, continue to serve its purpose.
The wise magus therefore permits each part of a work to stand upon its own nature, and binds one effect to another only where no simpler means will suffice.
XI. The Law of Purpose
The measure of an effect is not what it does, but what was required of it.
A Muto Herbam spell capable of causing a gate to grow into an impassable tree, is badly designed, if the purpose was merely to prevent the gate opening.
The novice thinks in effects.
The accomplished magus thinks in objectives.
XII. The Law of Restraint
The most economical magic is that which need not be cast.
If rumour makes the enemy avoid the road, you need no ward upon the road. If architecture and carpentry prevent entry, you need no magical guard. If reputation prevents attack, you need no magical defence.
The Order has, at its very heart and within its Code, the requirement that we do not endanger it through our own actions. Whilst many among us are naturally cautious, others are less so minded. Yet, whatsoever our individual temperaments, we are by our nature magi, and the Artes Magicae are therefore commonly the first means by which we seek to resolve our difficulties.
These Laws, taken properly to heart, provide not merely a means by which we may better abide by the Code, but a discipline by which our Arts may be exercised to their greatest effect with the least expenditure of effort, vis, foci, and such other resources as the practice of magic demands.
Thus the final economy is restraint: to know not merely how little magic a purpose requires, but when it requires none at all.
This treatise can be summed up, by quoting my own Parens, Iudicia filia Panarfan ex Bonisagus, who admonished me during my own apprenticeship, thusly;
“My Pater, Panarfan, once rebuked me, Agaric. He said, ‘What an extraordinarily costly and extravagant way to move a two-ounce latch! You used a pawn of Vim vis merely to open a door, Iudicia. You have hands. Use them.’
“Well, Agaric, you have done much the same. Except that you have contrived an excessively elaborate means of transporting your supper to the table. Go to the bloody kitchens and carry it back, like everyone else!”
