Discipline of Wizardry

There is a limit to what one magi can do, and that limit is set by how much of the essence of the Wyrld he can hold within himself. What then if he were able to use a bit of essence as a sort of hand to handle more, creating his magic external to himself, and bootstrapping himself to a higher level, using his magic to work magic, as it were?

- "Council of Hutieths," Elvinus Lortinus, 99 AK

Wizardry is one of the oldest disciplines, a byproduct of the Council of Hutieths. With the work of Sclerus and the discovery of the incredible power available in specialization the practicing magi of Niellenor gathered together in a great council to discuss the merit and possibilities of that avenue. At the meeting it was evident that some magi had all ready been doing such things on their own. Chiefest among those was Alvoris Naumme, a man who was labelled as mad and expelled before the end of the Council, where he earned the appellation 'Soul Shrieker' for his espousings of a new way of magic.

Elvinus Lortinus also proposed a new form of magic, but unlike the necromantic practices of Naumme, the ways of Lortinus were seen as acceptable and were lauded as intellectually appealing and rigorous with possibilities. So it was that the end of the council saw Elvinus leaving with many men of all ages and intellectual levels to pursue his ideas.

In the years that came Elvinus and his enclave were those who persecuted the necromancers the hardest, seeing a threat to their new way of magic, believing that they might be displaced by the spirit magic the others professed. What no one realized at the time was that no one way of doing magic would dominate -- there would never be a "proper" way to practice magic. So it was that political struggles delayed magical progress for almost a hundred years.

Kammerlynn of Tharsius was the first man to properly craft what he called an 'external-magic-amplifying-resonance." That first resonance was barely controlled, and it detonated with enough force to shatter windows of nearby buildings, frighten every horse in the city of Tharsius, and burn down the wizard's enclave. Even so, the magi hugged each other and danced amongst the flames of the wreckage, clearly gleeful in the midst of loss of house and home.

Rumors of the madness of these men were only furthered through the years by their strange antics, for the wizards where the first magi of any real ability that the common man ever saw, elementalists being rare and the necromancers having long since retreated to their own settlements. No longer did the peasants speak of the evil eye and bogeymen, rather it was wizards that began to fill the mythology. Crazed men who could incinerate you with a glance or set themselves on fire and laugh as they died. In all fairness, some of these rumors stemmed from truth, as many of the early wizards came to bad ends at the hands of their own magic.

Wizardry was there from the first, and yet has never been truly understood. The understanding of this discipline shall remain central in the aims of this Conclave. The specialized knowledge of other disciplines shall come to bear upon wizardry, and its secrets shall be unveiled, its true potential released.

"Invocation," Malorius, creation of the Estovian Conclave, 444 AB

Wizardry suffered in many ways, never being blessed by a man with the intelligence and stability to take it farther until the formation of the Conclave in Estovia in recent history. The leader of the Conclave, a conjurer of great power named Malorius, knew that magi of various disciplines would have something to offer each other, and so he formed a group that would break through the normal isolationist and iconoclastic tendencies of magi. The Conclave was a great success, and produced some of the most powerful wizards ever, rivalling those trained in the Thulean schools. This brought about a defection of many Thulean wizards, bringing the immediate enmity of the Chosen and starting a rivalry that the young nation of Estovia could hardly afford.

Matters became worse for the young nation shortly thereafter. The leaders of the Conclave, including the most powerful of wizards, men who could light up the sky with their powers, left on a short quest of mysterious intent. None of them ever returned, and the Conclave and wizardry have never returned to the power they once possessed.

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