Out of Character
Here's two big, honking s-blocks about the 'hidden' text at the end of the Screamer.
[sblock=Arcane analysis]The Screamer is handwritten, and then copied using a simple set of magical inks that normally only last a few days before turning into smear.
This copy was expertly treated, by Marco (you can feel his resonance), to make the inks permanent. Probably within a half a day of having been produced. The smearing has as much to do with the cheap quality of the paper as anything else, the producer is obviously not adept, or not particularly interested in permanence.
You can not help but notice there is an odd resonance down at the bottom of the page. There is a blank spot, an area where nothing appears to be written.
There is a very specific, very subtle resonance there. It's dormant now, but exposure to a certain kind of energy would trigger the effect. Whatever the effect is it's quite weak, certainly not more powerful than a cantrip.
The energy is illusive, quite difficult to detect, even a trained mage could easily overlook it. A poorer quality copy of the screamer, or one made permanent later after production might have lose the energy entirely; as it is its almost gone.
The energy itself is.... you're not sure if you've experienced it before. It's something exotic for sure (nothing prosaic like fire or force).
[/sblock]
[sblock=In the library]Searching for "text oriented magics" is only slightly less constrained that searching for "all magic". In fact the library, is quite naturally oriented toward the intersection of magic and writing.
As a general rule, a signficant proportion of wizards, ritualists, arcanists etc love codes, generating an aura of mystery and hiding things. And they love books. No small percentage of that group also likes to write.
In short order Palindrome has pulled out more than two dozen books related in some way to writing and magic. Common topics include scroll creation, glyphs, proper writing of arcane works, proper writing of academic works regarding the arcane, the proper method of writing academic works critiquing arcane works, and so forth.
[sblock=Specific Books that are more related to the topic at hand]
Haflod's
Magical Writing is generally considered to be the most detailed and comprehensive book on the subject of Magic applied to written text. (Which he defines basically as magic acting upon text whose only purpose is the conveyance of information to the reader); he holds it in contrast to magic which accomplishes some sort of effect.
Topics include wizard marks, hidden text, magically active text and so forth.
- Haflod would argue that every writing is hidden by someone to be read again later. The transfer of information is the point of writing.
- By extension there must be some way to retreive whatever was written.
Vaithe's
True Writing: The Beginners Lexicon; Haflod's brilliant and excentric student Vaithe uses the same definition as Haflod but writes it in 4 pages of arcane arcaomathmatics, with a sumptuous 20 page index with charts, a glyph matrix and charts of "lingustic force interactions".
Almost all wizards of any statue have a copy of Vaithe's Writing. You aren't a serious mage if you can't at least posit an arguement for a or against it. (Either is fine, of course. It's ultimate wizardly coffee table book).
The final line of his proof famously "disproves" his master's definition; an event he interprets as proof that all writing neessarily effects reality.
He would use this to ultimately attempt prove aparticularly esoteric beleif about the nature of reality*
[sblock=*]Vaithe felt that everything was information. His fabled master piece, the 2000 page
Word as Reality, has been lost but supposedly detailed a beleive that the world was information; and in an appendix, developed a new school of magic.
The two intervening books, both of which extant, but incomplete, copies remain propose a new alphabet (the "true alphabet") comprised of 188 mathematically perfect units and a new sample gramatical structure; which spends 188 pages (exactly) proposing the creation of a mobulos strip made of adamantine.
Supposedly each time it's opened a mobulos strip made of the fabled substance appears; that's been wildly derided though, and proved impossible by two, entirely seperate and highly respected Oian theorists. [/sblock]
- Vaithe beleives that writing itself is an act of mystical importance. Any mystical effect that is overlooked is simply a failure on the part of the observer.
- Vaithe would argue that the effect of the writing is the point.
- Somewhat bizarrely he also argued that writings themselves could often want something.
- (By the point that he was saying this he was a virtual hermit.)
The only book you don't have but wish you did is Yarg's
Decrypting the Hidden; which details many different esoteric hidden religious and arcane practices. You recall that one of the appendexies of the book discussed practical methods used to hide writing, with an emphasis on the unusual (and unapproved).
A priest and academic Yarg was notably practical and forthright; providing excellent and very explicit descriptions and intrepretations of a wide variety of events he had experienced during his adventuring carreer. A bit too descriptive apparently, at least one mystery cults has apparently use the book as a blueprint.
There is an explurgated version, of course, but it does't have the index (and is mostly a thinly veiled rewriting discouraging non-orthidox religous practices). The Library of Daunton has an original copy, though it's not normally available to the public.[/sblock]
You can study these books in greater detail; 4 hours lets you make one check. [/sblock]
Yarg's book was supposed to deal with unusual means of hiding writing. That's why I picked it.
Palindrome can now study the book at his leisure, so...
.
