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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 6226021" data-attributes="member: 3649">You want to know how we do what we do? Well, let me tell you a secret.We have no idea.All magic is passed down from master to student. Sometimes we write things down, but we never, ever write down everything. It's a truism that 'things were better back then' and somewhere along the line, we lost something, some essential secret or bit of lore that someone didn't write down and failed to pass on. It's said that magic used to be different back then, too, but we have to deal in the here-and-now. What has come down to us are scraps and bones.I suspect that the great tomes of the Art that exist today are just the remnants of apprentice spells of the elder days, training tools and toys made in certain ways and shapes with most of the sharp edges filed off so the kids wouldn't hurt themselves too badly if things got out of hand. For all our great claims of research and creating new spells, all we manage to do, really, is just move coats around on pegs. There's a certain number and kind of coats, and only so many pegs. Who made the coats and pegs in the first place? We no longer remember and all our efforts to make new coats or new pegs have failed. Maybe one of the youngsters will have more luck than we have had.The coat is a series of effects. I could go on about various theories but remember, all that is really just guesswork. Nobody has ever managed to 'take apart' a magic missile spell to make stronger or weaker missiles. Oh, once in a while some clever monkey thinks he's found the grand secrets of the elders just because he's managed to create a ball of ice or sound instead of fire, but again - Coat. Peg. He's just moved a letter or two and managed not to turn his intestines into snakes or something. ADD a phrase, or take away a single letter, and the spell fails, every time.So, why can't I just repeat 'fireball fireball fireball', and have it work? Some creatures CAN do that. Things from demons to tiny faeries can do some effects any time they want, all day  long? Why not the vaunted masters of magic? Like you see in the natural world, when you specialize in something you give up something as well. An anteater will never sit down to enjoy a nice steak. A pixie can stay invisible as long as she wants because that's her nature. Try as she might, she will never learn how to create water at will. Certainly some creatures can and do learn human magic, but then they face the same problem we do. Sorcerers are stunted creatures because sometime in the past one of their ancestors took a tumble with a magical creature. They gain a little sliver of it's special nature, but you can see that they pay for that by being unable to learn actual magic. Oh you'll eventually learn to do more spells, and more complex ones, just like any other skill. You've expanded your closet, so to speak. You can mix and match your outfits, or do what my old master did and wear the same thing every day. One thing you will never be, though, and that's a tailor. Just accept that and you'll be the happier for it.</blockquote>

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