D&D (2024) The return of Read Magic

[Mirrorrorrim]

Here is one way to look at it. Sorcerers and Clerics and other classes get access to magic in ways that have nothing to do with "spellbooks." Wizards don't have that. They are academics who figured out a way to hack the system and utilize the ambient magical energy of the world (the Weave in FR).

The "Wizard" traditions are the results of ancient studies and practices, when mages of the past discovered how to use words of power alongside the arcane math, science, and art, of glyphs, runes, circles to create formulae and patterns to turn ambient magic into formed spells.

But as a "Wizard," it is still a very personal path to figure how to integrate your own factor into the equation. You are the variable in that magical artifice, and need to study and practice to figure out how you can shape those arcane forces into spells. That practice is very personal and creates a new, unique "formula" that only you can properly use. It wasn't intended to be a "cipher" at first, just being a natural result of having to input yourself into the spell as a variable (perhaps this variable can cause the same spell to have different themes/manifestations between wizards). But the theme of it being considered a "cipher" to protect the knowledge was embraced over time.

However those ancient Wizards also figured out shortcuts for how to work with each other as masters and apprentices, and trade secrets as peers. Towards this end they figured out how to create specific spells that allow them to read personalized spellbooks, to disentangle the other Wizard as a variable in the equation, and institute themselves so that the spell works for them. It was called "Read Magic" in the past, but later magical advancements have evolved, including "Scribe Spell" which does a lot of the work for you. That functionality is now the norm.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Here is one way to look at it. Sorcerers and Clerics and other classes get access to magic in ways that have nothing to do with "spellbooks." Wizards don't have that. They are academics who figured out a way to hack the system and utilize the ambient magical energy of the world (the Weave in FR).

The "Wizard" traditions are the results of ancient studies and practices, when mages of the past discovered how to use words of power alongside the arcane math, science, and art, of glyphs, runes, circles to create formulae and patterns to turn ambient magic into formed spells.

But as a "Wizard," it is still a very personal path to figure how to integrate your own factor into the equation. You are the variable in that magical artifice, and need to study and practice to figure out how you can shape those arcane forces into spells. That practice is very personal and creates a new, unique "formula" that only you can properly use. It wasn't intended to be a "cipher" at first, just being a natural result of having to input yourself into the spell as a variable (perhaps this variable can cause the same spell to have different themes/manifestations between wizards). But the theme of it being considered a "cipher" to protect the knowledge was embraced over time.
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However those ancient Wizards also figured out shortcuts for how to work with each other as masters and apprentices, and trade secrets as peers. Towards this end they figured out how to create specific spells that allow them to read personalized spellbooks, to disentangle the other Wizard as a variable in the equation, and institute themselves so that the spell works for them. It was called "Read Magic" in the past, but later magical advancements have evolved, including "Scribe Spell" which does a lot of the work for you. That functionality is now the norm.

Heck, what if the first "Wizards" were Warlocks (often Tome?) who made pacts with otherworldly entities to get magic, but then figured out a way to divorce themselves from Patrons that had designs on them.

This could mean that all these "ancient Warlock secrets" are the old ways mortals used to get arcane magic, and modern warlocks are just going back to basics and begging for magic, rather than doing the hard study themselves, or maybe no one else would teach them Wizardry, so they took a shortcut by using the old ways to make some deals.