Mazlo
First Post
RE: Studious Accord
The first suggestion that pops into my mind: Most wizards will know the fundamentals of magic and basic knowledge (arcana), just as most scientists / researchers know the fundamentals and basics of their own line of work and related areas. This convention might feel more real if each lecture was focused on a very specific area of magic and delving into details.
For example,
• Master Enoch: Animated Objects, Constructs, and Guardians for every caster
is a very broad topic, one might think of a dozen different lectures that might be given in its place:
"Towards the Modeling of Ebullient Energies" (a work surveying three different techniques for creating diagrams of the magic that animates objects)
"Iron Golems and Smelting with Tincture of Cantharidin and Spirit of Vitriol" (a work describing the wizard's experience creating Iron Golems using a specific tincture and spirit during the smelting process)
Other ideas:
"Arcane Symbols: Nitsian vs. Prondian Dialects"
"A Review of Zalmoon's Interpretation and Solution of the 79th verse of Brinnadoon's Riddle"
"Amalgam Studies of the Western Whipplebird and the Black-horned Toad"
For inspiration look at large scientific conferences - there are dozens of papers presented on the minutiae of the field and maybe one or two papers from respected veterans that address the field as a whole and general future directions. (unless of course the field is new in which case most of the papers will be general.)
I guess my basic point is that, wizards are scholars and scholars tend to focus on one very specific area of study. For example, a biologist doesn't typically study all of biology but instead she might instead study the workings of one specific set of interactions and pathways in one organ of one creature. As another example, a computer scientist doesn't typically study all computer science but she might instead study a specific scheduling algorithm problem and how it applies to routing in networks.
--Mazlo
The first suggestion that pops into my mind: Most wizards will know the fundamentals of magic and basic knowledge (arcana), just as most scientists / researchers know the fundamentals and basics of their own line of work and related areas. This convention might feel more real if each lecture was focused on a very specific area of magic and delving into details.
For example,
• Master Enoch: Animated Objects, Constructs, and Guardians for every caster
is a very broad topic, one might think of a dozen different lectures that might be given in its place:
"Towards the Modeling of Ebullient Energies" (a work surveying three different techniques for creating diagrams of the magic that animates objects)
"Iron Golems and Smelting with Tincture of Cantharidin and Spirit of Vitriol" (a work describing the wizard's experience creating Iron Golems using a specific tincture and spirit during the smelting process)
Other ideas:
"Arcane Symbols: Nitsian vs. Prondian Dialects"
"A Review of Zalmoon's Interpretation and Solution of the 79th verse of Brinnadoon's Riddle"
"Amalgam Studies of the Western Whipplebird and the Black-horned Toad"
For inspiration look at large scientific conferences - there are dozens of papers presented on the minutiae of the field and maybe one or two papers from respected veterans that address the field as a whole and general future directions. (unless of course the field is new in which case most of the papers will be general.)
I guess my basic point is that, wizards are scholars and scholars tend to focus on one very specific area of study. For example, a biologist doesn't typically study all of biology but instead she might instead study the workings of one specific set of interactions and pathways in one organ of one creature. As another example, a computer scientist doesn't typically study all computer science but she might instead study a specific scheduling algorithm problem and how it applies to routing in networks.
--Mazlo
