Impractical Magic, Volume 1

This book is redolent with the enticing smell of paper and ink.

Properties

• Books
• Rarity: Common
•  Weight: 0.05 kg / 0.1 lb
• Price: 14 gp

Where to find

In a Row of Books at Elminster's Library X: -4 Y: 101

Text

[Extract from a book about the phenomenon of wild magic, related by the wizard Bigby to his finest friend and equally accomplished sage, Otiluke]:

Now look, old boy, I’m not saying that it isn’t terribly funny. Hearing about a sorcerer casting the fly spell only to have his underpants turn into butterflies and his shoes into curry-flavoured jelly – that is immensely good fun and ought to be celebrated. However, what gives me the heebie-jeebies is the notion of origin.

Where does wild magic come from? We know that sorcery and the like is genetic, that you’re born gifted with magic. Does that imply some dominant allele in the sorcerer has overcome the recessive element, the chaotic curl of organic evolution, the wild factor?

Worries me awfully, because if it isn’t genetic, then what could it be? If magic is inherently insane, then that is a very big problem. That would imply wizards are wrangling something they could turn around and bite us, and that sorcerers are inherently at risk. Troubling, old boy. Troubling stuff.