I have a couple of questions regarding spells and spell ink formulas since I was rereading the Pages from the Mages articles in the Dragon.
1. It seems really expensive to make spell scrolls, like for Read Magic, a 1st lvl spell, it requires a large blue … (1) Sapphire. Is it normal for spells formulas to be so expensive? I know that the article mentions that there are other formulas for the same spells, which hopefully are cheaper.
2. The Burning Hands ink formula requires 2 ounces of fire elemental phlogiston. What is that? how (2)— Alex McClay (@AlexMcclay2000) September 2, 2021
Does one get it, or extract that from fire elementals. Do they leave that upon their death in the Material Plane?
3. It mentions that these are for making spell scrolls. Are the same ink formulas required to copy the spell into a spellbook, or from spellbook to spellbook? (3) I love these details, its so much more interesting than say 5e which just says "100gp per lvl of spell".I asked for the fire elemental phlogiston because all the other ingredients are self-explanatory.
Thanks in advance Ed
— Alex McClay (@AlexMcclay2000) September 2, 2021
I love these details, its so much more interesting than say 5e which just says “100gp per lvl of spell”.
I asked for the fire elemental phlogiston because all the other ingredients are self-explanatory.
Thanks in advance Ed Small edit: I guess for the Spell ink formulas that require gems and jewels, one could use a rough or uncut version of the gem for 1/10 of the price. Correct me if I'm wrong though, but I've had a similar question before and you mentioned that you could use uncut gems.
— Alex McClay (@AlexMcclay2000) September 2, 2021
1. Yes, it IS expensive. That’s why most wizards DON’T just spend their lives sitting in an office copying out scrolls and then selling them. They need to go adventuring to get their own ingredients, or get the money to do the basics of making magic. The design… 2)
…thinking at the time was to present players with meaningful choices, the same as most people face in the real world: your pile of painstakingly-saved money can go towards a house, or buy a new car, or buy all new appliances and clothes and have some $ left…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 5, 2021
3)
…over; what to choose? But yes, you don’t need to destroy jewelry to get the gem ingredients; as it’s going to end up pulverized into powder anyway, you can use raw, uncut gemstone, fragments of shattered gems, and dust from a jeweler polishing gems. 4)
2. As we saw in SPELLJAMMER, phlogiston is the rainbow-hued, mutable flammable liquid that fills the space between the crystal spheres (Realmspace, Greyspace, etc.) in the Prime Material Plane or to the flammable fluid that permeated it, a rainbow-colored chaotic..#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 5, 2021
5)
…material that surrounded the spheres. Those who spelljam call the phologiston “the Rainbow Ocean: or “the Flow.” In real-world historical alchemy, phlogiston is a mysterious substance that’s in anything combustible; its hidden presence makes the combustible… 6)
…material able to ignite, and it’s released as a gas in combustion. So that formula requires phlogiston given off by a fire elemental (in its normal flaming, so no fire elemental has to be “killed” to get it, you just have to have some means of trapping some of..#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 5, 2021
7)
…the air around a fire elemental and then distilling the phlogiston out—yes, that means another step or steps of trapping and distilling, but that’s the whole point: giving a player who’s in-depth roleplaying being a wizard Things To Do). Yes, a dying or… 8)
…sorely wounded wounded fire elemental will give off a large amount of phlogiston.
3. The same spell ink formula are employed for all means of writing scrolls, or even engraving them on metal pages (the grooves must be imbued with the ink), unless magical…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 5, 2021
9)
…duplication means are used. So yes, to make scrolls, to copy into a spellbook, or from spellbook to spellbook. Which is one reason many older spellbooks are just spell scrolls from different sources, bound together into a book with pages of notes, … 10)
…explanations, and variants interspersed.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 5, 2021