The Enchantment of Items

((This is an attempt to write a guide from an IC perspective. It may not sound like Edanna much, that's because I removed most of the snarky bits to cut down on character count. Please read and tell me what can be improved! I'm almost sure this is too technical.))
<Two copies of this short book exist: one still in Edanna's private library, the other in the archives of the Kirin Tor.>
==Part I: Introduction==
It has been said that one of the defining characteristics of a wizard is paranoia: the suspicion that most other living things on Azeroth are against you, watching and preparing for the best chance to strike you down when you are asleep, hurt, under attack from another foe, or otherwise vulnerable. Whatever the truth in this belief, many mages do feel this way. I should know – I am one of them.
Accordingly, most mages start to look for ways to defend themselves. Their suspicions tend to make them uneasy when it comes to trusting servants, so they either make or try to establish unshakable control over their servitors or try to acquire items that store magic, often in unusual or disguised shapes, to be unleashed later. Such items are always difficult and expensive to make, usually soon exhausted in their powers, and in constant short supply. Their rarity is due in part to the fact that most of them can be wielded by anyone who knows how, thus offering non-spellwielders their only chance to ever command magic.
So, many mages make their own magical items or at least try to make their own. It is rare to find a clear and complete set of instructions on how to make an item thoughtfully written down by a wizard, because the same suspicions that most wizards harbour about the world (especially their own apprentices, who are nearer to them and thus privy to their secrets) lead them to hide any writings they make, encrypt or deliberately distort what is written, and even split their writings into different formats and hiding places so that all pieces must be assembled for the process to work and as many pieces as possible are dangerous to anyone following what they say in isolation. For example, an item involving the summoning of an elemental might have its process split into a fragment that takes the follower to the point of bringing an uncontrolled elemental to his or her presence, a second fragment that describes governing the elemental through what it is needed for and then releasing it from all control, and a third fragment that details how that elemental can be safely dismissed. Any mage lacking that third fragment is placed in great danger by following the writings. It is also true that in the making of potions and items, perhaps more than in any other aspect of sorcery, there are many ways to achieve a desired end: One mages' wand of arcane missiles may be made in a very different way than the same item made by another sorcerer, even though this is a relatively simple, straightforward item.
Typically, the making of an item begins with design, some experimentation follows, and then comes the refinement of the design until a mage believes she or he has hit upon a workable process. And then, as the old saying goes, “Chaos storms in.”
Simple (single-function) items may be made by casting the widely-known enchant spell on a suitable physical object, usually one made to the finest specifications and specifically to receive an enchantment. Then the necessary spells to preserve the item, imbue it with a power, and establish control over it are cast into the charged object. Items with multiple effects – even something as simple as a classic wand of lightning, which can emit forked or straight bolts or instead unleash its powers in a shock attack, tend to be more stable and to have more chance of operating properly when done if constructed by a more complex process. Most wizards make very few permanent items in their lives and the necessary time, trouble and expense of such processes, not just the danger of fel taint or long-lasting weakness caused by casting the necessary spells, are important reasons why.
In this guide, I present a method for the making of a multifunction magical item modelled upon craftings I participated in when training under Voren'thal the Seer, several processes I observed in the towers of various mages in Quel'thalas and Dalaran as well as upon my own work and experimentation. Examination of this method should yield suggested routes for artificers to follow in the making of other items.
===The Effects of Overenchantment===
It has been observed that some wizards become distant, withdrawn and even mentally unstable over time. Although there can be many reasons for such behaviour, if it is accompanied by occasional wild magic results from proper castings of normal spells and by a shadowy or vaguely blurred appearance to the spell-caster’s body, it is probably spell hollowing brought on by too much enchanting of items in too short a time. The susceptibility of mages to this condition varies with the individual, but all mages should beware it, for a spell-hollowed mage who comes into contact with the wrong combination of spells can suffer decades' worth of fel taint within minutes. Casters who observe such symptoms are heartily advised to lay off enchanting for up to seven years to allow their souls to regenerate.
===Item Entrapment===
One of the classic horror stories among wizards (told by many a mage to keep the least bold of his or her apprentices from unauthorized rummaging) is the tale of an item sucking the essences of living beings who touch it into itself. Such trap items do exist, often created by liches or would-be liches to gain themselves younger, fresher bodies, but they are not as common as legend would have you believe. (Incidentally, to bring any such item to a city with a larger population of mages is grounds for disintegration on the spot.)
It has long been suspected that Kel'thuzad, the Lich King's right hand, has established several such items in his various holds and towers as traps for ambitious mages seeking to unseat him and adventurers hired to destroy him. The royal bedchamber of Lordaeon once sported a glowing, jewelled broadsword that floated enticingly above its own purple-cushioned plinth beside the canopied regal bed. It is known to have claimed the wits of several would-be assassins whose drained, lifeless bodies were found collapsed beside the plinth on several mornings down through the decades. Where it came from and where it has gone to are both mysteries lost to history, having been stolen several months before the Plague outbreak.
Doors that accomplish the same fell end are rumoured to be in use in various eastern cities and legends insist that at least one noble family of Silvermoon, now extinct, had a door that operated with such powers only when specially activated. This deadly portal made rivals vanish during seemingly innocent feasts and meetings held in the house.
More common are “trap” items willingly entered by wizards and cultists who have prepared them as hiding places or instruments to preserve their essential selves in bids for immortality through lichdom or other means. It should be noted that most people lack the strength of will and depth of experience to keep from going insane in the experience of transferring their consciousness to a storage item. One of my colleagues at the Spire, recently extricated from such a Highborne artefact described the experience as a: “Dark, detached confinement, where there is no sound but your own screaming and nothing to be seen but your own memories in an ongoing display.” This replay of memory can all too easily descend into obsession and mad repetition of favourite moments to the exclusion of all else, including sanity. Mages contemplating a stay in such a vessel should seek training and experience in dream magic or obtain means of gaining farseeing to guard against the deleterious effects of self-induced oblivion.
==Part II: The Enchantment of Items==
Even young children in the East (if they pay any attention to the tales their elders spin by firesides and over tankards). know the basics of how wizards and priests imbue items – inanimate, often quite normal objects – with the eternal fire of magic, making them mighty and valuable things that can last for centuries and serve many hands to work major changes on Azeroth. But few folk, even among experienced wizards and priests of high rank and long, devoted service, know the specifics of enchanting anything beyond a simple single-use or one-function item (that is, making an item that can do more than duplicate the effect of a single spell). Priests (by which I also include Shamans and Druids) can pray or otherwise consult their patrons for guidance. Wizards are on their own, save perhaps for occasional moments of insight and prefaced by years of hard work.
This is, in the view of many other inhabitants of Azeroth, a good thing. The lack of clear, widely known, safe instructions causes accidents that remove some of the most ambitious and dangerous wizards from the realm of the living. It also helps to slow the remaining sorcerers down in any wholehearted effort to produce items by forcing them to spend much time in experimentation and the procurement of rare, hard-to-find and often ultimately unnecessary ingredients.
Despite years of searching, I have been unable to find a complete, clear, fully detailed account of the making of a complex item. Such things are too well disguised and guarded by their owners. I have, however, unearthed scores of fragmentary processes, several chests worth of cryptic notes and some talkative learned spell-casters who could explain things. Adding these aids to my own experience as a wizard, I am now prepared to reveal in these pages a sample, tested process for the enchantment of a complex magical item.
So read on and learn something that a few armies of wizards have died seeking knowledge about down through the ages. All spells mentioned in the process that are not already widely known are detailed fully at the end of the book. Bear in mind that the presented process is a general outline, not an ironclad one true way.
===Beginnings===
The process of making a complex magical item begins with an initial plan for what the item will do and preparation of the necessary focal stones: gems infused with magical essences that hold the item's spell powers until its components are combined into a coherent, controllable whole. The necessary spells to create the effects the future item will release are gathered or researched. Note that what spells can be best adapted may be a matter of some speculation and is not necessarily clear-cut and definite at this point and mistakes made at the outset can doom an otherwise well-conceived item.
===Primary Casting===
When sufficient spells and focal stones have been gathered, the caster governing the process casts, or hires others to cast, the desired spells into the focal stones by means of dweomerflow spells that link the cast spells to the stones. In rare cases, minor magical items may be magically miniaturized and enchanted so as to be encased within a spell-generated focal stone. They can then be made part of a larger item, though it should be noted that such cobbled-together items are never as stable as one generated from the raw and generally mistrusted. Abeyance spells are then cast on the focal stones to hold the enchantments within them while the rest of the creation process is carried out. Many casters across the world have caches of focal stones that they have been adding to for years as they await the proper time, sufficient wealth, or the procurement of other ingredients necessary to create the finished items they envisage.
===Shell Creation===
The physical form of the item is then planned. It can be an existing item or several items magically melded together if such are properly purified, but more often it is a newly created item crafted of magically prepared materials. If an item is to be made permanent, as is most common with multifunction items, it is important that inorganic substances – such as gems, metals, or stone – predominate in volume over organic components in the created shell. The exceptions to this principle are wood – or rather certain woods which have an affinity for enchantment – and items primarily concerned with necromancy, which can have bone as their principal component.
Most staves, wands, and rods are made of wood, as the old saying goes:
:Of these three are great magic born,
:With silver cut: oak, ash, and thorn.
The “silver cut” of the saying refers to the fact that wood intended for magical uses can be carved with anything, but should be initially felled or severed from its living tree with a silver-bladed implement such as an axe, hatchet, saw, adze, or sickle.
To be used to construct an item, inorganic components of an item must have been affected by or in contact with a similar type of magic as one of the properties the finished item is intended to produce or command – for example, energy discharge, healing, or translocation. Or, at the very least, they must have been soaked in tinctures (made by storing an ingredient for a week or more in a mixture of one-quarter grain alcohol to three-quarters water. The liquid then acquires some of the same mystical vibrations inherent in that which was immersed in it) of substances that have been affected by or been part of such magics or natural powers (such as lightning, fire, or decay).
Organic components of an item must have been gathered or harvested in a manner related to a finished item's powers or themselves be of something akin to those powers. A wand whose powers are concerned with the sea, for example, could be fashioned of driftwood or simply of wood cut by a sailor; a wand of lightning could be fashioned from wood cut from a bough that was blasted from its parent tree by a natural lightning strike or by a lightning bolt spell. Failing all else, an organic component can be immersed in the liquid of a completed, operable potion whose magic is concerned with a similar subject or effect as the completed item is intended to exhibit.
Substances bearing a previous dweomer that must be preserved for use in the new item must be treated with Alzur's purification spell. All other substances involved in the creation of the magical item – and all liquid components of a tincture or substance bath – must be similarly treated. Priests typically use a consecration ritual to obtain a similar effect.
When the various pieces that will make up an item have been fashioned, they must be strengthened or the item will be no less fragile than an unenchanted object composed of its various parts. Typically a diamondsteel is cast on metal pieces and hardening on other components. Priests typically perform rituals unique to their faith to strengthen materials.
Up to eight substances can be used in the making of an item before they become unstable. These can be used in or formed into as many pieces as necessary. The pieces can be attached to each other or left separate, as desired, to be held together entirely by magic, but in any case it is customary to make every contact between two different pieces of an item that are to bear an enchantment into an unshakable join by means of a Merald's meld spell. If more than four different substances are to be part of the same item, a crown meld spell should be employed after all of the various lesser melds are cast to weave the melds together into what sages call a harmonic fusion. Additional pieces or later repairs can also be added by the casting of a Merald's meld and a crown meld for each piece to be bound onto the item. (When magical items explode through abuse or circumstance, it is usually because these melds call forth the powers of the item into an explosion as they fail, even though the item's powers may not normally be explosive or violent. )
If the magical item creation process must be interrupted at this point, a stasis spell can be cast into any crown meld existing on an item in such a way that the item is protected against decay, physical damage, or spell failure until touched by a living creature (or a specific living creature), which ends the stasis. In this manner, completed but not yet empowered items and focal stones holding the powers they are to later be imbued with can wait for years for the crowning steps of the item-making process. Often their creators perish in the interim, so numerous raw components of incomplete items are stored in tombs, caverns, and other hiding places all over Azeroth.
===Enstarment===
When the item's shell is complete and all focal stones holding its powers are gathered in a setting where rest, drinking water and freedom from interruptions are all available, the infusion of power into the item can begin. A mage pours enchanting dust (known by some as residuum) to cover an inorganic surface (usually a stone table, casket lid, or floor) with a mystic design enclosing the assembled item shell at its heart and linking it with a circle of its focal stones. Each stone must be in a circle, and the shell in a closed outline; each circle must be linked to the shell's outline by an unbroken line, and an unbroken circle must enclose all of the other markings. A priest purifies an altar by washing it with a consecrated liquid and places the shell in its circle of stones on the altartop.
At this point, items that will unleash healing powers must be anointed with an ointment (purified with a spell or a religion-specific ritual) composed of powdered gems of a type favourable to the magic, pure essential oil and herbs harvested with a silver tool or a tool consecrated to the Light, Shadow or a specific nature deity in particular and obscure conditions, such as under a full moon on Midsummer night, in the shadow of an oak inhabited by a dryad, or from the grave dirt of a risen dead in the dark of the moon. The all-important eternal flame spell is then cast, rendering the shell ready to receive enchantments, followed by a wondrous web spell linking the shell with the focal stones. If cast properly, eternal flame makes the shell glow with an eerie deep blue, powerful radiance, and wondrous web creates a humming network of white lines of light encircling each focal stone and linking it with a straight beam of light to the blue radiance surrounding the shell. Priests can also transfer powers from an altar, artefact, or item or directly cast spells into an item as a part of this process by using a ritual.
===Mastering===
Time now becomes critical, for this step must be completed before the wondrous web expires. This is the point where the maker pronounces the precise controls to govern the completed item, speaks any words of activation that will be involved, speaks commands the item will obey, and gives the item a name (if applicable). If the mystic design has been prepared to allow for such things, parchments inscribed with words or phrases of activation can be introduced into the wondrous web. The spells held in the focal stones are slowly drawn from them into the item, dissolving the stones, parchments shrink, shrivel, and disappear as their contents are absorbed into the item. These parchments must either be spell scrolls or bear writings done in magically formulated inks of the same sort that spells are written in.
Errors, omissions, or contradictory commands introduced at this point can leave an item unusable, uncontrollable, or possessing unforeseen side effects or power loopholes. Casters experienced in the crafting of items can often identify these immediately merely by observing how the item is mastered. Any magical item or spell crafted to operate only when the caster touches it, holds it, or enters its area of activation must by definition involve a truename linked to the caster in its construction and mastering. “Truename” is something of a misnomer; such names are identifiers that must apply correctly to the caster but may be pseudonyms, pet names, or favoured titles or phrases. They are usually not innate, unchangeable, unique names that define the caster from birth. If a skilled mage or priest of high rank gains the time and opportunity to study the finished item or spell at leisure and manages to slowly unravel the magic without triggering it, she or he can derive the truename (or truenames) used in its making, and thus can learn of the item or spell's origins and something personal about its creator.
Pulsing of the radiance surrounding the item heralds the acceptance of the various elements of the mastering; a fading to darkness indicates failure of the entire process. Most often, the focal stones and any parchments fade away entirely, the mystic design follows them into oblivion and the item glows brightly, turns and spins slowly by itself, and then settles into immobility as the glow fades. The item's infusion with magic is then complete.
===Awakening===
Finally, the empowered item is activated by application of an awakening spell. This more powerful alternative to the enchant spell is much less likely to end in a failure of the item. If it does fail, however, the empowered shell explodes spectacularly! (Incidentally, using awakening gave me the fastest duck-for-cover reflex this side of the Great Sea.)
===Veiling===
Although this stage of enchantment is named for changing an item's appearance, the most crucial of its two optional elements is permanency. This step can be omitted entirely if neither of them is desired. A nonpermanent item often requires recharging and if not – or if by its nature not rechargeable – it crumbles to worthless dust when exhausted. Other nonpermanent items fade in efficacy with time or use until they fail entirely and a few are so enchanted (or misenchanted) as to drain life energy from their wielders or other nearby creatures to power their effects. A rare few are even enspelled to destroy themselves in a spectacular manner when their reserve is exhausted.
If a change in an item's appearance is desired, another eternal flame must be applied before illusions or shape-altering magics are applied to the item. A magical item can be altered in size, hue, shape, and apparent composition, but cannot be made to appear alive if it is not composed wholly of organic materials, or vice versa. In other words, a staff made of wood could be made to look like a (lifeless or comatose) human body, but a longsword could not. The true materials of which a magical item is composed are not altered by veiling, only the item's external appearance, including smell, texture, and weight.
An item can be made permanent at any time after first being enchanted, but it assumes its present powers in its permanent state, not its initial ones. If some of the item's abilities have been used up or lost, the permanent item will have only those lesser powers remaining. Again, eternal flame must be cast on the item. With this spell still in operation, permanency is then cast on the item, after which the caster typically collapses, exhausted. The physical and mental drain (which can last for years, depending on the item) can be avoided in several ways, one of which is to draw upon the Sunwell's lifegiving essence. Casters of evil bent and vile intent are known to sacrifice innocents for the same purpose.
If an item has been awakened before veiling is attempted, there is no chance of failiure. If a change in an already awakened item's appearance is demanded that is beyond the bounds of what can be done – for example, a wizard trying to turn a wand into a moving, speaking flesh-and-blood companion – and the veiling therefore fails, the item is not harmed in any way. For these reasons, veiling is usually the last step in the preparation of an item, but either element of a veiling can occur before awakening if the item creator so desires.
===The Random Element===
Although there is always a chance for magic to go wild or create something its wielders did not intend or anticipate, there has always also been a place in the Art for deliberate randomness. Accordingly, there is a school of thought in artifice that insists that the best items – and almost all of the rare few that surprise their makers with performance beyond what was planned for – are those that include a random ingredient in the making, usually as a tincture in which the item shell is bathed just prior to enstarment. Some of such random odds and ends I possess are: a tongue of a griffon that was severed from its body with a blade of grass soon after the griffon's death of natural causes, a cluster of moonberries cut with a silver-bladed sickle by the light of a full moon, glowcap mushrooms that sprouted from ground that was struck by lightning, tears from a sprite darter weeping from happiness, one eye from a sagefish caught with a silver hook and acorns scorched by arcane fire. This mystery ingredient is considered part of the crazed search for a universal material component by those who do not subscribe to its inclusion in the making of items, but adherents to the practice sometimes regard it as an offering to the gods of magic and luck that is essential to the success of all items – and its inclusion, in their opinion, is occasionally rewarded through the infusion of an unexpected extra power or property into the item.
Category:Guides