Wards

**Warding** is one of the most notable and common magics on Aerb. A **warder** uses it to construct **wards** against various things, as well as modifying existing wards, and observing both wards and other magic directly with **warder's sight**. Warders who focused on subverting others' wards is known as a **wardbreaker**.

Warding is notable for being "meta-magic"; it interacts with the countless other types of magic on Aerb, allowing them to be observed and potentially countered. (Unlike most of Aerb's magic systems, which are fairly self-contained.) In fact, warding can only interact with magic; this includes the latent magic in many common materials (such as blood and air) and effects (such as velocity and vibration), but does *not* include pseudomagics (like the Blade-Bound and Elon Gar), magically inert materials (such as non-anima blood), or the void.

## Wards

It's possible to set up wards that will detect a person's bloodline and allow them, along with people they designate, entry. The person whose bloodline matches the wards can "feel their bindings" when they pass through them, and exert their will to designate friend from foe.

Older wards don't generally degrade with time. Newer wards, however, were generally designed to be periodically refreshed; this has something to do with Bessemer.

A ward can be overloaded and destroyed if hit with more force than it was built to withstand.

## Concordance

In order to create a ward, a warder must use their wand (see below) and expend some of their **concordance**, an inner pool of magical power. Both the size of the pool and the efficiency with which they can use it improve as they grow more skilled.

## Warders' Equipment

Warders use a wand and monacle, which they must make from scratch in a months-long process.

### Wand

The wand is used for creating wards. Each warder's wand is subtly different, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Typically it's necessary to move the wand around the intended location of the wards, but it *is* possible to create a ward while simply touching the wand and holding it completely still, just extremely difficult.

### Monacle

The monacle is used for observing wards and other magic (see Warder's Sight, below.) Prolonged use of the monacle will damage the eye, so it can only be glanced through for brief periods.

## Warders' Sight

One of a warder's most valuable abilities is that they can see any form of magic that can be warded against; initially via a monacle, but with enough skill and experience, they eventually develop the ability to see magic innately, known as Warder's Sight. This is considered the mark of a master warder, and takes around 30-40 years of intensive study. Unlike the use of a monacle, this is permanent and does not risk damaging the warder's eyes. However, it still requires a conscious choice to activate.

Although most closely associated with warders, it is possible to view the magical spectrum by other means, and this is also typically referred to as warder's sight. Most notably, a sufficiently skilled vibration mage can do so, and dragons innately possess warder's sight.

Warder's Sight (whether via monacle, innate, or some other means) cannot see through solid surfaces.

### Magical Spectrum

Magic, as viewed through a warder's monacle or warder's sight, and as interacted with via wards, is arranged in a "spectrum". Different magics occupy different parts of the spectrum. It has been determined by the Athenaeum of Barriers that all magics are arranged into a 2D grid based on this spectrum, known as the "bound matrix".

The "brightness" of magic under warder's sight corresponds to it's "power" in at least some cases; for example, a ward against only a single entad appears extremely faint. Things which contain multiple kinds of magic simultaneously, such as Doris Finch blood, appear in a "double hue".

The magical spectrum has a "dark end", which is where Mome Rath's magic falls. This may be the same as the "dark areas" of the spectrum, which refers to those parts of the magical spectrum which do not appear to correspond to any known magic.

"Free" magic spells can be distinguished from full-blown schools of magic because they take up a much smaller part of the spectrum.

Each entad takes up a small portion of the entad portion of the spectrum, the "entad bands" or "entad block". The entad band is extremely broad, and a full wards against entads is very expensive. Identifying and warding against a single entad can be difficult or impossible depending on the situation, but creating the ward itself against a single entad is quite easy and cheap. On one occasion, Grak was able to identify and block an *unknown* entad by "cycling through the entire spectrum of possibilities", a novel technique of his own invention that the lesser warder working with him said would "mark him as a greater magus". It has been calculated that the entad band has room for ~2.1 billion distinct entads.

It's possible to make some guesses about an entad's powers based on warder's sight. For example, it's immediately apparent whether an entad has active, passive or latent magical properties, but that doesn't tell you much; and it's possible to tell whether an entad is animate, but not whether it's intelligent. In some cases, different aspects of an entad's power will operate on visually distinct wavelengths, especially if they have changed in function over time. Some entads occupy a wider spectrum than others, and meta-entads have subtly entangled signatures (that can be untangled and identified only with extremely careful expert examination and specialized equipment). Nevertheless, entads - even meta-entads - are traditionally thought of as occupying only a single point within the bound matrix. However, this isn't strictly accurate. Grak discovered that with exceptional skill, it *is* possible to ward different parts within a single entad's portion of the spectrum - negating only some aspects of it's magic but not others.

## Cultural Role

Warding is the provenance of the At", a novel technique that was said to "mark him as a greater magus" by another warder.henaeum of Barriers; they are the only institution who may legally train warders. The Athenaeum's curriculum focuses on security, including non-magical security.

Warding is considered one of the most important forms of magic on Aerb. In the modern era, it is considered to have largely obsoleted air magic as a method of filtration.

## History

### Ancient History

The Athenaeum of Barriers was founded by a cabal of warders almost four thousand years before the present, who eventually took over the city of Junah.

### First Empire

Warding was one of the magics that Uther Penndraig mastered, and he brought the art to heights no-one since was able to match.

### Worth the Candle

Juniper started the game with "Wards" on his character sheet, although it was greyed out so he couldn't read it.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The latent/passive/active distinction is largely unimportant, except as it interfaces with various meta-magics, the most important of which is warding. [...] There are a number of skills which are supernatural in some sense, systematized, and which can be learned and practiced, but which are not generally regarded as ‘magic’, given that they’re outgrowths of other skills. The two most notable examples of such phenomena are the blade-bound, who have supernatural attenuation to a blade, prescient ability to parry, and enhanced cutting power, and the Elon Gar, who have a near-complete control of typically automatic reactions. These ‘pseudo magics’ do not interact with meta-magical phenomena such as warding. - Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 5: Magics
2. ↑ My bloodline gives me the right to pass through the wards with the two of you in tow. - Chapter 17: Voting Blocs
3. ↑ “We’ll be safe here?” asked Fenn. “That ward won’t activate on us if you’re too far away?”

Amaryllis hesitated for a brief moment. “You should be fine. Besides, there are several wards here, I can feel their bindings when I pass through them. That one, the one that the thaum-seekers were hitting, I think it was only for them, projected away from the physical structure for added protection. There are different ones for people, which shouldn't start until we're past the walls. My will should allow you past those. Like I said, you'll be fine.” - Chapter 21: Cliff Racer
4. ↑ Caer Laga has been standing abandoned for generations. The wards weren’t supposed to degrade with time. - Chapter 21: Cliff Racer
5. ↑ Buildings older than two hundred years tended to have permanent wards, while newer buildings tended to have periodically refreshed ones. (The clickbait explanation would probably have a title like, “How Bessemer Killed The Permanent Ward”.) - Chapter 23: Siege
6. ↑ I pulsed warder’s sight and saw the ward right away, but wasn’t knowledgeable enough to know what it signified. A quick test with my pinky let me know that it wasn’t of the annihilation variety, and a single, golden punch was enough to overload whatever capacity the warder had given the barrier. - Chapter 214: Glass Houses
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Warder's Monocle: Allows the warder to see magic at various wavelengths. Burns the retinas if used too long. Superceded by warder's sight.

	* Warder's Wand: Allows for the warder to create or manipulate wards, drawing on their concordance. - Chapter 138: Stats for Nerds II
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 **Concordant Cord:** This entad gave me a pool of concordance to draw upon, which allows me to create wards when used in conjunction with the warder’s wands that I’ve collected over the years.

[...]

**Warder’s Monocle:** I have several of these, though they’re largely redundant. Warders try to use them sparingly, for fear of burning out their eyes, but I have no eyes. They are not entads, but I’m not limited to entads, just to the broader umbrella of magical items, which is one of the reasons it was thought that I would be able to manipulate the hyperbolic time chamber. They comprise a large portion of my sensorium.

**Warder’s Wand:** I have several of these as well, which allow me to make wards using any part of myself as the wand tip. They are not entirely redundant, as each warder builds theirs individually, and there is some variation in strengths and weaknesses. - Chapter 105: Notes
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 I noticed that her hand stayed in her bag, where she’d said her wand and monocle were, and I started using vibration magic to mimic warder’s sight, just to make sure she wasn’t surrepitously erecting wards. Doing that without actually moving your wand was, I was told, brutally difficult, but I wasn’t going to take chances. I saw nothing. - Chapter 180: Dumbest Entad
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 “Oh,” said Grak. He was looking down at his thick, meaty hands with something approaching wonder. I watched him closely as he took out his warder’s monocle, which he held up to his eye for a moment, looking around him, then slowly returned to its usual pocket. “I have the warder’s sight.”

I tried to recall whether I’d read about that in the (absolutely worthless) *Commoner’s Guide to Warding,* and came up blank.

“The monocle will burn the retinas, if overused,” explained Grak. “I no longer need it. It takes thirty or forty years of intensive study to develop the sight. It marks a person as a true master.” - Chapter 78: The Sacrifice
11. ↑ “True,” said Raven. She folded her hands in her lap. When Grak cared to look with warder’s sight, she gleamed with magic, every item she wore an entad. - Chapter 150: Than One Innocent Suffer
12. ↑ **Vibrational Magic 30, Spectra:** You can expend breath to apply the sensory aspects of vibrational magic to a wider range of vibrations, including the entire electromagnetic spectrum and everything covered under warder's sight. Breath cost of these extra senses is based on time used, doubling each minute of use. - Chapter 174: The Blade of the Self
13. ↑ Dragons were big and imposing creatures, aging slowly but eternally, solitary by nature but occasionally finding friends or allies in the world. They were ravenous when they were small, but as they aged, they began to be sustained by their hoard more and more, until eventually their appetite left them altogether. They were intelligent, though not that much more than a particularly clever human, and they were magical, which they augmented by learning what magics Aerb had on offer. In a lot of ways, they were just generically at the top of the food chain, having been gifted with best-in-class abilities almost across the board. They had better vision, better hearing, better healing, better defenses, sharper claws, everything at pretty much max settings, or close enough. They got a warder’s sight by default, just because, and a powerful resistance to pretty much every magic. - Chapter 170: On Treating With Dragons
14. ↑ The Valencia Problem was one that we were going to have to deal with sooner than later. The Red Armor of Arramor (which sounded like a made up name every time I said it in my head, like someone had just fumbled through saying ‘armor’) would block her from warder’s sight, but she couldn’t stay in it forever, and there were other senses that could be problematic beyond just the one warders got. - Chapter 112: Egress
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Similarly, while warders can ward against schools of magic, they cannot ward against the effects of individual entads without either listing them explicitly (impossible if they’re ignorant of the entad or haven’t seen/acquired the signature) or creating a full-spectrum entad ward (extremely costly and time-consuming).

As a minor technical note, the Athenaeum of Barriers currently promotes a “bound matrix” holistic understanding of magical phenomena, wherein any given magical phenomena can be placed within a two-dimensional grid, which has some implications for the practice of warding. This framework is not considered theoretical, but one of the natural laws of the universe. Per this framework, there are a limited number of possible entads, equaling approximately 2.1 billion. What would happen once this boundary is exceeded is unknown. (It’s commonly stated that there are one billion entads on Aerb, but that number does not account for historical entads that have been lost or destroyed, definitional issues with entad sets, and a few other issues.)

[Juniper’s Notes: I’m guessing that “approximately 2.1 billion” means 2,147,483,648, which is 2^31, or the size of a signed 4 byte integer. More fodder for the simulation theory, I guess, but it might also be an artifact of the math being used in the calculations, or random chance, or the DM fucking with me, or just my personal prediliction for powers of two.] - Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 6: Entads
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 I had the Crown of Eyes on, and could see what he saw, which included warder’s sight, thanks to the Six-Eyed virtue. Grak himself was practically glowing with wards, while the ward he was creating was incredibly faint. Single-entad wards were some of the easiest and cheapest wards you could make, which was good, given the size we might end up needing. - Chapter 199: Nearest and Dearest
17. ↑ I looked through Grak’s eyes to give me the warder's sight, and saw nothing too unusual about her. The blood around us and on her was magic, some of it in a double hue that I’d have guessed would indicate that it was Doris blood and latent magic, but I was no expert, and Grak hadn’t seen fit to say anything. - Chapter 204: Open Veins
18. ↑ Mome Rath was too big, with no obvious way to kill it, with unknown capabilities [...] She turned to Grak, who had just returned from what Bethel had called the observation deck. “Status?”

“Novel magic, from the dark end of the spectrum,” he said. “Wardable.” - Chapter 155: Mome Rath
19. ↑ “Okay,” I said. That was unfortunate, but not unexpected. Warding had mapped out ‘dark areas’ of potential magic, places on the spectrum that didn’t correspond to any known material or magic, and I’d been hoping that there was a block set aside for the Long Stairs. - Chapter 238: A Certain Kind of Longing
20. ↑ Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 5: Magics
21. ↑ Grak had watched when I’d made the third wish, but hadn’t seemed as surprised by the results as Dehla seemed. It was a new wavelength of magic, distinct from the signature of the entad bands, and noteworthy in that regard, but it wasn’t going to upend anyone’s conception of reality. - Chapter 114: The Meeting of Minds
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 “I did something novel at the arena,” Grak replied.

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

Grak nodded. “I made a split ward, only half of an entad’s function altered.”

“It might have saved my life,” I replied with a nod. “Are there any tricks that it will lead to?”

“Many,” replied Grak. “I’ll have to speak with Mary about it. There are surely some cursed entads we could use safely and others we could use without their associated costs.”

“What, seriously?” I asked. “We can just … I don’t know, use the clonal kit without paying it back?”

“I don’t know,” replied Grak. “It’s possible. I have never heard of anyone doing what I have done. I don’t know if it’s possible for others.” He ran his hand over the doe’s soft fur. “We conceptualize magic as being two dimensional, with blocks being given over to different magics. The entad block is large, but each entad is noted as essentially a point, however wide the spectrum is. But that’s not true.” - Chapter 192: Cooldown
23. ↑ As I understood it, broad-spectrum wards against entads were too difficult for anyone to use, while wards against individual entads were quite easy. - Chapter 115: Communicative
24. ↑ Chapter 158: OP
25. ↑ Naturally if Zona could see magic like a warder, she’d know that the rope was magical, but I wasn’t sure that a warder’s analysis of magic was good enough that she’d be able to know specifically what *kind* of magic. Grak could make some guesses, but not outright crack the code. - Chapter 90: Head of House
26. ↑ I have to say, testing magic items was one of the highlights of my time in Aerb. There wasn’t any equivalent to the identify spell, but Grak could tell whether something had latent or passive magic just by looking at it with his warder’s monocle for a few minutes, and the study of magic was a natural outgrowth of specializing in countermagic. That was how we found the three magic items that Aumann had on his body.

[...]

“The glasses shroud people in an aura,” said Grak, who had been sitting at the large table outside the house looking over the other items. “You’re both tinted purple. The entad goes from latent to passive with a tap at the sides. It’s unclear, as yet, what the color signifies.”

[...]

“Nothing yet,” I said. “You thought this armor had both passive and latent abilities?”

Grak nodded, and part of his frown softened. “That says nothing concrete. Resizing is latent, unless it’s in the process of happening. If the armor is lighter, or more breathable, that accounts for its passive magic. It’s common on entads and heirloom entads, part of the way the forge frenzy usually takes shape.” - Chapter 35: Friendship is Magic
27. ↑ He said that if she looks at the Eternal Golden Braid with warder’s sight, she’ll be able to tell that it’s animate, but little beyond that. As a cover, you can demonstrate that it is effectively prehensile when held, which should comport with how she’s seen it behave. - Chapter 95: Time Enough
28. ↑ “Grak, do you have any read on what waits for us inside there?” asked Amaryllis. “How many more of the golems?”

“The golems are different,” said Grak. “They are the same magic at a different wavelength.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” asked Fenn. “We’re going to need to go through this door sooner rather than later.”

“Entads can change over time,” said Grak. “They can have different aspects. It is possible that there was some drift in alignment. However, there was also drift in function. If independently moving creatures are its current design, earlier designs might be more like the statues. We might also be looking at something else entirely.”

“Meaning a full spectrum of threat?” I asked.

“Yes,” replied Grak. “That’s possible.” - Chapter 58: Panopticon
29. ↑ “Hey,” I said. “Bethel hit Loyalty 10, which gave her the ability to use any entad in the house without having to eat it. She seemed really happy, but then she went silent. Can you see anything?” I spoke Groglir, which I tended to do when we were alone together.

Grak frowned and looked up slightly, at the wall. “I can see that there’s been a change, but can’t tell you much more. She’s always been wide-spectrum.” He resumed looking at the fire. - Chapter 127: Full House
30. ↑ “The company line is that the *Egress* is a different entad from the one that everyone saw in Li’o, which warder’s sight should confirm.”

“Mostly confirm,” said Grak.

“Mostly confirm,” I corrected myself. “Modulo a sufficiently skilled warder watching for long enough and close enough, with specialized enough equipment, that they could untangle the entad signatures that a meta-entad would produce.” - Chapter 173: Passions
31. ↑ Located in the tiered city of Junah, the Athenaeum of Barriers is one of the oldest of the athenaeums, dating back nearly four thousand years. It began life as a cabal of warders and eventually grew into a proper institution of learning when the cabal embarked on a successful coup of the Junah city government, with the Athenaeum of Barriers maintaining control of the city to this day, despite numerous attempts to take it back by the surrounding kingdom. The Athenaeum of Barriers is the only place on Aerb where the teaching of warding is authorized. - Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 2: Athenaeums
32. ↑ Because the athenaeum and its graduates are responsible for security all around Aerb, much of the teaching is defensively focused, not just in terms of how to construct wards and where to place them, but in terms of security-minded warding, preventing physical access through non-ward means, protecting potential targets, and to a lesser extent, thinking like an intruder or attacker; there are a number of students of Barriers who spend their years their learning how to construct locks and safes without picking up much in the way of being able to cast wards. - Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 2: Athenaeums
33. ↑ Warding is one of the ‘keystone’ magics of Aerb, responsible for a large portion of infrastructure and industry. As a result, it’s one of the more common magics, and the Athenaeum of Barriers is one of the most important, though journeyman warders are much more common than true warding magi. - Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 5: Magics
34. ↑ Air mages have a fine-tuned telekinetic control of air, particularly in separating out slightly different aspects of the air and manipulating particulates. Generally considered one of the more underwhelming magics, much of its practical utility has been superceded by wards, leaving only a relatively small community of practicing air mages. - Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 5: Magics
35. ↑ Located in the tiered city of Junah, the Athenaeum of Barriers is one of the oldest of the athenaeums, dating back nearly four thousand years. It began life as a cabal of warders and eventually grew into a proper institution of learning when the cabal embarked on a successful coup of the Junah city government... - Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 2: Athenaeums
36. ↑ `**0 Wards** - Chapter 1: Taking the Fall`
37. ↑ Thirty-six skills were still greyed out, their names just on the other side of readable no matter how hard I squinted at them. - Chapter 2: Thickenings