Foreword:

I must admit reticence when the letter first arrived asking me to create a foreword for this journal. Were the letter coming from Isidoro directly as opposed to my editor, I would have returned it with a stinging spell woven into the seal.

However, I must do my best to raise his finer qualities and I shall keep these musings here as a note of my objection.

Isidoro is a licensed magus of the Anthropological Order who specializes in tracking down first hand accounts and sources for records. As such, he has a functional understanding of the official accepted languages within The Lords’ Holdings, he is well traveled and resourceful, and his Mastery Dissertation on Vargo’s Trinity is thorough and beyond reproach.

This journal of his journeys is an informative work not just on the basics of diverse magical traditions, but on life within the Lords’ Holdings just twenty year prior. If you can find him, you can be sure he’ll answer anything you ask in thrice as many words as necessary.

* Clay Honeypot, Golem Expert and author of “Dolls, Diggers, and Doom: a sculptor for any occasion.”

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By power of will, force of personality, or knowledge arcane; the whim of mortals is affected upon the world. It is by unimaginable grace that those whose pursuit of power bears fruit inevitably self-destruct. According to Vargo’s Trinity, the world and ether beyond are composed by The Weaver into The Weave, which comprises all observable phenomena. The Weave can be warped, but never truly decomposed, so theory holds, and the frayed threads are held upon The Loom to be woven again.

I have endeavored, dear reader, to detect falsehood in this theory as my primary academic pursuit. The content of that struggle was published three years ago to the day. My instructor insisted I’d wasted his tutelage being an “obstinate fool.” My published findings amounted to empirical evidence of Vargo’s Trinity.

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I can recount one incident on the Northern Wall. I was attempting to surmount the range visiting sites known for astrological study. I was guided by a dwarvish shaman, his mountaineer cousin and an imp who’d been contracted to guide me to those sites in exchange for previously deep appreciation for pies of all kinds. A fortnight we trekked those jagged, wily peaks.

I remember on the eighth night the Shaman, a robust gentleman called Cedar, and I began a heated debate on the proper formula for oxygenating the air as a component of a fireball spell. The Mountaineer Cousin, Willow, glared anxiously at the two of us as we exchanged utterances of a magical detection spell and some components of fireball spells in a competition to create the conditions for the most potent explosion. This resulted in gruff handling by the mountaineer as he prevented our inevitable demise. We were getting a tad over enthusiastic in our oxygen deprived state.

We reached each of the dozen astrological sites, I learned of their revered ancestors and each dazzling apotheosis, and discovered for my efforts that each spiritual icon fit into the roles of Weaver, Weave, or Loom; Whether it was The All Tree who provided the seeds that became each of the first trees, The Coalstriker, who discovered how to wield fire and one hundred uses for it, or The Seedwomb which returns all to soil to serve as fertile ground for new seeds; each could fit into one of the three roles and none presented any that weren’t accounted for.

Since the end of my tutelage, I have made a study of Vargo’s dissenters who cite gods and magics divine and wild. Often these writings are responses from those assimilated into The Allied Lords’ Holdings, and these dissenters are recorded in anthologies of magic considered disproven by translators and summarily dismissed as savage and ignorant. I can’t help wondering whether significant context was lost or merely ignored.

Rather than sit and write upon my musings, I have decided to study abroad, from Broadbrass’ Pit to The Machine City. Funding my expedition will be a matter of simple magics. On the morrow, I leave my nascent hamlet south to Snaggletooth Ridge to charter passage to the Southern Eye.”

* On Foreign Magical Theory, 51st day of Spring; Isidoro