The issue with arcane conjuring has always been energy. It takes energy to conjure something out of thin air, because it doesn't really come out of thin air. An apprentice warlock by the name of Rosario Padovano, from the Holy Roman Empire, made it his life's work to research where this energy comes from and why it needs to be augmented with mundane matter in order to do appropriate work. These pages are what remains of his journal, recovered by [what? who?] from a peat bog in in [somewhere].
NOTE: translated from latin.
8 March 877 AD
Four months of work, rigorous and back-breaking work, and I have next to nothing to show for it. My illustrious master will not be pleased. I know the problem does not lie with my offerings, as all tomes and documents agree that blood and incenses are sufficient enticement to bring the daemons to bear. The problem, therefore must be with my Circle.
I must try… (the rest of the entry has been damaged with the passage of time.)
Many pages of mathematical formulae and geometric drawings, most of which are scribbled over, follow before another meaningful entry presents itself.
17 July, 877
Success! I, and I alone, have revived the art of conjuring, I alone have re-discovered the portal to the Otherworld. The Circle… The Circle is nearly perfect. It summons, it contains, it controls, it protects. My inexorable master shall be ecstatic. But I must yet complete more research before I report to (illegible) … not yet complete, and the doorway opens only briefly before closing and taking the spirit with it.
21 July 877
(Rosario's handwriting here is changed considerably to previous entries.)
The doorway is complete. The Circle is flawless. With me is the presence of Kzzohk, a cheerful and solicitous daemon in the form of a fat, well-dressed man. Already I can sense their unmistakable magical power all around me. Kzzohk tells me I can access much more power by using something they refer to as OtherGlyph. Placing OtherGlyphs around my circle will create a stable portal, they promise, which will not need to be sustained with fresh sacrifices, but rather feed on the ambient energy of the world around me. Kzzohk even provided a name, the name of an entity that will finally enable me and my wise master to find out the truth, and to achieve our goal. But first I must determine Kzzohk's motives.
16 April 878
I have been working with Kzzohk for just short of a year now. It has been a very productive collaboration. OtherGlyphs are capable of so much more than our scripts and symbols could ever hope to achieve. Kzzohk explains that they are embedded with essences of meanings from the Otherworld, concepts that only make sense there. This one for example: (Strange glyph drawn here) This glyph can replace the two binding symbols and remove the need for burning basilicum. And this one: (Another strange glyph) combines the 4 materialization symbols into one!
Kzzohk has been very helpful to me.
3 May 878
It is time, my saintly master and I have constructed the perfect Circle, a pentagram with OtherGlyphs at the points, surrounded by the standard double circle with 6 reinforcing symbols surrounding the outer circle. Kzzohk promises us this will be more than sufficient to bind the entity they described to me when I first summoned them, an entity that will allow us to change the very fabric of reality! Tomorrow we shall summon the daemon and begin a new world order…
4 May 878
my hands fail me
this is a warning to all who follow
do not trust the spirits!
do not reproduce my work!
do not-
(The rest of the page has been burnt.)
As this story doesn't seem to go anywhere and I'm finding it hard to find the extra details necessary to MAKE it go somewhere interesting, I think I'm likely to scrap it. The tab will remain up but I won't be posting it any time soon. -Ed.