I mean, in D&D, people who become wizards basically do so by pirating spells from each other and trying to encrypt their own spellbooks with DRM.

Look, I told you last time: I don’t expect much out of a knowledge spirit you threw in for free with my quills, ink, and scrollpaper. But if for some gods-forsaken reason you won’t allow me to dismiss it from my service, you can’t have it lie when it doesn’t know something!

At that point it’s not a knowledge spirit! It’s false advertising! You sold me a scroll kit cursed with a liar spirit!

I’d give you points for style, that’s one creative curse! Except you didn’t mean for it to be a liar spirit. You truly think this thing helps your customers.

I have to use a compatibility spell to cast these other spells that don’t normally work on my Magic System. Some spells will never work because they want access to the underlying cosmology of my Magic System, which is not possible for security reasons.

Tried using new magic and wound up with all these passive spells I didn’t even know about just doing nothing and draining all my mana. Might as well be cursed by a witch.

Sounds like Java to me.

You’re missing out by not letting Clippy become your Patron.

I think of it a bit differently

• Magic is some sort of chemistry (think alchemy), or the union of plants and animals (food, cooking).

• wizardry is pure information processing. it has all the spells, incantations, orbs, and spirits.

i’m not sure where i got this notion. magic has always seemed like infusing hot water with herbs and stuff (medicine), while a wizard in my imagination is some old dude holding a book in one hand, a staff in the other hand, and reciting some weird words.

i think it goes back to german “Magie” comes from “Magen” which means stomach (food processing), while “wizard” comes from “wise”/knowledgesome.

*its

Sorry, that’s what makes new magic new.