Okay, a little background. In a campaign that's been going on for the better part of a year, I play a fellow named Deckard. He's a mage, but a scatterbrained one, almost to the point of psychological disorder. In any case, the party has snuck into a stronghold of the Illumnus Maer, a society that believes it's better to have too much magic than too little. Deckard has hung behind to draw some angry golems while the rest of the party flees, making quick excuses to a receptionist (in the lobby of a large building apparently reached through a sack) in order to continue. Deckard eventually follows, and is immediately assumed by the receptionist to be "the guest lecturer." Deckard completely forgets what he's here for and assumes he's just forgotten the lecture, and proceeds down the hallway, ignoring his party fighting the guards (who have been clamboring out of portraits), until he reaches the doors of the lecture hall... which he unlocks with knock, goes through, and absentmindedly closes behind him, re-locking them.
I'm sharing with you today a transcript of the hillarious "Lecture" that followed.
As you all know, metamagic is one of the best tools of those mages who want to add some impatien... improvisation to their spells without making their own. Because that's tedious. Except when they're pretty good. Like this one I made that's... no wait. Metamagic. Yes.
Many are unaware of where metamagic comes from. Good news is that it's just conversational phrases in the language of magic. Bad gnus on the other hand are angry bovines, no wait... that the language in question is the Language Prime-weevil, er Primmyevil, no no Primeval. Yes that's it.
As you should know, this language is VERY complex and annoying, so we don't expect you to take classes in it yet. HOWEVER, the folks who HAVE have invented all kinds of phrases that are easily tacked onto our spells in order to make them do other things. Going slap-dab like this is of course a larger drain on one's supply of magic...
Deckard here pauses and writes on the blackboard (which has so far been left blank) the word "MAGIC"
... so you need too expend more mental faculties, err facilities to get them going at the beginning of the day than the spell would normally take.
However, for a mage without a VERY large spellbook, metamagic is essental. With it, if say you're going someplace like a library where you can't talk, like perhaps a library... there you can make all your spells SILENT!
At this, Deckard erases "MAGIC" from the blackboard, mumbling to himself as he does so. In its place, he writes "SILENT" with some Draconic lettering underneath it.
I assume you've all taken Draconic as it's pretty standard for mages... yes?
Most of the students in the lecture hall respond with a "yes" (although at least some are just faking it). A few comment something to the effect of "I hate dragons". Deckard continues...
Well, for the rest of you I'll write it in Common too. He erases "SIL" and writes some Latin-esque letters in the Common script.
This is the incantation for Charm Person, which as you know makes someone like you. But don't get all excited, all you young wizards who hope to catch chicks, no disrespect, sorry ladies! They'll see it coming a mile away if you start blathering on in Primeweevil... GAH Primeval.
But apply a little MetaMagic...
Deckard here erases the whole board except for "ENT" and writes some other stuff in Draconic
and you can disguise the incantation as a simple kind word and charming smile! But... er, you didn't hear that from me. In any case, this particular Metamagic is used when preparing the spells in order to key the spell's more important words and signs to mudgain err mundane things, and so it seems normal when casting! Only downside is that you'll need to separate all the words from each other, so if you want to cast something before they know what's hit them, you'd need to learn the phrase for... Deckard erases everything but "N" and writes "QUICK' " in front of it, so that the board reads "QUICK'N".
Now, an example. I realize that it seems to you I'm looking entirely normal and just blathering on about nothing, but as you can see there is CLEARLY a pie on a table next to me now!
To most of the students' surprise, a pie really DOES appear on the desk at the front of the lecture hall. At the same time, the knocking behind Deckard resumes at a louder volume. Take a better look at the pie, it's not really real, I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Deckard turns around to yell: WILL YOU BE QUIET I'LL BE DONE IN A MOMENT!
AAAAnyway, what you see here is the Hidden metamagic applied to Silent Image, which allowed me to cast it without you even knowing! Fascinating isn't it?
All right... I've got a conference on transmutation theory coming up so I'll wrap it up.
As the knocking is continuing, and with a second party member assisting, Deckard seems to be still more agitated by it. Striding up to the door, he yells: I'LL SIGN YOU UP FOR SENIOR LEVEL SPELL-SPARRING LAB IF YOU DON'T STOP THAT INFERNAL KNOCKING! AND I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE STILL FRESHMEN!
The knocking finally stopped, Deckard walks over to the blackboard. He begins to put bullet points down, then opts to erase everything and write "METAMAGIC!!" in huge letters instead.
I hope this has been interesting to all of you; I'm always available to discuss new Transmutations as I'm a magic inventor myself, made some interesting things in fact... any questions, folks?
LOL oh that's *priceless*