Find enclosed my treatise.

~Nicolae Lecuyer

Abjuration: An Introduction

In order to fully expose the experimental wards I will propose shortly, I felt it proper to give a brief overview of the school of abjuration as a whole. Forgive me, as I know that the Order has a far better understanding of all schools in existence than myself, however in professional, and even amateur discourse, it can prove useful to assuage any concerns of the author’s intellect. In light of this, allow me these brief words on the Art of Abjuration.

Aburative magics are viewed by many as the school of defense, and for the purposes of teaching the simpletons that populate the majority of our civilizations, that is a sufficient definition. However, for those of us who delve into the Art properly, Abjuration is best viewed as building an acute sensitivity to the weave, one so great that you may be in complete control of it, without your presence even being necessary. Abjuration relies heavily upon being able to discern, detect, and manipulate existing magics and additionally, reshape them into adequate defenses whether it be in the form a deflective shield encasing your person, or a ward designed to detect and remove invisibility spells, such as the one’s placed routinely around Sanctuary.

It is important to understand that Abjuration deals most heavily with this “hypersensitivity” to all traces of the Weave, especially when dealing with the implementation, or destruction of Wards.

Wards and Animatrons

Taking into account this hypersensitivity, one finds trouble when preparing, or causing, animatrons to react utilizing abjurative magic as it is not possible for an animatron (insofar as I am aware) to be capable of feeling, or truly tapping the Weave, in the same manner as a Wizard. At best, they may be given a reserve of magic, which they may be programmed to release upon specific triggers. This solution is fine, however it is easy to cloak most forms of triggers, and thus anyone with a working understanding of how the animatrons wards work, will be capable of bypassing it, assuming they are moderately intelligent and accomplished. For the purposes of this treatise however, upon which my ultimate goal is to design a form of ward to better protect explorers and researchers venturing into the Machine, there are several wards which would accomplish the goal. The First of which, revolves around a simple terrain ward, much the same as the invisibility purging wards present in the Town Hall, and at numerous gates. Unlike them, however, this ward would not be tuned to be ultra reactive to traces of cloaking magic, but instead to react most strongly to the small traces of electric firings present within the rogue animatrons within the Machine. In effect, what this would do is provide a border, to be placed for instance, at the doorway of a building one is researching, or around in a given circumference, to seal off a given area. When an offending animatron passed through the Ward, the area having been tuned by a skilled warder to detect the minute traces of programming within the animatrons, which I assume are present both within our own and the rogue animatrons. The clear downside to this however, is the inability to allow the Spellguards own Animatrons to pass through as well.

Because of this, the most practical solution is not a terrain ward, but a personal ward that will not only detect the proximity of animatrons not registered with the Spellguard, but will act in much the same fashion as a Shielding Spell reacts to the magical energy produced by the spell Magic Missile. Of course, it would not provide the total protection that Shield gives against magical missiles, however it would provide certain shielding effects, by expanding outward from the target in a, hopefully, 6 to 10 foot radius. Within this radius, all foreign animatrons would be subject to the magical altering of their circuits, doing anything from stunning them, to rendering them completely inoperable. If nothing else, the knowledge of impending rogue animatrons, would give researchers and explorers the opportunity to prepare themselves, or flee accordingly.

Conclusion

The few possible implementations of Abjurative spells, in relation to the protection and increased success of Machine Exploration are admittedly rough, in their presumption. However, given my relatively little study into the sepcifics of the Machine, and my even smaller reserve of knowledge of the rogue animatrons plaguing researchers, these are the ideas which I have been able to articulate, given relatively short time. With proper time and resources, it is entirely possible that a ward could be crafted to instantly disable all animatrons which act out of accordance with the Spellguards desires, including rogue animatrons of which we know relatively little.