Hello, I recently reread A Practical Guide to Sorcery, and I made some notes. I didn’t find a thread for feedback in general so this is a thread.
I was going to put feedback for books 1-4 on individual chapters, but because they are going to be stubbed, I thought posting it on the forum seemed a good idea.
My feedback on a particular thing might be
- This may be a mistake
- This seems unclear
- Data void (this is getting subjective)
I personally prefer more precision (more subjective)(The only one of these was deleted in editing)
- Feedback that is not specific to one specific chapter:
- Hobnails (This may be a mistake)
Chapters 1 and 85 mention the Coppers’ copper hobnails in their boots. If it’s all stone-paved in Gilbratha, though, wouldn’t that mean their boots would be slippery, with the hobnails over the hard stone, compared to if they were walking with leather soles over stone?
Quotes
Chapter 1
As she was finishing, the telltale footsteps of a copper sounded from the stairs below, the copper hobnails in the soles of their boots clicking against the wood.
Chapter 85
With the humming of the strings drowning out other sounds, she couldn’t listen for the metallic clack of their footsteps that would signify the eponymous copper hobnails in the soles of their boots.
- Artefacts that use an external power source (This may be a mistake, or seems unclear)
In Chapter 3, Siobhan said she could make an artefact that used a continuously fed fire as a Sacrifice. The story also has self-charging artefacts, which Myrrddan and Tarquin and Siobhan’s grandfather could make.
Chapter 78 says that Siobhan had never seen an artefact pulling from some external power source in action, and that she had only learned the vague theory of it from her grandfather.
Quotes
Chapter 3
Dryden shared a quick look with Katerin, then said, “You mentioned simple spell creation. If I wanted you to find a way to continuously circulate water from the ground up to a higher location in a way that would require little maintenance, could you do that? A method that doesn’t require constant attention from a thaumaturge, to be specific.”
Siobhan frowned. “I would need a power source, of course, but that seems fairly simple. I’d need some time to design the most efficient array, and maybe a couple of reference texts, but if we could use a small fire as a Sacrifice, and ensure it continued to be fed, it should provide enough power for lift. Perhaps, if we could then catch the water falling down again, I might be able to design something that recycled the gravitational momentum to make the circulation more efficient. It would still need to be recharged, but as an artifact rather than an actively-cast spell, it’d probably last a while. To be honest, artificery isn’t my specialty, though,” she admitted reluctantly.
Chapter 78
She caught herself lifting her hand to rub the amulet through her shirt and consciously refrained. No artifact could contain unlimited power. When they were created, they were charged with a certain number of spells, which would either contain their own power source—this was more common—or pull from some external power source, which she knew was possible but had never seen in action. She had only learned the vague theory of it from her grandfather.
- Grasping tentacle spell (Data void)
Thaddeus speaks about how a fireball spell, revealing spell, and stunning spell work without shooting the circle of the spell. There’s also a fabric cutting spell that shoots compressed air. Chapter 126 additionally says they are “just bound in a compact form that decoheres with distance and time”. Unrevealed is the grasping tentacle spell in a Bobby’s wand though. It’s probably a long time until the next AMA…
Quotes
Chapter 20 – Practical Will-based Casting
A fireball spell shoots an actual ball of fire at the target. A revealing spell shoots vibrations and magic waves, which penetrate and then bounce back to the wand for interpretation. A stunning spell shoots a specific, low-current variation of lightning, along with the powdered saliva of a Kuthian frog, contained within a field of force. Upon release from the spell, the treated saliva rapidly degrades and becomes inert. The stunning spell is the most difficult of the three, and still only possible because the saliva needs no augmentation or other spellwork to do what it does. The common point of all these spells is that they are shooting something that exists in nature, not simply magic bound to an idea.
Chapter 126 - Output Circle
“Examples are fireball spells, which shoot an actual ball of fire at the target, revealing spells, which shoot vibrations and unseen waves, and even the stunning spell, which shoots a low-current electrical charge along with the powdered saliva of a Kuthian frog, all contained within a field of force that dissipates on contact with the target. You said the commonality between these kinds of spells is that they shoot something that exists in nature, just bound in a compact form that decoheres with distance and time. But, with enough power and control, one should be able to shoot transmogrificational long-range spells by shooting both the Circle and the Word at its target, which is supposed to be incredibly difficult.” She paused, then added, “I can shoot a directional slicing spell that works by compressing air. And the gust spell. And, of course, Newton Moore’s spell that uses the Circle of the hands, but the effects of which travel throughout the caster’s physical body.”
- Pseudo-repelling force and magnetism (This seems unclear)
Chapter 27 (Study Group) says
She resolved to see if she could create a pseudo-repelling force between the glass and the ball. They’d briefly reviewed the basics of magnetism the week before in her Natural Science class, and it seemed like the perfect workaround to remove her need for, and failure to provide, superhuman reaction speeds. Of course, doing that without any components except heat might still be beyond her, but it was theoretically possible.
Where it looks like the idea of a pseudo-repelling force like magnetism is new to her. In chapter 116 (Operation Defenestration) though, where she used a repelling force to hold a levitating safe in the air, the maths for the thaum cost matched the maths used for chapter 25, which was before chapter 27; and chapter 116 said she had been taught about repelling forces by her grandfather.
This means it’s not correct to read the chapter 27 text as meaning a magnetism-like force was beyond her. Instead it might mean that the more complex idea to keep the ball repelled from the glass was the new idea.
- Philtre of darkness, and Naught’s philtre of shadowed perception (Unclear or a mistake) plus Wind through a plugged tunnel (Unclear or a mistake)
In chapter 31, it says that the philtre of darkness is not simply black smoke, but a cloud of actual darkness, which was magical and not in danger of being blown by the wind or dispersed by anything but counter-magic.
In chapter 172 though, a continuous blast of wind blows away the magical particles of her modified philtre. Also, they were in a tunnel blocked at one end by an iron plug, so it’s not clear how the airflow was going continually down the tunnel, or where it was going.
And in chapter 206 it says that a breeze could stop her philtre from hanging around.
Quotes
Chapter 31
The darkness was not simply black smoke, obscuring vision and allowing any bright lights within it to refract off tiny particles in the air. No, this bottled spell was a cloud of actual darkness, as if each cumulous undulation cast an infinite number of shadows from every direction. Trying to see within its effects required magic specifically created to counteract it.
The coppers were still affected by Speer’s philtre of stench, but not as much as Siobhan had hoped. All of them were coughing and gagging, but only a couple were on their hands and knees, retching onto the cobblestone.
The remainder were well enough to follow the Verdant Stag’s people down the street, shooting spells as they went. ‘The wind probably blew a lot of the philtre away.’ Unlike the darkness, which was magical and not in danger of being dispersed by anything but counter-magic, stench was largely reliant on physical particles for its effect
Chapter 75
As soon as the ward dropped, their vanguard threw in new philtres of darkness, but some quick-thinking Morrows within managed to cover and stifle them before the light-absorbing clouds could fully expand, leaving only a dark grey haze over a good portion of the warehouse.
Chapter 172
From the front, screams and muffled grunts overlapped as the Pendragon operatives fought against the sudden disorientation, shooting spells through the clouds of darkness. Most weren’t aimed well enough to do damage, but soon enough the enemy realized the nature of her trick and used a continuous blast of wind to blow away the magical particles creating the darkness.
Smoke continued to bubble up from Siobhan’s mouth and nose, and from the floor where the philtre had broken, but the wind blew it away. She leaned into the force of the gale, snarling at the enemy. Her shadow strengthened with the return of the bright light from their lensed lantern, and she sent it up to the ceiling of the tunnel.
Chapter 206
Siobhan unsealed the vial and took a small sip of the roiling darkness, allowing the majority of the philtre to billow steadily from its small glass container. She was lucky—there was barely a breeze this morning, and the philtre would hang around unless something artificially cleared the air.
7. Pre-Cataclysm information storage artefacts (Seems unclear) (Perhaps better classified as mystery)
Chapter 112 mentions Thaddeus borrowing Ilma’s book on pre-Cataclysm information storage artefacts, but in chapter 186 Thaddeus says “Some ambitious historians have attempted to uncover the first glyphs, those that were created shortly after the Cataclysm—or even, possibly, before it.”
There’s scope for this to be not an inconsistency. Maybe the artefacts were made shortly before the cataclysm, or didn’t have glyphs. Mithril presumably doesn’t have glyphs. Maybe the first glyphs are glyphs that are known, it’s just not known which glyphs were the first.
Summary
Chapter 112
“Also, please tell Professor Lacer that he still has my book on pre-Cataclysm information storage artifacts. He promised he would return it to me a month ago. I won’t have him ‘accidentally’ adding my rare texts to his personal collection.”
Chapter 186?
“Some ambitious historians have attempted to uncover the first glyphs, those that were created shortly after the Cataclysm—or even, possibly, before it .” The chalk settled down on the tray at the base of the blackboard, and then two of the glyphs began to glow. Their fire-bright forms rose from the board as Professor Lacer guided the illusion up to hang in the air in front of him, high and large enough for everyone to see.
- Sucking candle flames dry (Might be a mistake, or seems unclear, plus data void)
When they sacrifice fire or heat from a flame, they cool down the burning material. This would slow down the chemical reactions and heat production. They sometimes make their candle flames splutter or go out.
An obvious idea to the naive would be to only absorb heat from high up on the flame, or the air above and around the flame. Not to take heat from the wax, nor a lower part of the flame. And the tip of a flame is hotter. Sebastien managed to decide to take some heat from the table during a competition in Practical Will-Based Casting, which means a thaumaturge has some control over where the heat is sacrificed from. I’m not noticing an obvious reason why they sacrifice heat such that their candles or brazier may go out.
- My notes also have a load of things that I am not typing out as above. I am including most of these others below, whyever it is that I am. They are perhaps are a bit like asking Thaddeus how many thaums he can channel. I hereby take the below quite as an excuse to include them because it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m demanding answers. I want to avoid something-like-worrying over whether or not it’s okay to plop a load of questions or ponderings. That’s right, I can brand them as ponderings.
Sebastien wondered if it would be rude to ask his thaumic capacity. ‘Well, of course it’s rude,’ she realized. ‘But he can just refuse to tell me. He’s not the type to get hung up on social norms and niceties.’
- Gera has a continually active divination. If she’s limited to 6 hours a day of casting, maybe it’s an artefact. Her conduit is not mentioned.
- The shedding-destroyer spell.
- If they have explosions, like with a concussive blast, then does that mean they have cannons? If not, then why not, hmmmmmm? Is the red guard trying to stop the idea of cannons popping up like mushrooms, hmmmmm? (This is deliberately non-serious looking in an attempt to make it not look serious, for the purpose of trying to avoid it looking bad in some way.)
- Apparently the word “deduction” doesn’t strictly mean what it often does in PGTS. What most people do in PGTS is “induction” (unless it’s another word). The difference between “He has dog hair on him so he works in Buckingham Palace,” and “[etc] therefore Socrates is mortal”. But also, people do (mis)use the word like that, so it makes sense in that way.
- Mist wafts off from the shadow familiar when it cools the air. If the air was cooling though, would that mean it was going downwards and spreading out over the ground, and meanwhile warmer air would be entering the shadow familiar from above and from horizontally around it? So would the mist actually be wafting into the shadow familiar and downwards? I’ve not tried making a shadow familiar and testing it, this is theoretical.
- So there’s a reason you can’t sacrifice
gravityradiance toxicity. - A thaumaturge can create some scab root, without having a sample to copy with duplicative first-order transmogrification. Additionally, this is likely not transmutation based on knowing every chemical detail of scab root. This seems like an interesting part of the magic system for a lesson in a chapter. Creating something complex without a template present. Maybe the thaumaturge first casts it with a template a lot and creates ruts that can be used without the template?
- What about first making the scab root, then transmuting or sacrificing what makes it taste bad, though? Why does it taste bad why does it is it magic whyyyyyy?
- Has the boon Sebastien got from the Raven Queen made the university wards fail to register him and his university token? Does he need to let go of the token each time he uses it?
- Feedback that is about specific chapters:
- In chapter 2 it calls it a chain, and then a cord. (Seems a mistake)
Quote
The amulet throbbed a little, like a heartbeat calming after a burst of exertion. She reached up and snatched it out from under her clothes, fumbling to untangle its chain from that of the warding medallion she wore, holding it away from her body in horror. The amulet, a dark, matte stone disk clasped in a simple setting and hanging from a leather cord, swung innocently under her fist. She laid it on the floor and took a step back.
- Chapter 29 - Kindred Spirits (Unclear)
Quote
That night, Sebastien tried out the spell Newton had taught her. It forcefully calmed her heartbeat to match her breaths and smoothed muscles she hadn’t noticed were tense. The longer she drew the deep hums out, the farther into the calm state it stretched her body, like straightening a spring.
- Chapter 30 – (A Rather Poor) Rescue (a) (Unclear)
When she made glass missiles, she didn’t draw the spell array once on a surface before putting the planes of glass onto it one by one. She drew the spell array on each pane of glass individually, and then used it to turn it into a ball-shape.
This seems like it would break the circle and cancel the spell and cause backlash, though. Perhaps her control was good enough to preserve the circle and glyphs, although it did say the glass was shattered. Perhaps she charged the spell up with energy while the circle still existed, and then let the spell do its stuff, like when a projectile spell is launched and can continue to exist for seconds after it leaves the circle.
Quote
Then, she drew over a dozen more Circles on the other panes of glass in the window, with pentagons for each, along with the glyphs for “force,” “compression,” and “sphere.”[…]
[…]
[…] With the energy from the lantern, which she held up into the Circles she had drawn on the window glass, she crushed each pane into a vaguely ball-like shape of jagged, cutting edges. The crisp shattering and brittle crunching was loud enough to temporarily overpower the howling of the wind. A little dribble of honey helped the balls keep their shape.
- Chapter 30 – (A Rather Poor) Rescue (b) (Unclear)
Siobhan drew a spell array on the glass, and activated it, attaching the balls of shattered glass to it. She then climbed a ladder after putting the lantern away, and she had her conduit in her mouth for some of that.
I don’t remember explanations of magic specifying how this effect could remain when she is not actively casting, and it’s not specified in the chapter. It didn’t say that she made the spell array as an artefact that could do its effect gradually. Projectile spells can keep their magic together for a while, but they seem to lose their magic before a lot of seconds have passed.
Quotes
She carefully wriggled the pane out of its bindings, then settled it on the ground and pulled an oil pastel out of a pocket. She drew a Circle and the glyphs for “line,” “movement,” and “circle” on the glass.
[…]
She turned the first, still whole, pane of glass upside down, being careful not to smudge the Circle. She mixed more honey with adhel juice and smeared it on her left palm, creating a strong, sticky film. She pressed that hand to the pane of glass, and was pleased when it stuck without effort.Now, with a portable spell array, she held her left hand over the balls of shattered glass and activated the spell array drawn on the glass pane. When she lifted her hand, both the pane and the glass spheres came with it. She held the pane up like a waitress carrying a tray full of food, stood, and tucked away the rest of her supplies with her free hand. “Alright. Lead the way.”
Chapter 32 - Sheltered from the Storm (I personally prefer more precision)
(deleted in editing)
- Chapter 59 (Data void)
The hardest part of the operation had actually been carving the tiny ward array on the underside of Tanya’s door without removing it from its hinges or being seen by the occasional person walking through the hallways, even at that early hour.
It says it was hard. Maybe they took it off its hinges and put the ward array there and put it back on its hinges.
- Chapter 78 (Unclear)
On the desk in front of Lacer, the spherical area marked by one of the component Circles carved into the surface disappeared.
Sebastien looked closer, her interest piqued. ‘No, not disappeared. It’s not invisible—that is a bubble of shadow. He is intercepting all the light passing through the Circle’s boundaries.’
I didn’t understand this bit. I don’t have a clear idea of what it means if it disappeared, and there was a bubble of shadow. Like a black sphere appeared, or like there’s a hole in the desk with the wood’s grain visible and the floor visible through it, or something else.
- Chapter 80 (Data void)
She examined the [battle wand] before putting it into the larger metal dome, which was already wafting out cold air from its open mouth. […]
This one wasn’t fancy, and gave off no hint of precious metal or multiple different types of spells within. You pointed and pulled the embedded node on the side, and it fired a stunning spell. Of which the scanning artifact told her it had three remaining, based on the three rings of miniature Circles within that were radiating minute amounts of heat.
It doesn’t say how it showed her this. She put the wand in the dome. PGTS is a candle in the dark that lets me feast on technical details, or something. And yet it doesn’t always have them! AAAaaaaaa
- Chapter 83 (This may be a mistake)
It implies Siobhan bluffed that her bag would be dangerous for Newton to look in, but she didn’t. Maybe this was edited out but not all the evidence was purged.
Quotes
Siobhan was grateful that she’d had the foresight to leave anything that might connect her to Sebastien back in the room at the Silk Door. Newton might be sharp enough to have recognized her school satchel. This bag, smaller and less conveniently filled with partitions, held components, paper spell arrays, and the wand in a secret pocket along the bottom, which she had added with some clever application of a mending spell. That was all. Still, best not to let him look in it at all. “Newton Moore. Your family would miss you. Your Grams taught you better than this. Make a wiser choice.”
He released the strap, dropping the bag like it was a hot coal, stumbling back from her. “How did—how did you—”
[…]
“Gingerly, looking at Siobhan as if waiting for her to snap and attack, he did so, sliding the strap over his arm but leaning away from the bag as if he was afraid it would blow up.”
“Siobhan pushed back a flare of embarrassment, because when nothing happened to the man searching her bag, Newton would know she had been bluffing.”
- Chapter 118 (Mixture of feedback types)
They were looking at cells. It didn’t say the cells had been stained with dye.
- Chapter 137 (Seems unclear or a mistake)
It says “more suitable for a wand than such a large artifact” which is unclear to me.
Summary
Malcolm dodged the spell almost contemptuously, the dueling training that all respectable Crown Family members went through on full display in the way he held his cane—more suitable for a wand than such a large artifact—and his nimble footwork. He returned another concussive blast. But Damien had confiscated his normal cane during their meeting with the fake Raven Queen, and Malcolm’s temporary replacement was heavier and more unwieldy. His aim was imperfect, and the spell went wide.
- Chapter 149 (Seems unclear)
The organizers were handing out large glasses covered with black cloth. When she looked closely, Sebastien could see the glyphs embroidered into the fabric and chiseled into the glass around the edges. The overwhelming, cleansing Radiance could blind one just as surely as staring into the sun, and the glasses were necessary to protect their eyes.
Possibly the cloth isn’t in front of the eyes, but it says the glasses are “covered with” a black cloth like the cloth covers the glass parts of the glasses. But also, you can see through a black cloth if there’s space between the threads that you can see through. So maybe the black cloth was in front of their vision, now that I remember that you can see through cloth.
- Chapter 151 (Seems a mistake)
Grammar mistake.
Next came the story of Severin Whilkes, a woman known for developing several modern cosmetic glamours, had decided to experiment with Sacrificing her own fat stores for power.
- Chapter 193 (Seems unclear / Data void)
Sebastien twisted the rod again, and the framework disk collapsed back in on itself, fitting together so neatly it appeared as just another segment of the rod. Unlike the rest, the segments on either end had a small embedded switch she could flip to snap them open or closed .
For a flick of a switch to snap them open or closed, there would need to be a power source, and the power would probably not be supplied by muscles acting on the switch. Bad leverage. If releasing it makes it spring open again, the spring can’t just reverse and spring closed again, that’s an infinite energy glitch. Perhaps it has a built-in artefact for this, or a magic material. The truth isn’t mentioned.
- Chapter 202
It says “dried nuts”, which might be a mistake.
Though eating was the last thing she wanted to do, she fumbled open her satchel until she found a pouch of dried nuts, meat, and fruit, along with her self-refilling canteen of water. The mundane act of eating made what had happened before seem almost surreal, but it also gave her strength.
