THE UNNATURAL ACTS

In the late 660s/early 70s, the “Weird Stuff” of Bizboz’s writings spread like cancer  with mixed results. Many took to the liberal use of scrolls, potions, and powders for everyday needs. These unskilled sorcerers inadvertently wreaked havoc on the land. Other charlatans, claiming to have created magical potions and powders, regularly fooled the gullible population into buying potions which claimed to do such things as “reverse hair loss” and “draw Trebled Fromps in Double Fanucci.” There were many appeals to public ignorance.

As a response to widespread magical charlatanism, Duncanthrax the Bellicose wrote and passed the Unnatural Acts on 9 Dismembur 672 GUE, which put heavy restraints on the unauthorized use of magic and outlawing the sale of “Unnatural or Supernatural substances.” There were severe penalties for anyone convicted of selling the contraband. To carry out punishments for the abuse of magic, a diabolical machine was designed to imprison those found guilty in small, metal cases known as totems. It was dubbed the Totemizer machine. This was to be his last significant act as king. The Empirical Age of Magic was nearing its closure.

While the charlatans were at work, serious students from such institutions as Galepath University and Mithicus Province University took up the cause of magic in their spare time, attempting to explain the natural world as by-product of the interrelated workings of the sciences of Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Thaumaturgy. Eventually, some of these students achieved high-ranking positions on the faculties of several moss-league colleges. Their success in demonstrating the so-called first principles of Thaumaturgy, namely Presence, Incantation, and Unusual Effect in 683 GUE, led to a loosening of the Unnatural Acts to allow what became known as Scientific Thaumaturgy.

This new perception of magic combined with the removal of restrictions during this period, allowed magic to be practiced and experimented with by an ordained institution called the Enchanter’s Guild.