Selvar's Ineffable Conjurations, Magicks, and Phantasms

Selvar's Ineffable Conjurations, Magicks, and Phantasms

Appearance
A medium-sized tome (three handwidths
broad by four handwidths tall)
of ash boards covered with stretched,
white-tanned cowhide. The covers
have brass corner-caps, and a binding
of brass rings, which hold thirty-three
parchment pages, each containing a
spell, one to a page, except for the first
page. It is a title page, and bear’s Selvar’s
personal rune, thus:

History and Description
Selvar was a mage of Taruin, in the
southern realm of Samarach, who in his
latter days became involved in a feud
with another local mage, Phelpar of
Rassatan. For some years Selvar
hopped about as a frog thanks to
Phelpar’s spells, and during that time
Phelpar stole all of Selvar’s spells and
magical treasures. Selvar hopped for
many miles across Samarach to a cave
in the mountains north of Sorlmar Pass,
where he had hidden a cache of magic,
and by means of the powers there
regained his own form. He then set
about trapping Phelpar, whom he eventually
enspelled into the form of a horse
and rode to death. Employing magic to
speak with Phelpar’s corpse, Selvar
learned the location of Phelpar’s cache,
wherein his own stolen magic was hid,
and went there to a tomb in the
Rathgaunt Hills, on the southern edge
of the great plains of the Shaar. There
the elderly mage set about collecting
and refining his spells, and setting them
down in books—one of which, the Ineffable
Conjurations, Magicks, and Phantasms,
he gave to the young maid Ilistar,
who later became an apprentice of
Khelben “Blackstaff” Arunsun. Ilistar
set down Khelben’s warding whip on
the hitherto blank last page of the book.

The book is unusual in that it begins
with a section of illusionist spells, written
in the magical secret language of
that class, Ruathlek, and concludes
with a section of magic-user spells.