The Forbidden Arts

There are arts that the wise do not practice, not because they lack power, but because they possess too much. What follows speaks of the forbidden paths - the magics that demand prices no sane soul would pay. Let this knowledge serve as warning, not invitation.

- Excerpted from the Index Prohibitorum, maintained by the Conclave of Mages, listing those arts whose practice warrants death without trial

I. When Tohu wove magic into the world, she wove it in patterns of balance. For every taking, a giving. For every binding, a release. This is the natural way of the arcane - a conversation, not a conquest.

II. Know that there are those who refuse this balance. They discovered ways to take without giving, to bind without releasing. These are the forbidden arts, and they carry consequences that extend beyond a single lifetime.

III. The first forbidden art is Blood Magic. Blood carries the essence of life itself - the accumulated power of a soul's incarnation. To spill blood in ritual is to spend currency not your own.

IV. Know that blood freely given has power. Blood taken by force has more. This is the terrible truth that tempts the ambitious: the suffering of others can fuel workings beyond natural limits.

V. But blood remembers. The souls whose blood is stolen do not forget. They wait beyond death for the blood mage, and what was taken is repaid with interest across incarnations of torment.

VI. The second forbidden art is Soul Binding. To trap a soul - preventing its passage to Tatsu's realm, forcing it to serve the binder's will - is to interrupt the great cycle itself.

VII. Know that bound souls do not remain sane. Cut off from the wheel of rebirth, they decay into something neither living nor properly dead. The mage who creates such servants creates monsters that will eventually turn upon their creator.

VIII. The third forbidden art is Void Speaking. To call upon the entities that dwell in the spaces between worlds is to invite attention that can never be fully dismissed.

IX. Know that the Hungry do not understand bargains as mortals do. What seems like a fair exchange to you is merely the first taste to them. Once you have opened a door, you cannot fully close it.

X. The fourth forbidden art is True Name Theft. To steal another's True Name is to steal their very selfhood - to possess them more completely than any chain could bind.

XI. Know that this violation echoes through all of a soul's incarnations. Past and future selves are tainted by the theft. The universe itself bends toward balancing this wrong, and the thief becomes the target of forces beyond mortal comprehension.

XII. The fifth forbidden art is Time Unweaving. To reach into the past and change what was is to create paradox - wounds in the fabric of causation that never fully heal.

XIII. Know that those who unweave time do not escape it. They create loops in which they are forever trapped, living the consequences of changes that unmake the very selves who made them.

XIV. Why do the forbidden arts tempt? Because they work. A blood mage can accomplish in a moment what a careful practitioner requires years to achieve. Power without patience is the siren song of corruption.

XV. Know that the Sunken City fell to forbidden arts. Its king, Malcath, practiced all five and invented more. For a time, he wielded power that rivaled the gods. Then the price came due.

XVI. What sleeps beneath the Lake of Shadows is what remains of his workings - or perhaps what his workings summoned. The distinction ceased to matter long ago.

XVII. Let the seeker understand: power is not the goal. Wisdom is the goal. Power in the hands of the unwise destroys the wielder before it destroys anything else. The forbidden arts are shortcuts that lead only to dead ends.

XVIII. If you encounter one who practices these arts, flee. If you cannot flee, fight. And if you find yourself tempted to walk these paths, remember: every practitioner believed they would be the exception. None were.