[ FROM THE DESK OF PROPHET AVISHI — IN RESPONSE TO “THE FUTURE OF VRESSIAN MAGIC ON ELSTREN” ]

Good tidings to Sir Ethan Hale;

Your work has garnered great interest among us in these past weeks, and we have taken some time to very carefully plan our response. Your patience is appreciated. We have come to a strong conclusion that we must ask you not to disseminate this work.

That you expressed the kind of care and foresight to share this work with us at all is a gesture of good faith that we will not soon forget. Your work has given us a better picture of the current scholarly understanding of exomagic outside our cities and cultures. However, this paucity of data is something that we now seek to maintain.

In choosing to run your work by us before publishing it, we feel that you have earned enough of our trust that we may help you understand why.

Exomagic is not like any other kind of magic, which can be freely and safely employed by mages in their daily lives. Based on the arc of your work, we understand that this is something you began to notice as well. Many of your tests yielded strange and unpredictable results, and you doubtless began to experience a profound sense of unease when interacting with exomagic; you will perhaps be relieved to know that this is an expected part of its use.

Please understand that the information we give to you in this document is to remain private. Your interest in the field is admirable, and you have shown us nothing but respect, so we wish to show you the same in kind.

The unease and malaise that inheres in using exomagic is a sign of what we refer to as Gloam. Although it superficially resembles Arcane magic, exomagic is derived not even from our homeworld, but rather from an outside, as yet unidentified source. One thing is clear about exomagic: its somewhat lower barriers to use, unique applications, and ability to circumvent conventional Arcane metamagic make it an attractive choice for mages.

However, we cannot be sure if this is not by design.

Exomagic exhibits a form of negative influence, hereafter referred to as Gloam. It seems to infest the souls of its users, seep into the world around them, and leave fissures and wounds in reality wherever high concentrations are created. The presence of exomagic substantially weakens the fabric of reality around it; Arcane magic becomes less effective in places where exomagic is practiced highly, because the fundamental forces involved become unstable.

Exomagic seeks to supplant the present forces wherever it is used. If enough exomagic is introduced to a location, Arcane magic becomes impossible to use, and exomagic becomes the new standard. Because exomagic has negative consequences for the stability of its users and the world around them, this begets further decay.

For instance, a city in which exomagic is practiced on a frequent basis would eventually find that Arcane magic has been rendered useless, that its civilians have become afflicted both physically and particularly mentally, and that reality has begun to strain under the weight of this exomagic, at first subtly and later intensely.

All uses of exomagic involve exuding it into the environment, and so even the smallest of expressions of exomagic can build up slowly. Gloam is an inevitable and potentially disastrous consequence of its use. If you need a worldly example, you need look no further than the Grey Pass, a land so greatly disconnected from reality merely by way of a powerful exomagic spell passing over it.

For its proclivity to warp everything around it, from minds to lands to entire worlds, exomagic cannot become a subject of public interest or scholarly research. We ourselves use it only sparingly, with extreme measures in place to prevent the Gloam from infesting reality too deeply.

To this end, although the work you have done is commendable, we can do nought but deeply discourage your continued interest in the field of exomagic. It is understandable to be tempted by the strange, especially when it promises power, but it is a regrettable mistake that has left deep scars in our history and consigned much of it to the void.

Use of exomagic must be discouraged at all costs, and must eventually end with a complete separation from its point of origin. Until such time, the public should know as little about it as possible, and it should remain as it is now; a simple, obscure oddity that is inaccessible to most.

We hope that you will understand the gravity of this situation, and that you have our deepest sympathies when it comes to having to suppress your work for the public good. You are welcome in the temple, should you ever visit the Weeping Sands.

— PROPHET AVISHI