Revision as of 20:23, 20 June 2017

There was once a young man who was training in archery. He tired of the endless repetition of his lessons, and, when his teacher was otherwise occupied, he resolved to cheat. He took each of his arrows from his quiver, jammed them into the center of his targets with his hands, and then ran off to summon the others and flaunt his false marksmanship.

“Not bad,” said his teacher, who knew a mug’s game when he saw one, “Now let us see you do it again.”

Cornered, the boy took up his bow, hesitated, and then let fly each shaft, landing every last one of his arrows unerringly in the center of their targets.

His teacher nodded, satisfied. “Well done,” he said, “Perhaps you have the makings of a master after all.”

One of the boy’s friends, who had been in on his lie, hurried over and whispered to him in astonishment, “How did you do that?”

“It was easy,” the boy replied, “Once I realized the arrows already knew where to go.”

1. Existence and warfare are indivisible and this is the nature of evocative arcana: pure creation and pure destruction, in the same hand.

2. To be Flameborn is to be a vessel for the flame eternal, that fearful crucible of the white-hot wind known to sages and librarians as the school of Evocation. To be so filled with the screaming fires of life is to become a burning blade, poised to cut the flesh of the world. You will almost certainly die young, taking many with you.

3. To call forth the white-hot wind demands will. Not to destroy (it will do that by itself,) but to choose. Meditate on this distinction if you choose to forget every other word in this book.

4. To take no action is itself to choose.

5. The substance of your choice will scarcely matter as long as you grasp it with both hands. Allow nothing to choose for you, not time or circumstance or the gods themselves. The first and final fire will not serve an uncertain mistress.

6. You must not beg, or ask, or even command. You must simply do. Push your worthless flesh relentlessly until all action is afterthought. Inhale life, exhale cataclysm.

7. Hone your body and inure yourself to hardship. Observe your footwork and positioning. The most elaborate invocation you possess will serve you poorly if your opponent is forcing his boot down your throat.

8. Likewise, if your invocation fails you, your will must never cease burning. Beat your opponent’s head in with a rock if that is what it takes. The actions are fundamentally the same regardless of the wounded bleating of a few self-important scribes.

9. Do not evoke lightly. Your ten millionth fireball must be detonated with the raw passion and effort and desperation of your first. You must feel the weight of your action in the marrow of your bones.

10. Do not seek pain, but when it comes, welcome it as a respected elder. It is an excellent and patient teacher, but it must be acknowledged that we are all incredibly poor students.

11. Regret is a poison which arises from a failure to accept this truth. It leads to self-pity, and other fatal diseases.

12. Give no thought to the past. Abandon the miseries of yesterday. Ignore the horrors of tomorrow. Absorb the lessons of your flesh into reflex and spit the blood into your opponent’s face. If he should strike you down then laugh joyously as you detonate with the screaming heat of a thousand suns.

13. To think is good. To know, better. To render the question irrelevant best of all.

14. Understand that questions frequently have more value than answers.

15. Burn and the world burns with you.