More Crap Cantrips
When I published my previous catalogue of peculiarly pointless magic, I was confident – certain, even – that I had uncovered the very worst the arcane arts could offer. After all, how many crap cantrips can truly exist in one world? It turns out: quite a lot.
Barely a week after the book’s release, letters began arriving from across the realms. Adventurers, academics, hedge-witches, and even a baker wrote to inform me of cantrips so trivial or baffling that I had to add them to my collection. Still more were gifted to me with suspicious enthusiasm by students who insisted I would find them “awful”.
I must pause here to note that The dean of the Arcane University of Highmark has repeatedly begged me to rename this section to something “more suitable for an accredited institution”. Her preferred alternative is Cantrips of Questionable Application. Unfortunately for her, Crap Cantrip has now become a recognised technical term. Two journals and several libraries already use it as a classification for spells whose “expected benefit is lower than the inconvenience of casting them.” Renaming the category at this point would break half a dozen catalogues and annoy even more librarians, which is highly inadvisable.
Regardless, I have collected the most interesting of these misbegotten magics for your study and amusement. You may find that a handful of them are marginally useful under extremely specific conditions. Others, I assure you, are not.
- Professor Ezrin Quale
This page has a memorandum pinned to it.
RE: Your continued use of the term “crap cantrip”
Professor Quale,
I have reviewed the latest manuscript and feel obliged to comment. While I would prefer a more dignified label in works associated with this institution, I cannot deny that the phrase has, regrettably, become established. (Not least among our students.)
The librarians, for the record, fully support your assessment. As you know, they possess both long memories and excellent aim.
Therefore, the Board will (cautiously) permit you to retain the heading, trusting that you will exercise at least a little discretion in future volumes. I do, however, reserve the right to sigh heavily whenever it appears in print.
- Dean Mereth Halverine
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