Spell circle

File:SpellCircle.jpg

A typical spell circle

Taken as a whole, the "written" master structure of a spell (whether composed and enacted in the mind, or actually written or drawn on some concrete structure or in the Manual). It does not have to be circular: spell structures can as easily be angular, polygonal or elliptical, spherical or multidimensional, depending on the preference and species of the wizard, and the necessities of the complexity of the desired spell. That said, the tendency toward circles and spheres is widespread enough that the standard terms for the most significant component parts of the structure are "chord" and "arc".

The diagram to the right shows the most basic elements of a spell circle. "A" shows the prime or master circle, sometimes also called the "body" or envelope. This circle serves as a container for the major components of the wizardry. "B" and "C" (and the two other unmarked circles) illustrate "component circles", also called enclosures. Such subsidiary circles are used to set apart important components of the spell from its general body, the entire area enclosed by "A". Enclosures can contain personal information, data about the location or nature of an object the wizard desires to operate upon, or specific instructions about the operation itself. They can also be used to "set off" the power structures being invoked to power a specific spell, or as a containment area for a wizard acting only as the power source for the wizardry as opposed to another wizard handling the actual invocation.

"L" illustrates a typical arc of a spell -- any part of an outer or inner circle which occurs between any two objects in tangent to it or intersecting it. The area "D", enclosed by two arcs, is equivalent to the area of intersection in a Venn diagram, and is usually referred to in wizardry as a conjunctive or conjunct area.

All the lines in the unlabeled circles, considered separately, are chords. Lines EF and FG, considered together, are "convergent chords"; IJ and KH are "sectionals" or "intersecting chords".

The actual words of a spell are written in the Speech along, inside, or outside any of these circles, arcs or lines (except for the prime circle, which is the spell's boundary with the world on which it acts: no charactery is ever inscribed outside it).