The History of Lexology

After the Burning of the Library of Guines, magical side-effects became common and over the next half a century began to become dangerous.   By the year 440, these side effects were sufficiently problematic that the Teles Council recognized a solution needed to be found.  While they themselves were working on the problem, they also notified various other respected magicians, including Marten Theus, an ex-councilmember.    At the time the danger became known and obvious, Theus ran his own workship, and assigned a couple of teenagers, Ameron Binkley and Elina Bucknight the problem to work on also.   The two suggested that a framework to better constrain magic would help in dampening or preventing unwanted side-effects.  While this suggestion matched what the Council and various other magicians also believed, the pair had competing thoughts on how this framework could be formed.   Ameron believed that a structured method of casting spells could be used to codify the known spells and specify the side-effects that may occur.   Elina's view was that a framework already existed, in the form of the previously taboo and outlawed science.  Due to the danger of even suggesting such a solution, her view wasn't voiced.  Ameron's suggestion was used and Lexology was created to allow definition of spells via a collection of runes.   This ended up being only a temporary solution, both because people wanted to continue using magic in the old ways, and because the complexities needed to properly restrict magic in this way made spell casting difficult-to-impossible for most people.   Even once science was again accepted, however, Lexology continued to be an accepted and safe method of spellcasting for centuries thereafter.