Book
Ackerly Green’s Guide to MAGIQ is a book by Ackerly-Green Publishing, used to sort readers into magical guilds. The Guide was published online by The Mountaineers in 2016. It is a part of The Lost Collection and was the first book from the collection to be rediscovered in The Book of Kings.
Description
Ackerly Green’s Guide to Magiq is a book aimed at sorting readers into various guilds by asking them strange questions aimed at assessing their magimystical potential. It is more than an exam. It is a scope that can look into your very spirit, hint at your possible future, and portend your affinity, guild affiliation, and the source of your magimystical power, if you are adept at magic.
The Guide was meant to be taken as the reader is during that current moment, rather than as who they wish to be. According to the foreword, those who lie to the Guide may be subject to some sort of punishment, being told that “Woe betide those who cross the MAGIQ Guide.”
History
The Guide to Magiq was originally published in 1956 by Ackerly Green Publishing. It was part of the series known as the Lost Collection, or the Briar Books. In 1961, when Ackerly Green went bankrupt, the company sold off its library to other larger publishers. However, there were no mentions of the Magiq Guide or the other Briar Books in the Ackerly Green records.
The Guide was thought lost until it was discovered on September 12, 2005, by a demolition crew who dug up the guide at the New York City Lunatic Asylum. The guide was dubbed “The Lunatic’s Guide” by collectors. The Guide then found its way to the Morgan Library, where it was archived and digitally scanned. However, one month later, the Guide was stolen from the library and all scans of the Guide were found to be corrupted. Many claimed to have been in possession of the Guide at various points between the years of 2006 and 2013. The myth of the Guide only grew over the ensuing decade. Some believed the deliberate sequence of words in the Guide has an almost hypnotic, suggestive effect. Others believed the Guide was cursed.
In 2013, Author CJ Bernstein’s children found the Guide in a public park near their school. Fascinated with the book, they took it home, unaware of its long history. In January 2016, the Mountaineers met with the Bernsteins to acquire what remained of the Guide. They discovered that the Guide had finally disintegrated, but not before one of the children had made a hand-drawn copy. The Mountaineers began the painstaking process of reproducing the Guide based on the rough copy and their fragmented memories of its content and illustrations.
On July 26, 2016, the Guide was posted online, allowing all to know the truth of magiq.
The Search for Magiq
During the Search for Magiq initiative of 2019, the Mountaineers discovered that the Guide to Magiq was somehow determining who in the outside world would be able to join their ranks and view the forums. This was discovered by those at the Sanctuary, in the aftermath of the Cataclysm spell, and was later confirmed during the revelations of the Peering Arts spell, when the Mountaineers learned that Ascender had cast the Determiner-12 spell on them and on the forum, effectively shielding them from the outside world.
Guild Bearings
In the aftermath of the Peering Arts spell, the Mountaineers discovered a new passcode protected field on the Guide to Magiq website. When the correct code was input into the field, the Guide revealed a secondary assessment titled “Discover Your Guild Bearing.” Upon taking the new assessment, which was different depending on where the Guide had originally placed you, you were sorted for a second time into your “Bearing,” one of three designations representing your position beneath the sun, the moon, or the eclipse. Much like the original Guide, these bearings spoke to each person about some of their innermost habits and desires, showing them truths about the person they are within their guild and providing a better sense of how they fit.
Saberlane confirmed that he remembered seeing mention of a revised edition of The Guide to Magiq in old Ackerly Green paperwork from the Book of the Wild, which included a test for determining your guild bearing, but it had been unclear at the time whether it was ever finished or just a concept.