Elemental Marble

The Magic World’s obsession with round objects was epitomized by the advent of the elemental marble. These marbles hold magic programming that, when activated, create one sustained effect, usually the effect of an “elemental” nature such as fire, wind, or snow. Elemental marbles can actually be programmed for almost any singular purpose, but are limited to just the one. They are typically activated by introducing a crack in their surface, which is detected by the core and triggers the intended effect.

The first historical item considered to be a precursor to elemental marbles was believed to have been created by pre-medieval magician Claricia von Bingen. Found long after her death, the somewhat spherical item was preserved in an archive as part of her legacy, though no one knew what it was. Over a hundred years after its discovery, a conflagration burned down the archive where the round-ish item had been stored. The archivists were understandably devastated until they realized that the fire’s origin was Claricia von Bingen’s marble-like object, which had cracked during the restoration of the archive.

It took ten more years of study before archivists, investigators, and a citizen scientist named Jorge unraveled its mysteries. Apparently, Jorge spent all zir extra time in the archives. One day, while frustrated, ze threw a book at a nearby bookshelf, or as ze put it “a book accidentally found its way racing toward a nearby bookshelf.” The impact knocked several books to the ground, including one that Jorge had never seen before. By serendipity, it opened to a page describing the purpose of the “marble.”

The first commercialized marbles were several inches in diameter and lasted only seconds, but over time the size decreased and length of effect increased.