an Ceirlain o Tharsein do Dándánleid

An Ceirlain o Tharsein do Dándánleid (The Art of Wishing for Dumdums), known also by its shorthand an Ceirlain, or its partial English translations the Art (formal) or Wishing for Dumdums (informal), is the premier "holy book" for wishdragons, containing an indepth and frequently-updated guide on how to perform their magics, in which circumstances to grant requested favors or unsolicited assistance ("wishing") with or without this magic, and the general expectations and taboos of their culture.
Every wishdragon keeps a copy of an Ceirlain - no one else is permitted to keep or read the book. It is written in Wishspeak anyway, making it difficult-to-impossible to read, even for other Fae Tongue speakers. Any wishdragon who willfully reveals certain secrets of an Ceirlain to an outsider risks exile as an Unseilie; however, wishdragons are permitted to share less-sensitive information from the book pertinent to their work as Wishers, and in rare cases wishdragons have been pardoned for revealing more exploitable secrets in light of extraordinary circumstances.
Every copy of an Ceirlain o Tharsein do Dándánleid has an "emergency return" feature that auto-triggers if its owner or the book are endangered, preventing enemies from threatening wishdragons to acquire copies of the book.

Known tenets

Wishdragons who reveal small snippets of an Ceirlain's contents consistently use "Wisher" to refer to the wishdragon granting a wish, and "wishée" for the person whose wish is being granted.

Earning wishes

Wishers are required by their law to grant outsiders wishes under certain circumstances, varying from perfectly understandable to absolutely baffling.
During Rhubarb's travels with Fibriel Solaer's party, the following manners of earning wishes are revealed:

• Saving a wishdragon's life earns three wishes. (If multiple people participate, they have to all agree on the manner of each wish.)
• Guessing a wishdragon's favorite food earns a wish, if the wishdragon has no plausible reason to suspect the wishée was told beforehand.
• If a wishdragon asks or even repeats a riddle, the first person to answer it correctly within 24 hours gets one wish.

Wishdragons are also perfectly free to give out wishes as they like, but don't get to take wishes back in most circumstances.

Interpreting & performing wishes

Because wishdragons are not able to arbitrarily manifest anything and everything to a godlike degree, complex or profound wishes take time and effort to achieve. A wishdragon must accompany a wishée until such a profound wish has been redeemed, unless they already have such an obligation to an existing wishée, in which case they must accompany them in sequence. What counts as proper "accompaniment" varies depending on the circumstance - Rhubarb was considered to be still accompanying Asterion Midas, King of Minos, so long as her location in the city was known, as he was able to call on her quickly at any time through his envoys. However, she had to remain within hearing range of Fibriel Solaer and Laethe Flirel, who did not have such ready means to contact her at a moment's notice if she was any further away. Wishdragons are however permitted to momentarily leave their wishées in the process of facilitating a wish, in general service such as scouting ahead or speaking in their place, or for basic decency because wishdragons have to run to the little dragons' room too.
Under most circumstances, Wishers are barred from maliciously twisting wishes and must interpret all wishes with as much good faith as possible (see Jerk Wishes for exceptions.) Wishers may twist a wish to the benefit of the wishée or to avoid harm to the wishée and the Wisher, and must avoid harm to innocent third parties whether they are performing a wish or not. The criteria for "innocence" is complex but fairly intuitive, as Pomelo repeatedly illustrates with her casual brutalization of dark mages, liches, etc. who are unfortunate enough to get in her way.
Wishers are encouraged to act as though they are mystically coerced to perform wishes and services, so that the fact they aren't remains a "secret weapon" in the event of a crisis or a Jerk Wish (see below).

Jerk Wishes

Wishdragons are required to refuse specific wishes that are malicious, abusive, condescending, or simply obnoxious. While their exact response to each Jerk Wish is largely up to the wishdragon, the book provides the following classic examples of possible responses:

• Wishing for more wishes: The wishdragon produces large numbers of legal forms to apply for another wish, wildly inventing new legal terms, proceedings, complications, etc. until either the wishée or the Wisher is exhausted. At that point, the Wisher announces that the wishée has been approved for one (1) additional wish, replacing the just-consumed wish for more wishes.
• Wishing for more wishdragons: The wishée gets them. Dozens of them, if the Wisher can get that many to join in. Of course, none of them owe anybody a wish. This will be a maddening punishment for most people and may aggravate local townsfolk.
• Wishing for the harm or death of the wishdragon: The wishdragon stages their grievous harm or death, and absurd consequences thereof, with a wide reach of accomplices and guilt-trips the wishée as much as possible. At the reading of his or her will, the wishée is to be left a long list of nonsense ending with a boot to the head. The wishdragon is free to decide whether or not the wish is consumed or not based on the wishée's repentance.
• Wishing for someone else's harm or death: The Wisher puts on the act of casting a death curse (without actually doing so of course) and then pretends to have made a terrible mistake in that all harm that comes to the victim will also duplicate onto the wishée. The Wisher convinces the wishée to dedicate the next few hours or maybe days trying to keep the victim from coming to any harm until the facade can't be maintained any further.
• Wishing for the wishdragon to go away: See "harm or death of the wishdragon".
• Wishing for the wishdragon as a spouse/lover: Wishdragons are strongly discouraged from granting this wish, but not strictly barred. At the very least they are expected to spend some time together and have a few dinners before making any rash decisions.
• Any wish that the wishdragon cannot understand, or is clearly objectionable but does not fit any of their indepth criteria for specific Jerk Wishes, warrants a boot to the head.

History

An Ceirlain o Tharsein do Dándánleid was originally known only as an Ceirlain o Tharsein (the Art of Wishing). Wishdragons however are clumsy, forgetful, easily distracted creatures, leading to countless updates of the book to clarify what should be obvious to any wishdragon, and eventually appending do Dándanleid (for Dumdums) onto the title.

Item type

Book / Document

Rarity

Highly controlled possession