The Universal Material Component

For aeons elven, half-elven, and human wizards of Faerun have searched for a legendary, ever-elusive, and possibly unattainable trea¬sure: the universal material component. Many spells known to wizards and priests require rare, hard-to-get, or just plain expensive material components for their castings, and legions of mages have sought to find something that will do it all in powering spells so that they can dispense with the difficulties of acquiring larders of often unappetizing items needed to work the magic they desire to wield. Many are the frustrated notes in sorcerer's diaries about years of being hampered by the lack of some small flower, snail, or esoteric knickknack — the smallest toenail grown by a mimic assuming a humanlike form in the hours of dark¬ness, slain by bladed weapons alone while in that shape and continu¬ously lit by the rays of the waxing moon, for example.
Some of these difficulties are deliberate ruses introduced by twisted or cruel wizards: unnecessary ingredients added merely to hamper mages who follow in their footsteps. In this way, such devious folk slow the advances of apprentices and even extend their influence beyond the grave. Mages using spells crafted by others have no sure way of knowing when an ingredient is super¬fluous and when it provides an important element of control or a crucial element of stability. They have no choice but to follow a list of esoteric elements unless they want to risk their lives to uncon¬trolled magic or sudden explosions or spend months, perhaps even years, in painstaking and dangerous experimentation to modify spells or invent new equivalents of their own.
Many have tried that route, turning to verbal-only magic such as dragons use in a bid to circumvent all needs for material com¬ponents. Although a few mages have made great strides in this research, certain magics—particularly more powerful effects— simply demand specific substances or the modified versions either do not work or are faltering shadows of what they should be. Verbal-only spells are always at least one level higher in diffi¬culty than their materially fueled counterparts and often two lev¬els higher; even the substitution of one material component for another often seems to inescapably bump a spell up one level.
Other mages, rewriting spells as they go, have tried to substitute one material component for another in a grand attempt to trim the small wagonload of necessary components for their spellhurlings down to a few standard substances. This has also met with some success. Gemstones in particular have worked well as alternative components for a surprisingly wide range of spells, except for incantations in the schools of alteration and necromancy.
Sages concerned with things magical have from the earliest days postulated the existence of a universal material component—and it is something many mages have searched for. In the days of Myth Drannor, some even gave their lives for this elusive goal. Many wiz¬ards and sages have taken the view that this is an idle fantasy, not something that truly exists, and that time spent searching for it is time wasted. But, just as many more wizards have excitedly announced advances toward the goal at Mage Fairs, as they twist yet another spell to function only with gemstone components.
Gemstones certainly seem the most versatile of known compo¬nents, and it is widely believed that a gemstone treated in some as yet undiscovered way will prove to be the closest mages ever come to a universal component. Some sorcerers comment sarcastically that the expense of gems make switching spells to them hardly worth the effort of study and experimentation, but others praise the small size and imperishable nature of gems as advantages and point out that an ambitious wizard who is willing to do some work is easily able to earn coins by casting spells city folk or nobles need; only hermits, the lazy, or the obsessed need go hungry.
Still other mages claim that the universal material component will prove to be something touched by divine power—perhaps "the Tears of Mystra" or something similar captured in gemstone form. Whatever the truth, it is certain that no one has found a uni¬versal component yet—and that many mages have not lost the hunger for looking.
Recent exciting developments in this age-old hunt concern the brains and cranial fluids of deep, shadow, and topaz dragons and "drow dust." If a wizard can mix material from specimens of at least two of these three dragon species in a silver vessel, cast vari¬ous still-secret spells into the oily, colorless mixture and carry the

result about in a glass or silver vial, allowing no other metals to touch it until it is actually used in casting, drops of this dragon dew will power any alteration and abjuration spells attempted. (Admittedly, the entire known range of such spells has not been fully tested.)
Drow dust is an older idea that has finally been given a some¬what practical form. For centuries wizards have speculated that the mysterious radiations of deep layers of rock so often found in strong concentrations in caverns where drow dwell, which undoubtedly add much power to subterranean magics, could see use as a power component of magics in the sunlit surface world if only they could be kept effective there. Many methods of magically shielding or altering the form of drow magical items have been tried to keep what little radiations they possess intact and func¬tioning, but all have been in vain until now—perhaps.
A certain mage of Kelazzan, one Harladryn, claims to have per¬fected a method of mixing dust from strongly radiant rocks, melted-down drow armor, or drow enchanted items with molten gold while still underground and casting certain cloaking spells on the resultant mixture that make the gold discs he produces (which resemble oversized gold coins) both strongly reflective and resistant to solar damage. Although the discs are attractive to thieves, large, soft and crumbling as anything made principally of gold is apt to be, and expensive, Harladryn claims that they last for at least a hundred spell levels each—and in some cases half that again. As a disc functions, the gold and radiant dust vaporize, so that the disc grows steadily smaller, and when it has powered its limit of spells, it vanishes entirely. However, much to the chagrin of those eager to repeat or utilize Haladryn's work, recent reports suggest that Harladryn has disappeared—although whether this is due to misadventure, otherplanar explorations, an extended expe¬dition to gain more drow dust, or the wizard's capture or murder at the hands of wizards eager to obtain all the drow dust currently available in Faerfin for their exclusive use is a matter of lively explanation.
Some skeptical mages who purchased discs at a recent Mage Fair have reported great success in using the discs to power spells of the invocation/evocation school, but great difficulty in modify¬ing alteration spells to function with them—and no success in employing them with other sorts of spells at all. So it seems that some known substances can serve to replace most of the compo¬nents needed for the spells of a single school or, at most, two schools of magic. Spell modifications are still needed for most of these new wonder components to work, and many mages are sus¬picious of them, suspecting that those who peddle them have set lurking magics within them that eavesdrop on those who use them or wait to work some spell-treachery at a critical time.
Yet the search for “the Universal Wonder” continues — and more mages seem interested in it than ever before. Elminster has warned that the search for such a thing is a matter for “those blessed with the luck of the gods—or the very young, who still have several centuries to waste and as yet lack any weariness for battering their brows against unyielding walls of stone.” Be that as it may, the current candidates for development into, or that mark the way toward, the true universal material component include:
• Various gems.
• Drow dust.
• Dragon dew.
• Powdered lich phylacteries.
• Distillate of wizshade phlogiston.
• Powdered magebane claws (of magebanes that have absorbed much magic).
• The brains of disenchanters.
• Items touched by the goddess Mystra.
It is certain that folk who do discover a universal component— or even one reliable for all spells of one of the major schools—will both imperil their lives and make themselves rich and powerful beyond their wildest dreams. Lucky sorcerers who believe they have found the elusive Universal Wonder should hurry in disguise to Candlekeep, the Herald's Holdfast, or the House of Mysteries (temple of Mystra) in Elventree, and present a sample for indepen¬dent verification to the personages there. The wizards of the world are waiting!