Gon Desryem

Gon Desryem is a book of magic attributed to the pseudohistorical wizard Morogyad. Part of the "Tyros canon" of the Esoterica of Morogyad, the book is written in the Insular dialect. The title is generally translated into modern languages as The Placement of Things.

Contents

The shortest - and also, perhaps counter-intuitively, clearest - book in the Tyros canon, Gorn Desryem is a treatise on the concept of kinesis and the various ways in which it can be effected. In this sense it is sometimes viewed as something of a companion piece to the much more contentious Phardys Horodyas Karanrad. Most of its modern page count is given over to discussions of the best ways to arrange objects in order to have them perform their function most effectively. A good amount of this discussion seems to be devoted to belabouring common sense - Morogyad devotes several pages to an explanation that sailing ships function most effectively with a following wind, for example. Such discourse is placed in context, however, by a polemic introductory essay observing that efficacy in any field of human endeavour proceeds from a careful observation of sound methodological principles. This essay has been widely copied and translated into modern languages and serves as a common reading texts for wealthy young people whose tutors wish to instil their charges with a general sense of intellectual discipline.
Throughout the seven brief chapters dealing with how to place things in relation to each other for best effect there are a number of substantial digressions on how things move or can be made to move. The third chapter in particular comprises a long, discursive explanation of how wheels move things when placed edge-on to the ground, but can be moved on their own when placed side-on, if carefully-enough constructed. This develops into a detailed discussion of the relative merits of curved rather than cornered shapes, which Morogyad explicitly relates to the medallions worn by the clerics of his purported father Zargyod (and still worn to this day by the invested operatives of their modern successors, the Commercial Guilds). The rest of the chapter is given over to geometrical discussions on the properties of circles, and the creation thereof. It is from this book, in fact, that the magic circle has been adopted as an experimental technique by thaumatologists in the Eleven Cities.

Commentary

Sufficiently careful study of Gon Desreym is widely held to be the key to some degree of the telekinetic power that Morogyad supposedly achieved, both in terms of his reported episodes of flight and more obviously on the Discus of Morogyad supposedly still kept in the treasury of the Oluz Guildhouse. Morogyad is of the opinion that the shape of an object can aid in its movement, and that movement is simply a dynamic form of placement, given that the meaning of any placement is only given meaning in terms of the relative position of other objects.
This tricky idea was pursued to good effect by the thaumatologists Ysan Pholohan and Wesmod Trammos. Although the two never actually met (Pholohan lived his entire life in Pholyos; Trammos was from Andymalon and seldom travelled far) they corresponded for many years in the second century AWR. Over the course of this correspondence they are believed to have developed the geometrical ideas in Gon Desryem with reference to his other works, particularly Phardys Horodyas Karanrad, apparently able to combine the mathematical exercises of the former book with the discussion of gestures as magical actions in the latter to achieve short-range, circumscribed telekinesis. This correspondence is thought to have been published, though no manuscripts have ever come to light. Three hundred years later it is not clear exactly where to start looking for this correspondence. Widespread rumour has it that the Alchemist's Guild of Dypholyos sent agents to both Pholyos and Andymalon to gather the papers from the families of both men, though this may simply be embittered slander against a group known to guard its secrets carefully.

Availability

The introductory essay has been widely translated into modern languages and can be purchased for a reasonable sum as a rote text from most scribes in most cities. The rest of the book is also fairly widespread, by the standards of books of magic, having been copied severally in the insular cities. It is still fairly rare, however, and unexpurgated, untranslated copies only change hands occasionally, and for large sums.