Witchspheres

A witchsphere is the augmented multi-shard form of irionite: several smaller witchstones bound into a single working orb that produces dramatically more usable power than its components could individually. The witchsphere is the standard high-tier irionite tool of the Spellmonger era, replacing single-shard pocket stones as the primary working artefact for senior magelords.

Construction

Witchspheres are constructed by an experienced enchanter combining smaller shards through a binding-protocol that the Magical Corps developed in the early war. The process is destructive of the original shards (they cannot be re-extracted as separate stones) but produces an orb with capability scaling more than linearly with the number of bound shards. Master Cormaran's Tudry workshop produced many of the early witchspheres; Carmella's Sevendor workshops perfected the protocol.

Minalan's witchsphere

Minalan's personal witchsphere is the best-known example. Built around his original Boval-stone with progressively more shards added through the early books, the sphere reached its mature form around Magelord. Its capabilities through the saga include:

• Powering the Boval molopor evacuation working (Siege of Boval, with Pentandra's sphere as the partner instrument).
• Sustaining the great Talry-style war workings of Timberwatch.
• Channeling the power that triggered the original Snowstone Event.
• Driving the Morath-Sigil saturation that produced both snowstone-event spells.
• The basis from which the Magolith was eventually constructed.

Witchspheres in the magelord class

Most senior magelords have eventually moved to witchsphere-class personal artefacts. Pentandra's torus-shaped witchstone (the canonical “sphere”-class artefact for her sex-magic specialty) was the partner instrument in the Boval working and remains her standard tool. Terleman, Azar, Mavone, and the senior Horkan Knight Commanders all carry witchsphere-class stones built by similar protocols.