Iron, Silver, Flame and Circle
By Bob the Skull
[As recorded and then transcribed
by designated scribe Clippy]
It has often been a weight upon the mind of mankind how to defend themselves from spirits and specters, god-kin and devils all, from the crackling campfire to the Proton Pack in Ghostbusters the toolmaker has conceived of tools against the intangible and the immortal and in a sense it is this very conception that gives power and weight to the tools. Why are the fey vulnerable to cold iron? Because in an age far off when first a mortal warrior crossed blades with one of the Tuatha de Danann cold iron came only from the heavens. What could be more mystical, more potent than that which descended on road to starfire to the earth. Why does sliver serve as bane to the most fearsome of shape-shifters, to the accursed dead? Because it is the metal of the moon whose constant cycles across the heavens marked the passage of time, silver then would place those immortals under the hand of time as mortals felt it. This is a far as many sorcerers go who delve in such matters, content that the tools humankind uses in its defense are of its making, though the blind deaf masses do not understand their greatness.
They are wrong.
There exist in the world principles of boundary and geometry which are not dependent upon what mortal men expect them to be, aspects of reality deep-carved, which might be enhanced by the perception of thinking beings, but are not dependent upon them. One of these all magicians of sense know well, though only in the particular, the Seven Laws of Magic. The corruption which breaking them brings is only a aspect of a wider pattern: the use of mortal magic reinforces itself, a wizard who uses magic to clean his home will tend to rely more and more upon spells for the task, just as one who sings his garden into flower would count it dull indeed to return to the work of spade and shovel. Then there are the fundamental aspects of elemental magic: Fire purifies, water wears away, air communicates, earth preserves and life adapts.
[Her Glorious Majesty interjecting: Like Jurassic Park? Jurassic Park held insight into one of the basic insights of magic?
There follows a brief digression as to the nature of the mass media in question of which the entity 'Bob' did not know. This was followed by the philosophical question of whether or not it is worthwhile consuming media which does not include images or other stimuli designed to engage the human libido. Let it be here known that the nature and value of the content 'Baywatch' is in no way cogent to the subject of the lecture]
Then there's circles, circles are one of the most powerful things in the world, but when you come down to it a circle is only the most geometrically even way to invoke a boundary, a way to signal to yourself and to the magic of the universe that you are raising a new boundary. There is no reason why you could not make a magic 'circle' shaped like a square, a pyramid with a hexagon base, a dodecahedron. Indeed people do that all the time, we call those houses, well homes technically there's this whole thing with homes and hearths which we can leave off for another time, but the point is that when you are invoking a boundary you are invoking all boundaries, the very idea of separation of form which is what separates our ordered universe from the Outside in the both literal and metaphorical sense. The Outer Gates are one big protective circle, or at least that was the belief of some of my more philosophically inclined masters. None of them actually went and looked. Anyway it's weird that you can just ignore them. Did I mention it was weird?
I know the question you are going to ask, no Outsiders can't ignore circles and thresholds either at least not any of the ones I know. Some of the higher forms, the more evolved for lack of a better term can break through all but the most potent and carefully crafted circles and the most ancient of thresholds, but that is not the same thing as ignoring them. I don't have enough inputs to even begin to guess why that is, but it is probably the same thing that ensures you don't put
yourself, your power into promises. If you figure something out give me a head's up you hear?
[It is at this point that her Divine Majesty murmured in a tone too low to be heard by the Bob Entity, but not too low for my microphone: "I don't know which is worse, the puns or the flirting." Suggestions that she discipline the Bob Entity until it would no longer engage in either behavior were met with a negative response. Supposition: Response analogous to the class of actions deemed 'socially unacceptable'. Unproven Hypothesis: Bob Entity is part of human society, in spite of dwelling within a basement unknown to any but Wizard Dresden and those in his confidence.]
OOC: I was going to make this just a straight info-post, but then the scene popped into my head so I compromised and made it a document authored by Bob but from the perspective of Clippy. 
