Preface:
Southern Circlarian communities often criticize the National Institute of Research and Development in the Independent Commonwealth for being "too Northern" when it comes to structure and function. However, its hierarchy is based on that of the Circlarian School of Spellfire-Crafting.
Terminology and the Circlarian School of Spellfire-Crafting:
Commonly referred to by its abbreviation, the CSSC, the Circlarian School of Spellfire-Crafting is not an actual organization but an international set of standards governing the safe and consistent practice of both spellcrafting and stonecrafting. Numerous schools and Craft Masters all over the Circlarian Realm train people to these standards.
People commonly use the term "spellcrafting" incorrectly to describe "spellfire-crafting," which encompasses both "spellcrafting" and "stonecrafting." And there are two reasons for this: first, "spellcrafting" is easier to enunciate than "spellfire-crafting"; and second, most people involved in the art are lower-level spellcrafters.
The Roles:
The most basic level a candidate can maintain in the CSSC is that of a Licensed Spellcaster. Next in advancement is an Apprentice Spellcrafter, followed by a Master Spellcrafter, an Apprentice Stonecrafter, and finally a Master Stonecrafter.
A Licensed Spellcaster owns at least one talisman from which he or she casts spells in order to fulfill specialized roles or tasks as necessary. He or she will occasionally trade and receive "Strings" of spellfire inscriptions for the owned talisman. An Apprentice Spellcrafter writes and revises spellfire inscriptions on crafted talismans under the direct supervision of a Master Spellcrafter. A Master Spellcrafter practices the same art independently. An Apprentice Stonecrafter crafts blank talismans for Spellcrafters and does so under the direct supervision of a Master Stonecrafter. And a Master Stonecrafter independently designs talisman prototypes.
Currently, there are currently no Master Stonecrafters who are citizens of the Independent Commonwealth.
Succession:
To become a Licensed Spellcaster, a candidate must follow formal academic training in accordance to standards that vary from county to country. In the Independent Commonwealth, training occurs solely at traditional Universities; and every University throughout the Commonwealth, in compliance with the 1297 National Education Act, has a Spellcaster Licensure Program. The first level of the training process is known as the Academic Division, during which the candidate learns the fundamental states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas) and how each is subject to the three basic functions of spellfire: to create matter, to destroy matter, and to move matter. The candidate learns the details of the application of these concepts to each of a wide variety of elements and substances. The candidate will then pass an Academic Proficiency Exam in order to succeed into the Practice Division, during which he or she will receive a "practice talisman" that only works in a University Gymnasium. In the Practice Division, the candidate will be required to complete a comprehensive and exhaustive list of assigned tasks before passing the Practice Division Mastery Exam. With passage of the Exam and overall academic proficiency as a University student, the candidate will graduate from the University with an Undergraduate Degree in Spellfire Casting and a Spellcaster Certificate, both of which must be submitted to the Office of a Federal Mediator in the Basin District (Retun). The Federal Mediator will appoint a Panel to conduct a background check and an in-person interview with the candidate. Success here means the candidate will officially receive a License of Spellcasting. This License must be renewed every three years.
To become an Apprentice Spellcrafter, a candidate must enroll in one of the Certified Schools in the Circlarian Realm. The only Certified School in the Independent Commonwealth is the University of Combria. Similar to the previously-mentioned curriculum, the first level of Spellcrafting Certification is the Academic Division, during which the candidate will learn the fundamentals of each of the twenty-two CSSC-Standard Spellfire Inscription Alphabets. At the end of the Academic Division course the candidate must pass an Exam of General Mastery, a Mastery Exam of Specialization of an Alphabet of the candidate's choice, and a third Mastery Exam covering the Fundamental Knowledge of the Five Standards of Talisman-Crafting. Pending success, the candidate will proceed to the Practice Division, during which he or she will receive a blank "practice talisman" from either a Master or Apprentice Stonecrafter and utilize his or her Alphabet of specialization to create a printed talisman for practical use. For the Final Assessment of the Practice Division, the candidate will face a Panel of five Apprentice Spellcrafters, known as the Listeners, presided over by one Master Spellcrafter, known as the Officiator, and demonstrate the function of the completed talisman before answering interview questions asked by the Officiator. The Listeners will evaluate the performance of the candidate with the writing of Approval or Objection Statements while the Officiator will write either a Letter of Approval or a Letter of Objection. In order to pass this Assessment, the candidate must receive Approval Statements from all five Listeners and a Letter of Approval from the Officiator. Pending success, the candidate will then submit the Approval Letter and Statements to the Circlarian League of Nations Headquarters in the Canticulan city of Cenofan for evaluation. Here, a Judiciary Panel will review the documents and conduct with the candidate an interview similar to the national government screening previously mentioned for Spellcasting Licensure. If the Panel approves with a unanimous vote, the candidate will be awarded a Statement of Authorization to Practice the Art of Spellcrafting Under the Direct Supervision of an Authorized Master Spellcrafter, or, in short, an Apprentice Spellcrafting Authorization Statement.
Before discussing the basic role of an Apprentice Spellcrafter, it is important to note that spellfire inscriptions, as mentioned above, are written in twenty-two CSSC-Standard Alphabets. Inscriptions written in each Alphabet over time make up a cumulative Repository consisting of Dictionaries. Each Dictionary is authored by one Master Spellcrafter and contains original combinations of Alphabet characters. Such combinations are known as Strings. Other Spellcrafters draw pre-written Strings from these Dictionaries to print onto blank talismans crafted by Stonecrafters. The list of Strings used on a particular talisman is known as an Array, which is required to be indexed by at least one national government.
An Apprentice Spellcrafter will form an original Array of Strings from a particular Dictionary to print onto a talisman. The talisman and Array are submitted to a Master Spellcrafter, who will issue a Statement of Approval to the Apprentice Spellcrafter (pending that requirements are met), after which the talisman prototype, Array, and Approval Statement are submitted to a government. If the said government approves, it will index the Array, allowing for the distribution of copies of the talisman. An Apprentice Spellcrafter must renew his or her Authorization every three years by having at least one original Array indexed by a government.
To become a Master Spellcrafter, an Apprentice Spellcrafter must draft an original Dictionary of original Strings and extract an Array from this to print onto a blank talisman. This work will then be submitted to a Panel of eleven Master Spellcrafters, or Listeners, presided over by a twelfth Master Spellcrafter, or Officiator. The candidate must demonstrate the functionality of the talisman and answer interview questions asked by the Officiator. And like before, each of the eleven Listeners will issue Statements of Approval or Objection while the Officiator issues a Letter of Approval or Objection. All Listeners must each issue a written Statement of Approval and the Officiator a Letter of Approval, which the candidate must submit to a Judiciary Panel in Cenofan to be evaluated in a matter similar to that of an Apprentice Spellcrafter. If that is successful, the Panel will award the candidate a Statement of Authorization to Practice Independently the Art of Spellcrafting. This Authorization must be renewed every six years and requires a candidate to have two new Arrays each indexed by a national government and make an update to his or her Dictionary, or to provide a legitimate argument as to why no update was necessary.
There are fewer Certified Schools across the Circlarian Realm to provide a Spellcrafter with the opportunity to become an Apprentice Stonecrafter; the only School in Remikra is the University of Cales in the Kingdom of the Great North. In order to become an Apprentice Stonecrafter, a candidate must start with the Academic Division under the prerequisite that he or she is an active Master Spellcrafter. For this Division, the candidate must pass a Mastery Exam of the Fundamentals of the Five CSSC Crafting Standards (Remikran, Canticulan, Northern, Broad Circlarian, and Monassan). The candidate then must specialize in one of the Standards and pass a Standard Speciality Mastery Exam. After this, the candidate will enter the Practice Division and be asked to craft three "practice talismans," each with an original shape in accordance to the style of his or her chosen Standard, and print them with three Spellcrafter Dictionary Arrays: one from his or her own Dictionary, and the other two from the Dictionaries of other Spellcrafters. The Panel of Listeners and an Officiator present for the Final Assessment is similar to that for an Apprentice Spellcrafter, except this Panel would be attended by Apprentice Stonecrafters and a Master Stonecrafter. Roughly the same process and criteria to pass the Assessment is applied here, and the same process is had with confirming certification in Cenofan. Pending success in Cenofan, the candidate will receive a similar Statement of Authorization.
An Apprentice Stonecrafter will use advanced tools learned in training to craft original talisman prototypes with regard to his or her Standard of speciality (from one of the Five CSSC Standards), and will submit these prototypes to a Master Stonecrafter, who will issue written Statements of Approval in order for the new prototypes to be placed on the Circlarian Talisman Registry. In order to renew Authorization, an Apprentice Stonecrafter must have at least one new prototype registered every twelve years.
To become a Master Stonecrafter, an Apprentice Stonecrafter must draft an original Class of original talisman Prototypes (similar to drafting an original Dictionary of original Strings for Spellcrafters) and have Authorized Spellcrafters index Arrays off of at least eleven of the Prototypes. A Panel of eleven Master Stonecrafters serving as Listeners presided over by a twelfth Master Stonecrafter serving as the Officiator will evaluate the candidate, who will have invited Spellcrafters to demonstrate the practical use of each Prototype. Afterward, the candidate will answer interview questions given by the Officiator. Similar to previously-mentioned Panels, the Listeners will evaluate the candidate with Approval or Objection Statements while the Officiator will do so with a Letter of Approval or Objection. The criteria for passing is the same, in that the candidate must have Approval Statements from all eleven Listeners and a Letter of Approval from the Officiator, before proceeding to a Judiciary Panel in Cenofan. Upon successful screening, the Judiciary Panel will award a Statement of Authorization to Practice Independently the Art of Stonecrafting. This Authorization is subject every twenty-four years to a renewal that requires two Arrays to receive government indexing for any of the Prototypes and one update to the Master Stonecrafter's Class, or a legitimate argument as to why an update was not necessary.
Reasons for Regulation:
Many people today wonder why there are so many rigorous requirements to attain and maintain permission to engage in spellfire-crafting. In short, unregulated spellfire-crafting is extremely dangerous. For example, in 1276, the son of the then-President of Furthing, having no licensure whatsoever, illegally spellcrafted his own inscriptions onto a talisman for a levitation spell, which he used to lift a large ship in a shipyard. The levitation spell failed, causing the ship to fall, which triggered a warehouse collapse that tragically ended the young man's life.
Most frighteningly, on 12 November 1024, in present-day Krylandia, a major explosion occurred at a stonecrafting factory in the wake of a substandard test gone awry. The shockwave was heard around the world as thousands of casualties resulted. And "spellfire radiation" with a half-life of 150 years enveloped a large area around the facility, making the region uninhabitable for decades. Today, the effects of the incident are still evident, with some places in the area being restricted from public access for a few millennia.
Spellfire-Crafting Industry Trends:
It is financially expensive to go through the rigorous training required to advance through the levels of the CSSC. In the past, such advancements proved either extremely profitable or extremely costly, depending on individual success as indicated by many important figures of the past. Today, however, the proper spellfire-crafting industry is facing some competition. The lightfire industry, a controversial practice having existed for thousands of years, has seen a recent boom over the past couple of centuries owing to its simplistic structure and application. Its success has varied from nation to nation, but nonetheless, many societies have adapted to lightfire in some form or another, using it more frequently than proper spellfire-crafting. The scriptfire industry, having emerged roughly around the tenth century, proves more convenient in its ability to automatically handle and generate spellfire scripts without the use of talismans, and is much less exhaustive than stonecrafting. The dymensional plane industry, although in existence for millennia, has recently been an emerging subject of study and development, especially in Middle Remikra, and could see a major trend in the near future.
Nevertheless, proper spellfire-crafting serves essential purposes not able to be served, currently, by the above-mentioned competitors. Although there may be a time in the near future when it may not be considered a standalone commerce, proper spellfire-crafting still stands as a "root practice" for such competitors, which are still considered "branch industries."