Im thinking that the injunction on even researching the Outer Gates works much the same way as the Law against necromancy.  While you can find technicalities to do a bit and still fall within the laws (yay Sue), generally speaking going near the stuff is bad enough, cause the whole practice is considered vile.  The outer gates are just a worse version.  Its like how concealed weapons are illegal (without a permit, but in thins case there is only the one permit around), even if you dont shoot anyone with them.  Or even better, its like working with biological weapons:  sure making new vaccines is all well and good, noble and such, but the research requires you to make new and potentially dangerous viruses (virii?) which you dont want just anyone to be playing with. 

That being said you still run into the same problem Harry saw during DB with mind control:  nobody does it so nobody knows how to teach proper defenses against it.  The ward that stopped (or at least slowed) the Outsiders in DB was something done by the man said to be the most powerful wizard on earth (who also specializes in wards and defensive magic) and the man who is probably the actual most powerful wizard on earth (and a specialist in Outsiders and the Outer Gates).  I doubt anyone else could have done it without harry's outsider connection and even he would have needed a lot more power and class to pull it off (guess he needs to stop collecting bottle caps or something  )


On the Blackstaff as an artifact all its own,  Harry once mentions that McCoy's staff came from the same grove in th Ozarks that Harry's did.  Does that mean he's just wrong, or does Eb simply have two staffs (staves?).  I dont see any reason why he couldn't , I had just always imagined the staff as more personal and...i dunno...attuned?... than that.

And you can only have 13 people in a circle.

Says who?

Potion Specialist.  Maybe somebody who doesn't have the raw power of a council wizard, but makes up for it with versatility and guile.  Maybe even someone who has managed to overcome the "one potion at a time limitation", or maybe has a few favorite potions that he keeps in his system all the time to the point where he get the sick feeling from not having it in him.

Harry always talks about how much it would take to keep up with the changing laws governing it and how hard it would be.  It would be fun to try.

The hip flask would be my friend

Did you know that prior to the use of the Paris Meridian (recently made infamous by the DaVinci Code for its connection to the Roseline) as the Prime Meridian, Europe used "Ferro's Line"  so named for the island it referenced, western most known in the Old World (now el hierro, one of the canary islands off the coast of africa).

Gee, I wonder who lived there?...

Also fun to note that in 1634 Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu (rulers of france) declared it as the reference for all maps.  Do I smell a Three Musketeers story?

ALL FOR ONE....

And the occasional flashlight...which interestingly enough seemed to be the most common surviving technology.  Hmmm...maybe I should invest some in Maglight...

Cooper, for inspiration you might want to read "Empire of the East" -(3 books in one) by Saberhagen.  I don't want to ruin it for you but if you want a quick synopsis:

(click to show/hide)

...Earth has experienced a dramatic Change not too distant from our own time. During a potentially apocalyptic nuclear war, an intelligent computer named Ardneh—Automatic Restoration Director/National Executive Headquarters—triggered a vast paradigm shift in the very fabric of reality. Physics died—saved for scattered technological remnants—and magic came to rule the planet. 50,000 years passed, during which a lamed Ardneh survived, guiding mankind, until a final showdown with the computer's evil nemesis, Orcus, during which both were destroyed and the role of magic considerably reduced.

Hold the frickin' phone.... I loved Saberhagen's other books in that continuity, but i didn't know there were  more of them.  I read his 11 Sword books .


For those of you who keep saying you want to see more mundane people rise to hero-hood, I recommend most of Neil Gaiman's novels (American Gods, Neverwhere and others).  He does just that, where a seemingly ordinary person gets swept up in supernatural goings-on, and usually is just looking for a way out the whole time.  They are fun because the characters usually end up hitting this state of pseudo-insanity where they are no longer surprised by anything they see and begin to simply take everything in stride.