Sinister Mathematics

Sinister Mathematics is a book of magic attributed to the pseudo-historical thaumaturge Morogyad. Written in Oluzpek as part of the "Oluz canon" of the Esoterica of Morogyad, the book is a short mathematical treatise in which Morogyad appears to have applied himself to the question of how to use the laws of mathematics to court good fortune.

Content

The shortest book in the Oluz canon by a large margin, Sinister Mathematics begins with a substantial introduction on the concept of fortune and how it may be courted. Morogyad conceptualises fortune as that which may befall a person, but which is beyond their control to influence. This essay gradually digresses into a broad discussion of the concepts of economic scarcity, supply and demand, and thence to macroeconomic inflation. The central matter of fortune Morogyad argues, is to extend one's realm of control to the point of maximum returns.
This essay is followed by a series of mathematical matrices and diagrams, the precise significance of which are not made clear. This leads many commentators to propose that there is a missing intermediary chapter, though what this might have consisted of is not clear.
Full editions of the book provide eleven matrices and seven diagrams. Six matrices have eight columns apiece, three more have four, while the last two have seven and twelve respectively. The matrices and their constituent columns are not labelled in any known pre-Wesmodian copy, making their significance hard to judge, but all are filled with numbers ranging from 0 to 96. None of the matrices are, in fact, complete, with roughly a tenth of all the spaces blank.
The diagrams are even more cryptic. They have the basic shape of a venn diagram, each consisting of between two and four overlapping circular or ovular planes with several points along their edges highlighted and labelled with (unexplained) mathematical figures. In the absence of any glosses, or indeed any explanation as to what these diagrams mean and how they relate to the previous sections of the book, it is difficult to know their significance, or even if they have any connection to the magical and alchemical content of Morogyad's other works.

Commentary

Sinister Mathematics has variously been described as Morogyad's least and most important work. Those who subscribe to the former opinion argue that the book actually contains no direct or explicit reference to magic of any sort. Some propose that it is not actually a book of magic at all, but rather one of economics and commerce - an appropriate thing for the son of the god of fortune to write, to be sure, but something of wholly peripheral interest to thaumatologists. Some go so far as to query its authorship, with one persistent rumour being that it is a forgery by the Commercial Guilds to further their economic power in the Eleven Cities - accounts differ as to whether this forgery happened before or after the Wesmodian Reformation.
Proponents of the book read it as cryptic and frustrating but potentially pivotal summation all of Morogyad's earlier work. They argue that the introduction abstracts all magic into a basic attempt to influence the chances of unusual or unlikely event taking place, to the advantage of the subject. From this starting point they argue that the tables and diagrams that make up the last half of the book are instructions for a set of procedures that can be performed to achieve this. Halumayan thaumatologist Telk Zan Pollenok in particular is of the opinion that the diagrams constitute a practicum of Morogyad's earlier book Phardys Horodyas Karanrad, dictating a series of ritualistic hand gestures which can be used to manipulate probability to the performers advantage. He cites Morogyad's well-attested habit of achieving wonders via gestures of his left hand - such as his transformation into an octopus to escape the ogre Pholdons - as examples of this technique in action and is currently engaged in intense experimentation to replicate the technique; if he has had any breakthrough so far, he has not reported them publicly. 

Availability

Sinister Mathematics is an interesting case with regards to availability of books of magic. Its opening essay is readily available in most cities, serving as a foundational document for the training of most members of the Commercial Guilds and therefore widely replicated in their libraries. Copies also circulate readily among reading individuals in some cities, notably Oluz and Chogyos.  
Finding reliable copies of the latter sections of the book - the tables and diagrams - is much more difficult, however. Publishing technology in the Eleven Cities is not capable of faithfully or accurately reproducing graphical content and the few post-Wesmodian scribes to bother reproducing these cryptic elements of the book struggle to do so with any fidelity. Such copies as exist are often little better than forgeries or burlesques, trailing off into random strings of numbers or pages of artistic whorls likely devoid of any thaumaturgical significance. Reaserachers who want accurate representations of these frustrating but intriguing elements of Morogyad's work must therefore track down pre-Wesmodian copies. This is not, in itself, spectacularly difficult, as a fair number of copies appear to have been made in the northern cities in the last two centuries BWR, but the Reformation itself was not kind to the tradition. The typically high attrition rate is exacerbated in this case with high rates of corruption and defect; many copies of the volume that include the diagrams have been damaged, with important details, watered out, devoured by bookworms, or torn from the book for unknown reasons.