Of wand, rod, stave and other foci

Many different kinds of magical foci are in use. Some are prefered by certain traditions and schools some are widespread across many traditions. Some are so common that normal people have begun associating these tools with magic users. Like a crown is associated with nobility those tools are associated with magic.

Three foci especially have become connected to the magical professions in such a manner. The "Wand" the "Staff" and the "Rod". There are of course a multitude of other foci from rings to bracelets to weapons.

The Wand

Widely considered the most precise of the common foci the wand surely earns this reputation. It is the tool of choice if you want precision and finesse when applying magical energies. However, the wand is not a tool of power. A wand can never access the magical flow directly, it would not survive such. Either it would overload, explode or combust or it would burn out, losing any and all magical properties. A burned-out wand is one of the few material things devoid of any magic.
Thus it can only ever channel magic "filtered" by the user, meaning the user's own magic. To that end a wand must be made specific to a user, it must have synchronize with the user, commonly via a few weeks of regular casting with it. During the Synchronization process, the wand becomes ever easier to use for the owner and this reflects in its physical form. A new wand will ever just be a wooden stick with a magical core and a few markings (often runes) on it but over those weeks, it may bend, become stiffer or springier, develop knots or eyelets etc. anything is possible.
A caster can observe the process fairly easy. His first Spells will require about double the power to work and the wand will feel clumsy and unwieldy. After a few uses, this inefficiency will reduce and the resistance will lessen until eventually it will disappear and the caster will find it supportive.

Some of the Clans of Shadows have supposedly used burned out wands to craft arrows and bolts that are unafected by certain magical protections.

Wands are also generally not only shorter than a Stave or Rod but also much less robust. They are known to break fairly easily and there is no known ritual to enhance their ruggedness.

The Stave or Staff

The following is a transsciption of a scroll found in a ruined city on the subcontinent of Varleria. Obviously a homework by an unknown Apprentice, dated back before The Wave for obvious reasons.

"Wands and staves are all-purpose tools, the main difference is a wand is powered solely by the user's own magic.
A stave is powered by ambient magic all around us and the user's own. A stave is an order of magnitude more powerful. If a wand is like a bow, a stave is like a ballista. While not useful in a close fight 'cause it limits the user's mobility, it is magic's only long-range weapon and if its owner can learn to control it, it can be quite powerful.
A stave can break any spell cast by a wand and no wand can break a spell cast by a stave, not easily. A stave user can erect powerful and nearly impenetrable wards and break curses no wand user could hope to break. And this is without regard to the power of the wizard with the stave.
That's why they're illegal here. You can own one. You just cannot buy one or sell one."

A staff does come with some problems besides it's famously long timedemand for Synchronization. While very useful as a tool it still needs to have contact with "free" magic to work. Basically, this means that a stave is most often set on the ground or some other surface so it can draw magical energies from there. This does not mean at all that magic is not permeating the air around us, it does, it just means that the flow of magic can only be diverted by a stave if it is a surface flow. Basically, a stave does only access the higher saturation of magic in a solid material.
The logical conclusion of this is that an active magic user can of course provide the stave with magic as he does with a wand or some other focus.
The risk with doing so is, however, a much-increased power demand by the stave and that demand is fairly random. It might just need the common amount but up to triple the power has been recorded. Not only that, staves have been known to drain the life of users if they do not have sufficient energy to power their spells. This resulted in at least 14 documented deaths and has been another reason for the stave's decline.
Using the caster's own magical reserves negates the primary strength and utility of the staff by not using up the caster's reserves. So that a staff, although able of providing ample power, does still draw somewhat on the user's magical reserves and it can, without adequate magical earthing be considered a clumsy, very big wand. For this reason and some evidence in old records, most scholars think that a wand is an evolution or development based on the staff.

Furthermore, due to its size and relative clumsiness a staff can not be as precise in its movements and thus as precise a spell focus as a wand. There are techniques to counter this but those greatly enlengthen casting time. Wich, as more current research by Magistra H'leria suggests a variable multiplicator of 3,15 or 7,31 at least. More research in this field is needed because several other studies see the staff as a faster casting tool in ritualistic use.

The stave has lost appeal in many regions due to its large size and "lack of finesse". At the same time, the wand has gained favour with many users, primarily those who do not expect to be subjected to the harsher side of life, after all a wand is but a better twig and easy to damage, break or lose.

The Rod

In between the stave and the wand we find the rod. In size between the two former, it offers a very good degree of finesse and precision in spellwork and still can access at least small amounts of the magic flow, under the same conditions as a stave does. It is, however, obvious that a rod, with its lesser size, is a bit awkward to handle in that capacity because one might have to kneel or bend over for the needed grounding. The resulting power access is also significantly lower than a full stave provides. So the spell drain on the user's core is reduced but not negated.
On the positive side is that a rod can be powered by the caster's energy alone almost as well as a wand with only a minor increase of core drain.
While many would regard the Rod as the perfect combination of all things positive from the wand and stave it is not. The main drawback of using a rod is the lack of finesse. Many things easily done with a wand such as opening a lock or various healings are hard to do with a rod if not outright impossible.
So while the rod can save energy by tapping into the magical flow it does so much less than a stave. While offering more precision than a stave it offers much less of that precision than a wand does and finally, the ratio of flow energy to user reserves is much worse than a stave's. Then again on the plus side, a rod does seem to have a shorter Synchronization than a stave about the same as a wand.

Interesting things to know

A stave might offer a 5:1 up to, theoretically, 10:1 rate a rod will range from 1:1 up to 5:1 theoretically again. And while a wand will offer the caster his full skill potential for a spell the rod will reduce this by half.

Another interesting fact is that what size makes a wand for one user may very well make for a rod for another or even be completely useless. This seems to be essentially just related to the user's own size. Even though it has not been studied in any reliable manner we have the knowledge of many a generation before us.

The traditions and tractates currently known supply us only with a rough estimation of the relation between a focus and its user.
We do know that the classification and utilisation depend on a relation of body height and size to length and thickness for wands, rods and staves. There has to be a relation of a similar type for weapon foci and others as well. Material and construction also seem to factor significantly. The Crafters Guild guard many of its secrets very strictly, maybe rightfully so. And thus while we know of many of the basics, enough for our Eleves and Adeptes to craft their own foci such work will not really be on par with a tailor-made one.

It is quite fascinating to realize that not one of the common or uncommon casting foci seems to be better or less when it come to spell loading or preloading. This relation or the lack thereof will of course be an interesting and fascinating topic for some theses in times to come.