Warding Ritual

"Wards are, an area bound, static, predetermined magical effect with specific intent.
That is it, easy, don't you say?
Well, not really. Because if it were I would be out of my job, my job of teaching you about wards.

Wards can be magical barriers, gossamers, domes, walls, cobwebs or blankets. Basically, they can take any form that is appropriate for the task set to a magical ward. The magic within a magical ward is always in the flow because magic is always in the flow. It is your task as a ward master to stabilize, adapt, anchor, limit and control said flow within the ward."

A lecture at the Scholastic imperial Institute by Magister Fridhelm.

"When it comes to wards there are some interesting things. For example, the word itself has historically not been used for this application of magic, only within the last few decades has this name become used so widespread and has established itself.

Now what really is a ward as opposed to other area effective spells?
In essence, a ward is a spell that has been made to be magically stable for a longer time. Spells have a fairly short duration during which they are magically stable and active, their effects might last very long or even be permanent but the magic matrix is short-lived and only as long as the matrix exists can the spell initiate its effect.
A ward on the other hand is basically a stabilized magic matrix and thus can initiate its effect for as long as said matrix is stable. The stabilization effect is achieved by transcribing the spell to a ritual thus imbuing material components and other relevant criteria into it.
When setting up wards one has to remember that because just like a spell a ward will lose magical energy and thus potential, the matrix gradually thinning out. Eventually the matrix will have lost an amount of magical energy that it can no longer maintain the matrix structure, it will collaps and the remaining energy will become a small magical pool for a short time. This thinning out, this losing of magical energy from the matrix back to the universal flow is called bleeding."

From Protectiv Spells and Wards

History

Interestingly wards did not start out as a ritual, before the Demon War warding did not exist as a magical option. What did exist were protective spells and the knowledge to enchant items with such spellwork. During the war, a group of magic users developed a special kind of spell that could anchor a protective spell to an item in an active form.
Regular magic items are only releasing their magic by a specific trigger. The rest of the time the item is inactive.
Now with this new spell for the first time, a protective spell could be anchored to an item and would be active without a trigger.

To achieve this effect the group had to design a new ritual. In the beginning, this ritual required several preprepared runes-engraved stones to serve as ankers for the ward and a team of thirteen, sometimes more, warders to enact the ritual due to the significant energy demands. Also, the wards once set tended to bleed back into the magic flow after a relatively short time. Thus a ward had to be fed regularly or it would disappear or break.

This however is the distant past and today's warding techniques have fastly improved. Simple wards can be set up by a lone individual and will still hold for quite a few hours. Wardstones are only used today when a longer lifespan, a more powerful ward or even a self-sustaining one is intended. Anchoring a ward can today be done not only by an item but by a location with only a slight increase in energy backflow.