Ackerly Green's Guide to Magiq is a book by Ackerly-Green Publishing that sorts readers into magical guilds. The Guide is considered to be one of the books from the Book of Briars collection. It was published online by The Mountaineers in 2016.
Description[]
Ackerly Green's Guide to Magiq is a book aimed at sorting readers into various guilds by asking them strange questions aimed at assessing their magimystical potential. It is more than an exam. It is a scope that can look into your very spirit, hint at your possible future, and portend your affinity, guild affiliation, and what source you might draw your magimystical power from, if you are adept at magic at all.
The Guide was meant to be taken as the reader is during that current moment, rather than as who they wish to be. According to the foreword, those who lie to the Guide may be subject to some sort of punishment, being told that “Woe betide those who cross the MAGIQ Guide.”
History[]
The Guide to Magiq was originally published in 1965 by Ackerly Green Publishing[1]. It was part of the series known as the Lost Collection, or the Briar Books. In 1961, when Ackerly Green went bankrupt, the company sold off its library to other larger publishers. However, there were no mentions of the MAGIQ Guide or the other Briar Books in the Ackerly Green records.
The Guide was thought lost until it was discovered on September 12, 2005, by a demolition crew who dug up the guide at the New York City Lunatic Asylum. The guide was dubbed "The Lunatic's Guide" by collectors. The Guide then found its way to the Morgan Library, where it was archived and digitally scanned. However, one month later, the Guide was stolen from the library and all scans of the Guide were found to be corrupted. Many claimed to have been in possession of the Guide at various points between the years of 2006 and 2013. The myth of the Guide only grew over the ensuing decade. Some believed the deliberate sequence of words in the Guide have an almost hypnotic, suggestive effect. Others believed the Guide was cursed.
In 2013, Author CJ Bernstein’s children found the Guide in a public park near their school. Fascinated with the book, they took it home, unaware of its long history. On January 2016, the Mountaineers met with the Bernsteins to acquire what remained of the Guide. They discovered that the Guide had finally disintegrated, but not before one of the children had made a hand-drawn copy. The Mountaineers began the painstaking process of reproducing the Guide based on the rough copy and their fragmented memories of its content and illustrations.
On July 26, 2016, the Guide was posted online, allowing all to know the truth of magiq.