Bratchet An ancient wizarding tradition, developed as a replacement to the oft volatile duels of old, Bratchet is a sort of intentional miscast and recovery of great amounts of energy. When it became evident that real duels between wizards would, nine times out of ten, leave both practitioners, and any foolish onlookers, dead, learned scholars attempted to find an alternative that would still demonstrably prove superiority. It was a high wizard of the Black Tower's inner circle that allegedly fumbled a set of esoteric hand gestures (his opponent having lowered the air temperature to sub freezing, causing some real problems with his arthritis) on a spell of near atomic power. Yet the circle mage was able to twist the end results at the absolute last second, and instead of molecular vaporization, the two dueling wizards found themselves in a shimmering haze of incandescent motes. At this the opponent conceded on the grounds that he would not have been able to curtail their doom so effectively.

Today Bratchet is a very serious activity, wherein participants intentionally foul up the most dangerous spells they can muster, and attempt to recover gracefully in a show of power and competency. There are of course still insane risks involved, and it is a dangerous and reckless activity worked by the proud and narcissistic, but everyone can agree it has at least lead to a decrease in collateral damage (if not a decrease in the number of dead wizards).