Guozaets are the backbone of mainland Geph-pha. Nearly 8 centuries ago, the northern mages first developed an early form of zaetting, a process of transforming items. Through centuries of testing, guozaets have determined that all non-thinking things have a value: a number of particles of a materiel called “guos-rieltr”.
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Early mages in the upper plains had been practicing low sorcery since before recorded history mixing three parts ritual procedures, seven parts showmanship, and one part something special. That something special was never determined until Fenus morrFentun (then Fenus Skot, a little-known scholar-adventurer) decided to explore the upper plains to explain that region’s Myst phenomenon. Although Fenus failed to figure out the Myst, nearly a decade of research led him to his first, concentrated encounter with guos-rieltr.
The name used today for the material was only appended after nearly a century of study — once Fenus took his research back to the Salmorr Valley, to civilisation, and made his fortune. The name was derived from a translation of the phrase “body of creation”¹ by Aswen morrTreja into one of the hundreds of long-dead languages that take turns being trendy among morrs that dabble in scholastic pursuits. The name for practitioners, guozaet, popped up some few months after but it isn’t known if it was also made by morrTreja or an imitator, though the translation was similarly “derived”.
Guozaets, to transform one item to another, have to convert the item first into guos-rieltr and then into the next item. Extensive testing has shaped the plutocracy of mainland Geph-pha. Because when a hoard of gold can be shrunk to down to the size of a small apple, money can shift hands as easily as missives. A person can buy a house in the flight of a single message crow.
¹ Although the translation was unanimously and near instantly panned by true scholars as poor scholarship, the name had already caught traction among too many pseudo-intellectuals.
Almanac of Geph-pha 