This might be the wrong place to post, but here we go.
I'm a relative newbie to the D&D community in general, so these questions probably have an obvious answer somewhere that I missed, but it's driving me crazy.
Who designed the symbols for the eight schools of magic on D&D Beyond, and most importantly, how? Other than Illusion looking like an eye and Divination being reminiscent of a rhabdomancer's rod, what is the reasoning behind the symbols and colors used in spell icons?
I don't know the design history of the symbols, but they do seem to resemble some alchemical symbols. The symbol for necromancy, for example, looks like an ohm, which is also the alchemical symbol for death. Conjuration sorta kinda looks like the symbol for earth or the nigredo step of the alchemical process, which doesn't make the most sense? You should look into it, there's some interesting stuff and these symbols get used for "magical" stuff all over the place.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Thanks, I was already looking up those very same symbols because of something I'm writing and I was wondering if there was any correlation. I've been having some trouble, there are apparently multiple variations of some of them, while others seem to turn up in some lists and not in others (e.g. I wasn't aware of the ones for life and death in your image, but I did find quite a few more to represent elements, compounds, processes, equipment, and units of measurement). It would be nice to have them all in one place.
Hello!
This might be the wrong place to post, but here we go.
I'm a relative newbie to the D&D community in general, so these questions probably have an obvious answer somewhere that I missed, but it's driving me crazy.
Who designed the symbols for the eight schools of magic on D&D Beyond, and most importantly, how? Other than Illusion looking like an eye and Divination being reminiscent of a rhabdomancer's rod, what is the reasoning behind the symbols and colors used in spell icons?
I don't know the design history of the symbols, but they do seem to resemble some alchemical symbols. The symbol for necromancy, for example, looks like an ohm, which is also the alchemical symbol for death. Conjuration sorta kinda looks like the symbol for earth or the nigredo step of the alchemical process, which doesn't make the most sense? You should look into it, there's some interesting stuff and these symbols get used for "magical" stuff all over the place.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Thanks, I was already looking up those very same symbols because of something I'm writing and I was wondering if there was any correlation. I've been having some trouble, there are apparently multiple variations of some of them, while others seem to turn up in some lists and not in others (e.g. I wasn't aware of the ones for life and death in your image, but I did find quite a few more to represent elements, compounds, processes, equipment, and units of measurement). It would be nice to have them all in one place.
There is a nice breakdown and history at this RPG StackExchange question.
Short answer, the symbols were first used in the revised 2nd Ed PHB, but not used consistently in official books and modules.