Matthew Sernett explained the inspiration for the creation of the book: "The concept for the book started with the idea of doing something about "advanced magic." We wanted to show people something new, and take magic to a different place for the game. We struck upon the individual themes for the three types of magic (pact magic, shadow magic, and truename magic) as the most interesting among several areas of magic that D&D hasn't explored very well up to this point."
