Inventing New Spells and the first Mage

[vierasmarius]

Since no one has mentioned it so far, I'd like to suggest taking a look at the Magic as Technological Progress article from Pyramid 3/43. It doesn't specifically address how the very first spells were developed, but it gives a suggested progression of development, and rules for inventing new spells (based largely on the existing invention rules). Even if you don't use the concept of Sorcery Levels (as a parallel to Tech Levels) the article is interesting and useful.