OMC: Oh My Concordenax.

Does someone have a god complex or what? Author Guy, you make Tiernon seem like a humble beggar on the street when it comes to ego.

Come off it!

Tom has clearly established that he is experiencing reality, not a dream, not a book, none of that sort of thing.

And people think I'm crazy! TAG: You are the crazy one.

Well, I think it's an interesting debate because it forces me to remember why some things are the way they are. A majority of this book was written a long long time ago...

But....to continue the debate.

Actually, magic, or rather animagic has been around for a very long time in Astlan. But modern wizardry, where magic is treated more like a science than an art, is relatively new. Magic engineering is even newer. It's not trivial to see in the timeline, but systematic wizardry as it's known today in Astlan, which is organized, predictable and repeatable is pretty recent, post the Anilords.

Sort of along a similar time frame to the industrial revolution, but because there was no corresponding reformation of thought, and because gods and demons are real and regularly present and due to many other factors things just haven't gone as smoothly and evenly as they did here. It's probably only the last two hundred years, or less, where knowledge has truly begun to be disseminated and the fruits of wizardy enjoyed by more people.

The idea of mass producing magic items for sale is extremely new, at least for the region of Astlan people are in at the moment. Zilquar is/was ahead of his time in that regard. The same is true for mirrors and crystal balls.

Mass production of potions has been going on for longer, admittedly. But the alchemists still have problems with exploding labs...so it's still lots of small independent labs making potions. Giant tanks of potions tend to be extremely volatile for some reason.

For example, a vat of healing potion mixture exploding often results in people gaining limbs and extra organs...not that much more pleasant than losing limbs and organs to be honest. Two heads really aren't better than one in such cases.

See that's why I do enjoy this thread. Things you've specifically mentioned are "supposed" to be noticed.

The glass table and the electrons etc are supposed to be noticed as anachronistic. Same with the escalators, cars etc in the Abyss.

Books, less so. My reckoning on books is that any society that is supposed to have some of the best wizards in the multiverse is going to have a good way for scholars (sages, wizards, animages, priests, druids etc) to store and transmit their knowledge. The intelligentsia has to have very good access to books and bookmaking. It's what allows them to excel. One reason that "the church" throughout the dark ages was able to maintain is supremacy in Europe was its access to books, scrolls, records, recorded information. They literally had "monk factories" churning out books. I assure you that the Vatican had little trouble obtaining books, even when something like 90% of the population couldn't read.

And as I saw it, magic could be used to mass produce books even better than monks. Ink is a liquid, paper is plant matter, thus sorcerers working with thaumaturges would be able to create magic printing presses/xerox machines (more precisely)

Are these books expensive for lay people, yes.

Here is the thing, I actually agree with your assessment on scarcity, rarity. But you have to understand we are looking at a very very skewed population sample.

If you want to know what most of the world is like, look at the very non-canonical (it's an image) "Business of Wizards" image of Elrose and Trisfelt at the tavern talking about "portents" and the Satyrs behind them. That's the real world of Astlan.

The places the characters have been:

1) Lenamare's school. Home of arguably one of the best wizards of his generation, and an incredibly wealthy land owner and member of the Council of Wizardry
1a) Zilquar's school, not much description, but in my mind more primitive than Lenamare's school
1b) a Cave in the Abyss--crappy hole in the ground infested with a dragon.
1c) Peasant hut--actually not that bad as peasant huts go but...the peasants are at least oppressed.

2) Gizzor Del. Well, they were in a private chapel/workroom of the High Priest of Tiernon in a mid sized city. It wasn't much, but still better than most. Reread the description of Gizzor Del, it's pretty medieval and crappy. Think Thieves World.

3) A ship of a smuggler...actually a pretty successful smuggler, who the Oorstemothians really want to bring to justice.

4) Hoggensforth: One of the two largest port cities of the Council States. Not a lot of description, but a step up from Gizzor Del

5) Freehold: A city with thousands of wizards; the greatest known concentration of wizardry on the planet. Lots of really rich people, and the top 0.1% percent of the population live in the Council Palace.
5a) Damien is a Councilor, the Chief Inquisitor and is on really good terms with a very old, very savvy, very thievish Demon (a demon who is literally sleeping with The Queen of Darkness)
5b) Everyone else on the council is really old, really powerful and insanely rich.


So my point is, if this was a D&D universe or WoW or something like that, these are 50+ level characters we are seeing.

The "players" in this book are the ultra-rich, the ultra powerful, they are going to have the best of the best.

Now, as to the physics...this is a bit dicier but...

1) With the CoD? That's the narrator speaking somewhat facetiously. I don't really need to tell you who the narrator is, as he mentions it frequently on this forum. He also knows about nuclear power etc.
2) Lenamare is almost as good as he thinks he is, and he has a pretty good understanding of lower level Animanachanics (we might call it Quantum Field Theory) very few other people, wizards included know much about this. Which is why he's the only one with the spell.
2a) Given that he does sometimes post on this forum, I hate to admit this, but Lenamare is damn good. He's human, and is his own natural age, and he's been going toe to toe with a multimillenium old archdemon. Yes that demon is playing under constraints to hide the fact he's a demon, but still rather impressive.
2b) With the exception of Alexandros Mien, there probably aren't any other living wizards (non-demonic) that can rival Lenamare.

So, in short, my defense is you are only seeing some of the most powerful people on the planet.

In my mind, it stands to reason they are going to have "the good stuff."

But seriously, I do appreciate your feedback: you make me rethink stuff.

It's particularly helpful in remembering/dredging up, and being critical of stuff from the first book in writing the second. As I said most of the book was written a LONG time ago. So overtime, I forget some of the core logic. This thread helps me reestablish the world and people, which helps immensely with book 2 and trying to maintain consistency (or fix it)

Edited by user Thursday, July 31, 2014 1:59:15 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I would argue that it is a combination of things, including sloppy writing on my part that I should have ironed out better in later edits. Looking back on it.

There were, I think many thoughts in my head when that was written...some of the very oldest and not properly reworked stuff in the book.

Here was the thought process:

Lenamare is going to be overly cautious, with this big demon, but he's also incredibly egotistical. He's trying to impress not only Zilquar, but the demon itself. His ego made him sloppy; but with the trappings of overdoing it...

It's the same thing with the ring, L&J are overly confident in their own abilities and their ability to accomplish great things and have their way with lesser demons. This has made them sloppy and they shortcut stuff they shouldn't and because of a very real impending threat they are under pressure and not really thinking clearly; combine that with the pressure/surprise of summoning a type IV by mistake and living through it: it would provide a sort of giddy ego boost that would have odd affects on your thinking and you are basically setup to screw up.

So my intention was that they gave him what would appear to a novice to be very exacting instructions and a compulsion, but that still had loopholes that they missed.

The compulsion was added because Lenamare wasn't completely sure the orders would take, and he didn't want Tom running around, and he wanted him back before Exador could reasonably be expected to arrive. So he 'tacked' it on for good measure

So combine all of that and add in what I think, personally, was some of my most inelegant writing, that I should have reworked better. In hindsight, I think more exposition on L&J's emotions and thinking at that time to explain it, but at that point in the book I wanted them to appear more confident/bad ass and not quite so human. (Not that they really get much more human later in the book--only by comparison to Exador do they look good)

That is exactly the point.

You normally wouldn't use an added compulsion unless you were dealing with a very intransigent demon, and you needed to make something absolutely clear.

And I didn't make this clear, and I wasn't really clear in the discussion of what was a Compulsion spell and what was just the order/command and what Lenamare was actually doing.

And I think in later edits, I was reading the compulsion as being just part of the regular order, not a separate thing, which it basically was originally.

One big problem with taking a long time to write something and going back later to edit it, (and repeat many times) is that your own interpretation and memory of what you originally intended can change. You become convinced that something was one way, when it is written another, and you read it with the new interpretation and edit accordingly, and it ends up rather inconsistent.

And that's why questions like in this thread are good as they force me out of a complacent mindset and look at what was really written vs what I think I wrote...which may not be the same thing. Or might not make sense to anyone else.

This is also why I think a beta reader program is a good idea, to catch things like this before wide release.

Hi,

So I'd like to discuss all these points in more detail, but I'm short on time, so will have to come back to them in a later point.

I do think however, that you may be reading me, in these posts a little too literally on some occasions. By which i mean, I may use examples to make a point, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with the story (e.g. the Vatican and books and QFT)

So let me first of all address QFT. And this is way out there, and not apriori part of the story, just my thinking. What binds the multiverse together is QFT, different planes of existence have different laws of physics, but these are not so much different "laws" as different sets of quantum topologies. Meaning alternate realities may use alternate dimensions, I.e. Astlan may not use all the same topological dimensions as Earth and thus the laws of physics are/can be/may be different.

Now add on to the fact that quantum phenomena express themselves differently depending on how you look at them (wave, particle duality) and extrapolate from there and this is how you get different interpretations of "the same thing" or similar things. Things in Astlan don't necessarily translate to quarks and gluons in Astlan, even though when looking at them from an Earth perspective, that's what they see.

Now this is by no means a way of explaining the various laws of physics, it's just a viewpoint for looking at what we don't understand but trying to get at some underlying super-reality.

Yes, there are multiple groups in Astlan that are familiar with the atomic model of the universe, Lenamare is just one of the most advanced. That was a too literal case. I did not mean to imply he's the only one, but the people that do understand it aren't all that common, and may not be from Astlan. People do travel to other planes of existence to and from Astlan.

Glass though is easy. Sorcery, Thaumaturgy and Pyromancy...the transmutation of sand to a liquid state...all very well studied and understood. Once in a liquid state, a Sorcerer has no problem making flat glass. he/she can make it do whatever they want, then just let it cool (OK, maybe a bit more complicated...but it's a point)

Note (or do note in book 2) that mirrors are actually fairly common among the magic enabled...so lots of flat glass. In this case, don't think of medieval Europe thing of all things "Fantasy Middle Ages" and Magic Mirrors...mirror mirror on the wall...yes...in the real world mirrors were crappy and hard to come by, but not in many fantasy worlds (other than GoT, of course)

Actually, they don't so much have a problem with chemical potions blowing up, just alchemical ones. I haven't posted it on the site, but there both chemical reagents and potions and alchemical ones. The difference is that the alchemical ones use elementally affiliated components combined with mana to create "magic potions" vs "non-magic potions"

But, be clear, I'm not saying which are used in paper making, I don't really know, I'm sure there are a wide variety of different methods used by different vendors.

Jenn is middle class. Her parents are merchants who pay a tuition to Lenamare each year. It's not cheap, it's about like college or private school here.

However, Lenamare has access to lots of books, lots of blank books and in fact requires his students to use them, not so much for notes (that is scrolls or loose paper mostly) but they need to get used to writing books, it's a big part of academic life.

Typically, most books used have very simple leather bindings, possibly died, but most like not, just a soft "brownish leather" ignore the library in the picture, assume those are very valuable old/published/purchased books.

The reasons they look alike other than age is because they are both very simple bound leather books. The main differentiation between them is that one is nearly impossible to open.

Here is a modern example of what I am talking about.



Anyway, gotta run for the moment.

Heh heh!

Go Rosver! Go Rosver!

You're kicking That Author Guy's butt!!!!!!

I'm loving it. I told you all he was a shitty transcriber! I got sick and tired of defending his mistakes! You can see why it would be exhausting!

See all the errors he has introduced to my story....

And he still hasn't delivered the full quota of souls he owes me...the cheapskate!

Well, I was able to catch that little error the first time I read it. It might be because I have some knowledgable about books and bookmaking.

The amount of gold in Smaug's room was just ridiculous. It might have been more of an artistic licence (an extreme one) than reality. The movie makers might just want to impress the audience with computer generated glitters, even if it is extremely absurd.



But there are tales of these "golden fleece," "golden apples," "piles of gold" and what not is typical to fantasy fare.

Also even if gold isn't really that valuable as you say, it is still valuable. It is still isn't cheap.

Also my point is that Jenn uses an expensive decoration for something so wasteful even if gold is valuable but isn't that valuable. No one for example would... say... wear tuxedo when farming, or install bulletproof glass on the garden shed windows.

---

So the glass. As I just said, the problem is with mental concentration.

I made a comment to Tizzy about Astlan magic not really adapted to mass production. The reason is simple, Astlan magic requires a great deal of concentration. Even just using a wand, like when Jehanna paralyzes the horses, requires them to focus and concentrate.

I bring back your comment about using magic to essentiall photo copy/zerox the books pages. That isn't really true. The difference? Concentration. No one could actually concentrate for very long because concentrating isn't a very exhausting mental process. Sooner or later your mind would wander or get exhausted. That is my problem with these task as copying books, weaving, and making the large glass table. They just require immense and long periods of concentration if they are really done with magic.

Using a zerox machine to copy a 300 page book might just be boring, but concentrating on copying a 300 page book is damn mentally exhausting. It isn't really that much different kind of mental task as copying the book by hand. Weaving is the same thing. So essentially with these tasks, the drudgery still exist and doesn't actually change, which means, they aren't really much of an improvement as to make anything that cheap as suggested by the book.

The glass table is a bit different. It also requires you to essentially concentrate on two task at once. The first task is to keep the glass liquid (by using a magic furnace) and the other task is to mold the liquid glass flat. And you know about multitasking, people just can't do that. Maybe that can be resolved when there are actually two or more wizard who works on the glass. Do, there is also the problem of concentrating for the whole time the task is done.

Even with preconfigured spells and tools, the need for concentration is a great barrier for doing many task. At least with machines and automation, the mental drudgery is avoided, with magic it is required and actually multiplied in some task.

This is what I keep mentioning that you seem not to pay attention to. I repeat. The problem is with the mental concentration required for these magical tasks. Our mental concentration isn't really very reliable. Even just doing meditiation is difficult.

So you must realize the problem of the molten glass not going balistic by just concentrating on it? How long could you hold it?

Hmm. Is that so? Still, the book seems to say that magic requires the user to concentrate everytime they use magic and while they are using magic as said by many of the users, that includes Tom, Lenamare, Jehanna, etc. I actually thought that was the reason why Zargoffelstan escaped his warding. It was because Hortwell loss concentration.

We also seem to be comparing apples to oranges. Bookmaking, weaving and glass-making is very different from swords, shields, armor and gates. The first are crafts while the later are equipments. Unless you have the Disney type magic where a wave of the wand makes the scissors, needles, pins, etc. to come alive, fly around and start sewing a beautiful gown by themselves; then you are still be going to focus your mind through all the dreadful stuff of sewing the gown stitch by stitch.

So even if magic makes things easier for wizards than for ordinary people, it should not be to the point where books, paper and pens (and other items) are ‘nothing of real value’ to someone like Jenn.

As for the carpet, even if it just hovers in place you are still flying. You are just flying it in place. Also the car analogy is bad. For one thing, if the car isn’t moving, you cease to drive. A more appropriate analogy would be a helicopter. You can make the helicopter just hover in place, but, unlike the car, you are still driving it. It might not use as much mental energy to keep the helicopter hovering, but you won’t start playing candy crush.

Edited by user Thursday, August 7, 2014 2:43:17 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

@Rosver

Not sure the book is trying to make that point on concentration.

Spells require concentration to cast, yes, just like a priest doing a ritual. Once it's been cast, what happens depends on the spell and how it's designed.

Some spells go off, boom, like a fireball, once the wizard launches the fireball from his/her hands it's in flight and going and he/she can go onto the next thing as it arcs through the air towards its target.

Some like wards keep going until they run out of energy and they wizard can run around inside safe from outside interference.

Various wizard links and bindings are set, and pretty much stay in place drawing mana automatically from both ends to get what little power they need. Lenamare doesn't have to think about the link to Tom.

Magic items don't require "thinking" per se. Or at least not most of them. They do their thing. You do have to point them, and some like carpets need to be directed. But if you don't "direct" a carpet to go somewhere it will just sit there at the height to which you drove it. Unless a big wind comes up and flips you over. In which case you probably do want to be paying attention to keep it from flipping over. Think of a canoe and a wave.

Now, that being said...some magic items do require concentration. Things like a wizard's wand or staff. Now to be clear: There are magic wands and staffs that are "prestocked" with spells, and can be used by about anyone that knows the triggering mechanism (word, motion, thought, etc).

However what we call a "Wizard's Staff" or a "Wizard's Wand" is much more like Harry Potter in that it's a focusing device. The wizard can focus and channel mana and spells through it. This makes it easier/faster/maybe less mana than doing the spell the normal way.

I have a section on Magic Items and Wizard's Staves and wands. I need to clean it up and post it. I haven't seen it since 1995...but it's gotta be around somewhere.

Now some wizard spells do require much more interaction and concentration. Scrying spells in particular, some levitation and flying spells etc.
--
As to your "craft argument" the armor and sword are made by craftsmen as well, and to get good quality magic armor and weapons, you need to integrate the enchantment with the creation. I.e. you can't just magic up any old sword, at least no better than I can magic up a plain mirror.

yes, I can use a mirror as a focal point for a scrying spell, and it's better than say a bowl of water, etc....however: That's a case where I have to really concentrate to make the mirror see things. A premade magic mirror doesn't require much work.

Similar I can cast a "sharpness" spell on a normal sword and for the duration of the spell it will be extra sharp and deadly, but that's for the duration of the spell. When I "craft" a magic sword and weave the magic in it, I am making it permanently magical.

Now, as a part of making magical swords, yes--special smiths use special super heated magical furnaces that can melt metals beyond that of a normal furnace. So the magical smiths use "magic item" tools to create their devices the same way a magical jeweler/glass maker makes a magic mirror

Actually, I think it will help a lot if I can dust off that magic item creation treatise and post it in the Library.


--
As to Hortwell? No, he expected his wards to protect him indefinitely against Zargoffelstan, they always had in the past. He always uses the same wards to keep his demon in.

The thing is, some long time back, he'd gotten the wards he used for Z wrong, Zargoffelstan didn't escape, challenge or anything and so he just kept doing it wrong from that point on. Z could have escaped at any point on numerous previous occasions. He just didn't because he likes Hortwell, as he basically explains in the book.

The very explicit purpose of this is to get Hortwell to start rethinking his opinion on the nature of demons. We'll get back to this in Book 2.

In terms of "nothing of real value to Jenn" I think you are reading that overly literally. Jenn is not someone who is possession oriented, unlike many others in the book. To her, having "value" means true sentimental value. Not monetary value. Her attitude is that simple possessions, no matter the cost can be replaced. Keepsakes and things she holds dear, like her diary/gifts from friends and family, etc, and the people she cares about, that's what has value for her.

She is not literally saying the things are cheap/disposable, she is saying that they are replaceable. She can't replace her diary etc.

if she was possession oriented, she probably wouldn't be focusing on Thaumaturgy...it's can provide steady work, and a good living, but nothing like the flashier fields of study (Combat Magic e.g. Pyromancy etc, Sorcery/Scrying/Seeing tend to generate more money)


@Jonnyboi

Essentially. Wizardry is codified Animagic. They are studying ways to prepackage effects, channeling magic if you will and make it work more reliably and easier. Wizards can accomplish things far more complex than Animages. However it is structured, so within their limits and Animage is much more flexible and creative. Wizardry is more like engineering, Animagic is Art.

Q1



I'm actually talking about magic items produced by wizards as being the true machinery, with operators.

Spells are really recipes with ingredients that focus, channel and direct the magic. The material components use elemental affiliations to assist the spells, or provide power/attributes, look at how Jenn breaks the rock in order to strengthen the bonds of her spell. The gestures and words direct and "trigger" the magic.

The Laws of Symmetry, Contagion, Synchronicity, the 3 Fold Law etc all play a part in this, as per most standard magical thinking on Earth.

Q2
Yes.
As a rule, usually...that's the big point there are more wizards today then there ever were animages, the Laws of Wizardry and the accumulated knowledge and the academic system, the "standardization" all make it far more accessible.

I'm not sure I'd say sheer numbers, at least not alone. There were a lot of factors, not the least of which was internal fighting, discord, corruption, huge egos, and the rise of Wizardry allowing them to be outflanked. Wizards didn't have to be as powerful as an animage to go one on one, add in more and better magic items....

Q3

Actually, that's probably true. Although not super clear cut.

Wizardry is not as fast as animagic and if you aren't prepared for what gets thrown at you, you could get hurt. (so defensiveness is preparation)

This is why, in fact there is this thing I keep calling Combat Magic, and Combat Mages. It's not a separate discipline. It's a style of doing magic, optimized for combat situations. You study what works best in a hurry, the heat of battle You learn rules, very much like chess. If someone does this, you counter with that.

If someone throws something at you that you don't have a counter for, or that you have to revert to other, less combat optimized spells you can get your butt kicked.

Combat Magic is about knowing your opponent and being prepared for what they are likely to bring at you. It's all in the preparation, having the right tools, components, spells memorized (reading out of a spell book during battle is a problem)

{and when I say spells memorized: I do not mean like in D&D you don't forget spells after you cast them. The more you cast them, the better you remember them--I only mean you remember what components you need, what gestures to make and when and what order and what words--do you remember the recipe and have the ingredients?}

So it's all about who is fighting who.

There are a number of downsides to doing animagic. You really have to be creative on your feet, and you have to be powerful and have lots of mana because spells are optimized to use less mana and get energy from components. An animage is basically fueling things from their own reserves, or maybe what they can draw from others or from mana pools they have on them.

And then they have to know what to do/how to work the animus, mana and matter. So practice is key, experimentation is key, finding what works best for you. How to focus, what the best techniques are.

So long story short: it's situational.

Theoretically you are right, practically eh...not so clear cut when the battle is spontaneous.

However, if you are able to get defenses setup in advance (e.g. Lenamare's Pentacles? then you are pretty golden as a wizard) {of course those are patented by Lenamare--so if you haven't paid your licensing fees then you will have to do many more smaller defenses and hope you cover all the bases}

The clear example is Tom vs Fiernon and his superior on board the Oorstemothian ship. They had all the advantages of wizardry, Tom had lots of imagination, creativity, mana and anger...(strong emotions can be very effective with animagic--detrimental in wizardry)

FYI in case it wasn't clear, Fiernon, the first of the two super verbose Oorstemothian's was the junior wizard on the ship that Tom sunk. he was the glowing light that Tom saw underwater, below the sinking boat.

Wylan, who is on this forum, is a senior agent that was sent in after Fiernon's distress call/report.