Ask Luna #13

From: sam

Can you give some information on magical creatures like where they come, and what world’s can they travel to.

Uh . . . I’m guessing you meant to ask where they come from? Some were created by mages, but most weren’t. I think the very old stories say they came from some other world, but I wasn’t really paying attention in that class.

As for what worlds they can travel to, anywhere a human can go, I think.

From: Dan

Hey I was just wondering about Mage types, and shouldn’t force and space Mages basically be able to do some of the same things like manipulate gravity/magnetism and also control light possibly to make someone blind or to make themselves invisible.

Force mages can’t do any of those things, unless you count telekinesis as manipulating gravity. Force magic doesn’t really do ‘subtle’ – it’s good at breaking stuff and throwing stuff around, not hiding or messing with people’s senses.

Space mages can’t manipulate gravity or magnetism as far as I know, though I suppose they might be doing it at some really fine level – it’s not like I’d be able to tell. They do have an invisibility trick they can pull which basically teleports light in a radius around their body so that it goes from one side of them to another without touching them. Makes them really hard to see, but since the light doesn’t reach their eyes it means THEY can’t see anything either.

From: Dan

There seems to be a type of Mage for everything that you can think of, everything from Space manipulation to Shapeshifting and from Magnetism to Chance. I was wondering if there was anything that CANT be manipulated by magic.

I think pretty much everything in the world falls under at least some type of magic. Inanimate objects can be affected by elementalists, living things come under the dominion of living family mages, and universalists cover the edge cases.

I mean, there are things that are specific enough that they don’t have a magic type devoted to them – I’ve never heard of a plastic mage, for instance – but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be manipulated (matter mages can handle plastic just fine, and fire mages can manipulate it too, if by ‘manipulate’ you mean ‘melt’).

From: C. Renkema

Is there any chance of an Alex Verus movie?

Why do people expect me to know this stuff?

From: Apollo

Hi Luna. These questions are going to be a little bit long-winded but I think overall worth it. Feel free to split them up.

Is there an opposite and middle for most Mage types? E.g light, darkness and perhaps a hybrid like shadow between the two?

Quite a few rare mages have been mentioned. Are they so uncommon because they are a perfect mix on the spectrum or because they simply don’t last long. Or both, like Shape shifters who are not only rare but lose their personalities while changing.

Can you create a Encyclopaedia entry for the really rare types? Magnetism and electricity would be interesting. Light and its facets seem popular too.

Last question. Is sound magic similar to the enchanting songs a siren sings or can it control vibrations and change matter states e.g. turning gasses into solids, subliming solids into gasses. Or is that “vibration”/ “state magic?

P.S. I lied about the last question. Can you use the examples used?

Okay, from the top:

1) No. There are some that are sort of opposites, like fire and ice, but there are plenty more like time, space, and mind magic that don’t really have any kind of counterpart. (I don’t really know what the opposite of time magic would be. Timeless magic? Not-in-time magic? Out-of-time magic?)

2) I think rare mages are mostly rare because there are fewer of them to begin with. There just aren’t as many shifter mages as there are fire mages. The attrition rate does have something to do with it, though – I’ve heard those same stories of shapeshifters losing their minds in another form, so it’s probably a mixture of both.

3) For all the rare types? You have any idea how many types of magic there are? Shapeshifting, magnetism, electricity, light, illusion, gravity, metal, wood . . . Fine, fine, I’ll see what I can dig up. No promises though.

4) I only understood about half that paragraph. Sound magic just creates sounds, as far as I know – loud sounds, quiet sounds, sonic attacks, that kind of thing. Siren songs are almost definitely enchantment. I don’t know what subliming is.

5) Look, I’m a chance adept, not a mind-reader. I have no idea what “use the examples used” is supposed to mean. If you guys want me to answer this stuff you have to make it clear enough that I actually understand what you’re talking about.