From: Dan
What’s a matter Mage? are they like earth Mages?
Sort of. They’re what you get if you take the earth and stone manipulation of an earth mage and strip out the shields and direct combat abilities – they’re great at manipulating solid inanimate objects but they can’t really do anything else. They’re pretty rare as far as I know – I haven’t met any my age. Supposed to be really good crafters.
From: Erin
So just between us girls (and possibly the rest of he internet) have you ever had a thing for Alex
Ah . . . Okay, answering that between us girls is one thing. Posting it up on this website where it can be read by anyone who knows how to work a browser . . . no thanks. (Not least because I’ve got a sneaking suspicion Alex reads this column to check up on me.) Send me a private message or something.
From: Orion
Dear Luna, its mentioned in the Earth Magic entry that earth magic is one of the primary types of magic specialising in engineering, what is the other kind of magic and what can it do?
It’s called matter magic, and see question 1.
From: Orion
Dear Luna, various characters have been shown to have glowing eyes when using magic, what causes this? and does it have anything to do with the amount of power that mage has?
It’s just a visual effect as far as I know. You sometimes get it when a mage overchannels, usually when their control’s off for some reason. If you see it it’s usually a smart move to get out of the way.
From: Orion
Again?
Dear Luna, maybe a strange question but can you get half-human hybrids from the more human like magical creature and humans?
You’ve been reading too many paranormal romance novels.
From: Orion
Seriously?
Dear Luna, what is the Gate Rune? and what determines how strong ones magic is? is a mages power static but they learn better control? or can they develop their strength further?
I don’t think those questions have anything to do with each other . . .
The Gate Rune was the doodad the factions were fighting over in the Gate Rune War. I think a group of Dark mages had it but couldn’t use it properly, so they had to attack the Council to get the bits they needed (or it might have been the other way around, can’t remember). Then there were different factions and it all overlapped with what was going on in World War II. It’s kind of confusing.
Magic strength is really complicated, so I’m not going to get into that here.
From: Orion
Okay, you’re starting to push your luck now.
Dear Luna, a persons magic is linked to their personality right? have you ever heard of someone’s magic changing? for example someone loses there memory from a head injury and wakes up with a different personality. or someone who was once overweight but loses it and changes their mentality in the process?
I . . . what? What does being overweight have to do with changing your mentality? And waking up with a different personality . . . why are you even asking this stuff?
Look, these questions of yours are just getting too weird.
From: Amba
Dear Luna
Do you think there will ever be a cross over story with both Alex and Harry Dresden? Ie a collaboration piece between the 2 authors? It would be fantastic to see how these characters interact. thank you!
I don’t actually know who this Harry Dresden guy is. People keep writing in about him assuming I do, though. (If anyone DOES know who he is and why everyone assumes I’d know him, feel free to write in and tell me.) So . . . maybe, I guess? I honestly have no clue about the answer to this one, sorry.
harry dresden is to a magus what an arab purebred is to horses, he is a serioud badass
Now that’s an interesting comment about the eye-colour thing… I had my own pet theory, which is that mages have three ways of seeing the world:
1. Normal human sight.
2. Magesight – the encyclopedia Arcana says that “The exact visual representation depends on the mage, but the most common is to perceive magical energy as translucent light, its colour matching to the magic’s visual display.” (Hence non-Life mages can still see Life magic as green, non-Earth mages see earth magic as dark brown, etc.)
3. Some form of very specialised magesight particular to their abilities. Alex has mentioned that fire mages can “see” heat, and he himself has particular ways of visualing the future, which even a magical non-diviner wouldn’t be able to use.
I sort of assumed that the eyes-change-colour thing is a sign that the mage is about to start using so much of their magic, they’ve gone to using their own particular view of the world as their primary way of seeing the world, and this is apparent to anyone nearby with magesight.
(It’s also, presumably, a useful warning to said bystander that fireballs or ice lances are about to get hurled around, and running away really fast would be a good idea.)