Ask Luna #33

From: Tom

Can life magic cure diseases and illnesses?

Yup. Not all, but a lot. From what Anne tells me, it depends a lot on how built-in the problem is. Newly developed diseases are pretty easy to cure, and so are ones that basically boil down to “this part of the body needs repair” or “this bit of your biochemistry needs adjusting”. The ones she has trouble with are cases where the body’s actually growing or developing in the wrong way – most life magic healing works by taking the “blueprint” that your body’s trying to use and giving it a boost. If the body’s working to a bad blueprint, then basic healing actually makes it worse.

From: John D.

Hey Luna, back again!

What’s the age range on a mage (or adept, for that matter) discovering his or her power? Does it happen really you, or is it one of those things that happens at adulthood? And is it possible for a type of magic to be so subtle/subconscious that a mage/adept with it doesn’t realize that he/she has magical powers beyond the usual age of discovery?

Also, how much do mages rely upon gestures and other such trappings? Obviously focus items can help a mage/adept channel their power better/more efficiently, and some mages (like Alex) don’t seem to need more than thought to use their powers (which are mostly internalized), but assuming that they didn’t have a focus, would someone such as, say, Cinder have to use gestures to control his fire, or is it something that depends on the person’s belief system (i.e. Cinder doesn’t physically need to use gestures to control fire, but because he was taught to, he believes he has to)?

Thank you again!

Age range on mage/adept awakenings is one of those things that Light mages like to argue about. It’s been studied a lot, so they’ve got plenty data to argue over. General agreement is that it usually happens between 13 and 17, but you get outliers that start using their magic a good few years earlier or younger. (Apparently it’s actually later now than it used to be – we had one teacher telling us that back in the old days it was more like 10-15. Don’t know why that changed.)

You also get isolated cases where a kid uses magic a handful of times when they’re really young, even though they can’t use magic regularly yet. It’s one of the ways that mages track down potential apprentices early.

Subtle magic where you don’t even know that you’ve got it . . . yeah, it’s really common, actually, though as far as I know you only get it with adepts. We got told once that the Light mages think that the majority of universal and adepts are like that. They just think they’re ‘lucky’ or something like that.

Gestures and sometimes words are really common for spells, but as far as I know you don’t actually HAVE to use them. I asked Alex, and he said that most mages find it easier that way – you tie the spell to the muscle memory. Some mages learn to do it either way, but sometimes they get so dependent on doing it with the gestures that they literally can’t do it otherwise. It’s a mental block thing.

From: Jad Hoven

I read a webcomic called Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire. It features a diviner and a character named Luna. I was curious if you or Alex had ever read it, or met the author, or had any familiarity with it.

Never met the author, but someone told me about it a while ago, and I went and looked it up out of curiosity. It was okay, I guess. Not sure I liked the comic’s Luna all that much.

From: Steve

So when will Alex & Anne realize they’re falling in live?

If they didn’t both know that they were living, I’d be a bit worried.