Ask Luna #45

From: drizztmajere

Hey luna,
How are you? 🙂 I saw you answer a question saying that mages today are stronger than they were in the past. How is that possible when you had mages that had the fate ability, created objects of power such as the fateweaver and darn near destroyed the world atleast 3 times over? Is it just an accumulation of XP gained through the teacher student system? Thank you

Yeah, that’s something a lot of students ask about. The answer our teachers give us is that a lot of Precursor stuff might look more impressive than modern stuff, but that doesn’t actually make it any more powerful or useful. The Pyramids might look fancy, but that doesn’t mean the ancient Egyptians were better at building stuff than we were.

Or that’s what we get told. I asked Arachne about it, and she said that while it’s true, it’s only half the story. Apparently a lot of the really impressive stuff made by mages in the past was done with outside help, ie nonhuman slave labour. Now that most of the magical creatures are dead, there isn’t so much low hanging fruit for mages to pick off, so they have to rely on their own strength and better training systems.

From: Nepene

Hiya Luna. Thanks for all your answers. I do enjoy learning more about the world of magic.

In honour of your name I wanted to ask a question- what’s the magical space industry like? Have there been any notable efforts to reach the moon or other planets with magic?

Also, in the same sort of line of questioning, are there any industrial mage companies that use mages to do business functions? I know secrecy is an issue, but still, magic is useful enough that I am curious if they got around that issue.

You’re welcome! Glad people like this stuff. I’ve been noticing I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately.

Yeah, you can go to the moon with magic, and other planets too. There was a project to do it some time back. Apparently they had to research some new spells (normal gate magic doesn’t do the job for whatever reason) but it worked. There are a couple of volunteer programs in America that do space exploration, and they’ve developed their own spell library and some special inventions.

And yeah, there are companies that use magic. Usually small ones rather than big ones. The usual pattern is that one mage will set up on their own, and hire a small staff, maybe a few sensitives or adepts. It’s actually really common among independent mages. Not all mages play the Light-Dark politics game, lots of them just spend their time making money and enjoying being rich.

From: Blake

Dear Luna along the line of my last question? the reason i was asking about how you felt during the fate weaver incident, is because that is the only time you able to influence your curse in such a way that changed the nature of your curse. I hold the understanding that your curse is a separate entity that is bound to you and your will,but what are the “odds” that you could manipulate a similarity in multiple locations. or influence your surroundings so that a gate could appear by chance?

second question is about Alex and Elsewhere. it’s my understanding that the link between Richard and Alex is how Richard found Alex in the shadow realm and was able to track him reliably. Is that also how Richard was able to gate in and out easily? and if so that would be handy for Alex to master Elsewhere to much better degree.

No, I’ve done it at other times too. Lots of times, actually. I can do blessings as well as curses now. The only problem is that I can’t make it work 100%. So most of the time if I try to do it then I can bring good luck . . . but every now and again it goes wrong and whatever I’m casting it on just gets a concentrated dose of my curse instead. And if they were in a situation that was bad enough that they needed good luck . . . see where that’s going? And that’s why you don’t see me try it on people. (As for making gates appear by chance – hasn’t happened yet.)

For the second question, I have no idea how Richard found Alex in Sagash’s place, or how he was able to get in and out. Pretty sure Alex doesn’t either. I guess the Elsewhere theory makes as much sense as any.

From: Jerry W.

Any idea when Alex Verus #6 will be out?

I don’t think you quite understand how this column works.

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