From: Andrew
Hi Luna,
1. We’ve seen mages who have had the goal of turning non-mages into mages via transferring power from magical creatures. Your curse seems to have successfully turned you into a mage. Has there been much interest from the magical community toward studying your curse with a
view of being able to expand the mage population by doing something similar?
2. Do you think the new Councillor Alex Verus will be able to be much of a voice for the rights of apprentices and adepts and magical creatures?
3. There seems to be no female representation on the council. Is there no female mage group that women can join to network together and push for representation?
1. Not really. I get the feeling that they think I’m a ‘second-best’ sort of mage and they want the real thing, though no-one comes out and says it. Personally, I think they like the idea of expanding the mage population a lot more than the reality.
2. He’s trying. Some people listen, but I don’t know how much impression he makes. I know he finds it pretty exhausting – he says it feels like trying to push over a house.
3. There are a few women on the Council (it’s either one Senior and one Junior or one Senior and two Junior – can’t remember which) but not that many. There are a couple of clubs for female Light mages which claim to be pretty much what you describe, but the times I went to check them out I wasn’t impressed.
From: Yasain
Greetings,
I was wondering about mage Traditions, Alex and Talisid briefly discusses a Tradition that existed during the Byzantine era. I was wondering, what are traditions? Do members of a given tradition gain any new kind of magical power or is it simply a social club with similar interests?
A second question, during Bound Archon(presumably Richard) displays some kind of black magic effects. Alex says it doesn’t look like any Darkness or Radiation magic he knows, do you know anything of those kinds of magic? What do they do, which family do they belong to?
I’m sorry if these questions have been asked before, thanks a lot for the taking the time!
-Yasain
I think both of those questions are new ones, actually.
Traditions are sort of a cross between schools and politicial parties – so they’re more like social clubs, but they’ll also tend to have a bunch of research and resources that they’ll keep secret from anyone not in the inner circle. It’s kind of like a label that mage historians stick on after the event.
Darkness, light, and radiation are closely related magic types – the way I was taught it was that they’re all sub-types of radiation magic and darkness and light are more like specialities. They’re classed as universal but they’ve got a bunch of traits that puts them closer to elemental. It’s pretty much light control, so brightening things, darkening things, visual effects, and so on. The more subtle ones go in for invisibility tricks, the more aggressive ones prefer laser beams.
From: Kurt Von Bosse
To Mage Vesta,
I have two questions for you today:
First, we know that Alex was worried that informing the Light Council of Morden’s impending attack against the War Room was exactly what Morden and Richard wanted him to do, but he felt it was the still the best option to take. Now Alex’s fears appears to have been correct, even though Morden and Richard also used well timed rumors and probably set up the adept protest to further mislead the Council as to their true intentions. Does Alex feel that he was used or is he worried that his actions were easily predicted by Morden and Richard? Or, perhaps Alex feels he made the best out of a bad situation by getting the Council to remove the death sentence that sat over his and Anne’s head and has moved on to dealing more pressing issues. I’d like your insight into the matter.
Second, you have a unique perspective of having learned directly from Alex what happened in the Light’s Council’s vault. You also know what the Council allowed to become public knowledge (to the magical community) of that night and you have probably heard from Talisid as well.
I imagine having an entire Crusader strike team wiped-out with no apparent losses to the dark mages who attacked and looted the vault must have created shock waves of fear, recriminations and paranoia within the hierarchy of the British Light Council, but I’m wondering what Council allowed to become public knowledge of that night. Did the Council try to hide their losses in secrets and personnel? I also wonder if this is something that really can be kept secret or if it became an open secret? Perhaps everyone including independent mages and possibly adepts have heard the Light Council took a beating that night even if they don’t know the specifics. What was the Light Council’s public reaction?
The first question . . . well, it wasn’t just Alex’s decision, we all had a say. As far as the Council goes, I think things went about as well as could be expected. I mean, it was a crappy situation, and we came out of it with everyone alive and with the death mark lifted. The thing with Richard and Anne worries me a lot more.
The Council’s official reaction was to claim that Richard had launched a sneak attack and was driven off. Nothing about the casualties, nothing about anything being stolen. The cover-up didn’t work very well – it’s hard to keep something that big under wraps and we’re pretty sure Richard’s agents were spreading word as well, so between one thing and another it didn’t take long before people had a pretty good idea that the Council had come out worse. Eventually the Council put out a more informative statement (still with all the important stuff censored out) but by then it didn’t do much except confirm what people knew anyway.
From: Ryan
Mage Vesta,
Not sure if you have addressed this before, but do you know how the human looking constructs are made? Are the bodies made from scratch, or do they use a human body to start? I’ve always been curious about it, as any mage seems to be able to do it. Thank you for your time. I’ve long been a big fan
They make them from scratch. Dead human bodies aren’t actually very good focuses for the kinds of spells that constructs use, so it’s a lot easier for mages to custom-build them to purpose. If they’re not very good at the hands-on side of the process, they might get another mage to supply the body for them.