Ask Luna #29

From: Tom

Hi Luna, two quick questions. Who do both you and Alex think are the most dangerous and the strongest mages? And also what do you think is the coolest/best mage discipline? Thanks for the help.

There are a lot. Pretty much anyone who’s at master level is someone you really don’t want to pick a fight with. Beyond a certain point it doesn’t really matter who the strongest is – they can all squish you, they just do it in different ways.

As for which magic type’s the coolest, sound and fire are both pretty fun.

From: Raef13

Dear Luna
Thanks for doing this for us. I have some questions if you can answer me?

Okay, this is ludicrously long. I’m answering this one line by line.

Do councils/Darks in other countries have issues with other mages popping into their countries, like when Alex went to Arizona, and mess with adepts. Is it like poaching?

Yes, and yes.

Can death or life magic effect corpses (ie zombies)?

No.

If a time mage was strong enough to shift someone or something out of a timeline what would that be like is it just destroyed or is it’s past destroyed too ( being forgotten by the universe)

Not a clue.

Can matter mages change what a thing is made of? (Are they where alchemists come from?)

Yes, with limits.

Do mages ever get involved in normal’s wars. Their wards may be strong but not even an envelopment focus based ward could stop demolition and I doubt they could hold up against a bomb. I would want either payback or to make them stop if someone blew up my house.

They’re not supposed to, but it still happens. It’s one of the things the Councils try to stop.

Can Alex do subconscious scanning when he’s asleep? Like those people who train themselves to wake up and reflexively do stuff when they aren’t even fully conscious yet?

You’ll have to ask him.

Are there any mages who do large scale things like controlling the weather in say a 5 square km area?

Yes.

Have you noticed that Dark ideals are very similar to the Sith from star wars? Do you think maybe George Lucas is an adept that’s just tired of the Dark’s and trying to get back at them in his own way?

I suppose that would explain Anakin in the prequels.

Do Elementalist/Living mages have a certain degree of immunity to their own element?

Usually, assuming they take the time to learn it.

Are independent mages very rare? How are they thought of by the two factions?

No, they’re actually more common than Dark and Light mages put together.

Is magesight a requirement for magehood? Are there any mage masters without it?

Yes.

Since you are a forced (cursed) adept and not a natural are you still a sensitive or are you just an insensitive with the ability to bend chance based off your emotions?

Mind your own business.

Can Alex make foci? What would their ability be?

Getting bored now.

Can a mage become a recognized as a master without going through the apprentice program or being a chosen? Is this what Alex did?
If you want to ward a place/object do you have to have different mages do the spells or can any mage craft the various wards?
Is the limit to the amount of magic a mage can do physical or mental?
Or is it based on something else all together? Or is there no limit?

. . . and I’ll skip the last few.

From: Josh

Hi Luna,
Two quick questions. First, has Alex ever fought another diviner, and how did it work? And what type of magic was the fateweaver using?
Thanks.

I think he went up against another diviner at least once, but it was a long time before he met me and I’ve never heard the full story. From what I can figure out, diviners try not to get into direct fights with each other in the first place. There aren’t many of them, so they have a kind of professional courtesy thing going on.

The fateweaver used fate/destiny magic. It’s kind of the mirror type to divination.

From: Josh

Sorry once again for not putting this in one message. What type of magic was Lee’s tracking ability?

We went over it afterwards, and our best guess was that it was life, a vaguer and very long-distance variant on Anne’s lifesight. She didn’t sense anything the times she was with him, but given that it’s a passive ability you wouldn’t really expect anything to show.  It could have been a few other types as well, but the fact that he seemed to need to get close to someone and get a good look before he could ‘lock on’ later seems to point to living magic of some kind.

From: Josh

Oh god, I’m really sorry, I just keep thinking of these after I post.
Do sound mages only control sound, or all vibrations in general.
Does Harvesting someone simply make you stronger, or does it give you use of their type of magic?
Are there some magic types that will never form hybrids? In the same vein, are there cross-family mages, like an air mage who can also use chance magic?

With sound mages, it blurs over. I think they tend to see sound and vibration as being different aspects of the same thing, though they usually specialise in the first.

It’s hard to get details about Harvesting, but I’ve heard stories of both. Alex thinks it’s usually the first – you get more raw power, but you don’t get access to a new type – but it’s not like he’s actually tried it. Although given what it does, you’d expect that it would change your magic type somehow.

And yes, you do get cross-family hybrids, but they’re much rarer. You tend to only get them between two types that have some sort of thematic link.