From: Andy deal
Thanks as always for answering questions about Mage society– and here are mine: 1) Alex has powerful allies– why don’t they go on the offensive and try to pick some enemies off, 2) any thoughts on what avenue Alex is pursuing to ratchet up his personal power , and 3) the most powerful mages seem to have powers beyond their specialties, could you elaborate on how they gain them.
In reverse order:
3) If it were common knowledge how you could get those kinds of powers, everyone would have them. Personal research, deals with magical creatures, and unusual magic types are the usual guesses, but the kinds of mages who get those abilities tend to be very interested in not spreading around the details.
2) He had a conversation with Arachne. Amongst other things, he’s said something about some new kind of item, but it’s not one I know about.
1) That is a really, really stupid idea. Literally the only reason we’re still alive is that our enemies have more things to deal with than just us, and you think it’s a good idea to try and start fights with all of them at once?
From: Kurt Von Bosse
Hi Luna, I want to thank you for taking the time to answer my previous questions. I have some new questions for you today.
These first questions might be more appropriate for Sonder, but I’m guessing that your training as an apprentice must have included some basic history of the Light Council.
So, how old is it? Does its founding date back to Roman Britain? Perhaps the specifics have been lost to time, but were there earlier Light Councils in Ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt or Mesopotamia?
My other question is how Mages in the Light Council view ordinary politics. Now I know that Morden’s ascension to Council leadership and Richard Drahk’s reemergence have the Council spooked, but I wonder if under ordinary circumstances most Mages in the Council would even care that there is a new resident at 10 Downing Street? I know there is a faction on the Council that probably does care; the Directors, but I wonder how much influence they actually have or how deep their activities run. Are they secretive about their goals and activities or do they boast of them?
It’s pretty old, and yeah, I think Roman Britain is one of the starting dates given for the British Council. There were some people saying that the real date should be later, because something something continuity, but to be honest I wasn’t really paying attention. The Light Council as a whole is way older, but that gets back into the original mages and the Dark Wars and Alata and stuff like that.
In theory Light mage dealings with British politics are supposed to be secret, but people talk. General impression I get is that they have a lot of influence, but they don’t like to use it unless it relates to mage business, which it usually doesn’t. I don’t think they’d care about a change in the PM, though – I think they mostly get stuff done through the Civil Service, not the parties.
From: Faragorn
You mention in the encyclopaedia that fire mages tend to have weak defenses, particularly against kinetic attacks like bullets. However, Alex muses while under attack that all battle mages anticipate bullets and have a defense against them. How is it they do that? Special purpose items like focuses? Some other method purchased or prepared ahead of time? Vari also mentions that Landis has an oustanding defense, does that include kinetic attacks or just against magic?
There are standard-issue focuses that project a disc-shaped or hemisphere-shaped kinetic shield – the Keepers can requisition them, or you can get one from a crafter. They’re kind of limiting, since it’s hard to do anything else while you’re keeping the shield up, but they beat getting shot. Or you can just wear body armour, though most mages seem to think that’s for plebs.
Landis is a different story. His magic’s powerful enough that he can flat-out vapourise projectiles as they come in. You’d think that would be dump enough heat to set everything around him on fire, but it doesn’t. Variam says that he has his shield modified into some sort of field that pulses in response to an attack, but I don’t know the details. I’m pretty sure most fire mages don’t have that kind of skill, though.
From: Nick stephenson
Is there a way to take away someone’s magic. Not harvest it but to destroy it, like if u want to remove a phycopaths magic
Well, your magic’s a part of who you are, so to take away someone’s magic you have to change that. Which, if you’re doing it against their will, is generally going to have serious enough consequences that there’s not much difference between that and killing them.