Ask Luna #156

From: Bryan

1. Was Fate magic naturally occurring in mages and for whatever reason people stopped being born with it or was it created into Fateweavers and other imbued items?

2. Do you think Fate magic is a hybrid of divination and chance magic? It seems like Alex is sensing/rising chance through the Fateweaver and better directing it with his divination if that makes sense, so do you this is a hybrid or is it just advanced chance magic and Alex’s divination just happens to have a similar power set?

3. Have you ever heard of humans using Wish magic by themselves or can they only do so with the Jinn? If it is the latter do you think Fate magic originated in another magical creature and mages created fateweavers to harness it?

4. Do you why some Chance mages would want to be on the Light Council when they are not wanted? Is it just for the same reasons most mages join the Light Council power and prestige or do you think it could be the Light Council wanting to keep a tabs on all magic types even the ones they mistrust and a few Chance Mages are willing to fulfill that role?

1. No clue, honestly.

2. No, I get the feeling it’s much closer to my own chance magic. The ‘sensing’ part is Alex’s divination, and that’s why he can use it a lot more effectively than other people could.

3. It’s jinn-only as far as I know.

4. Uh . . . as far as I know, they don’t. I’ve never heard of any chance mages campaigning for Council status. Universalist mages are pretty rare on the Council, I think.

From: Michael

So what are Alexe’s limitations on his power now? Isn’t he basically omniscient now?

In the confrontation with Sarque he made a zero chance event happen, basically only because it was physically possible.

What’s technically stopping him from taking a look at Levistus potential futures and pick one in which he has a stroke or heart attack?

A stroke is a pure chance event with no outside factors (there are contributing risk factors but they only heighten or lower probability), and we have seen him manipulate events that he himself isn’t involved at all.

There is a host of life-threatening happenstance that are more or less chance related that he can basically flip on his opponents at any time.

Stroke, cancer mutations, pulled muscles, burst veins, the beginnings of an aneurysm. At this point, any of his opponents are just a few minutes with the Fateweaver away from being on the course for terminal illness if not immediate death.

Have we met? Because there was this guy who came into the shop a while ago and kept talking for like an hour about using magic to cause strokes, and you sound a LOT like him.

Anyway, I don’t actually think it works that way, but I’m not enough of an expert on the nuts and bolts of how the fateweaver works. Just from my own magic, I kind of doubt that giving someone a stroke is that easy. If I curse someone, it usually acts through stuff in the environment.

Also, I tried hinting this at the time, but your fascination with giving people strokes and cancer and heart attacks is kind of creepy.

From: Jarik

Dear Luna, I don’t know how much you about Alex’ fateweaver (perhaps you can ask him), but I have two questions:
First, how could he disarm those bombs whenthe chance was intially 0%?
Second, why didn’t he give Richard a heart attack or an aneurysm the same way?

With kind regards and the best wishes for your future,
Jarik

Dude, SERIOUSLY. GO AWAY.

From: Liam

Why is it that mantis Golems have laser weapons but Council security forces don’t? It seems like it would be a serious advantage to have against hostile mages.
Have you ever heard of a force/space hybrid mage? If so, do you think that they could do that implosion attack that Vitus used in Fountain Reach?
How are mantis golems created?
I heard that one of the guardians of the Vault was a guardian Dracoform. Could you explain to me what that is?
Thank you very much for answering these questions.

Mantis golems are mindless slaves, Council security aren’t. Yes, if they could miniaturise those energy projectors and give them to Council security, it’d make them a lot more effective. But are you sure the Council WANTS their security guards to be really good at killing mages?

Never heard of a force/space hybrid, no. I think that particular spell was one he might have specially researched, because I’ve never seen anyone else use it. A lot of master mages have secret tricks like that.

Dracoforms are like lesser dragons. They look like true dragons, but they’ve got nothing else in common with them.

From: Lucas

Hey Luna just have a few questions. Do you know how British and French Mages get along? Do they have the same grudging respect/heartily disdain like the normal citizens do with each other?

On another note are mages from different countries like the United States or Germany different from the ones in Great Britain? Do they have different attitudes towards adepts, are Dark Mages less vicious or more so, are they more internationally focused etc….

British and French mages do seem to have trouble getting on. I can kind of see why – the time I’ve met French apprentices/journeymen, they’re harder to talk to. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them, the culture is just different – you’re expecting things they don’t do, they’re expecting things you don’t know they want.

And all the different countries have their own quirks, yeah. Like in Italy, novices seem to get treated much better, but getting journeyman rank is supposed to be a nightmare.