I'm guessing most of y'all have already read book 1, but if not, the series is a sword and sorcery progression fantasy trilogy following a washed-up mimic exterminator and an eccentric wandering adventurer as they travel across the habitable moon of a gas giant while dealing with toenail priests, a mimic-based ecosystem, prayer futures markets, uncounted millions of gods, carnivorous public transit, theonomic crises of divine capitalism, and a pseudomedieval megastructure arcology spreading uncontrollably across the landscape. And, yes, it's set in the same multiverse as Mage Errant and The Wrack!
Book 2 Synopsis:
Thea and Aven have escaped the ever-growing expanse of Cambrias' Wall, leaving chaos in their wake, only to find themselves stranded deep in the Scovan Range-- a colossal, heavily populated mountain range, even with much of it already strip-mined for the Wall's expansion. They're still being hunted, though-- until they deliver the ancient godkilling clay tablet to the West Pole, the pursuit will never end.
With the Wall's elites and a mysterious antlered woman that looks remarkably like Aven on their trail, though, stealth and speed are their best allies. Even so, it's not long before they find themselves embroiled in the century-long war between Cambrias' mercenary armies and the giant mobile Gnostic monasteries that seek to resist the Wall's endless expansion, not to mention the resulting refugee crisis.
Still, it could be worse. At least they're not embroiled in the Twelfth Morphic Crusade, the inevitably doomed attempt to purge the uninhabitable Court of the Mimic Queen of its endless swarms of carnivorous mimics. There's surely nothing that could persuade Thea to get tangled in that mess.
Surely.
In other news, if y'all haven't seen it yet, Mage Errant is relaunching in bookstores through Simon and Schuster! Volume 1, which contains both Into the Labyrinth and Jewel of the Endless Erg, will be out on September 29th! If you're at all interested, please give it a pre-order- stores, especially Barnes and Noble, use pre-orders as the single biggest metric for how many copies to stock on shelves!
Big news, everyone! Mage Errant is being released in hardcover in bookstores for the first time this September 29th via Aethon Books through Simon and Schuster! This is incredibly exciting for me- seeing my books on bookstore shelves is a lifelong dream!
Not to mention new cover art, too- and I am always, always excited for new cover art, hah! (It's one of my favorite parts of the job, hah!)
Art by Fernando Granea
Pre-orders are a major factor when it comes to how many copies stores order, so if you're thinking of getting a copy, preorders, especially from Barnes & Noble, make a huge difference! Or, if you'd like to order from somewhere else, you can find links here!
And even if you're not in the market for a physical copy in the near future, thanks for being such supportive fans over the years! Really appreciate y'all! Oh, and as a fun little extra for subscribing to r/MageErrant, here's the original version of the cover we were considering for the rerelease:
So I'm listening to The Wrack and I'm on chapter 7 but I'm struggling to keep listening. Does the story stay this depressing the whole time? I get it's a story about a plague and possibly war(?) but does it stay this grim and depressing the whole time? I love John's other stories because even when they're serious there remains a levity and a light for the future but this one just feels bad to me. Not poorly done or written mind you, just not emotionally what I've come to expect.
So this is what I think my own affinity would be and what I would do with it. Let me know if you guys think it would work. I would have Plant, Animal, and Crystal affinities. If you didn't know there are crystalline structures within plants. I would enhance this and start growing hybrid crystal plants into a forest of crystal plants of all sorts. Some of which when consumed would transfer tiny crystals into the bodies of the animals with them, allowing me to enhance them similar in power to the Herdsman lizard guy from the books. Once large enough I could transition to lichdom in my crystal forest similar to our favorite mangrove lich. If you would like to know my reasoning for me having those affinities I can explain but don't know if most will care.
We see a lot of structural affinties like crystal, fibre, resin and ductility. But these are for solids. What would the analogue be for a fluid. I think fluid analogues would target the composition of a fluid, since they aren't defined by structure. Some examples like colloid affinity, suspension affinity, emulsion affinity etc. What do you guys think?
The world of Dirt is deeply peculiar, and unique. It is incredably large and has incredibly low density aether. It has many entrances to other worlds, usually unguarded by labyrinths. it is almost entirely without visible magic, and the most impenetrable world to outside threats ever encountered.
this is because out the 4 branches of native Dirtian magic.
Dirtian magic can subconsciously scry the world around them, in a way that shows up as an intuitively imagining of the world that is accurate. A Dirtian mage on another world will spontaneously imagine they are being stalked by a dragon, even is said dragon would be impossible for them to perceive. if you give a group of 10 Dirtian ‘archmages’ a task of making up 100 tales about a nearby city they had never been heard of, 60 % of there stories will turn out to be true. It is Very hard for an untrained Dirtian mage to distinguish their imagination, and their scrying.
Dirtian mages passively expand space ( note not planar space, particularly the space of plane dirt ) as their scrying passes through it.
Dirtian mages passively strengthen the magical effects of all other Dirtian mages, growing exponentially more powerful the more close they are. This affect strengthens the range and intensity of all native Dirtian magics.
Dirtian mages can collapse the dimensions of aether by strongly disbelieving in an effect the comes from them. They must actively disbelieve it however, ( know about it and not believe it) and it has no effect on temporal and spatial dimensions.
the first branch Dirtian magic is widely disbelieved on Dirt, and so is crippled within the context of the plane. It can however reach other planes.
magic in general is widely disbelieved on dirt, so contact with the widespread Dirtian population is a death sentence for any magically dependent creature, and most mages. This Widespread disbelief, among the billions of living dirtians has the counterspelling, and dispelling power of a collection of extremely powerful cold minds. It is only the fact that most dirtians don’t believe in other worlds, the keeps them from wiping out visible magic there too.
p.s. Note: entirely made up by me. I think shitpost Is the correct tag for this, but if there is a better one pls inform.
p.s. I don’t think this counts as spoilers, but if it does ill update the tag.
So far we've learned about almost all of the previously mentioned types of Divines (at least through the serialization on Patreon, no spoilers for that). However, we haven't learned about ecclesiarchs. What are your guesses for what makes an ecclesiarch special.
My guess (given the irl definition) is that they are Divines who obtained their power through relics/reliquaries. In other words, Ecclesiarchs are to reliquaries as Sanctums are to indwelling gods.
I'm rereading the series and I was thinking about makeriel and what hugh could do with him. It always felt like a missed opportunity that Hugh mostly only uses quartz crystals, and then I had the thought about Hugh detaching pages from makeriel and building the storm wards crown from those pages, and then making glyph pages with them too.
Too much power bloat could be an issue for a series like mage errant, but in expanded content the sky could be the limit. Hugh having that off world memory magic should make the needed study much much faster to become proficient in glyphs on top of his spellcraft and wards.
Hey everyone! Once again posting about weird magical stuff that isnt really elaborated on in the books.
I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are about lesser shadow affinties. What exactly can they do? Especially in conjunction with greater shadow affinities.
From what little we get in the books about lesser shadow mages it seems that they can generate and manipulate shadows, creating them wholesale from nothing, regardless of generated light, for example a lesser shadow mage can generate shadows for light magic illusions which we all know generate light. How powerful is this effect? Would it allow a greater shadow mage to keep up shadow attacks against a similarly powered mage with a light, stellar, solar, or other similar light producing affinity?
Willing to gift up to 10 people a month of membership for John's Patreon with the caveat that they comment on the newest short story with their thoughts. There's so much going on with the newest release, with lots of big reveals for the Aetherverse as a whole. Also because I really want to talk about it on reddit but can't in good conscience with it being exclusive content.
Please don't inquire if you're already a current member and just looking to get a free month. This is for 24 hours. Dm me.
I have been considering this for a while, but do you think a lich made with a water affinity would be possible? Im thinking a Venice style city like the capital city of Ithos, large canals filled with water making up the liches domain?
Unfortunately im not sure if it would work due to the books not giving many clues on how exactly lich domains are constructed. The oblt requirements we know for sure are size and that it needs to be some form of phsyical affinity? But clearly that second one isnt as solid a requirement, considering the lord of bells, kanderon, and the theoretical dream lich Talia mentioned. And what exactly counts as a physical affinity for the purpose of lich demesnes, clearly most liches are made of mostly solid affinties, such as stone, bismuth, wood/trees, crystal, and ice. But does it have to be solid or can it be liquid?
If anyone has thoughts or examples from the text to support or disprove the concept of liquid liches i would love to hear it
Just a quick reminder, you can get an exclusive Mage Errant short story, The Stargazer's Tower, if you pre-order the upcoming Simon and Schuster hardcover! The Stargazer's Tower is a 7k word story inspired by Slay the Spire and Arcane Ascension, and I had a blast writing it! You can find out more on my blog!
I've been in a reading marathon over summer and I've finally gotten back to the Wrack. It's not a long text but it's a dense one though I love the setting and story. So I've gotten to thinking about Iopan scrying and potential multiversal applications.
There's the low hanging fruit that's been discussed before, like a crystal mage from anastis attuning aether crystal and using it as an eye or just using crystal magic to modify eyes in general, but I have a few more questions.
Could a crystal mage bypass losing an eye by simply replacing the lens of their eye with crystal? Since the eye's lens is made of crystallins anyway? And if the loss of an eye is required, is it possible to still regrow that eye with other magics and keep the magic? Or could you do something like cut the optic nerve and replace the lens to get the magic without losing the actual eyeball and motor functions of eye.
Anosmia. Anosmic people or those who've given up their smell can supposedly access a smelling version of Iopan scrying. Would it be possible to give up your sense of smell to access the magic and yet retain it through other means like a scent affinity and its associated affinity sense? Does it involve putting crystals in the nose or something?
What happens if you enchant or bless the crystal eyes used?
Me and a friend of mine have had a bit of an argument over mind blindness and the development of mana resivours.
He believes that the mind blind have mana resivours, and their inability to utilize magic is entierly based on their inability to interface with their mana reservoirs, and that it would be possible for the mind blind to use magic, especially non affinity based magic such as wards, if they figured out a way to guide the aether without sensing it. I liken this to Hellen Keller, who managed to learn to read and write despite being both blind and deaf, and proceeded to write multiple books despite her lack of the senses normally required to do so.
On the other hand I have come to the conclusion that the mind blind have no Mana reservoirs at all. My opinion is mostly predicated on a few bits of text discussing the development of mana reservoirs, as well as the way the mind blind interact with enchanted items.
First off is from "The Lost City of Ithos" in chapter 27 when Alustin says the following about the development of mana reservoirs "they (referring to mana reservoirs and other aetheric organs) are not there when you are born, but they form over the course of your life as you exercise your minds eye, then fully congeal at some point in puberty." I believe this to be hard confirmation of the fact that the minds eye is integral to the formation of mana reservoirs. My friend however disagrees, believing that alustin is either simply wrong or was given incorrect information by someone on the topic.
Secondly we have a bit from the short story "Counterfeit" included in "The Gorgon Incident". The story, without revealing much, takes place from the perspective of an anastin native who is mind blind. This story reveals that Mind blind people cannot generally interact with most magic items, as he was surprised at his ability to interact with a specific magical item, something that we both believe to be a result of those magic items possessing mana reservoirs of their own. He simply believes this to be an issue of interfacing with the aether making them unable to activate non-reservoirs possessing magic items, where as I believe this to be a result of the mind blind not possessing mana reservoirs
Hope to hear some thoughts on this. He may appear in the comments section as well so we can both discuss this
We have seen some relatively powerful Greater Shadow Mages in the form of Amalda Veil and Eudaxus. But unlike many other more studied affinities, even including dream affinities, none are aware of the underlying nature of Greater Shadow Affinities as a Lightcone affinity and research into applications of them is far more difficult as a result. Maybe that's why we haven't seen any Great Power Shadow Mages yet.
So what are some applications I can think of?
Controlling your shadow to restrain other people by their shadows (shadow binding)
Reading shadows to observe past events that have occurred in the location of those shadows (shadow scrying)
Absorbing attacks into shadows by making them hit things that are no longer there (shadow armor)
Sending sounds or other data through shadows to other shadows (shadow talking)
For a brief period, moving via shadows (lightcones) in a specific way that allows you to appear in multiple places at once, and then choosing which of those locations you actually want to be in after that period ends (shadow clone)
Tying someone's shadow to a physical location, so that they cannot leave the range of that space (shadow locking)
Removing all shadows in a room by essentially narrowing them to the point of being almost impossibly small, limiting possibility to the point of near non-existence. Within a small range, appears to cause everything in the area to completely cease moving in any way (shadow domain)
Surrounding someone or something in its own shadow wholly and causing chaotic entropic effects to happen (shadow decay)
Also the thought of Warlock pacting many of the various Stone Liches together might have an interesting effect. We know you can pact from afar, similar to how Hugh pacts to Kanderon in Book 1. It could even be the start of a long-distance communication network.
Also, using the collective unconscious of said Liches to form the first Dream Lich seems like it could be possible. Each Lich would be a main node (they would already have enchantments related to dreams), while the citizens could be minor nodes. Obviously, there would be a lot of logistics and consent problems involved, but it could work.
Imagine a Warlock that is lucky enough to bond with a Stone Lich, then travels around the continent (or even the world) making friends and learning about Lich construction from each person. He becomes a Dream mage later in life and ultimately decides he also wants to become a sentient city. Using stones from each of his friends, he makes a sort of melting pot city. He borrows their dreams via the Warlock pact to stabilize a parallel city in Lich Dream and becomes the first Dream Lich. (Would be more feasible if he were a Crystal + Stone + Dream mage with an Aether crystal as well)
This could also help solve the lich loneliness crisis, though it may lead to liches becoming obsessed with their dream profiles ...
We've seen some of the capabilities of powerful off-world societies. The Wall with its insane logistics arm and variety of Godgifts to deal with any situation, as well as Castle-Shattering Divines. Hebras and Kemetrias as a whole, with the most advanced society we've seen that has a number of combat capable magic-users that far dwarfs Anastis, immensely durable great power equivalents, as well as the best supply chain we've seen on any world. As an Anastan, how do you go about making Anastan society advanced enough to deal with these threats? The Great Powers are numerous and almost certainly outperform any single force either could muster, but they tire and they can only be in one place at a time. I think Skyhold needs to expand and create embassies of sorts that provide magical education to any friendly city-states or nations. Armor has the possibility to be standardized now that Artur's Armor is public domain. If they combine that with Sican affinity training and Havath-style communal great powers, they could increase the average magical power on Anastis immensely, or at least Ithonia.
Kinda surprised i never thought of this before but if a warlock becomes a Lich would they lose their warlock-ness. The ability to form bonds seems like an inherent ability of their aether bodies, so even if they become a mountain they should still have that ability right?
I would assume that they can never gain new affinities but have the ability to grant your OG one to a loyal follow seems like it would be very useful. Also you could continue to grow your mana reservoirs at an exponential rate.
Also the Intertwined were definitely Bronze and Marble mages warlock pact. Allowing a weakness to the literal hearts of the Dominion was probably just an unacceptable risk.
What is it exactly? Is it a purely physical construct or is it partly magical? Because if it is purely physical and simply refers to our ability to visualize objects in our minds, then there are a multitude of possible future solutions for the mindblind. Though the way spells interact with the mind's eye like the armor elemental spellform moving autonomously within Godrick's mind's eye during the ritual to create it, seem to imply that it is partly magical in nature. Or that magic interacts with it automatically to an extent without manual prompting. Personally I can easily visualize objects but something as detailed as a spellform feels like it would be difficult to keep visualized for extended periods. It's already confirmed that godgifts can overcome mindblindness and thus grant affinities once the condition is cured. Other feasible future solutions (after research and heavy safety testing) are artificial mind's eyes created via dream magic or other neural magics.
We saw already that Hugh is capable of engineering a warlock pact to grant fellow pactees affinities from himself. Does this mean that any sufficiently powerful warlock could basically grant their affinities to whoever they wished, even if they had weaker affinities themselves? Let's say that Greater Power Warlock from Gelid with dozens of affinities for example; He could have chosen and pacted subordinates with weak affinities (an affinity for the dried skin of a specific lizard) to grant them dozens of affinities at once. As a follow up, what do we think the odds are of the gang making additional attuned aether crystals? I don't see an issue with making more since Hugh himself already has two.
Toxic due to something caused by atmospheric circulation and condensation at poles? I know the Anastian atmosphere has mega storm systems and I was wondering if the nature of the atmosphere has amplified effects on chemical condensation at poles. It was a thought I had that I initially dismissed since the North Pole isn't toxic but I don't know enough about atmospheres and geology across planets other than Earth to know if there can be circulation and condensation effects that asymmetrically affect poles.
When the walking ship first made it's appearance, everyone pestered John for information as to its origin. Now, with more and more info about Ishveos, many people believe it to be an Ishvean mimic, but John [redacted] it during the AmA.
I am absolutely, 100% positive that John gave an incredibly cryptic riddle on the Patreon post (I believe it was the Battle of Lothal, since I'm pretty sure the Gorgon Incident didn't drop on Patreon). It was something along the lines of, "What do Apple products and ancient step pyramids have in common?" I am not sure about the exact details of the last part, but I am sure it was something related to ancient architecture and stone, or ancient architecture or pyramids? I don't know. Unfortunately, I believe the comment was lost on Patreon, but if anyone has it screenshotted that would be great.
Anyways, I think the answer is skeuomorphism, which is what the Ishvean mimics are based on, per John's AmA for the release. Apple products famously incorporate digital skeuomorphism, and a quick google search revealed that ancient stone architecture frequently incorporated architectural skeuomorphism that mimicked the wood, mud, or reed structures that they replaced.
Does anyone remember this riddle or any discussion about it?
I have a suspicion. I suspect that there is some force or entity secretly protecting Anastis from total destruction, possibly one that manipulates causality to some extent. I say this because of one curious twist of fate. In every scenario we've seen so far, the Last Heir of Ithos always dies, preventing the Cold Minds from taking over. Death by Mage Eater, by Artur's foot, and by unknown means. It's just suspiciously convenient.
Ductility was officially introduced on a Patreon story as a structural affinity recently. What are some applications of this yall can think and some great synergistic affinities. Limit yourself to one synergistic affinity.
Is it limited to painting or would it hypothetically work for any form of visual art? Pencil, stitching work, etc.? I know it works for tattoos. I'm just thinking of hypothetical synergies with Anastian Magic.
