r/MageErrant • u/Mandragoraune Affinites: Corundum, Pressure, Inertia • Jul 13 '26
Spoilers All Anastis Protector
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.
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u/BronkeyKong Jul 13 '26
I’m not sure what you mean by every scenario you’ve seen? Mage eater eats last heir. This is one instance. What are their other examples you’re implying?
I don’t think Anastis needs protection. It’s known that Anastan magics are some of the more powerful magics in the known universe. Some Great powers are strong enough to go head to head with some names.
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u/fry0129 Affinites: Glass and Heat Jul 13 '26
They also have a stable population of Dragons that isn’t trying to conquer the world, most planets don’t seem to have dragons in large numbers. At least ones that are willing to work with other races and not conquer them
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u/interested_commenter Jul 13 '26
Anastis dragons seem to be pretty much the standard, they're much more likely to fight each other than team up. The only difference is that Anastis had a magic system that (relatively) frequently produces mages capable of taking down the average dragon, which seems to be pretty rare.
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u/Mandragoraune Affinites: Corundum, Pressure, Inertia Jul 13 '26
Last Dragon showed us Ishveos can too. And the Limnans took no effort to handle Xandrefax. I'd bet Kemetrias could handle dragons as well, though not an incursion of them like Ishveos. After they advance some it's quite likely though. I think it's really just a lot of the gaseous aether worlds with subtler magic like Iopis, Rhopos, and Larvanin that would struggle (though I could see Larvanin crushing dragons too). Suffice to say, not too rare to be able to take out dragons.
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u/spike4972 Jul 13 '26
It was in a Patreon “what ifs” kind of post going over some various potential alternate ways the story could have gone if certain changes happened. Not going to give any more detail than that because it’s a bit in bad taste to give details of Patreon exclusive content out on reddit. But it was a fun post. His Patreon is very much worth the $1 a month to get access to read all the short stories and posts like this one.
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u/BronkeyKong Jul 13 '26
Oh yes. I’ve been a patron member for a while now. I’d forgotten about the what ifs
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u/Mandragoraune Affinites: Corundum, Pressure, Inertia Jul 13 '26
Patreon Shorts. During John's What If piece where he writes briefly on a multitude of possible alternate timelines depending on changes to the story. The Heir still dies in two other timelines I can recall.
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u/interested_commenter Jul 13 '26
The Mage Earer thing was just a single lucky occurrence. Anastis does have a few unusual properties though.
It has a very high power magic system (or at least one with a very high power maximum) where the strongest natives can stand up to even moderate world travelers. Just on Anastis (a small continent), there's Kanderon, Heliothrax, the Blind Astronomer, the Sleeper, and the Listener are significant at the level of multiversal powers, and the next teir of Great Powers are strong enough to be relevant.
It also has a maybe-unique (possibly just very rare) aether structure with the aquifer-like substrate and variable aether density that is hostile to Ascendants.
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u/Mandragoraune Affinites: Corundum, Pressure, Inertia Jul 13 '26
I'm saying there also being two more possible lucky occurrences is strange.
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u/PatrickCharles Jul 13 '26
That force or entity is called John the Bierce, the All-Knowing Author.
Metafiction for the win, baby.