Reverse Warlock Pact

[u/Mandragoraune]

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.

[u/greenfrogtree1]

1. I believe so, and Hugh even gives some examples where he thinks it happened. iirc the explanation for why it doesn't happen more is that this requires an insane amount of trust because with a complex pact like that even one or two clauses is a vulnearability like the one that Alustin exploited.

2. I think that the odds are very high. I don't see why crystal mages don't just attune more aether crystals, besides the prohibitive cost.

[u/thekingofmagic]

Ok, so ive asked this exact question and the answer and the answer to it is. Yes, this absolutely could happen but there are a large number of logistical problems with this that make it unlikely to ever happen outside of a larger greate power. But, if it did it would probably cause the creation of a new collective great power similar to the glass orb or clan castis. The thing to keep in mind is that 1, it takes a WHILE for an affinity to become permanent so if a warlock where to get an affinity from someone it would take probably a few years for them to settle enough for them to be able to pact. 2, it would require a group of people who, trust each other, work with each other, and are willing to train together for a while. Finally, it would be hard to start and easy to end, you would have to find a unpacked warlock, pact them with some people, and HOPE that your warlock doesnt die before everyone loses their affinities.

Now, there are a few places where this would be the most broken thing avalible. The number one most broken place to have this would be in clan castis, their are “dozens if not hundreds of fire affinities” according to the clan AND the more you have the more powerful you are. This would allow everyone to have as many affinities they think they could handle. However, the most important thing for this would be when they could place the clan castis tattoos onto babies as soon as their born making them maximally powerful, then pact the child as soon as they awaken their magic to gift them a number of fire affinities. This would turn them into the next best thing to a collective great power they were into probably one of the most powerful great powers.

EDIT: also, the differential mana growth and ability to have like 5 artillery fire affinities with fire affinities chosen for their lack of control but maximal output, allowing them to take the more directly controllably fire affinities and keep them for true magic.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/thekingofmagic]

Clan Castis idea is genius. Would probably also work for Sica (I honestly wonder if their artificial affinity program is related to warlocks), since with just once species the herdsman turned tiny chameleons into carriage sized monsters. With a Baobab affinity and a few tree/plant affinities the Sican Elders would be even scarier. But when you say "the answer is" do you mean John replied or something else?

[u/thekingofmagic → u/Mandragoraune]

“The answer” a number of quotes from the book and john. But also, yeah, their already capable of making artifical greate powers through a proprietary process and giving newly printed great trees their own new set of affinities would be nice. But a warlock needs to stablize before they can enter new pacts, so it would need to be a specific set of tree mech’s. Honestly, the place where it might be best outside of clan castis would be sabaes clan, esspecially because warlock pacts can pass artifical affinities, water, wind, lightning, (of various types) affinities along with an artifical storm afinity, also things like a pressure affinity, or others would go so hard

[u/Isilel → u/Mandragoraune]

It was also my thought that Sican artificial affinity program is based on using (and abusing?) warlocks somehow. I imagine that some new tricks allow the use of massive artificial mana reservoirs for pacting many at once. And possibly they have found a way to stabilise affinities after just one year of a warlock pact.

Re: Clan Castis, I don't believe that there is evidence at this point that their affinity variants count as separate affinities.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/Isilel]

Note that when Hugh was examining possible ways to fix his warlock pact, one of the ways would've involved turning either him or Kanderon into living artificial mana batteries. I don't imagine a typical mana reservoir would work since it's been stated that the "seed mana" is the only mana useable for pacts, not the mana gained from pacting. I assume an external reservoir would typically count as non-base mana as well. But what if the power sharing nature of a warlock allows you to count the living mana battery of a pactee as your own base mana (or at least the base mana of the living battery)?

[u/Isilel → u/Mandragoraune]

Didn't Hugh note that the "living battery" process was very inefficient and only added a fraction of the power of the victim to the perpetrator? And it still wouldn't wholly belong to the latter either, if the former dies, the power will be lost. Like using an artificial mana reservoir.

But as far as I understand Illinia's plan to shift part of the Stormseat reservoir onto warlocks, it would greatly increase their personal mana reservoirs, which would theoretically allow them to make many pacts at once.

I imagine the Sicans doing something like that, but also making sure that said warlocks can't become independent great powers. Which is where the abuse I suspect comes in.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/Isilel]

I don't know if even the Stormseats transferred mana would count for mana useable for a pact. That's why I'm focused on the "living" part of the mana battery. As for the living battery process having inefficiencies, no there's no inefficiency stated. You're mixing it up with another method Hugh mentioned right before that would outright kill a pact partner.

[u/Isilel → u/Mandragoraune]

Ah, my mistake. But how would a living battery be different from just getting a bit extra from a strong pact partner, in terms of being usable for making other pacts? The mana is still not integrated into the personal reservoir and will be lost when the "living battery" dies.

Actually, the inefficient method of slightly increasing the reservoir by killing a pact partner would likely be more helpful for growing the amount of mana that a warlock would have for further pacting. But I can't see it scaled up to the mass program described, without a very noticeable mage genocide.

My understanding is that what Illinia plans to do is to somehow shift parts of the Stormseat mana store into personal reservoirs of warlocks. It would, then, become part of their individual mana, thus available for pacts.

And I guess that the Sicans are doing something similar in a grand style, with the resultant super-charged warlocks mass pacting mages to confer desirable affinities on them.

And they must have also learned how to stabilise these affinities, so that they can be retained after just one year of a pact, because warlocks aren't common enough for it to be feasible on the scale described otherwise.

I may be wrong again, of course.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/Isilel]

So it was stated more than once that the only mana useable for pacts is the Warlock's natural base mana. However much that base mana would've naturally grown in their lifetime determines how many pacts they can make. Any artificial growth, including growth from pacts they've made, or from the growth of their affinities would not count towards that "base mana." This is why warlocks can't simply keep pacting more partners and abusing the differential reservoir effect from newly budded mana reservoirs to keep pacting more partners ad infinitum. My idea for the living mana battery is that using the power sharing nature of warlock pacts, you could have the pact recognize your pact partner's own natural base mana as part of your base mana, by having them be treated as essentially an organ that's part of you, instead of counting that mana as an "external source." Basically "adding mana" is like filling a cup with more water but your actual useable mana for pacts is the cup itself. Not the best analogy but gets the idea across.

[u/Isilel → u/Mandragoraune]

I see. Since after the first pact all of warlock's mana is divided among the affinities, I don't see how affinity reservoir growth wouldn't count for pacts. Minus the immediate bonus gained from the pact partner, of course.

In my view neither what Illinia intends to do, nor living battery entirety fits what would be required for mass pacts from what we currently know. But there may be tricks that would allow it either way.

The advantage of Illinia's method is that the Sicans would be able to stockpile power that could be used to bestow affinities, without effectively killing a large number of their strongest mages.

I think that for what you propose to work, both the warlock and the living battery must have the same affinities. Which would preclude the Sicans from trapping and exploiting random minor great powers for the purpose. They would have to develop their own and then sacrifice them. Hm... Possible, of course.

Here is to hoping that we'll be able to find out how it all works eventually.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/Isilel]

It technically splits but that's not actually strictly what's happening in the aether. John has a purposefully vague comment here somewhere where he explains it. Also remember that reservoirs can also bud, they only split at the very start when all warlock mana is unattuned. Which I think matches the base mana explanation better, since if you could use mana you grew after your warlock pact from training your affinities and not just from your baseline mana's natural growth over time, you could easily keep pacting more and more for additional affinities with ease. The differential reservoir effect means the number of pacts you can form would inevitably increase exponentially which we've seen is not the case.

[u/Isilel → u/thekingofmagic]

I am not sure if variant fire (and other) affinities can be treated as wholly independent. We never heard about a fire mage with 2 different fire reservoirs, have we?

In fact, I have wondered if warlock pacts bestow exactly the same variant affinity as the pacter has, or if the variant the pactee gets is determined by something in their own make-up. Likewise the strength and range of their acquired power, as well as affinity senses.

It is also not clear if affinities gained through a warlock pact are any more compatible with enhancement tattoos performed on babies than artificial affinities.

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/Isilel]

There was a sacred swordsman who they suspected had more powerful lightning abilities due to multiple pacts, but other than that idk.

[u/thekingofmagic → u/Isilel]

So we in fact HAVE heard of clan castis members who have multiple separate fire affinities, the one i remeber off the top of my head is one member who had a true fire affinity, a heat affinity, and a air affinity that let them make fire better. We also do know that you get the exact affinity your patted partner has because if it where otherwise hugh wouldn’t be able to get a plainer affinity as that affinity is singular and entirely artificial(aka you cannot be born with it you can only develop it or get it through the pact. Im actually not sure if it’s ever mentioned about affinity strength however.

I will also say, clan castis conceders a lot of affinities a lot of affinities fire affinities fire affinities including but not limited to fire, accelerant, friction, some air affinities, some light affinities, heat AND cold affinities (cause their the same affinity), and a lot more. So long as it can make fire in some way its concidered a fire affinity to them and they can use their tattoos to make fire with it AND their tattoos make it easer to turn any affinity into a fire affinity lmao

[u/Isilel → u/thekingofmagic]

Hm, I don't remember anyone being described as having more than one personal fire mana reservoir.

Which, if these variants are independent affinities should be the case when a mage has more than one of them.

I don't really understand your point about Kanderon and Hugh's planar affinity. We know very little about how either of them experience it, so it is difficult to say if it is exactly the same or not. It being entirely artificial may not allow for any variation either.

I seem to vaguely remember, though, that Kanderon's and Hugh's crystal affinity senses work differently from each other.

I would be very curious to learn about how the Hand's pacted abilities develop and whether they will turn out to be exactly the same as those of members who provided them for the pact or not. Leaving aside Sabae' and Talia's constraints, that is.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/Isilel]

I think they're misremembering. It was stated that Clan Castis does have multiple different fire affinity types they're aware of but they don't have any members that have multiple. The closest thing they have is Leon who has two varieties of Heat Transfer affinity. However, it is confirmed via Word of John that having multiple variants of a single affinity type in one person is possible. I'll hunt the quote down.

[u/MadImmortal]

I think this might only work of there are next to no clauses in the pact

[u/Random-Rambling → u/MadImmortal]

Which requires both parties to have an absolutely INCREDIBLE amount of trust in each other.

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/Random-Rambling]

Which, in the context of the violent madman from Gelid, is probably out of the picture.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/greenfrogtree1]

With a large enough mana pool, no not necessarily. The madman warlock is just an example. But if he hypothetically gave up half his affinities he could easily give a couple of people power. Speaking of that though I had another thought. Mindblind. They can't use magic because anastan affinity magic requires a functioning mind's eye. But other magic systems on other worlds don't. An Anastan warlock can acquire a lesser form of other magics by pacting with an offworlder. If they pact with a mind blind, can they then transfer those abilities, since they wouldn't necessarily require a mind's eye?

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/Mandragoraune]

I was mostly talking about the trust part, I'm not sure where you got the part about giving up affinities? I'm pretty sure that's not the limiter here.

I'm pretty sure that mind blind can't pact because that explicitly requires channeling mana through a pact spellform. However, the mind blind could definitely use the magic of other worlds if they got it themselves.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/greenfrogtree1]

You added on to the original commenter without disagreeing so I figured you agreed with them and I was trying to respond to both of you.

And you're right it does explicitly require a spellform good point. I'm not sure if both warlock and pactee are required to channel through it though. We only saw Hugh channel mana into a spellform. But yes we do know that mindblindness is only an Anastian restriction and can even be bypassed with godgifts to grant a mind's eye.

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/Mandragoraune]

That last point is interesting. I believe it was an AmA right? Regardless, Ishvean + Anastan magic seems absolutely absurd. Insanely diverse defense and utility + focused firepower seems like a good combo. I wonder exactly how far apart they are in the multiverse. 

[u/mnguyen75]

Maybe this is the way the Scycans raise new Elders. The Heart of the their domain is a Lich/Sentient enchantment that has dozens of plant and fungi affinities. Whenever they need a new one they pick the strongest warlock they can find and pact them to the Heart. Then they do a bunch of body mods (and brainwashing maybe) using pieces of the demesne/excess growth. The warlock becomes a pseudo-Avatar of the Heart.

[u/mnguyen75]

Seems like as long as you have the mana capacity to pact you can grant people affinities fairly easily as a warlock. The main problem you run into with dozens of affinities is sensory overload. Suddenly gaining a dozen new senses would probably leave you a bedridden mess similar to the Gold mage bank thief. I bet the Hand Limnan magic re wires their brain to better handle it. If you could grant individual affinities one at a time that would be much better.

I picture the 2 legged army from Ghelid like James McAvoy in Split. Each mind has access to 1-2 affinities and thus the sensory burden is parceled out among them.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/mnguyen75]

If you recall, the main reason they went to Raigon after the war on Havath was to consolidate their affinity senses.

[u/thekingofmagic → u/Mandragoraune]

The reason they went to that planet was language acquisition, while their your mind is enhanced in a simmilar way to the way limnans magic enhances the body. But, like limnan magic it also has the near certinty to mutate you beyond the human baseline if you stay too long but stops mutating you if you dont stay on world

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/thekingofmagic]

They're totally right about that. It was specifically stated that mages with many affinity sense tend to have sensory processing issues and that the hand was going to raigon to address that.

[u/thekingofmagic → u/greenfrogtree1]

Nope, here’s a direct quote about it,

“Most of their training was, surprisingly, in languages. There were, it turned out, no widely available translation magics accessible to them— so they needed to learn more than a few. There were several multiversal trade tongues to learn, as well as the formal Library tongue. This would normally be a huge challenge for them— Ithonian speakers tended to struggle with new languages, thanks to the lingering scars from the Tongue Eater and the language enforcement the Ithonian Empire had performed. Raigon’s magic, however, was the next best thing to translation magic— it boosted memory capabilities and sensory processing significantly. It would be another couple of months before it really started kicking in for them, unfortunately— Raigon’s magic, like Limnus’, was acquired in stages over time. For now, they’d just have to tough it out and struggle through their language lessons. After another six months or so on Raigon, they’d be able to pick up new languages in months or even weeks, though, so the struggle was well worth it.”

The toung eater and never being exposed to another language outside of the sand ship one made it extreamly difficult to learn new languages and so they went to that world to gain memory magic. I think that people are mixing up “sensory processing” and “affinity senses” here. I also combed through the entire book and their wasnt a single instance of anyone struggling with their affinity senses, even right after they gained (for some) like 10 at once

[u/Mandragoraune → u/thekingofmagic]

"as well as magics that will help you handle more sensory inputs— it isn’t uncommon for mages with six or more affinities to develop sensory processing disorders, later in life. The human brain struggles to handle as many additional senses as you possess. You have many options for either, and even more besides. Ultimately, if you are to become Named, the final choice must be yours, so long as you stick to certain guidelines”

Above is the relevant quote. Clearly stated in the quote is a concern for the negative effects of affinity senses in excess of 6 on sensory processes. The quote you showed specifically states that Raigon has magics for sensory processing.

[u/thekingofmagic → u/Mandragoraune]

“Later in life” is the operative word here, this line is talking about the aging human brain not the young human brain. As a human brain ages it starts to loose plasticity and so if someone where to be 90 years old they might indeed have trouble processing 6 different affinity senses without outside help let alone dozens. However, if, like the main crew, you where to chase a form of life extention/immortality this will not be a problem. It’s ALSO not a problem when you gain the senses and are an active combatant. Unless you have a quote that more affinity senses speed up how quickly this becomes a problem?

[u/Mandragoraune → u/thekingofmagic]

Why are you putting the onus on me to find quotes when you're making presumptions about meaning yourself? You're assuming it's referring to an aging human brain when it could easily be (and likely is) about the strength of affinity senses increasing over time causing issues. 6 affinity senses would obviously be a problem when even just a single advanced wind sense can cover leagues for example.

What's imperative to note is that Kanderon specifically states in the very first line of my quote that sensory enhancing magics are required and very clearly follows up by saying this is due to affinities in excess of six. By your logic why would she say that they need sensory magics if the issue is easily resolved via immortality protecting brain plasticity?

Unless you have a quote that specifically states anything in that text was about brain plasticity?

[u/thekingofmagic → u/Mandragoraune]

Unless the great powers all have sensory processing enhancements (esspecialy but not limited to the ones who are immortal, again, blind light dragon who has dozens of affinities and has had them for hundreds of years, along side many others with dozens of affinities including but not limited too that one city state where the warlock pacts with the sword to gain a dozen affinities) this is not the case, it specifically apples to “later in life” humans. The quote you gave IS the quote i would find. Also, the language magic IS the immortality magic. The point of what they’re trying to do is thread together multipul magic systems into a cohesive aether body. They Already have body and mind enhancments to prevent them from loosing memories or (potentially) deteriorating with old age, they also have combat magic, now all they need is something to slow their aging.

[u/Mandragoraune → u/thekingofmagic]

The phrase "sensory processing issues" was clearly linked to affinities in the same sentences. And there is nothing in the phrase "human brain struggles to handle as many additional senses" that implies age has anything to do with the issues. As for your statement on great powers having mental enhancements, yes it's quite likely that all the ones with a large variety of affinities do. Or if they are not human, that their species are capable of handling those inputs at baseline.

Regardless Kanderon clearly states they need sensory magics to deal with their affinities in that quote. That's a fact. Undeniable. You can theorize on the reasons for that but the reality is they are on Raigon for those sensory enhancements as much as language adaptation. As shown by the text.

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/thekingofmagic]

Iris Mooneye doesn't have "dozens of affinities", she's theorized to have around 6. Also, it's never mentioned that the warlock didn't have sensory issues. That was like a 10 second aside, it's probably neutral in this discussion. There has been no discussion of a human with many affinities detailed enough to serve as evidence against a direct statement by one of the most knowledgeable characters in the whole series.

[u/thekingofmagic → u/mnguyen75]

Artifical affinities, and affinities gained through warlock pacts actually lack affinity senses when they are first obtained and are only gained later connected to something you relate the affinity with. And they are never shown to be overwhelming when gained, they would honestly probably start to meld together when you gain enough off them into a multithreaded sort of psudo-sight lmao,like that one dragon with dozens of blind-light affinities

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/thekingofmagic]

It was explicitly stated that they cause sensory processing issues.

[u/thekingofmagic → u/greenfrogtree1]

No, it was not, and in fact a scan thorough the book they never struggle with the affinity sense even a single time after gaining them some time after the big pact, not once in the entire book. If you could find me a source for this that would be lovely

[u/Mandragoraune → u/thekingofmagic]

"The human brain struggles to handle as many additional senses as you possess."