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Dec. 20th, 2005 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sythyryFar Too Many Spells [26 Oix 4261]
| The Spell | What It Does | The Official Reason | The Real Reason |
| Mansion of Unearthly Delights | Huge illusion spell | It's a very good showoff spell. | It's a very good showoff spell. |
| Ward that Evades | Teleport me out of danger, somewhat | I'm not very good with a sword. Like, I can't carry a sword. | I spend too much time near a Sleeth. |
| Invisible Icicles | Creates a wall of invisible icicles. | Cooling things down in hot Surprise | (1) If Rhedwy charges at me, I can put this between us and she will run into it. (2) Dewdrop has a very sweet smile. |
| Conjure the Fearsome Falcon | Creates a big falcon that more or less does what I ask it. | It will help me hunt pigeons, and, if necessary, it can harass a Sleeth or a Tavanth in much more legal ways than any Holocaust War weaponry which, in any case, I do not possess. | It can intimidate Pazi-Pazi. |
| Watch the Distant Friend | Lets me watch someone, remotely, if I have a suitable connection to them. | There is no legitimate reason for me to want this spell. Dewdrop didn't even try to suggest one, she just told me what the spell does. | I'm sure that ogling Ilottat while he sleeps isn't a violation of our agreement! |
| The Gift of Seven Years | Increase a mortal's lifespan by a few years. Unfortunately, casting it twice on the same mortal isn't much better than casting it once. | An excellent way to make a few hundred lozens' pocket money now and then. Most people who can afford this spell have it cast on them. | I want to keep my friends around longer. I can't make them immortal -- that's a hideously hard enchantment to do for someone else -- but a simple (well, complicated) spell isn't nearly so prohibitive. I figure it'll make a nice 54th birthday present for just about anyone. |
| Parlor of the Elegant Mage | Make a blank cloth look like a tapestry. | Quelldrie House sometimes needs redecorating | I want to be an elegant mage! |
| Shrink the Road | Make a road shorter (for the target of the spell) by half. | Dewdrop chattered cutely about it. | Impractical Uses of Destroc gave many impractical uses for it. |
| The Quick Escape | Teleports me a few hundred feet away. | In case I need to flee from a Sleeth or nendrai. | Good for getting out of the house in a hurry, even if there's nobody to open the window. Also, smile. |
| Tune the Magic Resistance | Make my magic resistance considerably stronger against one art -- Mutoc, to pick an example purely at random -- and somewhat weaker against spells not involving it. | Dewdrop said, "That's not a very good spell really. It leaves you vulnerable to most magic." | All Vae's spells use Mutoc. Not that this'll help a lot, not 'til I'm a lot better, but it's a start. |
| Eternal Flame | Makes a fire burn for hours, or, with Sustenoc, forever. |
Dewdrop:"I wasn't expecting to sell that one in Hot Surprise!" |
A comfortable bed without having to carry logs! |
| Extra Sleep in the Morning | Give people inside the circle six hours of time, for just four that pass outside of it. | Dewdrop said, "This spell..." | I said, "I've been coveting that spell for months! I think I can cast it, now, even!" |
| Change the Awful Sentence | Revise time slightly. I can take back the last sentence I said, and say something else in its place. It does leave some fragmentary memories of what happened first though. | Dewdrop thought it might be useful for ambassadorring at Vae. | Um ... anyone who's read my diary knows just how useful this spell would be to me. Unfortunately I can't cast it yet. |
| Speak To The Tree | Lets me talk to a tree. | Dewdrop said a whole lot and was very very cute. | I have no idea what, if anything, I could possibly use this spell for. |
Well, that's more than two weeks' work to graft them all, even if I didn't have classes. Though starting with Extra Sleep in the Morning would help a bit. I guess Mansion would come next.
It's also more than one month's spell budget, despite the 1/6 discount for buying so many big spells at once. ... but my mother was very generous with my spell budget, and the Bank of Teleporting Hexagons keeps records of how much I haven't spent and can, so I think they'll let me buy them all. If they don't, I'll return some of them.
For all monsters reading -- this is bewildersome. This is a huge pile of powerful and quite varied spells. I could probably buy Quelldrie House outright for about the same price ... not that my ~mother~ would let me buy a mansion, but zie did give me the large budget for spells. I see what zie wants me to learn. Unlike most people who are manipulating me, zie's very nice about it and paying me a great deal.
I could babble about this stuff for a long while. I won't. I'm going to go start grafting spells.
And of course I forgot to get a drying-spell, or a good spell to cart massive amounts of books around. Or even of boxed spells.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 05:33 am (UTC)As for Speak To The Tree . . . well, you never know when you'll need to ask which way your quarry ran and the only witness is the surrounding forest (of course, that presupposes that trees have eyes, or at least sensory organs).
Paying lots of money to give you powerful spells is only good sense, really. You're a big investment, it would be a shame to lose you because you didn't have the tools on hand (claw?) to save yourself.
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Date: 2005-12-21 08:11 pm (UTC)I am not the sort of adventurer who has a quarry!
um...
er...
I am the sort of adventurer who is the quarry, or that's how it feels.
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Date: 2005-12-23 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-23 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:47 am (UTC)Speaking to the Trees...
Date: 2005-12-21 01:37 pm (UTC)"Hoooommmm....why yes! Yes, I did. Just this morning. I thought the sunlight in their bark was quite lovely."
Yes, sunlight is very good. Can you tell me where they went?
"Ohhh, why they went to the pond over there. It has very tasty water you know..."
Oh? Well that's certainly good to know! Tasty water is always welcome.
"Indeeeed it is, youngling. You are much more polite than the orren you are looking for, and more polite than their companions! Haarruum!"
Oh? Why thank you, green one. I try to be nice. But, can you tell me more about the orren's companions? What they were doing, maybe?
"Harrumm! Barrrummm! Ohhh, I don't know if I could say? They were sooo hasty! So much writhing and twisting in the water...why at times, I could have mistaken them for a pair of intergrown vines!"
Oh really. Well, perrrrhaps I shall have to ask them about that when I find them. Thank you, oh green one! May you enjoy the sun and water as the world gives them to you!
"Humm-huumm-HOOM! And the same to you, noble youngling! Farewell!"
Re: Speaking to the Trees...
Date: 2005-12-21 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 04:27 pm (UTC)Is there a spell like "Smell Disaster in the Wind" for detecting hints of approaching doom? I.. er.. 'why', you ask? Uhm. No reason...
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Date: 2005-12-21 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 08:20 pm (UTC)Not of course, that I am saying that Illotat would do any such thing, but he seems to be awfully obsessed with this idea of you being with another Orren, and around here, psychologists (masters of Mentador without actually using magic) have observed a tendency known as 'projection'...
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Date: 2005-12-21 08:23 pm (UTC)Oh ... and ... any suggestion that I might scry on other Orren kissing is unworthy of entertaining.
[Bard rolls its eyes. -bb]
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Date: 2005-12-21 08:51 pm (UTC)In any case, 'projection', according to the psychologists, is a state in which one projects one's beliefs and motives onto others, in an effort to avoid recognizing them in oneself.
Here is a story of the wise Mullah Nasrudin that might help to illustrate this point:
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 11:05 pm (UTC)Why on wood would anyone want to do that? It doesn't make any sense at all!
[If Bard were a bit more clever, it would have Sythyry do it in the next paragraph.]
The story is quite amusing, but I don't see how it illustrates the point.
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Date: 2005-12-21 11:19 pm (UTC)As for the story: it undoubtedly helps if you're familiar with the stereotype of the philospher as a 'know-it-all', who can be arrogant in his knowledge and wisdom. Confident that he knows best and is ready to systematically beat down any objections that the Mullah Nasrudin might have, he storms over to his opponent's house... And is confronted by a simple, immovable object: his opponent isn't home to open the door for him.
At that moment, afraid of appearing to be a fool for standing in front of a door - why is the ever-so-wise philosopher standing in front of Nasrudin's door if Nasrudin is not at home? - he lashes out and labels Nasrudin as the fool instead.
Except of course, that he's made the tactical mistake of not being specific enough, and allows Nasrudin to greet him cheerily as having left his own name by way of calling upon him.
I shalln't belabor a point however, and merely advise caution in the use of a scrying spell - invasion of others' privacy can be a touchy subject!
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Date: 2005-12-22 02:49 am (UTC)[Bard hides. Just hides.]
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Date: 2005-12-21 10:31 pm (UTC)My understanding of the concept perhaps ends at the intuitive children's spells you described earlier.
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Date: 2005-12-21 11:10 pm (UTC)Child's magic is when you wave your attachments to the relevant gods and try to do something. It's not very good. Unless you're Vae, in which case it's insanely terrifyingly good.
Pattern magic takes the form of psychic limbs grafted onto your magerium, that is, the portion of your psyche which connects mind and spirit. The magerium has the form of a tree. The pattern spells are attached to the branches of this tree. Once they are there, they can be used directly, and they almost always do the right thing.
But in order to get a pattern spell, you take a boxed spell (which is, more accurately, a reverse impression of a spell -- a mold into which a pattern spell can be constructed) and spend the time and cley to fill it in, thereby making an actual pattern spell, which you then attach to your psyche. It's tedious work.
I hope that helps!
[More info in the World Tree sourcebook, and info aimed at non-World-Tree readers. -bb]
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Date: 2005-12-21 11:23 pm (UTC)We also have no equivalent for these 'gods' you speak of. I've encountered the term before, albeit in the singular, but I get the feeling I fail to fully grasp the concept. Therefore, if gods are not a factor, and one sets his mind to growing a magerium, might it be possible to fine-tune child's magic so it works effectively? Is this perhaps what Vae does?
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Date: 2005-12-22 02:19 am (UTC)Our gods are powerful, eccentric, and, occasionally, juvenile supernatural beings. They made our universe (and I think a few of them have made other universes -- for most of them it's their first, and it shows). They supply magical power. They manage various other bits of reality.
Vae is a creation of Gnarn, who is one of the nastiest of our gods; she's the one in charge of Mutoc, and the one who made the Sleeth. Actually Vae herself isn't, but her species is, and Gnarn keeps tinkering with them every generation or two. Vae can take no credit for her ridiculous powers; they're all due to the malice and wickedness of Gnarn.
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Date: 2005-12-22 12:04 pm (UTC)As my species lives by the motto "If they can do it, so can we," I'm sure somebody would be willing to try developing a magerium. Back when religion was popular, there were all manner of spiritualists running around making all sorts of claims. Maybe some are still left to volunteer.
The gods made your universe? Sounds like fun. I've never thought of a universe as something to be made before, but there's potential in that idea.
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Date: 2005-12-22 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 11:16 pm (UTC)The second to last comes naturally to the people that it comes naturally to, and while the rest of us might be *able* to make ourselves able to do it (the techniques are known), we're generally not willing.
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Date: 2005-12-27 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 11:18 pm (UTC)If you don't have a magic tree thingie, then you're out of luck.
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Date: 2005-12-22 12:15 am (UTC)By the way, do primes have the concept of "handedness," favoring one limb over another?
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Date: 2005-12-22 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 02:24 am (UTC)It's a pretty good bargain, yes, and it requires a pretty good mage to cast it. Still, it only requires a pretty good mage, not an amazing wizard or something. And it's not as if Corpador is a particularly rare art -- it's one of the three or four most useful ones around. Sustenoc is pretty useful too. So lots of people can cast Gift of Seven Years. And it costs one cley, just like any other spell.
So, in some terms, it's a very good deal. In some other terms, it's just a totally average deal.
We do have a concept of handedness. Some of us. I don't think Sleeth do; they don't have hands. I don't want to think of whether Khtsoyis do or not.
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Date: 2005-12-23 06:40 am (UTC)Let's hope they aren't.
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Date: 2005-12-22 03:13 pm (UTC)Swimming underwater for six hours: or six days, or six months, and then there was that religious sect that spent 20 or 30 years without ever ascending to the surface.
Anyone can smell the difference between twins.
The salad challenge is too narrow and was obviously intended to be so.
History is full of tales of people developing immunity to various poisons. It's somewhat of a tradition. It's passé now, though.
Casually killing your friends: Um. We're predators. If I wanted to, I could rip a person's chest cavity open with my bare hands. I choose not to, but violent killers do occasionally crop up. Especially in wartime.
Who is Ysgwyd?
The accomplishments we tend to be more proud of are as follows: jumping from alloy-age technology to space-age technology within 5 decades, being able to survive on the surface of planet 79/7, learning calculus and astrophysics with nothing but a few Griys documents to refer to, and the one I'm currently dealing with - negotiating an alliance with the wingworms, possibly the most incomprehensible species ever to attain sentience in my universe. They're worse than insectoids. Ah, that's another one! We have managed to invent a common language with a species that communicates only in chemical signals. I don't 'speak' it, but I have friends who do.
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Date: 2005-12-22 03:27 pm (UTC)[Bard translates for Sythyry.] You're on an insanely rich world where rocks grow on the ground and you're fussing with magic? You're fearsomely greedy!
Still, do your miners spend the time in temperatures above or below the boiling point of water, say, or the combustion point of paper?
Breathing air or water? Actually Orren (who I was taking that from) don't breathe water, they just don't breathe for a while.
I am pleased not to be anyone. Here, only Cani and Sleeth have such noses.
Unless my translator made a mistake again, the challenge was to have four hands. Four working hands. All your own. At the same time.
Hmm... As I understand, Rassimel heal themselves of any poison that doesn't kill them, in a matter of hours. [Bard and Sythyry confer a bit.] This would work as well for arsenic, say, or lead or mercury, or other cumulative poisons, for which immunity is not available.
The Sleeth "gift" is not about the physical ability to do it, but the personality to do it without great fuss. It's not a good feature.
My boyfriend's wife. She dates Khtsoyis. I couldn't think of any useful of Khtsoyis other than that. But for their ordinary traits: levitation, color changing, quick self-healing, being rude and stupid, using three maces at the same time, looking in five directions at the same time, and being able to eat the nastiest food imaginable quite happily.
[Bard tries to explain this to Sythyry. Sythyry doesn't understand most of it, and thus dismisses it out of hand.] Well, I suppose monsters might want to talk to other monsters. I should send you some nrex -- I should send you all the nrex -- for they communicate by illuminations of their glassy shells. I don't think anyone speaks their language.
[Bard despairs of Sythyry ever being suitably open-minded to people of other species or cultures.]
no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 03:41 pm (UTC)Miners use technology to protect themselves from high temperatures. Thus, technically they're sleeping in an atmosphere suited to their own natural comfort levels. Nevertheless, they do live, sleep, and work in the lava pits. They've invented a practical method to be able to do so.
Same goes for living underwater. My species cannot innately breathe underwater. However, we can compensate for this well enough to spend decades at a time there. Thus, we accomplish the ability to exist underwater.
Having four working hands is not a realistic or attractive goal. Accomplishing the same tasks as a four-handed being with only our two hands follows the motto better.
Remember, the motto is, "If they can do it, we can too." We assume that we'll continue to be ourselves in the process.
And, yes, we are a very rich culture. Why? Because we went out into the galaxy and worked hard to mine the natural resources no other species was interested in. We'd already learned how to make metals when space-travel technology was thrust upon us. What would we do, whine about how we're not physiologically designed to accomplish much? We can't breathe in outer space, either. But he who overcomes an obstacle gains the rights to whatever's on the other side. It has nothing to do with the nature of the person; just thea bility of that person to overcome his natural weaknesses and accomplish the task first.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-24 02:10 am (UTC)Hardly! You had bragged about being able to do anything
that we can, so I was picking some examples of things that,
here, some people can do easily and others cannot do at
all.
For learned skills: I, personally, can spend a week
persuading a small glass pitcher to be able to create
fourteen gallons of real water out of nothing each day. I
know that I can do this, for I did it last semester. My
non-girlfriend learned to persuade the winds to fly her
around this way and that (without use of equipment, nor
having any wings). My boyfriend ... um ... bought me an
expensive dinner. He's sweet, but not remarkable in ways
suitable to challenges.
My ambassadee, last month, teleported some ten thousand very
nice and quite overpriced breakfast boxes to ten thousand
unaware victims/customers, in the twinkling of an eye. Can
you do that?
Writing, as I am, sitting in a well-stoked bonfire, without
use of technology or magic to protect myself from it, I can
only say: I didn't know that rock could melt. Around
here it's too valuable to melt. Still, I don't think that
your miners are precisely in the fire; they're
simply near it.
Same thing. Actually Orren can't breathe underwater, but
they can hold their breaths for a very long time.
By which I understand that you concede this point!
A reasonable desire. However, it does give you a convenient
escape clause from the strict terms of the challenge you set
yourself.
Well, we've been creating metals since our second or
third decade of existence, and crossing over to other
world-branches just about as long. I'm not sure when the
first trip to another universe was, but surely the first
century or two. I suspect that I should make some arrogant
point here, but I'm not sure what counts as proper arrogance
in conversations like this. But I will note that the gods
have to keep creating nastier and nastier monsters to
torment us. Last century's models don't do the trick
anymore.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-24 12:48 pm (UTC)Verbal skittering; yes. Much of that sounded like the verbal equivalent of skittering. How strange. Is your goal to get me to admit I'm wrong? And if so, what is the purpose of such an endeavor?
On second thought, don't worry about it. This conversation has degenerated into nonsense. It deserves a swift and merciful death.
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Date: 2005-12-24 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-24 01:55 am (UTC)