#combat magic

[the-kingshound]

Kal, is it for sure that magic users always lose their shit? Or just a possibility?

It is a certainty when (if, but they eventually all do) they end up overusing magic for too long. It doesn't happened to younger mages, but once you hit a certain age and you have used combat mage over your limits more than a handful of times, it is inevitable to develop both chronic joint pain and, if there is a strong enough trigger, to get lost in madness.

The madness is not permanent, though you would really need to be close to the mage to help them, but it tends to reoccur at times with varying degrees of danger.

[litrpgburrito]

A Quick Dive into the He Who Fights with Monsters Character, Clive, and his Spellcasting Abilities

Let’s delve into the spellcasting abilities of Clive from “He Who Fights with Monsters.” Clive is a brilliant essence user and renowned member of the magic society. His ability to deconstruct complex magical concepts and understand them in all their intricacies is truly astounding. Here we will take a short look at Clive's abilities as a spellcaster.

Essences and Abilities:

Clive gains magical abilities through essences. When he uses an essence and performs the appropriate ritual, it becomes part of him, granting access to its powers. These abilities appear somewhat random but can be influenced by Awakening Stones.

Essence combinations allow Clive to enhance his magic. Some notable combinations include:

Empower (Recovery): Manipulating mana to boost physical attributes.

Overcharge: Increasing mana cost for significantly amplified spell effects.

Haste: Temporarily buffing speed.

Evasion (Matrix-style): Slowing time to evade attacks.

Obfuscation: Enhancing stealth and later achieving invisibility.

On the Battlefield:

Clive’s combat magic is versatile. He can cast offensive spells, create barriers, and manipulate energy.

His signature move involves combining essences for devastating effects. For instance, he might Overcharge a fireball spell with Empower, resulting in a massive explosion.

Clive adapts his magic to different foes, using precision or brute force as needed.

Off the Battlefield:

Clive’s magic extends beyond combat. He uses it for utility, healing, and exploration.

Healing spells with Empower help him recover from injuries.

Clive’s magical senses allow him to detect hidden threats or secrets.

He experiments with essences, discovering new abilities and applications.

Complex Abilities:

Clive’s most intricate abilities involve combining multiple essences. For example:

Temporal Shift: By Overcharging Haste and Evasion simultaneously, Clive can briefly manipulate time, dodging attacks with incredible precision.

Inferno Blade: Empowered fire magic infused with Overcharged speed, creating a blazing sword.

Shadowmeld: Obfuscation combined with Empower grants Clive near-invisibility.

In summary, Clive’s spellcasting abilities are a blend of creativity, adaptability, and raw power. Whether on the battlefield or exploring magical mysteries, he continues to surprise and evolve.

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[mareastrorum]

That last episode really wasn’t as interesting as the discourse suggests, and that’s pretty much the problem:

First, Ludinus’s fight was not of the caliber expected for a final boss fight, which (in combination with his staff) suggests that it won’t be the last time we’ll see him. The issue is that the audience is generally quite tired of Ludinus because (1) he has made far too many appearances for a villain with a single-minded goal, (2) his interactions with the PCs are uninteresting because his motivations don't resonate with them in agreement or opposition, and (3) Delilah did the whole “Cerberus Assembly wizard who refuses to stay dead” thing in this very campaign (plus it was far more thematically appropriate for a necromancer) and that takes the dramatic tension out of the possibility. No one cast member bears the blame for those 3 issues; Matt probably should have pivoted to give Ludinus additional motivations when the Hells had so consistently demonstrated an inability to commit to the gods question, and the players should have done something to build a sense of purpose in their group (which would be their reason to oppose the villain). Instead we're left with "this guy has rancid vibes, kill him and do what he wanted us to anyway."

Second, the PCs’ decisions leading up to this point have annihilated any semblance of tragedy in the narrative. This isn’t a tragedy because that genre rests on eliciting a feeling that the characters deserved better, but the audience nevertheless understands why it turned out this way. That can arise from paying attention to institutional injustices, the allure of cycles of violence, or the development of tragic flaws (strengths causing a downfall). That isn't C3; this is a bunch of trite flaws (selfishness, short-sightedness, pettiness, favoritism, etc.) turning out to be flaws. It would have been amazing if this had been an example of hubris like we saw in EXU Calamity, but each of those main characters were bursting with pride in themselves, their city, and mortality, and while that hubris brought the Lord of the Hells back, they managed to prevent the worst case scenario using the exact same skills and resources. None of that is present here. Bell’s Hells are constantly trying to shift the captain’s hat to someone else, and their ship has been heading straight for rocks for the past 60 episodes. There was no intention to sail into the rocks. It wasn’t their strengths that led to Imogen accepting Predathos; it was the same indecisiveness that has plagued them the entire campaign. They had 118 episodes to build a proper tragedy, and instead we have a story that took hundreds of hours to say that unreliable people shouldn’t be relied upon. The result has been numerous posts hoping for the Hells to suffer all sorts of consequences (TPK, specific player deaths, refusal of aid from the gods) for failing to commit to a course of action. Why? Because then at least there would be some type of cathartic satisfaction that Fucking Around means they’re going to Find Out. It has nothing to do with imaginary people deserving a better ending and everything to do with feeling like this ending would have been more satisfying around episode 50.

These criticisms are not about facets within the story; it's not about whether X character was correct, whether Y fucked up, whether Z plan was the better choice. It's that sometimes people don't land their bit for improv shows, and that is disappointing after seeing skilled storytellers do so well with prior campaigns.

[ghostlyeris]

k literally never change

[lotus-pear]

rewatched madoka magica again today bc i fucking hate myself and to absolutely no one’s surprise i went through all five stages of grief in a single evening

[thealexanderfiles]

[lastoneout]

"[New Farming Sim] is copying Stardew Valley!!" Harvest Moon came out for the Nintendo 64 in 1999

Edit: My apologies, Harvest Moon came out for the SNES in 1996

[lucksea]

havent decided how i want the introduction to go yet but i imagine it would roughly be one of these two

[beautifulterriblequeen]

A

In E2, True Heart, Callum has to choose between Ezran and Rayla (ft. Runaan, who killed Harrow), and he chooses Rayla. Literally shields her and Runaan from Aanya's deadly arrows after she grazes Runaan despite Rayla's attempts to stop her.

After he chooses to physically endanger himself for Rayla's sake (and by extension, Runaan's), Runaan seems to shift immediately from politely ignoring Callum's presence to active concern for him, with a palpable aura of "why did you risk yourself for me, after what I did to your family?"

He reaches out to catch and steady Callum, and despite the human guards chasing them all, he can't take his eyes off this bafflingly kind and brave human.

You can almost see the gears turning. It's adorable and a little heartbreaking.

By the first scene in E4, it seems clear that Runaan has accepted Callum as an equal member of their group.

[allthecastlesonclouds]

hi something something bad kids all magic users now something something everyone learning how to save each other something something they've all got friendship bracelets and they're gonna make it through this year if it KILLS them

[mishihao]

Madness is Magic

[cripplecharacters]

Sorry if this has already been asked before but as a general statement do you feel like the trope of having mobility aids doubling up as weapons in a fantasy story is ok? I’m disabled myself so I have a lot of disabled characters in my story so there’s a wide variety of mobility aids. Since a lot of characters fight in the story because of the genre I was thinking of making mobility aids weapons (cane as a magic staff or like prosthetics with built in powers etc) but I’m not sure if it falls into the category of ‘character is disabled but it’s actually their superpower!!!’ because I want to avoid that trope at all costs. Hope this makes sense to you since communication isn’t a strong point of mine. Love your blog btw:)

Hello! I'm glad you enjoy the blog.

I really feel like it depends. It can be done well and respectfully, but in my experience it usually isn't.

If you're a mobility aid user writing about the aids that you're using, you can do whatever you want. For my deeper thoughts that are too long:

The main issue that I have with the "magic aids as weapons" is that often it feels like the author doesn't actually like the aid because it's "too boring" and thus wants to "improve" it by making a cane into a wizard staff that shoots fireballs or whatever. But I don't feel like that's a good way to go about it at all. Mobility aids are cool in itself. They allow use to be more mobile. Why do they need to be made into something else?

The something else part is also what bothers me a lot around magic aids, aids as weapons, all that. Like the old "replacing a wheelchair with an animal" thing. Why not have a wheelchair? Why not a walking cane instead of a staff? It sometimes feels like the author tries to distance whatever they're writing about from disabled people and our actual experiences because they're "too boring to fit their fantasy story". It could be done effectively, but it usually really isn't.

To finally get to the combat part of the question, it again depends (...sorry). If the character with a cane has to fight using it, then I do find it weird, I guess. "Doing cool explosive stuff" shouldn't be a requirement for a disabled character to be included, especially because a lot of disabled people can't do the things that writers want them to do. Sometimes we are weak and unsteady and fragile. Fighting isn't for everyone, and I feel like that's where some of the annoying fantasy tropes appear.

"Hm, my blind character can't fight because they're blind.. oh they have a superpower that lets them 'see'! solved!"

"Hmm, I don't know how to include a wheelchair user… I'll give them a Magic Mecha Exoskeleton that lets them 'walk'! solved!"

"Hm, real life prosthetics seem inconvenient. I'll just make them Magical so they're just like meat limbs but with a gun! solved!"

...and all these kinds of "solutions" that make one wonder if the author even wants to have a disabled character. It's not even that the disability is a superpower, it's more that it's non-existent. Sometimes the better solution is to have us in other roles and not make us do things that our disabilities prevent us from doing, which fighting can fall under.

If the above isn't what's going on, then I think it comes down to how the whole thing is even supposed to work. Are the in-universe rules for magic centered around the idea that the Body makes magic? In this case, it could be interesting to have a character who uses a mobility aid and considers it a part of their body to be able to use it in a magical way. Because a lot of people do consider their cane or wheelchair an extension of them, so it could be actually interesting to see it validated by the magic system. But if it's like, "anything could be used" and then every character with a mobility aid ends up using their aid for that, that's... somewhat weird. It does feel like reducing the character to their disability if abled character 1 has a spell book, abled character 2 has a magic necklace, but the disabled character has their disability aid as their magic weapon. To use the example that you did, if the character's prosthetic is the only way they can use magic, I do think that's weird, because well. Why… it's both reductive and "disability as a superpower". But if they can use magic through, let's say, both of their legs, and one of them happens to be a prosthetic, then I think that's cool.

I also believe that it depends on what kind of weapon you are talking about at the end of the day - in real life, mobility aids are already treated as potential weapons. I'm under the impression that no one would assume that a walking cane could cast a spell, but people do very much think of a cane as a potential tool to fight with, of a prosthetic as a potential bomb, of a wheelchair as a potential way to smuggle something illegal. I have very much seen and heard of situations where a disabled person wasn't allowed to enter somewhere because their aid was seen as a threat - you don't want to make more people think that this is a reasonable conclusion to come to. If you want to go for it without doing any kind of retrospect on that, I would keep it as a fantasy thing.

I hope this helps. Apologies for the answer length.

mod Sasza

[possamble]

Do you have any headcanons or thoughts about Falin having a crush on Marcille pre-canon? Especially during her later years at the school/the years she was with Laios.

Just full on "awkward and slightly gnc teenage lesbian has a massive crush on the touchy-feely girly girl straight best friend" tropes everywhere. Even better bc it's the "best friend is also the popular girl while lesbian is the slightly ostracized quiet one" dynamic in school. Falin gets so so so good at not having a heart attack every time Marcille gets in her personal space. But she's so resigned to never saying anything bc why would a girl as blinding as Marcille ever like her back. She also doesn't make an effort to get over it either, she's just content to be trapped in that stable dynamic of silently being in love with Marcille while getting to enjoy CLEARLY being Marcille's favourite person. She gets so used to it that it's almost just background noise most of the time-- it would have to be, unless she wanted to be freaking out 24/7 bc Marcille is so goddamn affectionate.

Her feelings also definitely change throughout the time that they're in school together-- at first it was this "whooaaah pretty older girl" puppy crush that you can clearly see developing in the flashbacks we get (I think she doesn't even like... realize her fixation on Marcille is romantic at all until years after it starts, when she's 12-14 ish and all the other girls around her are talking about crushes). But then they get closer, over the years Marcille starts getting really attached and letting down her guard, and Falin gets to see the ridiculous side of her. She gets to calm her down from her tantrums when experiments don't work out, or help her clean up when something explodes in her face. I feel like the progression of her feelings from "schoolgirl infatuation" to "unrequited love" probably almost exactly corresponds to how slowly Marcille goes from trying to keep Falin at a polite but friendly distance (like she does with everyone else) to her facade completely eroding as she becomes her cheerful and ridiculous self again for the first time since her father died.

That's probably the saddest part: Falin knows that she's clearly Marcille's favourite person on the surface level, but she doesn't quite fully grasp the enormity of what that means to Marcille. She doesn't get that she's the person who made the world colorful again for Marcille, that she is the first person outside of Marcille's family to really and truly make her laugh. She just thinks she's the beloved but dinky little short-lived sidekick, one of many that Marcille has had and will have.

Part of it is that, despite Marcille becoming such a clingy and affectionate best friend, I think her initial demeanour already did its damage. You see Falin being super adventurous and weird at first, bringing Marcille berries and other stuff, only to be rebuffed by Marcille exasperatedly saying she's working or looking kind of put off by it. And by the time you see her a little older, shes already quieter and better at masking -- and I'm not saying that that's entirely Marcille's fault (being the weird girl at an all girls academy for almost the entirety of her teenhood must have been brutal, my god) but she definitely learned that she's a potential nuisance to Marcille if she doesn't tone herself down. She learned that Marcille most likely sees her as a weird little kid following her around bc she has no other friends. And for the most part, she was never given any reason to unlearn any of that.

And that all very very smoothly transitions into Marcille being her "first love that was never meant to be anyway" when she leaves the academy. Chapter closed in her mind: she loved and pined from a distance and that was that. Every now and then she'll see another woman with Marcille's build or her shade of hair and be like ":( I miss her..." But then just kinda move on with her day. Same with when she's going through her own spellbook and finds a note that Marcille left her/correction that she made-- she'll smile fondly and reminisce about how much Marcille doted on her, and then move on.

Sometimes she thinks about contacting Marcille but convinces herself that it's too late (she spent too many months focusing on getting Laios healthy again and didn't mean to go no contact, but ah well). It's only when she has a practical reason to be reaching out that would also benefit Marcille ("Marcille is studying dungeons and we need a trustworthy mage to go with us to the dungeons") that she feels like she's allowed/that it wouldn't just be 100% a nuisance.

I almost think she didn't expect Marcille to reply at all, only to get a telegraph (or some in-universe equivalent of express mail, maybe magical pigeon carrier) that's like. EN ROUTE TO ISLAND. LETTER TO FOLLOW. and she freaks out like AAAA LAIOS SHE SAID YES WE HAVE TO CLEAN UP NOW.

I do think getting a response accidentally sparks a little hope in her, judging by the way she acts in the chp 57 flashback-- she's pouty that Marcille sees her as a kid, gets really worked up about being presentable, and then tries to play it cool when she actually meets Marcille (as if she didn't freak out and force Laios to shave while rambling a mile a minute about Marcille). She's an adult now, really and truly, and she's seen and survived things that her 18 yr old self would have never even imagined-- then all of a sudden, the person she was in love with since she was ten years old appears, and she's so desperate to be seen as mature and competent. She's trying soooo hard to impress Marcille with her newfound combat and dungeoneering experience...

Only to fall right back into their old dynamic. RIP. At least she gets the girl eventually, even if it takes dying twice and being the core catalyst behind an almost-apocalypse.

[spookygibberish]

I've sort of developed a strange relationship with the concept of "realism" in the things I make.

Something I was very into as like, an eleven year old (im not implying this was immature to be into, just that it was formative for me), was speculative biology specifically for dragons, and now, specifically in the case of dragons I find a lot of attempts to make them biologically plausible fully missing the appeal of dragons at all.

Thinking specifically about the supernatural elements of JoM and where the line is drawn. The dagnyds are made from the remains of godlike entities, and are not entirely earthly animals. They have a supernatural origin. It would be fully justified in giving them magic abilities or making magic an aspect of the setting, but have absolutely zero interest in doing so. It doesn't interest me. I think about shit like healing powers or glowy energy attacks and my reaction is just "what does this even add? Why do I need this? Does this make things more interesting?" And it simply doesn't. Healing is more interesting as a prolonged process, combat is more interesting with teeth and claws and metal and blood. These are options which are more realistic, closer to real life, but the realism isn't what makes them interesting: it's physicality.

When I design a creature for this world, I am not thinking about making it biologically plausible, and yet, I try to design things which look like they could 'move under their own power'. There is a sense of heft and mechanical "soundness" which I value more than realism, but often also aligns with looking 'realistic'.

I would say that it's better to serve a narrative than strive for absolute realism, but I don't actually write stories, although I do have ideas for them occasionally. I guess a version of this which is more relevant and applicable is that i prefer to strive for a particular vibe.

[emeraldties]

The Darkling this, Sankta Alina that, why is nobody talking about Sankta Neyar?

“‘Weakness’” “Hundreds of years I closed my heart, as if that was the solution to ending all pain” “what a safe way to live, and what a small way” “you guard against pain, you guard against joy” “two worlds make a universe”

“He’s not my weakness, he’s my universe.”

Fuck whatever mess those two have over there, I want a love like THAT. He may not be her last or her first, but that doesn’t mean their time loving each other was meaningless, even in the grand scheme of things, because some people are worth losing.

[matrim-cauthons-hat]

i want a magical girl anime where they're doing ace combat shit. like, how often do you see magical girls just flying around anyway, might as well slap some high g manoeuvres and sound barrier breaking speeds and magical air-to-air missiles and once-in-a-lifetime magical girls who change the state of the war. it also needs to take itself 100% seriously like ace combat does too