Next Book Time Frame?
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The technological inconsistencies can’t be explained by trade. You might notice that the book mostly visits the ‘rich’ areas like Lenamare’s school and Freehold. Actually Lenamare’s school and the castle in Freehold are just the places that is described in most detail. The other might be the Veriga’s secret room and the ship. The poor areas and such is barely even mentioned, we don’t really know much about them. The most thing we could get from the book are from the culture of the rich.
As for paper. Yes for thousand of years people had made paper, but, even by machine, a sheet of paper take days to make. Ink isn’t also made with just a flick of the hand. Bookbinding (essentially sewing the pages together) isn’t really that fast either. Also, it is obvious that there is a very strong limitation in using magic; like it can’t be excecuted at great speed and the need for concentration. It is clear that the kind of magic in Astlan doesn’t lend well for production in masse especially of intricate things like bookmaking. It would have deplete their magical reserves very soon or fatigued their mind from constant concentrating. Imagine how mind numbing it might be for a wizard to ‘xerox’ a thousand page book and then turn it into a book.
Armor and space suit? Huh? An airconditioned armor does not a space suit make. Especially when space suit isn’t comfortable, restrict movement, and is no barrier agains a sword.
As for soldiers, what they wear might be of similar purpose. A candle and an LED light has similar purpose but I won’t say that they are of the same technological level. A chain mail and kevlar? You must be kidding me. Want your soldiers walk to Afghanistan in chain mail?
As for this backwater thing. As I just mentioned the most described in the book are the rich.
The poor people? I don’t really know much about them, except maybe that some soldier whip them when they are not able to pay their taxes. Of course they probably be using oil lamps or cressets instead of candles and those glowing globes. They might be binding their feet with rough cloth instead of wearing boots and high heels. They might be living in mud shacks with earth floor instead of ‘brick’ castles with parquet floors. I just don’t know. There is barely any mention of them.
As for the temperature in the Abyss. When Tom was in the “The Ripe Young Maiden’s Surprise” he made the comment about the temperature in the Abyss. It is about the temperature of boiling water. Even half the temperature of boiling point of water is still very hot. Storing chemicals in that temperature isn’t really advised, alcohol is one of them.
But please. These kind of things doesn’t really bother much my reading experience. Put them behind my mind
Tizzy, Rosver
I think the two of you have some fundamental disconnect on what are inconsistencies vs what is “just the way things are”
The point I would argue is this: there are supposed to be some big inconsistencies and hodge podges in the book.
The Abyss is definitely supposed to be illogical and ramshacke and anachronistic. But Astlan is supposed to be similar.
It’s a very mixed up universe for the simple fact that if you introduce magic to a “real” medieval world, weird shit suddenly starts happening.
Traditional fantasy is extremely unrealistic, unless the magic is extremely scarce, civilization will not follow anything close to the path it did on Earth and you won’t have a “classic fantasy world” after a very short while.
A Song of Ice and Fire is a place where magic makes about the most sense for a medieval world. Because it’s very rare/very hard to do.
When you have a magic rich world in a fantasy book, it will literally turn the economy of the medieval world upside down, and all bets are off, things won’t follow the path that they did on Earth. There will be all sorts of incongruities and discrepancies.
It will flood the economy, turn manufacturing, distribution, everything upside down, it will create chaos.
As Tizzy argues, it’s not that different than suddenly introducing all the “magic” of 21st century technology and capitalism on Africa, the middle East and eastern Europe/Russia.
You are going to find very odd things and odd combinations for a wide variety of reasons.
This is something that I intended to try and demonstrate. Is it a perfect demonstration, and is it always 100% consistent no. But then this book has been written/edited/reedited over a very very long period of time which sort of makes it hard to keep everything completely consistent.
And my apologies to Tizzy as this doesn’t make much sense to you, since, being a character in the book, you just think it’s “how things are” and so try to explain it based on your personal experience, when sometimes the problem is my fault.
=;
OMC: Oh My Concordenax.Does someone have a god complex or what? Author Guy, you make Tiernon seem like a humble beggar on the street when it comes to ego.
Come off it! [-x
Tom has clearly established that he is experiencing reality, not a dream, not a book, none of that sort of thing.
And people think I’m crazy! TAG: You are the crazy one.
Well, I think it’s an interesting debate because it forces me to remember why some things are the way they are. A majority of this book was written a long long time ago…
But….to continue the debate.
Actually, magic, or rather animagic has been around for a very long time in Astlan. But modern wizardry, where magic is treated more like a science than an art, is relatively new. Magic engineering is even newer. It’s not trivial to see in the timeline, but systematic wizardry as it’s known today in Astlan, which is organized, predictable and repeatable is pretty recent, post the Anilords.
Sort of along a similar time frame to the industrial revolution, but because there was no corresponding reformation of thought, and because gods and demons are real and regularly present and due to many other factors things just haven’t gone as smoothly and evenly as they did here. It’s probably only the last two hundred years, or less, where knowledge has truly begun to be disseminated and the fruits of wizardy enjoyed by more people.
The idea of mass producing magic items for sale is extremely new, at least for the region of Astlan people are in at the moment. Zilquar is/was ahead of his time in that regard. The same is true for mirrors and crystal balls.
Mass production of potions has been going on for longer, admittedly. But the alchemists still have problems with exploding labs…so it’s still lots of small independent labs making potions. Giant tanks of potions tend to be extremely volatile for some reason.
For example, a vat of healing potion mixture exploding often results in people gaining limbs and extra organs…not that much more pleasant than losing limbs and organs to be honest. Two heads really aren’t better than one in such cases.
Hi,
So I’d like to discuss all these points in more detail, but I’m short on time, so will have to come back to them in a later point.
I do think however, that you may be reading me, in these posts a little too literally on some occasions. By which i mean, I may use examples to make a point, but that doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the story (e.g. the Vatican and books and QFT)
So let me first of all address QFT. And this is way out there, and not apriori part of the story, just my thinking. What binds the multiverse together is QFT, different planes of existence have different laws of physics, but these are not so much different “laws” as different sets of quantum topologies. Meaning alternate realities may use alternate dimensions, I.e. Astlan may not use all the same topological dimensions as Earth and thus the laws of physics are/can be/may be different.
Now add on to the fact that quantum phenomena express themselves differently depending on how you look at them (wave, particle duality) and extrapolate from there and this is how you get different interpretations of “the same thing” or similar things. Things in Astlan don’t necessarily translate to quarks and gluons in Astlan, even though when looking at them from an Earth perspective, that’s what they see.
Now this is by no means a way of explaining the various laws of physics, it’s just a viewpoint for looking at what we don’t understand but trying to get at some underlying super-reality.
Yes, there are multiple groups in Astlan that are familiar with the atomic model of the universe, Lenamare is just one of the most advanced. That was a too literal case. I did not mean to imply he’s the only one, but the people that do understand it aren’t all that common, and may not be from Astlan. People do travel to other planes of existence to and from Astlan.
Glass though is easy. Sorcery, Thaumaturgy and Pyromancy…the transmutation of sand to a liquid state…all very well studied and understood. Once in a liquid state, a Sorcerer has no problem making flat glass. he/she can make it do whatever they want, then just let it cool (OK, maybe a bit more complicated…but it’s a point)
Note (or do note in book 2) that mirrors are actually fairly common among the magic enabled…so lots of flat glass. In this case, don’t think of medieval Europe thing of all things “Fantasy Middle Ages” and Magic Mirrors…mirror mirror on the wall…yes…in the real world mirrors were crappy and hard to come by, but not in many fantasy worlds (other than GoT, of course)
Actually, they don’t so much have a problem with chemical potions blowing up, just alchemical ones. I haven’t posted it on the site, but there both chemical reagents and potions and alchemical ones. The difference is that the alchemical ones use elementally affiliated components combined with mana to create “magic potions” vs “non-magic potions”
But, be clear, I’m not saying which are used in paper making, I don’t really know, I’m sure there are a wide variety of different methods used by different vendors.
Jenn is middle class. Her parents are merchants who pay a tuition to Lenamare each year. It’s not cheap, it’s about like college or private school here.
However, Lenamare has access to lots of books, lots of blank books and in fact requires his students to use them, not so much for notes (that is scrolls or loose paper mostly) but they need to get used to writing books, it’s a big part of academic life.
Typically, most books used have very simple leather bindings, possibly died, but most like not, just a soft “brownish leather” ignore the library in the picture, assume those are very valuable old/published/purchased books.
The reasons they look alike other than age is because they are both very simple bound leather books. The main differentiation between them is that one is nearly impossible to open.
Here is a modern example of what I am talking about.
[img=http://www.roguejournals.com/assets/components/phpthumbof/cache/701dbe9313e09df87cab6f003cf82ccb.dada0cda86436fee2b6ebe75d471cb2f.jpg]Leather bound book[/img]
Anyway, gotta run for the moment.
@The Author Guy:
You explanations are making me even more confused:
First Jenn isn’t the Vatican, yet she can acquire one rather readily… for a mundane purpose. There are also several notebooks as well. Jenn can’t be that wealthy. That imply that books are quite cheap and common such that ordinary people could readily buy one. She also knows how to read and write but there is no apparent teacher for these fields in the school which imply that reading and writing is quite wide spread and teached outside magic schools which reinforce the appearance that books are quite ordinary.
You are also quite wrong as to why books are rare. The main reason they are so is becase they are expensive, overly so and time consuming. To bind hundreds of pages… do I realy had to repeat myself?
In the past, the most wealthy enough to afford books in numbers are the church. Other people, even many of the nobles, has no resources spend/waste to acquire a book. To have a book in those times is an indication of extreme wealth. The books essentially become symbol of wealth for many people. That is why the invention of the printing press and other technological developments of bookmaking was revolutionary. They had made books accesible to the masses.
There is also the fact that Jenn’s book and Lenamare’s book looks the same except age. One is new and one is a very old artifact. You just have to wonder how could this happen? It is like finding a thousand of years old Harry Potter book in an ancient Pharao’s tomb.
As for paper making:
“I mean those things more often make vinegar than wine.”
They have problems making a common chemical reaction go right, why would the chemical processess of making paper be easier? Making wine is a lot older ‘technology’ than making paper and is consumed more in history than paper does, yet they master the later and not the former.
The glass table is also very difficult to place. A large flat smooth piece of glass is very, very difficult to create. Glass just don’t lend itself to flat smooth forms.
They might be supposedly anachronistic but there is no hint or pointer on how could this happen.
And beside, why do they have such advanced stuff like the glass on the table but use primitive for the likes of clothes or lighting or transportation? Why?
They might be supposed to be anachronistic but there is really no sense on how they could be there or why only those things are anachronistic and not the others.
As for the CoD, yes it is the narator but:
“Naturally, a theoretical magic student may wonder at what happens to the incredible amounts of binding energy that are released in this occurrence.”
That sentence make it known that this field of magic is well studied, well understood and known by many. How come only Lenamare is the only one to understand about such things?
Also one doesn’t have to know about Quantum Theory to know about nuclear reactions just like no one needs to know about relativity to know about gravity. Understanding Quantum Theory does gives you more detail about nuclear reactions but people has made nuclear bombs and nuclear power plants long before the quantum theory is even developed.
Also power doesn’t equate to magical knowledge. Tom is obviously powerful but his magical knowledge is almost nil. Often times, the weakest are the most knowledgable primarily because powerful individuals often use brute force to solve problems.
Also nuclear reactions are different from Quantum Field Theory. Essentially the later is made/deduced to explain the former. Scientist study nuclear reactions and from the studies, deduced the existence of quarks. Then further studies and expirements are made to ‘prove’ if the theory is true. This is very similar to the Relativity Theory, it was deduced first and later found to be quite correct gaining Einstien his popularity.
Thus for knowledge about quarks to be available, the knowledge of nuclear reactions have to come first. That is what dumbfounded me. Its like these people know how to do advanced gymnastics but doesn’t know how to jump! Or knowing about electrons but not knowing about electricity!
So why does these people know about quarks but not nuclear reactions?
And I already know that I’m only seeing the rich and the powerful. I already said so to Tizzy. We had this argument about poor and rich and how that explains the technological inconsistencies but there are only the rich in this book.
And we also have these discussion about these technologies in the Abyss. Alcohol fuel for cars? Explosions muct probably be frequent or their supply of fuel probably would evaporate before it reaches the tank.
——————————————————-
I’m glad I was able to help somehow even though I’m seeing this as some sort of nitpicking that should’nt have been started in the first place. I really hate it when we just talk about bad stuff and not about the good ones like how terribly addicting the story is. Had read it dozens of times and would probably read it some more. I don’t mind those inconsistency and such stuff that much really.
That is exactly the point.
You normally wouldn’t use an added compulsion unless you were dealing with a very intransigent demon, and you needed to make something absolutely clear.
And I didn’t make this clear, and I wasn’t really clear in the discussion of what was a Compulsion spell and what was just the order/command and what Lenamare was actually doing.
And I think in later edits, I was reading the compulsion as being just part of the regular order, not a separate thing, which it basically was originally.
One big problem with taking a long time to write something and going back later to edit it, (and repeat many times) is that your own interpretation and memory of what you originally intended can change. You become convinced that something was one way, when it is written another, and you read it with the new interpretation and edit accordingly, and it ends up rather inconsistent.
And that’s why questions like in this thread are good as they force me out of a complacent mindset and look at what was really written vs what I think I wrote…which may not be the same thing. Or might not make sense to anyone else.
This is also why I think a beta reader program is a good idea, to catch things like this before wide release.
@The Author Guy:
“It’s a very mixed up universe for the simple fact that if you introduce magic to a “real” medieval world, weird shit suddenly starts happening.”
But in Astlan magic has existed for like… forever. It was not introduced like a few months or so. For something that has existed for such a long long time but still doesn’t integrate well into the world is more than strange.
“Traditional fantasy is extremely unrealistic, unless the magic is extremely scarce, civilization will not follow anything close to the path it did on Earth and you won’t have a “classic fantasy world” after a very short while.
A Song of Ice and Fire is a place where magic makes about the most sense for a medieval world. Because it’s very rare/very hard to do.”
And since magic has existed in Astlan since forever; Astlan should have been very, very different from medieval earth. In Astlan however, similarities is more prevalent that differences. In Song of Ice and Fire, magic isn’t as common like in Astlan. People there don’t steal technologies from other worlds. Teleportation isn’t a very common mode of transportation there either. Magic there is mysterious, strange, trully ‘magical’ in traditional sense; not ‘scientific’ like magic in Astlan is described to be.
“When you have a magic rich world in a fantasy book, it will literally turn the economy of the medieval world upside down, and all bets are off, things won’t follow the path that they did on Earth. There will be all sorts of incongruities and discrepancies.”
True it will not follow the same development as ‘earth’ medieval world thus the discrepancies from ‘earth’ medieval period. But that is not the problem. The problem is the technological discrepancies in Astlan itself not Astlan from medieval earth. It is like people are watching news with a 42 inch flat screen 3d tv but still uses electrical telegraph to send message to each other. That is really an extreme example but still, the point the technological level in Astlan is not homogeneous.
“As Tizzy argues, it’s not that different than suddenly introducing all the “magic” of 21st century technology and capitalism on Africa, the middle East and eastern Europe/Russia.”
As I just stated before, magic is not suddenly introduced in Astlan at the present, it has been there for a long time, even longer than writed history of ‘our’ earth.
@Tizzy:
LOL
@The Author Guy and Tizzy:
Sorry for making such a mess here with my nitpicking and so. Never have dreamed the discussion would go this way. Should have keep my (digital) mouth shut.
I would argue that it is a combination of things, including sloppy writing on my part that I should have ironed out better in later edits. Looking back on it.
There were, I think many thoughts in my head when that was written…some of the very oldest and not properly reworked stuff in the book.
Here was the thought process:
Lenamare is going to be overly cautious, with this big demon, but he’s also incredibly egotistical. He’s trying to impress not only Zilquar, but the demon itself. His ego made him sloppy; but with the trappings of overdoing it…
It’s the same thing with the ring, L&J are overly confident in their own abilities and their ability to accomplish great things and have their way with lesser demons. This has made them sloppy and they shortcut stuff they shouldn’t and because of a very real impending threat they are under pressure and not really thinking clearly; combine that with the pressure/surprise of summoning a type IV by mistake and living through it: it would provide a sort of giddy ego boost that would have odd affects on your thinking and you are basically setup to screw up.
So my intention was that they gave him what would appear to a novice to be very exacting instructions and a compulsion, but that still had loopholes that they missed.
The compulsion was added because Lenamare wasn’t completely sure the orders would take, and he didn’t want Tom running around, and he wanted him back before Exador could reasonably be expected to arrive. So he ‘tacked’ it on for good measure
So combine all of that and add in what I think, personally, was some of my most inelegant writing, that I should have reworked better. In hindsight, I think more exposition on L&J’s emotions and thinking at that time to explain it, but at that point in the book I wanted them to appear more confident/bad ass and not quite so human. (Not that they really get much more human later in the book–only by comparison to Exador do they look good)
Something that bothered me was how giving commands to demons works.
When Tom was commanded to take a message to the other wizards tower Lenamare gave him a pretty specific command appearntly trying to keep his possible actions as narrow as possible (Though he missed a few loopholes anyway) which basically boiled down to take this message as quick as possible, come back as quick as possible, don’t hurt anyone. He then put a compulsion on Tom to make sure he came back by a certain time.
My problem with this is if Tom couldn’t disobey the commands why put a compulsion on him? If he could disobey (Which by his actions it appears he indeed could) then why bother to try to give him such specific instructions without the compulsion to insure it and why not make the whole command part of the compulsion?
o:)
See that’s why I do enjoy this thread. Things you’ve specifically mentioned are “supposed” to be noticed.
The glass table and the electrons etc are supposed to be noticed as anachronistic. Same with the escalators, cars etc in the Abyss.
Books, less so. My reckoning on books is that any society that is supposed to have some of the best wizards in the multiverse is going to have a good way for scholars (sages, wizards, animages, priests, druids etc) to store and transmit their knowledge. The intelligentsia has to have very good access to books and bookmaking. It’s what allows them to excel. One reason that “the church” throughout the dark ages was able to maintain is supremacy in Europe was its access to books, scrolls, records, recorded information. They literally had “monk factories” churning out books. I assure you that the Vatican had little trouble obtaining books, even when something like 90% of the population couldn’t read.
And as I saw it, magic could be used to mass produce books even better than monks. Ink is a liquid, paper is plant matter, thus sorcerers working with thaumaturges would be able to create magic printing presses/xerox machines (more precisely)
Are these books expensive for lay people, yes.
Here is the thing, I actually agree with your assessment on scarcity, rarity. But you have to understand we are looking at a very very skewed population sample.
If you want to know what most of the world is like, look at the very non-canonical (it’s an image) “Business of Wizards” image of Elrose and Trisfelt at the tavern talking about “[url=http://www.astlan.net/Home/History.aspx]portents[/url]” and the Satyrs behind them. That’s the real world of Astlan.
The places the characters have been:
1) Lenamare’s school. Home of arguably one of the best wizards of his generation, and an incredibly wealthy land owner and member of the Council of Wizardry
1a) Zilquar’s school, not much description, but in my mind more primitive than Lenamare’s school
1b) a Cave in the Abyss–crappy hole in the ground infested with a dragon.
1c) Peasant hut–actually not that bad as peasant huts go but…the peasants are at least oppressed.2) Gizzor Del. Well, they were in a private chapel/workroom of the High Priest of Tiernon in a mid sized city. It wasn’t much, but still better than most. Reread the description of Gizzor Del, it’s pretty medieval and crappy. Think Thieves World.
3) A ship of a smuggler…actually a pretty successful smuggler, who the Oorstemothians really want to bring to justice.
4) Hoggensforth: One of the two largest port cities of the Council States. Not a lot of description, but a step up from Gizzor Del
5) Freehold: A city with thousands of wizards; the greatest known concentration of wizardry on the planet. Lots of really rich people, and the top 0.1% percent of the population live in the Council Palace.
5a) Damien is a Councilor, the Chief Inquisitor and is on really good terms with a very old, very savvy, very thievish Demon (a demon who is literally sleeping with The Queen of Darkness)
5b) Everyone else on the council is really old, really powerful and insanely rich.So my point is, if this was a D&D universe or WoW or something like that, these are 50+ level characters we are seeing.
The “players” in this book are the ultra-rich, the ultra powerful, they are going to have the best of the best.
Now, as to the physics…this is a bit dicier but…
1) With the CoD? That’s the narrator speaking somewhat facetiously. I don’t really need to tell you who the narrator is, as he mentions it frequently on this forum. He also knows about nuclear power etc.
2) Lenamare is almost as good as he thinks he is, and he has a pretty good understanding of lower level Animanachanics (we might call it Quantum Field Theory) very few other people, wizards included know much about this. Which is why he’s the only one with the spell.
2a) Given that he does sometimes post on this forum, I hate to admit this, but Lenamare is damn good. He’s human, and is his own natural age, and he’s been going toe to toe with a multimillenium old archdemon. Yes that demon is playing under constraints to hide the fact he’s a demon, but still rather impressive.
2b) With the exception of Alexandros Mien, there probably aren’t any other living wizards (non-demonic) that can rival Lenamare.So, in short, my defense is you are only seeing some of the most powerful people on the planet.
In my mind, it stands to reason they are going to have “the good stuff.”
But seriously, I do appreciate your feedback: you make me rethink stuff.
It’s particularly helpful in remembering/dredging up, and being critical of stuff from the first book in writing the second. As I said most of the book was written a LONG time ago. So overtime, I forget some of the core logic. This thread helps me reestablish the world and people, which helps immensely with book 2 and trying to maintain consistency (or fix it)
It is really not the magical objects that is nagging me. The magical objects in Astlan is quite ‘standard’ fantasy fare. What does disturb me are the ordinary nonmagical objects like the books, Damien’s glass top table, the wine bottle, the locks, etc. From what I can refer, they are modern objects instead of the more appropriate medieval versions… which essentially should not have been used that much because these objects are uncommon and expensive in those times.
I was also bemused in how advanced they have in knowledge about electrons, protons, neutron and they even know quarks… but they somehow has no knowledge about nuclear reactions (Lenamare’s nuclear bomb). These elementary particles and quarks are discovered and observed using nuclear reactions, usually controlled in particle accelerators.
Hmm
I get your point on the concentration in those particular cases, however there are cases and then there are cases.
Different spells and thus different magic items require different levels of concentration.
For example, very little of Talarius’ equipment requires concentration on his part to use. the mirror does, only in so much as he needs to study it.
But Ruiden, his sword doesn’t require concentration, in fact, it has some limited sentience that helps guide it to the target (another story for later on in the series). Nor does his armor, nor do the other magic items he is wearing (which you will find out about in Book II)
A flying carpet requires concentration to direct it, and hold it steady against wind etc, but not to hover/fly. It needs a driver just like a car does. Look at the peanut gallery watching the battle at the end, they were not paying any attention to their stationary carpet. I can park my car along the side of the street and let the engine run keeping the AC going along with the stereo…but I don’t need to concentrate (at least if I put it in park)
Runic gateways require concentration to open, but once open only need a steady supply of mana. If that mana is coming from a human, then yes it requires concentration, if it’s coming from a mana pool, then no it doesn’t.
And that’s the key with most of what Jenn was doing. She was pumping mana into the spells and concentrating on that. She doesn’t have much for magic items. Those really are valuable. Again, Lenamare is going to have gold around the castle, perhaps one of her early exercises was in creating gold paint? (or gold colored paint) She then drew/inscribed on her book? I’m not saying that’s what she did, I really never thought about that before, but…I point out there are possibilities.
The wards in various places require some concentration, after they are created. Basically those people are “operators” controlling the composition/blocking power of the ward. It is completely possible to set the ward levels, given a mana supply (mana pool) and basically forget about it. This is what Lenamare did once everyone left the castle. He was not paying a whole lot of attention to the wards, instead he was getting ready to blow up, and in my mind pacing around in circles gloating in anticipation of the destruction he was about to inflict on Exador.
Wizards are perfectly capable of creating items and spells that require no concentration. For example, casting an invisibility spell takes concentration, but once you are invisible you typically don’t have to do much, that’s what the spell is for. An animage would have to at least pay attention to staying invisible.
Demon pentacles are a particular example, most wizards set them, imbue with mana and forget them for a period of time. It’s generally only on first summoning, when you don’t know how powerful the demon is, that you really have to worry about your wards and reinforcing them. Once you know how powerful of wards you need, you can generally ignore them. Now, yes, maybe the demon will pull out a surprise and bust through…but that’s no different than a prisoner suddenly managing to bend the bars of his cell.
Trisfelt, for example draws and sets wards of warning, and glamours of misdirection around his camp. He imbues enough mana in them to last for many hours, after that he doesn’t need to worry about them. (there are very explicit examples in book 2, and in my mind implicit ones in book 2).
So my argument is that, yes they can create devices to ease the process of copying books and making glass. As a rule, someone will be directing the operation of these devices, but at no more a concentration level than someone running an early printing press etc…
Animagic really requires concentration. Wizardry much less so. Don’t get me wrong, casting a spell requires concentration (as does manipulating a C.o.D.) but a good number of spells are set it and forget it. Not all, but many.
So, I agree with you that some magic requires concentration…but not all.
It is true that wizardry use linkmastery to a specialized extent, so it is quite possible that somebody proficient in this skill could be a wizard bane. A pyromaster is pretty much immune to fire and electricity as a specialization of pyromastery. So by extension a linkmaster should have complete control over links and not be much effected by them directly. Effectively a demon capable of ignoring commands, bypassing wards, and causing spell failure to increase in their vicinity.
Wizards likely have prepared defenses for their spells, but animages are rare, and those who obtain mastery of a field are uncommon. Since wizards use links anyways, linkmastery is likely not sought after to any great degree. They could not shape magic to the extent a wizard could, but if they learned wizardry and linkmastery they could likely customize spells on the fly to some extent, make it more difficult or impossible for other wizards to form the links needed for their spells, and become one of the most wanted targets for wizards to try and eliminate.
Maou, quite interesting concepts. From what I can see, magic is done through Links. Tom seems to be able to see this links, interact with them and even manipulate them, so Tom might be able to do those things. It’s not clear if other magic users could do what Tom can but it is quite implied that only Tom seems to be able to do so. Some sort of ability?
“I ask as wizardry is a form of mana-engineering and from what I know it is much simpler to destroy or disrupt something that has been engineered than it is to either build or maintain it.”
This isn’t exactly true. Some things like locks, safes, bulletproof glass are difficult to destroy. So are buildings, tunnels, etc. These things are engineered to last. But then there are objects that isn’t designed with durability in mind. These objects aren’t engineered to sustain large amount of stress. Of course, one has to wonder how magic users design their magics and how they make their magics (like spell of the magicaly locked book) resist any influence of external magic.
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