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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?
The demons in the abyss are more or less just people that got stuck there and many turned evil from extended torture / slavery / environment / bordom from long life / etc. Most weren’t inherently evil.
However are there beings of primaeval hate and malevolence? Things that truly are what the people of Astlan imagine the residents of the abyss to be, but so much worse because a mere mortal mind can’t really comprehend that level and purity of evil?
Perhaps some kind of elemental born on the plane of spirit or something from before the multiverse that survived the great cataclysm and views existence itself as a terrible abomination and perversion of the ‘true’ order of things?
Thoughts?
I get why gods want worshipers, that’s a lot of power send there way. I get why they say that they provide the various heavens – to attract the worshipers and cement their devotion.
Why actually do it though? Why not simply discard, eat, or use the souls to power some kind of monstrous furnace to expand their power? What do they get out of it?
If you think about it, there seems to only be downsides to it. First IIRC it was implied in another thread that the souls are provided mana bodies in a vaguely similar process to demon making. While I’m sure each one is no problem for any deity worth the name, that would start to add up to a lot of power quite quick, especially for the more popular deities. Next you would have to provide living space – that means a expanding plane of existence, which I imagine isn’t cheap to maintain much less expand even by divine standards. Then you have to keep a eye on your worshipers provide them with some purpose or activity or your going to end up with a awful lot of bored immortals, if that isn’t a recipe for a knife in the back I don’t know what is. While no one being would be a problem, even a god would have to worry that one of the multitudes would somehow figure out a way to overthrow him.
With all the downsides why wouldn’t a god just say that he was going to take care of your afterlife and quietly chuck all the souls into the divine garbage disposal?
It seems they must get some advantage by keeping all them around, but what?
[quote=Tizzy;192]
Many of the amulets and rings that wizards (for example) wear are not “magic per se” but rather mana pools to give them additional mana reserves in combat. The wizard who makes the mana pool has a link to it and they can charge it or draw on it as needed.
There is also, I will say, an analog of this for deities and their avatars called a God Pool. It’s a giant well from which deities and their servants can draw power, and to which avatars funnel mana from priests from worshipers into.
[/quote]
I’m curious can demons have mana pools as well?
Interesting, so it takes something fairly catastrophic to change your true name then.
The Jr/Sr example was kinda weak but it was the only real life example I could think of. However I was more referring to stories I have read (sorry I blanking on the names) that had the people (or sometimes aliens) names grow as they aged and/or gained status, it being to them a integral part of their culture. That is more what I’m talking about.
Also was it the bindings themselves that solidified the Tom’s name or him naming himself in the astral? What if he had not named himself?
Another thought I have had about true names is why is it a one way sort of bond? I would think that by knowing someones true name you have essentially taken the heart of their being into your mind, I would think that would allow the beings whose name you knew access to your mind/soul/power etc.
In these kind of cases (along with the classic voodoo doll situation) why is lesser to greater so much more powerful then greater to lesser I wonder? After all you are in possession of the whole of you, so you think that would allow you to affect the lesser parts elsewhere – true names, blood, hair, etc.
Can true names change?
For instance in some stories peoples names grow or change as they make accomplishments or at certain milestones in life. Like having a child by the same name makes you a Sr. the child a Jr.
Also what if you don’t know your true name, does it still bind you? For instance maybe your parents never told you or maybe you got amnesia or simply forgot because you are so old even you don’t remember it.
What about title – becoming a lord, sir, doctor, etc? What effect does that have?
For me it was three things: The cover, the price, and the description
First the cover. It is a mixed bag, on one hand it is colorful and draws the eye. On the other the demon isn’t very good, and looks like a generic render. Most of all though it evokes images in my mind that this is a bad D&D campaign that someone slapped into eBook format and put it on amazon
Next the price. It made me hesitant to pay that much for a first time self publisher author.
Last the description. It is mostly about the pot he smoked in the beginning and was never mentioned again, it makes a small plot point seem like a major part of the story. While I don’t have anything against that in and of itself, that makes it leave the impression that the story is targeted to a very YA audience with a romance focus.
On the plus side for me was the many positive reviews and the fact I hadn’t heard a premise quite like it before and I’m a avid reader. Going from our world to a fantasy one yes, but not kidnapped and turned into a demon.
These are what caught me despite my reservations and I’m glad because I loved the book
If a demon becomes more powerful – lets say something that started as a shadow grows to become a archdemon over the ages – would it’s demonic true form change as it got stronger or would it always be what it started as?
I don’t know about others, but I personally sometimes have difficulty makes more specific reviews especially in a place like amazon without including spoilers.
I would want to give examples, like I dislike this character because he did this at this point, or didn’t this character have a idiot ball rammed down his throat when this happened? That sort of thing.
Without specifics it can be difficult to say more then this character was stupid, etc, etc.
Your alternative is either blatant or somewhat obfuscated spoilers, and I despise people who put spoilers into the reviews, especially on high visibility places like amazon and its ilk .
I think it would be very helpful to have some time frame indications or dates, especially in cases of when the viewpoint shifts
For the image – Why is he looking over to the left?
He is facing and pointing forward toward the other people, but looking off to the left apparently at nothing. That seems odd to me
Grabbing some of Rosvers plotlines
[quote=Rosver;2374]Major Plotlines
Other things you missed. These plotlines seems to might have importance to the story but is otherwise undeveloped of left hanging in the end of the book.1) The Djinns. Nothing much happened and developed but them having connection and interest in Astlan, they seem to be big players.
2) Lenamare and company. They plan to flee… that’s it.
3) Hilda vs the Guild of Beggars. It seems Hilda has make some enemies and is related in a lot of detail. Just can’t see how it relates to the overall story.
4) Jenn and Gastrope romance. Which is kinda lame. After all, Jenn vs Trevin and Nymphs? Pffft! Also there are those winged dudes. This one is a rather messy romance plotline. Still, them being rather important in book 1, this development does carry weight.
5) The Grove and the world. It seems that the Grove has isolated itself from the others but recent events seems to have force them to open and become another big player on the field.
6) Tiernon and his avatars, and the Rod and the Church of Tiernon. Very minor but it seem the avatar of Tiernon seems unhappy with the Rod and the Church. The avatars have become distrustful with their followers that they send Hilda instead of relying on them. This is a rather large crack on the organization.
7) Exador, Bess, Ramses and the Wizards of Freehold. The three demons have invaded Freehold and the wizards want some reparations. They also want to see if Exador is really an Archdemon. This plotline though doesn’t really get off.[/quote]
1) The Djinns felt disconnected from the rest of the story and the world. I feel like they were shoehorned in as none of the others big players or factions makes any notice or thought about them at all as far as I can recall.
2) I’m gonna have to disagree with Rosver here, I felt like running away if things got bad for them was a very in character plan for Lenamare and Co.
3) I like this, in fact I liked the Hilda parts best of the story.
4) Ok, but not great. One of the better parts of the grove sub plot, but that whole thing needs work.
5) I felt the grove itself was a ok idea, but again the whole plotline was dragging
6) I liked that the church was potentially coming to a schism in the foundations of their religion. While reading this I had the rather whimsical thought Tiernon might have been the concordant once upon a time.
7) Got to agree with Rosver here this part of just kinda of flopped. One of our own might be a Archdemon so lets do nothing and hope for the best? The greatest concentration of wizards in the world with numerous archmages and what appears to be the in story equivalent of Merlin? Much like the Archdemons they are way to passive.Animus dissipates in the realms of men, but is ok in the astral planes correct?
Does it dissipate in the abyss? If so after a demons body is destroyed in the mortal planes why doesn’t the demons animus dissipate in the abyss?
Ah ok. Thanks for answering, that’s been bugging me lol
Maybe it could be smoothed over a bit by making it so the additional compulsion has some kind of semi-prohibitive cost of some sort that makes using it impractical, which also steeply rises as the complexity of the commands increases?
That way even a high end set of wizards like L&J wouldn’t use it in normal circumstances and it would explain why the compulsion command was relatively simple compared to the rest of it.
