[nilrem]

why not just lie?
i mean Exador managed to dupe a god!
how hard can it be for someone like that to get his own crowd.

[nilrem]

i think the cover (toms feet(?) aside) and description are fine if you (like me) are looking for something more original away from mainstream fantasy.
while the cover isnt especially well done it does get the main theme across (demons).

i read quite a bit and iam now at a point where i sometimes get sick to my stomach by some of the fantasy “literature” out there.
when i read the description for into the abyss i was pleasantly surprised because it seemed refreshingly different, almost custom-made for me.

so while the description may not convince your average fantasy reader, it probably will convince those who have had enough of tolkien, jordan, etc.

[nilrem]

i was wondering whether you have thought about introducing warlocks (or something similiar) to astlan.
since some demons have lots of animus and mana (or special abilities) available, they might consider sharing some of it (perhaps similiar to a priest – god relationship) for a price.
basically they could turn any indvidual into agents with lots of power with little need for training (which could prove an effective recipe for disaster).

also
demons of astlan was great!
characters, magic, the “bad guys” beeing the protagonists … there is nothing not to like (except maybe that its only 600 pages long 🙂

[nilrem]

yeah i was thinking something along those lines as well.
Perhaps necromancy will be just that?
the cord of the unfortunate(?) would be cut and a binding spell would reatach the soul along with some conditions.
if it is anything like the binding of demons, their appearance,strength and weaknesses would probably be determined by peoples projected beliefs (sunlight allergie, etc).

[nilrem]

ok lets say demons can split themselves in half (or someone/thing can split them).
you have a demon with x units of mana/animus and you split them equally (it doesnt matter how often).
memories, however, are nothing but information which you can share with any number of “shells” without any loss of information (unless you have some kind of data corruption).
basically you end up with at least two identical demons (identical at least for the moment of their creation) and since you cant distinguish the copies from the original, they should have the same true name right?

so what happens if you try to bind/summon one of them?
it should at least mess up the spell since the binding is supposed to be put on one specific demon and not several.
perhaps you can compare the binding and summoning process to databases like sql ?
the true name would be something like a unique identifier and you crash the system by returning more that one result 8-[

probably overthinking it though 🙂
have a nice weekend

[nilrem]

i see your point.
might be interesting to see what they will do if they find out 😛

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