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If only I could shape shift then we’d see who had the biggest double thingies..
The problem with shape shifting, and this is true for all shape shifters: therianthropes if you will is that maintaining the foreign form is very difficult, your body wants to go back to it’s default shape.
A wizard spell doesn’t have this problem because the shape is programmed into the spell and requires no effort for the subject/victim/wizard to hold the shape (as long as the mana holds up).
For others doing it more naturally, you really have to concentrate to keep it together. The more familiar the form, the easier it is to keep it together.
Thus you find in nature (Astlan) most therianthropes only have two forms. Their humanoid form and their animal form, and sometimes a hybrid form (werewolves are the most common)
The same is basically true for demons. Yes you can mutate bodyshapes etc, but it takes effort and is often not that stable/long lasting. Thus most demons settle on only a few shapes.
That being said, the older a shape shifting demon is, the more shapes it’s likely to have. You have to spend a lot of time in a shape to get it to feel “natural” or to “memorize” it, and if you don’t use it frequently, you have to work to bring it back. So, the older a demon is, the more time they’ve had to practice different shapes.
Exador has quite a few different human shapes, each generation is a new one and he has different aged versions of them. but as a rule, he stays in whatever human form he has all the time. Simply faking the aging process is enough work as it is. So he’s had probably the most forms of any demon, but he changes through them gradually and doesn’t go back (except perhaps to haunt someone)
Bess has multiple demon shapes, she has her human shape, and a couple different anthro cat shapes that we know about.
Ramses has a number of different human shapes that he’s used (he’s been all the Ramses’ on the timeline–he was doing the Exador thing) and he’s got several different demon forms, we saw a couple of them in Book 1.
But, you also need to keep in mind, a shape shifting demon will still look like it’s power level to demon sight. So even if Tom could shape shift to look like say Asmodeus or Lillith, it wouldn’t be particularly convincing (except maybe to a human–but how would they know what a Demon Prince looked like)
You are really starting to make me rethink crossing that river.
It gets creepier every time you guys post…
I think I’ll stick to flying way WAY above it.
Haven’t heard much from DevilHeart77 about volunteering. I wonder if his buddy Nick could get his soul of the Styx…
I think it seems like a really good experiment.
🙂
You are stepping right into Book 2.
Yes, there are Succubae and Incubae and in fact one joins Tom’s entourage in book 2. And yes, this demon is a true sex fiend…well…OK…not a fiend as a fiend is a type ii, and this one is a type iii….
Also Lillith is not technically a Succubae, but she’s extremely gorgeous (usually). She is of course, the First Temptress. She took her breakup with Adam as an excuse to play the field, so to speak. Naturally, she has moved on, but do not EVER mention Adam’s second wife, unless you want her to rip every rib from your body….
Demons, as a rule aren’t that interested in sex with humans (other than Succubae and Incubae—the whole raison d’etat of which will be provided in Book 2) for the simple facts that humans are too fragile. They break way too easily.
No, non-humans are about as dumb as humans. Elven wizards in particular. Dwarven wizards are usually a bit brighter, and more likely to be Thaumaturges, the same with the odd gnome wizard (really not a lot of those–they tend to be more “tech” oriented) and Hearthean Wizards.
Similarly The Aetós tend to be more into Enchantment (Air) and The Gleg’ren like Sorcery (Water). The I’iskatha, haven’t got a lot of wizards, but I’m not that sure about them…
Yeah, war is a pretty huge fact of life. At the moment, the story just happens to be in a part of the world that’s been largely settled for quite some time and powerful wizards basically create a Mutual Assured Destruction environment, so people have come to peace.
The core part of Norelon that we see in the book is primarily The Council States and Oorstemoth, thing around the Council States are very well organized by wizards…as you head East towards Lenamare’s School and Turelane there are no large empires immediately, but lots of local lords who skirmish. If you keep going there is another giant mountain range and then The Grove which is a HUGE treasure trove of non-humans as we will see in book 2. Trevin D’Vil you may or may not recall is the Enchantress of the Grove and a member of the Council. East of the Grove, go North and you have a huge primordial forest with Wood Elves, due East is a good sized trading empire, than untamed lands, more antagonistic regions south. (most of this is not on the posted map)
Same as you go west on Norelon. Going North you run into the dwarves who are pretty well organized and to the South Oorstemoth, which you may not have noticed, but it does have a penchant for Law And Order…
Those mountain ranges shield this region from a lot.
South of Oorstemoth you have some pretty lawless regions and planes/wastelands and then some interesting territory.
On Eton, the region around GizzorDell is pretty open, and there are often conflicts, it’s a lose grouping at best, it’s called “Eastern Free Eton” for a reason, and let’s just say it’s something of a Libertarian Paradise…
Etonia which is sort of diagonal is basically the remnants of an older empire of the whole continent. It’s generally at a stalemate, if not open hostility with New Etonia which is an empire with a divinely annointed Emperor and this is where the Etonian gods hold the most sway. I.e. this is the seat of the Rod, and Tiernon’s power, along with the other gods in the pantheon.
Etonia is a council state/semi democracy/oligarchy, in theory guided by the Society of Learned Fellows but well…they are scholars not politicians so…
Now as to non-humans…yes, the Council of Wizardry is hugely human based. I think the appropriate analogy would be that humans in the Council States are the “old white men” of the US and Europe. By which I mean in this part of Norelon, Humans (of all colors and genders) are the “old white men”
But this is somewhat do to the fact that humans have the most wizards, or at least the flashiest. A lot of the other races either work more like animages, or have Druids/Shamens or similar traditions. Dwarves and Heartheans have Thaumaturges and some pyromancy for Dwarves. The Aetos just don’t show up in this part of the world, they are mainly in the mountains, and they tend to be Enchanters. Gle’gren live under the sea.
You do see various Alvar, most of the other Sidhe stay out of sight in the forests. The same with most of the hybrids.
The one race you do see a lot, but for some reason Tom didn’t notice are the Orcs and the Orks (two different related races) and some of the other Jötnar
this was more by happenstance.Orc(k)s are pretty common. Particularly Orcs (which are smaller than Orks). These guys are usually mercenaries and so they usually show up where there is a lot of fighting going on. You also find them going Viking. There are raider Orc and Ork tribes that do the old rape and pillage thing in the more lawless lands.
In particular, many regions have had problems with dragon born Orcs and Orks coming in from the sky burning the hell out of a town and then looting it.
(see http://www.astlan.net/Home/AstrometryAstrology.aspx)Now this is interesting, you might note, in that dragons are demons.
Yes, well that’s curious because while we demons know that dragons are alien demons, apparently Astlanians don’t know that, and in fact there are dragons that live all the time in Astlan. I personally am not sure how they got there, but I’m guessing some long time ago, a bunch got summoned to Astlan and decided not to leave, and they’ve subsequently nested and raised generations of dragons outside the Abyss. It’s very curious, if I ever get time, I’ll look into it.
As to how Incubae and Succubae are created…that’s in book 2!
Most children have to grow into their full potential, so I assume he’d get stronger or better with his abilities.
I plan to explore the Orc(k)s, Satyrs and Minotaurs plus others in some short stories on the side.
Well, things are going to get a bit nasty…Edwyrd really doesn’t like Lenamare…but when push comes to shove enemy of my enemy…who knows…Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt were strange bedfellows…
Lenamare, barely knows Edwyrd exists….
Talarius is a hard sell. If I were a Seer, I don’t think I’d want to place bets on where he ends up going. He’s not a “bad” person, he’s just a huge idealogue and devoted to his cause…
Well for Lenamare, there is “notice” and “officially notice” Obviously he knows about Edwyrd, but he doesn’t factor into the wizard’s worldview/calculations…yet, except as an annoyance.
Just like he knows about his students, he might even subconsciously know all their names (not that he’d admit it) but they are pawns/tools.
Remember, it’s also about putting people in their place, it’s a management style. If you pretend they don’t really exist, it keeps them in their place.
The Rod Members haven’t actually met Edwyrd. They just know of him, as reported by the ship. They are going to be discussing him quite a bit in book 2.
As for Talarius…I wouldn’t count him out yet. For the time being, he is an unwilling member of Tom’s Entourage…but there are a lot of people in the Abyss who are going to be very curious about him and perhaps acquire him for themselves. And while he himself bemoans being “defenseless” no sane or rational person would actually consider him defenseless at the moment. He’s just less offensive…
I will also note, that Animages are a secretive lot, so the fact that a powerful animage has managed to stay out of sight for his entire career is not a huge shocker. The Society tries to hold them together, but it’s not all encompassing and there are other animage groups around, particularly on other continents.
In other words, they probably won’t be that suspicious of him just suddenly popping up so powerful. The default assumption is going to be that he’s a hell of a lot older than he looks, that he knows a hell of a lot more than he’s letting on, and his secrecy is pretty understandable.
[quote]And his making lots of $ for that i guess.[/quote]
Yeah, well, some things in publishing haven’t changed going to e-books. Yes, royalty per book is a lot better, but distribution is much more limited…
The secret to making a living as an author is the same as it’s every been….build up a big back catalog, each book having a small but long lasting revenue stream; get enough books and all the little streams add up to something one can live on…
The one thing that has changed on that front is that Amazon’s (and BN,Apple) book shelves are infinitely long…that’s what used to screw traditional authors…you had to maintain a minimum sales volume to keep your books in print and on the shelves….
Well, that would certainly be true in any town or city other than Freehold.
But Freehold is pretty much the only city on the planet where you can see demons walking down the street. A number of wizards have demons in their regular service who aren’t in the palace. For example Vaselle often sends Estrebrius out on various errands around the city, not that different than a Roman slave. Of course he’s got a collar on, identifying him as bound and who he belongs to. Oh wait, you haven’t met them yet. Sorry.
So the freakout is more about the scale and number of the demons. And a lot of that blame will be upon the Council. I.e. the first assumption, since a huge percent came from the Council palace is that the council was using way too many demons to be safe.
As things come out, obviously people will start to freak, but the Council’s PR engine will be in overdrive.
Ok, now you have me confused 8-[
You are also a vampire? I thought you were an even higher/worse form of Evil, a Lawyer?
I mean, why would a Lawyer be slumming as a Vampire, is it sort of like “Undercover Boss” or something?
You know, where the CEO pretends to be a fry cook?
You know the only thing more evil than a Lawyer is an Investment Banker.
Yes, I know some say politicians, but those spineless sycophants are more like larvae, able to be molded into whatever toadying lapdog their dark corporate masters require.
Well, I think one big thing to keep in mind, the demons in the Abyss tend to pay more attention to Astlan because it’s about the biggest pain in their butts…however, it’s not the only mortal plane they have to deal with.
Not all demons in the abyss were summoned by Astlanian wizards, some (many) were summoned by and enslaved to masters in other worlds beside Astlan.
So for example, one might ask, why aren’t more higher ups involved with this deal? Simple answer, because there are a very finite number demon princes, but quite a few ArchDemons and most are busy with stuff on other planes.
There is basically only one Abyss for a huge number of “planes of men” same with the realms of gods.
yes, every mortal on every plane thinks they and their world is the center of the universe…but really…they aren’t.
The other races have their gods and they all have contracts to deal with them. The Sidhe are a bit more of an exception than most, as you point out. However there are Sidhe gods and some, presumably, do after life contracts or other deals. I personally don’t know.
As to the last…well…not in book 2…. 🙂
Yes…it’s huge and complex.
The story I am telling him is pretty straightforward though. I’m trying to keep him from getting distracted. He’s like a kid in a candy story sometimes.
One goal is that he’ll do some additional stories, or short stories, and that eventually others will want to write in the world as well.
A big reason for the encyclopedias (which are also time consuming) is so that others have the information necessary to tell their own tales.
Assuming they can get their hands on a crystal ball or a demon who’s been there to dictate to them.
I can guarantee you that anyone who manages to summon Antfalken will get enough tales to write for a hundred plus years.
As to how many planes…well I don’t know, but let me remind you that every plane actually has multiple worlds/planets stars.
That’s why it’s hard for demons to count. Sometimes you might get summoned to the same plane, but a completely different world, say on the other side of the galaxy, or the other side of the universe in a galaxy far far away…I remember when I was a youth, a long long time ago, working with this really great animage named Yoda…
But that’s another story…
Well Maou if Rosver keeps wanting me to respond with answers no demon should know the answer to, you might be able to figure Rupert out…
Hint hint.
I think the misunderstanding with what I am saying and you are saying Rosver is “what exactly is the boom” what is the “force, and what is it acting against” in terms of Newton’s third law. F=dp/dt = dm/dt+dv/dt and most people forget the dm/dt part.
If you want to talk an explosion/boom, then I would argue the boom that makes a [i]rocket[/i] go vs a jet, then I’d be more amenable to that. A rocket works in space by transforming the mass of it’s fuel into a gas and then expelling it in a directed manner. However, it is also the dm/dt that’s happening here, so it literally is the explosion (or more precisely the conversion and expelling of the gas)driving the rocket. But both are “pressure booms” in a way.
The boom is the gas pressure change and expelling of gas in a directed manner, not the fire or pyromancy part. All the pyromancy is doing is changing a liquid or solid to a gaseous state that takes up more space, thus creating a high pressure region (which is what’s doing the pushing)
In the case of the jet, the turbine is sucking air into the combustion chamber, combining it with jet fuel, converting the liqued fuel to a vry hot gas. Thus in the combustion chamber you now have a very hot (hotter gas==higher pressure) that seeks equilibrium and rushes out the exhaust expanding into a lower pressure region, basically you are creating a small high pressure region at the end of the engine that’s pushing the plane forward as the gas heads the other way to the lower pressure region. That’s Newton’s third law, it’s the quickly changing gas pressure pushing the jet.
What I am saying in all of this is that there are other ways to change gas pressure and cause a carpet or other item to go than just combustion. Aeromastery is the literal direct manipulation of gases with mana.
And Maou is correct in what he’s saying about most efficient design, the air shields are uniform and relatively solid and nicely shaped, like an aerodynamic car. Thus you can create a nice airflow over the top of the carpet, if you design the shield properly, then you can even reduce air pressure on top and increase lift. The key to an airplane wing is that you want the air on top of the wing to move faster than the air under the wing. Given that the true overall velocity of the carpet is fixed, if you require the air on top of the wing to travel a greater distance than the air under the wing, it “travels further” in the same time and thus creates a lower pressure region and lifts the carpet by sucking it up.
So of course, part of Maou’s question is: how the hell do they know this? Well a lot of trial and error, but more importantly aeromancers can sense and manipulate the air directly, something Earth scientists can’t do. Thus creating wind tunnels and other simulators for practice and very direct observation is much easier in Astlan.
As to tutoring? Who’s he going to ask without revealing himself? That will be tricky. Also, having time to sit down and study will be hard to come by…but I am sure that will be his plan once he gets time to create a plan.
I think Jenn is concerned about Rupert because he’s a kid, she was basically in charge of the kids and Rupert is/has been an oddball that requires more attention. Particularly lately. Remember Trisfelt took the other kids to safety and so she was left protecting just Rupert, who was not making it easy for her.
Half demons are evil too. Clearly.
On the Flying Carpets…I think it was our mental picture of a “shield”
You were thinking of a “shield” like knight’s “shield” I was thinking more like force field or a starship’s shields. While I’ve never gotten out and looked, I presume that the Enterprise’s shields follow the shape of the ship. I’d get out and look, but as you know the Terran Empire is always at war, so every time I’ve been on the Enterprise, they’ve been busy attacking some one; typically a planetary uprising.
It’s always a fun visit though; I really like Kirk, vicious captain; I’d love to have one of his remote death ray zapper’s. That bearded Vulcan first officer is a bit a squish but…
So anyway, I see the air shields as being an aerodynamic dome or bubble…
Yes the power levels are pretty huge. And vague. Because it’s not necessarily the size of your mana, but how you use it.
Meaning it’s not unheard of for a very smart, less powerful demon to defeat a much larger, dumber or more experienced demon.
In particular at the Courts, once you get beyond a certain level, shear cunning and chutzpah are often more useful than shear power.
Also there is no 8th level. The level tops out at 6, it’s a sort of arbitrary scale, so presumably you could have two 6ths’ one of which has 2x the mana reserves. But then maybe the other is twice as efficient as using it.
Also, again it’s a statistical average when creating babies. It’s not evenly half power for half demons. Some can be almost completely human, others can be almost completely demon and equally powerful. What would be unlikely (but not impossible) is for the child to be more powerful
Why I add that last is because a half demon child might very well outlive and outgrow their parent demon. Maybe the parent isn’t as driven or dies younger or any number of reasons, but if we are talking out of the gate…the half demon will almost never be more powerful, and not often as powerful as the parent
All very good questions.
And all very hard to answer.
I think one key point is that some demons do it for power, some for boredom. I am reasonably certain those at the very top of the heap do it out of boredom.
In particular I know the Demon Princes love to give either encouraging or discouraging words to archdemons/greater demons and then watch them scramble. And half the time which they give is based on a die roll they secretly make. Ever notice how demon princes often have those little multi-fold screens on the table next to them. I think they are rolling dice behind them, just to see which way they want to screw with the rest of us.
From my experience, the younger demons are usually doing it for power, it’s the older and most powerful that do it for fun. A great deal of the enjoyment comes from the fact that the younger ones think the Demon Princes take things as seriously as they do.
Of course, that’s often said of the gods too.
