If you’ve got hold of someone’s blood, it is for spellcasting purposes basically as though they’re standing right next to you, no matter how far away they are. They can’t hide from you, even behind wards, because you essentially have an in, because you have something that on a fundamental level represents their life. Which means that it’s very easy to get around someone’s protections if you’ve got their blood, not to mention that you can do a number of other necromantic things with it (blood transfusions in this world are both more effective [to the recipient] and more deadly [to the giver] than you’d expect).
Yes, replacing limbs (which does have to be done in-situ) is an example of one of the more benign uses; it’s not exactly painless - you feel the new nerves coming in, after all - but it’s a lot less painful than having the limb removed in the first place.
Shapeshifting in this universe is hard but possible, and that’s another example of fleshshaping.
Cross-breeding otherwise incompatible animals was popular for a while (many of the ‘monstrous’ animals in existence such as chimeras are the direct result of fleshshaping). As is simply sculpting some sort of half-living monstrosity bent on gluttony and destruction.
And there’s the Flesh Dragons. Did I have Serpent drop a hint about the Flesh Dragons? Dragons used to not be real. Used to.
Any particular reason why we’ve a Summoner wand? I now kinda feel that I have to be good at Summoning, even though I personally have an affinity for Alchemy, and I do wish it was an Alchemy wand instead.
I think Serpent might have mentioned something related to that, as Summoning and Necromancy is the most similar of the schools. Not entirely sure though.
You’d think that the Endless War would have taught people the folly of trying to contact/control/summon from other planes of existence, right? But of course there’s always someone trying to go farther than before, sanity/reality/multiverse be damned. So while this book probably won’t have any, it’s something I have in mind for future work
It’s what @Jeeshadow1 said; Summoning is the closest school to Necromancy (at least thematically; they’re nothing alike practically).
The testing crystal, and therefore your first wand, reflects the school of magic you’re most talented in, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the one you like the most. So someone having a summoner wand and deciding they like Alchemy better and they’re dedicating themselves to it is not out of place. (And in-game, this is reflected by your ability to choose which other schools you’re talented in). The wand gives a bonus to all spellcasting, not just the school it’s the color for.
Later on (probably not in this book), you’ll be able to make your own wand, and at that point you’ll be talented enough to make it any color you want. Full-fledged wizards tend to use a wand that reflects the talents they’ve chosen to focus on, rather than what they were originally assigned.
Stare into the abyss for too long and it stares back. There will always be people hungry for power. And seeing how necromancy is a thing our character was born with it wouldn’t surprise me that something lovecraftian would be possible for others, just incredibly rare.
Let’s be honest: You’ll be lucky if it’s just your soul when dealing with eldritch beings. At the end of the day only they win and everyone who deals with them loses. There is no exception to that rule.
In the start, we give our testing crystal to Calvin, who proceeds to nod at its color. Shouldn’t Serpent mention him when they tell us about the people who’re aware of our talents? Calvin noticed the color, and immediately knew that we’d not be a part of the Maenwinns caravan.
The Mage-hunters take binding oaths that make sure they can’t talk about such things. I’ll have to go back and check to see if Serpent says that, because he’s definitely supposed to
You’re lead to the area where the rest of the mages-to-be are; there are about a half-dozen here, all people you know in passing but not much more than that.
Should be led.
Other than that, loved the demo! Serpent has quickly become my favorite character so far. Looking forward to furthur updates
Update: Another chapter uploaded to DashingDon! Have you ever wanted to set fire to your homework? Now you can! In fact, you’ll be expected to!
Enchanting class: For all your self-destructing scroll needs.
I’ve also included a debug mode for people who would like to skip directly to the new stuff. The big thing to notice is that it has no way of knowing what decisions or skills you made or had last time; instead it randomizes everything. You can check your stats and reroll if you don’t like them, but that’s all the control that the mode gives currently.
