UPDATED!! Ask me about characters, magick, setting, and I'll ask you, too

The Chatters
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Okay, so, I have a lot of ghost biases from media, so a lot of questions :stuck_out_tongue:

What’s the city made out of?
Do ghosts wear clothes?
Do ghosts eat? Can they keep the food in their bodies?

Are these religious zealots ghosts? How do they perform animal sacrifices? Are there certain animals they use?

How do the ghosts come about? Are they people who have done good or bad deeds?
Are any of them children that have been around for hundreds of years?
Do any of the ghosts live together as a family unit?
Do the ghosts keep the jobs they had when they were alive or take up new ones?
Do the ghosts remember when they were alive?

Hmm…what is sold at a ghost market?

If they are ghosts, how are they executed?

Also, big important question: Are ghosts transparent and can they go through walls?

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No worries :blush: Actually good if I get asked the same thing because then I get used to explaining it.

This is a little bit tricky because of the Guardians. Guardians aren’t a species. But unintentionally an Adam and Eve situation on my part, the first Guardian that came about was a Kattaluna (male, lunar, the light) and his counterpart for balance was an Ilvagi (female, shadow, the dark), but they didn’t make babies :stuck_out_tongue:

There were a bunch of talking animals that stood up some short time after the Guardians came about. Some scientists speculate it might have been the planet’s response to creating the mortal counterparts to the first Guardians. Elgana is all about balance, after all. It’s always trying to create balance.

So, you could say Kattaluna is the oldest species. Or you could say the native Elganians (the talking animals that stood) are the oldest species.

She does go on a long journey :wink: She always carries around essentials anyway, so here’s what she would bring.

  • Her herb pouch with some herbs for healing and relaxation
  • Her dagger (considered as the extension of claws)
  • Some dried sandsheep meat (once dried lasts practically forever)

So, they used to live in two different Rings in the past: Third and Fourth. There also used to be a royal clan called Cheripian. Cheripian lived in a castle in the Fourth Ring and there were swaths of forest below. Makiista Clan were close to Cheripian, so they lived in the forests. Nearby were some rocky plains where Jurana lived.

Then in the Third Ring, Prendai lived in the river and swamp areas. Yajis lived in the desert areas and often traveled to other Rings. They are the only nomad clan.

So, when the Kattaluna race decided to all live in the same place to support each other and stay away from Humans, Makiista occupied the forest as they were used to living in a forest, and Jurana occupied the rocky plains. The Third Ring then became a home to the four clans.

The fifth clan remained in the Fourth Ring for some time, then a battle happened with the Ilvagi and they went extinct.

As for rivalries, it’s usually like this:

  • Makiista vs Prendai (Prendai’s fault for this most of the time)
  • Makiista vs Jurana (Jurana’s fault, but Jurana would blame Makiista)

Also:

  • Prendai hates everyone (mostly recent years).
  • Yajis doesn’t care. (They will befriend the winning clan.)
  • Makiista think Yajis Kattalunae are weird.
  • Jurana thinks Makiista has an ego because Makiista had close relations with the royal clan centuries ago.

It is said to be related to how much sun they get. Prendai live in the swamp and shady areas, so their fur is such a pale blue it is near white. Their stripes are also near white. Some look like they don’t have stripes at all.

Makiista live in the forest, but have cut down the trees to make a small town. They are exposed to the sun and have azure fur and dark blue stripes.

Jurana practically live without much coverage. The sun beats down on them out on the rocky plains. Imagine Mars. Jurana have indigo fur with stripes that can be close to black.

Yajis live out on the desert and are constantly exposed to the sun. Their fur is slightly a more brighter sky blue than Makiista. Their stripes are also a light blue.

But why turn blue? Who knows. Maybe it’s like a bleach :woman_shrugging:

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  1. Oscar belongs to me and my family and we got him when he was eight weeks old. We’ve had him for a bit over a year now, and he’s mostly a good boy haha.

1a. He can sit, stay and talk back. He can also do zoomies around the garden and dance lol.

  1. The top government left the people a long time ago. They don’t really care much past the cryptid department.
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Ahh, so her beliefs are enmeshed into the facts at hand? She has magick, this motivates her to learn more to protect herself/loved ones. Is she driven by a sense of community, or is she more attached to specific people within that community?

This is really cool! Does it have any negatives? Like does the image/will of the caster have to be clear enough to cast the spell? I’m thinking like how a genie will grant your wish, but you have to be very specific and careful in what you wish because it may not actually be what you want.

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It’s a bit complicated as it has to do with her own backstory/motivations, but he basically finds out that she’s got a murder plot against a certain important noble and threatens to expose her if she doesn’t help him. In return, he will also assist her in said murder plot.

Her first impressions of him aren’t fantastic, she thinks he’s unprofessional and annoying, she also pities him a great deal. Ruven acts as a spy, so she assumes he (like her) has been placed into a job that’s basically a death sentence. Otherwise, he’s just another face in the crowd, frontline fodder for the demons/beasts they’ll face later.

His first impressions are confused and disgusted. He first interacts with Elya without her knowledge (he stalked her before to gain evidence to blackmail her) and saw her kill someone (good for the blackmail info, bad for the trauma). He has overall concluded that she’s hard to read, cold, and ruthless. He’s very careful around her, and very nervous. He considers her to be a wild card–someone who could either be a great deal of help to him or seriously maim him.

They can cast a verity of different spells that often rely on verbal/somatic components. Mostly, they can case elemental types of spells (gust of wind, splatter of rain) but many in the past have learned how to use magic for more practical things–like building, communication, and (primarily) healing.

It became corrupted (intentionally) during The God War, when The Creator was murdered, and the gods fought through the heavens, deliberating over who killed who. During this chaos, the true murderer executed the rest of their plan and basically chucked a giant asteroid at their world. This asteroid not only succeeded in annihilating most of the human (and animal) population, but also ripped a bunch of holes through the magical atmosphere/barrier.

Before it’s corruption, it was dangerous for humans not to use magic as it made them sick. It was like holding your breath, or not walking for a really long time, it weakened them. After the corruption, using and not using magic began to sicken them, but the corruption was worse, they would begin to attack others, their spells became dangerous to use, unstable, and people’s wills (what magic relied on in order to be cast) deteriorated.

No thank goodness (no murder in this plot, lol). She suffers a terrible seizure and experiences neurological disturbances for a long time afterwards but does survive.

She doesn’t believe her she thinks she made it up for attention (or said it was just a phase) and after a while Erin gave up trying to convince her.

Her mother has never been able to fully understand nor empathize with her. This misunderstanding, over the years, has turned into resentment towards Erin. She internalizes the belief that she isn’t a good mother because she isn’t able to bond with her daughter but externalizes the idea that this is entirely Erin’s fault–for not following her wishes/doing as she asks.

Which is to say: It could be better.

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I hath returned
What are the specific skills of the clans? What about preferred weapons?
What is the closest to nature magic in your story? Like say, manipulating plants, tracing nature etc.
What can Pinti do with her magic? How is her magic different from sorcerer magic?
Can anyone speak to animals?
Are there different languages?
Are there plants / runes etc. that give special abilities for a short amount of time? If yes, does a person have to be a magic user to use these? How are they made?

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replies to your questions

They knew each other in the past, but are now somewhat-strangers, so they have to relearn each other.
At the start of the story, Sveta (scholar) treats Becca (assistant) poorly (to be fair, Becca does like to talk back and constantly question and annoy her, but there’s also unwarranted treatment), and Becca seems to not let it affect her.
Becca says she’s working to save money to help support her family.

Late beginning of an industrial revolution, though the tech level depends on what physical location the characters are in.

I have been debating adding some :eyes: probably nothing like dragons, more like the fantasy version of chipmunks haha. But who knows, maybe I’ll add some strange beasts… what do you vote, keep it to what we have here, invent some similar species, or add many fantastical animals for fun?

replies & more questions

Aw, I like the detail about recreating toys. That also shows part of her character - how does her personality influence her other work?
Ah, that makes sense. Does her father approve of what she creates?

Oh, I’m interested in how they all mixed together. So it’s all one language, not a group… Is it an even spread of the languages we view as separate right now, or is it more of one language dominant, with others sprinkled in? Is it all equal, or are some language remnants used for different situations? Would a sentence consist of what we right now would view as all Japanese, then one in all Yiddish or something haha, or would it be more a mix of all words in different languages? Does one word have then many other words meaning similar things to it?

Clever.

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I had the idea to do a retelling of Romance of The Three Kingdoms with Dinosaurs.

Xuande is a Plateosaurus.

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Ghost Answers ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ

After is pretty much a makeshift city made out of scraps of materials that ghosts sometimes carry with them from the realm of the living when they first arrive in the afterlife. So it’s…not too pretty lol.

They do! ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ They arrive in the afterlife wearing whatever they died in, but they do trade with each other and craft new clothing items out of scraps. (One of my characters arrived in the afterlife wearing nothing but a hospital gown :face_with_hand_over_mouth: )

They don’t need to, but if they find any food they can eat it! And I think it just…disappears inside them. Haven’t thought to much about that, tbh. :laughing: They’re empty inside, with the only organs they have being their hearts. Save for their hearts, the only other thing inside a ghost is their ice-cold black blood, and they’re just kinda filled with it like a water balloon lol.

Yup, they’re ghosts! They only use crows in their sacrifices, because crows are the companion of this afterlife’s version of the devil (cleverly named “Crow” lol). They catch crows around the city in snares, and then they use daggers coated in lux to do the deed.

They’re all just regular dead people. This realm isn’t a punishment or an eternal reward, it just is. When ghosts arrive in this afterlife, They materialize far beneath the black sands of the desert. Ya gotta dig your way out of the sand lol.

Yup! And this is pretty common. There’s Aluki who is the adopted daughter of my characters, Orville. She’s physically three years old, though she died thousands of years ago. Ghosts don’t age physically or mentally after death, so she still acts like a typical toddler.

They do! Although, the odds of finding actual biological family members from life are slim to none (though it has happened), most ghosts live with “found” families.

Meh. Not really. There aren’t a lot of jobs from the mortal realm that carry over into the afterlife. There are some skills that come in handy, like hunting and construction.

Most of them do. If they arrive in the afterlife and can’t remember their life, it’s usually a sign that they just went through a really traumatic death (this is the case with the MC, Skye). There’s also another ghost, Webb, who willingly erased his of his life because he was such a dirtbag in life and wanted to start over. Then there’s Crow who can’t remember his lifetime but that’s due to him being many thousands of years old and his mind’s a little scrambled lol.

Relics from the mortal realm that are scavenged from the wasteland by scavengers make for good trading. Really crafty ghosts can also make sought-after goods. There is also a valuable material called lux, though, that is highly sought after. It looks like glowing red crystals and comes in various sizes and shapes.

There is no sunlight in my world, so lux is prized for its light. But it can also be used as fuel for vehicles and power for electrical devices (it has a finite lifespan if used this way, and can explode into dust if overworked). It can be melted down and used to coat blades and also lenses, which give wearers the ability to see in the dark, like night vision googles.

So, the only way to kill a ghost is to drain them of their blood before their body can heal. And for this purpose, long slash marks from blades work the best, which is why the ghosts use bladed weapons in my stories. Objects carried over from the mortal realm cannot pierce a ghost’s skin. They need to be coated in lux, a glowing red crystal material that grows naturally in the realm of the dead, in order to harm a ghost, which is why all their weapons are red.

In the afterlife, they’re as corporeal as regular people. Any ghosts that find their way back to the realm of the living are intangible. I don’t think they’re transparent though, and only a few living people are able to see them.

Questions!

  • Are the guardians still areound? If so, what are they up to? If not, what happened to them?
  • Love how the Kattaluna all came together on one ring to support each other, but they seem to bicker a lot. :laughing: What counts as a “rivalry”? Are there battles involved, or is it more like light-hearted squabbles?
  • Interesting! :blue_heart: So if a Prendai kattaluna spent a lot of time in Makiista forest territory, would their fur get bluer?
  • What happens if you give a kattaluna catnip?
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I would say Pinti is driven by the existence of the Kattaluna race. She believes she is the only one that can protect them because she’s the only one with magick that could harm the Ilvagi if that magick was strong enough.

So, as long as the Kattaluna are still alive, she’s going to keep going.

I hope I understood your question :sweat_smile:

Thanks :blush: Yes, they do have to be specific or the spell could fizzle out, explode, or not happen. That’s why many runic symbols are quite complicated (and pretty). Some can even look like a mandala.

Interesting. So while he blackmails her with her murder plot, he’s also promising to help her with it? Or “promising” maybe.

There is some serious difference between those two XD

Tell me more about healing magic. In my story, Pinti’s role is a healer in her clan and healing is what lunar magick does for her. But it’s not like she can cure everything or heal everything perfectly. What’s healing magic like in your world?

Oooh, interesting. Sorcerer magick is similar to this and different. Sorcerers won’t get sick without using magick, but if they don’t use magick, their magick stamina would never grow. They wouldn’t become weak, but they wouldn’t become strong either.

It’s like learning a skill but then only doing the same basic things over and over without going beyond that.

What was the magic like in your world before corruption? How was it developed? How did they learn more or level-up skills? Who taught the magic?

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I haven’t been here in a while.
I am sorry, @TheTigerWriter!

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Welcometh backeth :stuck_out_tongue:

Most Kattalunae own spears, knives, daggers, and swords for weapons, but specific clans have learned to use things in their surroundings for advantage. Prendai, the swamp clan, have many poisonous creatures living in and around the swamp. A lot of the poison they have become immune to, so they use it in their weapons.

The poison will harm other clans but not them.

As for specific skills:

Makiista: climbing trees, especially the tallest trees in the land called hudder tress from which hang the sweet berries called hudderberries. Climbing trees also helps them spy on their border with Prendai.

Prendai: swimming. They are the only clan that can swim as they have a river and a swamp. They can also catch fish with their paws (like the bears in our world) and not use spears like Makiista.

Jurana: climbing near-vertical rocks like mountain goats, tracking birds of prey. Where there are birds of prey, there may also be the rodents that Kattalunae eat.

Yajis: find prey in the desert and dry plains. As the only nomad clan, they have also gotten pretty good at finding herbs in the desert, able to read the seasons like a book to not miss any. They are also the fastest runners.

Hmm :thinking: Well, the native Elganians had elemental magick. These were the anthropomorphic creatures who went extinct unlike Kattaluna. Some had elemental magick which manipulated plants. They could grab dead tree roots from beneath the soil and grow them, then set them upon their enemies.

Answer:

Pinti can channel her lunar magick into herbal potions and make them close to 100 percent effective. So, if there is a potion to heal a scratch, without magick, it would soothe the pain or get rid of redness. With the magick, it would seal the wound and make a scab, or, if the scratch isn’t so deep, heal the wound completely.

Pinti doesn’t need to say any spells. She only focuses on the warmth that is her magick and channels it out. Sorcerer magick, you can do that, but it won’t do anything magical. It’ll just be some raw magick energy, usually white. Sorcerer magick needs direction—spells—to do anything.

Well…Pinti and her friends learned the ancient Kattalunan tailsign which mimics tail movements that actual felines in the wild do. Pinti can somewhat understand what a cat means based on the tail, but she can’t communicate with it.

Sort of:

Spoken to least spoken:

  • Universal
  • Because of population, the Sorcerers’ runic tongue
  • Because of population, Ilvagien (native Ilvagi language)
  • Last, Rauvuren chatter (raven-like Sorcerer Hybrids secluded from the world developed their own language over time)
  • And tied with Rauvuren chatter, is Kattalunan as a distinct language.

After the Elganian natives went extinct, the language variety went way down. There are racial and regional dialects though. So, you can have Universal of nomad Humans in the First Ring, for example, sounding similar but different from Universal of Humans in the Mega City of Bairenshire.

Not for short term and not for everyone :wink: There are the Seven Stones of the Guardians. Only Guardians can use these gemstones. The stones choose their successors. And the lore around this is super long and complicated XD

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Ah, the industrial revolution! What are the common means of travel? And how do people communicate with each other if long distance?

You could have unique pets? :smirk: Nothing too wild like dragons or unicorns. Someone could ask, “How are you? How’s Lucy?”

“Lucy’s healing. She’s been eating well. Increased her mana. Shooting a few fire balls. Likes to rest her big fluffy paws on my face in the morning.”

“Oh well, Fluffgators like morning attention. Mine too. Up in your face with all that pink fluff, right?”

Idk what that was. I just made it up XD

About Chardi

Chardi is like that too-eager kid in the class, always raising their hand to answer the questions before everyone else. So, she bounces from one project to the next though she always goes back to them.

She’s also naturally nurturing, so often finds things to fix or upgrade around the clan, wanting to help.

She inserts herself into problems and tries to solve them. This all reflects in the things she makes.

Her father could not be more proud. Don’t get him talking. He’ll gush about Chardi on and on. There’s a Kattaluna code that says one must always think of what they can do for the clan. Chardi is the perfect example of that (she’s not the only one, of course, but she stands out).

Me, too :stuck_out_tongue: Not a language expert, so I didn’t get into how this can work. It just did XD

As for what Universal is really like, it sounds a lot like English in terms of vowels because English was one of the dominant languages.

That’s all I can say XD

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What an unpleasant first impression XD
Is there a guide to get them to the city or do they kind of have to wander about and figure things out for themselves?

So she’s not going to be wise beyond her appearance. An eternal three-year-old.

What if people have died and they were missing a limb or two, had their head chopped off, or were disabled or wheelchair bound or blind or any other physical thing, maybe a tumor or a scar or whatever, maybe a chipped nail, bruised eye, idk, anything, does that stay with them as ghosts?

How? Magic? Sheer will power?

Where does this come from? How is it made? Has anyone learned how to create it?..later, wait, okay, it’s naturally grown in the realm of the dead, but how? Why? Tell me what you can about it.

Also red weapons sound so cool and ominous :smile:

Is it a big no-no if they are seen by living people or not really? Do they want to be seen? Do they enjoy the reactions of fear (I’m imagining it’s fear)?

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Yes.

Watching you :eyes: Or being discovered.

And manipulating, ever so slightly, the events of Elgana.

Battles, yes. Like Prendai is always trying to find something to fight Makiista with. “You stole prey, you spied on us, you stole territory, you took our herbs, you’re stupid…” or whatever they can come up with. Sometimes it’s resolved without battle. Sometimes only a leader-to-leader battle. Sometimes everyone in the clans are involved in a full-out war.

They might also have to eat hudderberries. Makiista eat these blue berries all the time. No proof this does anything to their fur, but it might, like flamingos being pink because of all the shrimp they eat.

Prendai would hate to become like Makiista, but they might turn into them if they’re not careful of sun and diet :stuck_out_tongue:

Doesn’t work as well as Valerian root :wink: Valerian root juice is more potent to them than catnip. It makes them giggly which is drunkenness, but they call it “getting giggly” instead of “getting drunk”. Every little thing is suddenly funny :grin:

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Nope, no guide! They’re on their own. Also there’s lots of ghost civilizations of different kinds scattered far across the desert for them to hopefully find. Or…maybe they’ll be eaten by monsters. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

So there’s a lot about ghosts that’s psychosomatic. Upon arrival in the afterlife, ghosts’ bodies appear as a restored form of how their body appeared at their moment of death. As in, they look the age they died but any missing limbs/etc are restored (Orville lost a leg to cannon-fire in the American Civil War but has both his legs as a ghost) and illnesses healed. Etc etc etc. As for scars, it depends on the person’s own perception of themself. Say, if they lost a limb or were scarred at birth/early in life, then they might maintain those features as a ghost. If these scars were recent, they might not carry on into the afterlife. Maybe. It’s all really nebulous, lol. :sweat_smile:

There are some exceptions to this, however. For example: There’s Celia who was deaf in life and also chooses to remain that way in death. She can, in theory, turn her hearing on if she wants, but I think she likes being able to tune out her idiot brother, Ryder. Ryder and Crow also still have notable scars from when they were alive. Crow, however, was blinded centuries after he died, and his blindness can never be healed.

Will power! I think. Haven’t really written that scene yet lol.

Kind of a spoiler, but in the first book , it’s hinted that ghosts who aren’t able to dig themselves out of the sand when they first arrive in the afterlife get compressed into lux. (No one in the story is really aware of this fact, though.) There’s bits of lux crystals scattered around or buried in the desert that scavenger ghosts find and bring back to the city for trade. So lux is kind of alive, but it’s not really sentient, kind of like how plants are.

No one’s tried to make their own lux before, but–given how it’s actually made–that could be a fun aspect to explore. :smiling_imp:

There are live lux crystals though. They’re big and float in the air and shoot lightning. They’re all a hive-mind though and just watch over the afterlife. They’re the suns and stars of the afterlife. Touching live lux will obliterate a ghost instantly. Although, only four (soon to be five ghosts) have touched live lux and lived, though they’re left with strange never-healing scars and strange powers (Crow is one such ghost, he was blinded by live lux).

pic! :3c

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That all depends on the specific ghost. :slight_smile: Although, in After, going to the realm of the living in itself is a big taboo no-no, because ghosts can only spend a few moments in the mortal realm before evaporating and dying.

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What are they doing? :eyes:

  • Are there any customs and traditions unique to each tribe?
  • What are the benefits of tail-signing?
  • Very important question, but can kattalunae purr? :3c
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Ahhh you are a blessing, TigerWriter, one of your questions (the one about Ruven/Elya) made me realize an absolutely massive plot hole! Oof, I would’ve beaten myself up over that one, but you’ve helped me catch it early on, so thank you!

Yes! On here, I type how I think so it can get a little confusing!

This is really cool, though, so how does the Kattaluna race differ from humans? What sort of beliefs do they have, where do they live?

Awesome, I love stories with balanced magic systems. Creates more scenarios/situations where things could go wrong, which is always great for plot material.

This is the question that made me realize the plot hole, lmao. Reading it back, it didn’t make a lot of sense, and I don’t really understand how I overlooked such an issue lmaoo.

In earlier drafts, Elya had a friend who was taken hostage by Ruven’s gang, in exchange for his freedom, Elya would do their bidding (the extra blackmail material on her also helped). I took this out in later drafts because I liked the idea of Elya being more alone/isolated, but I’ve realized that giving her a friend would actually balance the story a lot more–especially with how it ends.

Unsure if I’ll still do the ransom in this draft, as it requires more thought/plotting (and finding these missing character drafts :sob:), but this has made me really think harder about the direction of the story, so thank you.

Pfft, for sure. For the most part, Elya is an enigma. She’s a very stoic character and hard to read, on top of this, most other characters are unaware of her ulterior motives. Ruven’s knowledge of this makes him perceive her as more of a wild card. I’d even dare say he’s a bit afraid of her because of his awareness of her intentions.

I really like that Pinti is a healer, doctor characters always fascinate me and I always find myself rooting for them.

Healing magic in my world functions somewhat the same way. They cannot cure all ailments and it oftentimes requires other medical interventions to fully heal the patient, depending on their condition. Like, if someone shatters a bone in their arm, magic can help heal it and prevent infection, but they’ll still need to wear a brace. It also does not remove scarring.

This is a very interesting take as well! It makes a ton of sense. When you don’t exercise a particular muscle, you’re still able to use it, but not as well as someone who does work out. Does their magic use become more unstable this way?

Magic before the corruption was brilliant. They used it heavily in their economy, societies, etc. They used it to fend off natural disasters, used it to cool their food (like fridges), used it for travel, communication, building, sewing, creation, etc. They used it both practically (to better their society) but also in combat. As you can imagine, the wars waged before its corruption were often monumentally brutal. Because of this, it was actually a much more peaceful world where people valued diplomacy and negotiation. War was to be taken as a last measure.

They learned through different academies, schoolings, etc. Due to it being a gift every human possessed, education on magic was as common as learning how to read/write.

“Leveling up” was a bit harder. Most people used magic out of practicality, washing the dishes, scrubbing the pots, cleaning the armor, etc. But those who wished to advance themselves had to go to specialized academies and, of course, use magic.

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What kind of monsters?

I’ll return with more questions and responses later for you and everyone else. This just caught my eye.

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ooh interesting! I’ll ask more questions after answering a few about Empire of Lies, I’ve been trying to get back into the headspace for writing that book

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