SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Payesville - Notes & Appendices

oh, please do, as many as you have time for. which is probably one, seeing all the comments you've gotten today and emails and the fact that somewhere you probably have a life that needs attending to. .[the next morning]
All right, so let's look at [picks random person] Tern first. Tern is a (light) Dust-using fluxmage. She lives by the sea and works chiefly with the highflux, since, well, it's there and obvious. She wants to make the casting for a farship engine, so she stands against the mechanial bit so she can keep in mind that it's there, and "reaches out", channeling a stream of flux around her will. To avoid drawing attention from things that occasionally turn up in the half-realm she automatically makes a simple casting over herself that disguises the disturbance she makes. Some fluxmages make a permanent casting to this end, and if anyone's using the Flux they'll feel-see her disguise in the half-realm. With her stream of highflux, Tern puts pressure on or interrupts other flux-streams, shaping them. It's like balancing hosepipes in a certain way in zero gravity: once the right streams are in balance in a certain place, the whole lot will hold for a long time. Like a mecanic, Tern can then fine-tune the casting, turn on the mechanical bits of the engine and bind the whole thing to that particular fluxstream. She can then let go, get paid and go have a cup of tea. To keep her from being a heavy user, Tern relies on the wind (and thus the highflux) being strong to boost her own strength. The Warp also has its own tides affecting the half-realm as well as the real world, and it's no good trying to make a good stable casting if Chaos is at the high mark out there and things just change under your hands.Gun is pretty unusual in being an ombromancer, but having grown up in, I think, east Missisippi [cannot spell this word] somewhere where there wasn't a lot else for him to safely use at the start, there's good reason for it; consequentially, he's most powerful at night and least so at noon, and that affects how much Dust he'll need (and so how clearly he sees/feels to use and how much that takes out of him).Finally, let's take a look at the Spider, a native citizen on the Tolcaztec Empire. Spider's a common mage-name there, since they don't so much channel fluxstreams against each other, like blocking one stream into another, as create castings ('knots') by weaving the streams together. The Spider's techinque is therefore different, and she has a patron spirit, so she's only limited by what the goddess (The Spider is pretty cliché in being associated with an earth-mother deity. However, the Tolcaztec earth-mother is Coatlicue.) is willing to do and how much attention She is willing to pay. A smaller patron would be less fickle and demanding, but the power would be greatly limited.One last note on this world's magic system: In a lot of fantasies, people go around with huge powers and no obvious limitations - it's "get what you can grab" - and it's hard to see why everyone isn't a wizard, if it's that easy. Or everyone's not a wizard because only the people born with magic can use it, which would have a vast effect on society, mages being gathered up as kids and indoctrinated in their duties towards the rest of the population, which leaves a lot of scope for abuse of power. I wanted a world where 'mage' was a job like any other, and maybe not a universally looked-up-to one, like mercenary, hence the high power and corespondent cost.

Because I'm prpbably going to do lots with the elemendts in TIDS, is there a fixed list of all the kinds of flux and a basic description of what they control/influence/are like, or is it just arbitrary deprending on the mage and what they happen to find? pff...it is highly complicated. It depends on what you want to do, the mage's technique, and when and how you do it. I could take you through an example if you like, that'd probably be the most clear way of explaining...
Poor Gun, must suck knowing every time you do magicy things, even if it's just lighting that cigarette, it just speeds your own death... He's older, right? a few years off thirty, though he's lived all of them hard. How long has he been using it for? eleven...nearly twelve years now. *sad at the thought of Gun dying* Ever considered retirement? Cayley's asked him about that - he's not sure what he'd do with himself, possibly emigrate and start over, albeit based on his ill-gotten gains. If he stopped using it would he live longer? yes. Depending on when he stopped using he could live to a ripe old age. Could his body detox, much like it does in those who quit smoking? yes, though the drug would probably leave its traces in tics and paranoia...no rehabilitation in this era, either. Does Dust fry your brain, too?

Cecily ´SLWS´ Webster replies: "Some paranoia, a little addiction, occasional flares of half-realm vision/flashbacks for long-term users, which can be bloody dangerous...it doesn't help his OCD any."

Just out of curiosity, is Gun a born fluxmage supplemented by dust, or pure dust fluxmage? I wasn't completely sure.
Pure Dust, but he's bloody talented - comes from the situatin he had to learn and learn fast in amongst criminals.
And Cayley doesn't seem to do much work with the flux from what I saw, although he is capable of warpdiving, if I remember correctly..

Cecily ´SLWS´ Webster replies: "Leave the poor avvie alone, I'm not sending him warp-diving! ...though yes, he can survive it. Cayley can feel what flux goes through the castings linked to his body, but he'd need Dust or to Warp-dive to see it properly and use what isn't actually attached to him."

okay, that's brilliant!
it's mississippi. two ss both times. when I was little i always thought of it as some lady drinking coffee: Miss-is-sippi(ng coffee ). But just to make things easier you might want to say he grew up in western alabama, That sounds more likely, actually. I haven't tried cornering him about it 'cos he hates talking about his childhood... since they're right next to each other and alabama is spelled (for some reason tried to type grown there... odd...) phonetically. and if anybody notices the discrepancy you can say he grew up right on the border! it's brilliant. 'k.
okay, i think that makes sense. i'd love to hear more about these Tolcaztecs... I'm assuming the Toltecs hung about through the Aztec empire and then the two joined up against the conquistadors or something... are they mentioned majorly anywhere? not in this story. The Spider is quite a main character in the wants-to-be-novel, though, and if possible I'd like to show off Tenochtitlan, with its gold and skulls and imported peacocks... (loves the old central/south american NA groups, specially Toltecs and Mayas) you really must fiddle with this massive novel i have heard of this summer. I will not sleep until you do!

Cecily ´SLWS´ Webster replies: "Ah, but if you don't sleep until then, you'll die before I get it typed up and won't be able to read it..."

No, this doesn't explain what I was asking about Cayley.

Why are his wing mechanics so similar to the AsI? He's not a Fallen. What is the explanation for him being able to bring his wings in and out of reality?

Cecily ´SLWS´ Webster replies: "[is sleepy, points up at the thing about the fluxmage fixing a casting into a moving engine. speaking something like Jack Sparrow] Now lookit...they c'n fix a casting into anything alive, right? Or anything that's just moving. So after much trial and error they fixed potentiate castings into the avvie bloodline that hold the modifications through and into the human bit...Cayley can't cast, he can only use the castings that are built into him, one of these being to shove one's wings right out through the half-realm into the warp...they're technically less present than wvwn the AsI's...even...smeg it, a wizard did it. [facedesks] ..zzZZzz...zz..."

I don't know if I'm good at lateral thinking, but I managed to get through them all right without the translations ^_^