“In our pursuit of perfection, we mutilate. Healthy minds are broken with magic as surely as with trauma, and in their breaking we find cause for celebration, because we can squeeze out a more effective casting, because we can compartmentalize thoughts, because we can pretend that the damage done has made us stronger. Damage only ever worsens that being damaged. That is why it is damage.”
—Fringe Affinity: The Abuse of Psychology in Paradigmcraft, Remo Aurea
<...
2024-11-15 17:00:07 +0000 UTC
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“Speed is the distinction between combat magic and that practiced in everyday life. There is no effect that combat spells can enact that does not have parallel in the civilian experience, no fireball that is not used in industry, no lightning bolt that is not used to power electric lighting, but while there is all the time in the world in civilian life for a spell to be cast at the mage’s leisure, in combat each syllable spoken is another life lost. Each moment you spend casting is a ...
2024-11-13 17:00:03 +0000 UTC
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“The most simplistic of spells is invariably an attack. A raw expression of mana sent out from the caster towards some perceived threat. This is the least useful, and least potent application of magic.”
—A Child’s Book of Spells, Immaltan Vitorius
On the third day of Hell Week, Sylvas belonged body and soul to Vaelith. He did his fitness routine with Chul, lifting rocks and running around until he was ready to throw up from exhaustion, then he cast...
2024-11-11 17:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“Teleportation is one thing, but moving a whole fleet is another. Every ship needs a mage. Every ship needs etherium to power each jump. These are ongoing costs. Investments. The promise of some mythical gravity affinity mage springing up out of nowhere has held us back for too long from refining the system.”
—The Gravity of the Situation, Captain Rakarth Hammerheart
“I’ll take it.” Fahred chuckled. “Stick with me boy, and your future will be...
2024-11-08 17:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“By the time that an affinity for a particular type of mana has emerged, the signs have likely been there for quite some time. A fiery temper. An inclination to go with the flow. Affinities represent not only our relationship to magic, but our personalities. The core of our being is where mana is held, and it is the core of our selves that holds it. The addition of circles may seem like an artificial modification of what is our fundamental nature, but from the third circle onwards, all ...
2024-11-06 17:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“The Ardent differentiated themselves from the regular militias of the Alliance through many means. Their focus on arcane warfare, flexibility of deployment and purpose as a deterrent to existential threats are often cited as the most important, but their true strength lies not in their uniformity, but in their uniqueness. Each is a specialist in their own field. This may seem like a system without redundancies, or even an impossible force to muster and manage, but instead it produces t...
2024-11-04 17:09:00 +0000 UTC
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“What a mage is, and what a mage can become very rarely bear much resemblance to one another. All of us began as nothing. All of us end at the upper limit of our capability. What shapes us is not nature. By our very nature, we are unnatural. Who we become is shaped by how we are taught, where we place focus, and what we choose to neglect.”
— Progression Fantasies: Why You are Investing in the Wrong Embodiment, Curgal Groenen
On the first day of Indiv...
2024-11-04 17:08:00 +0000 UTC
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“Embodiment and Paradigm are both archetypal and non-specific, a broad variety of esoteric techniques from across myriad traditions folded together under the umbrella of their specific effects. Even assuming that an embodiment from one galactic arm and another from a separate one, developed entirely independently of one another that happen to share an effect did, somehow also share a standardized result, you are then confronted with the variance of the individual. Their understanding of...
2024-11-04 17:07:00 +0000 UTC
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“Pain is one of life’s great educational tools.”
—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar
Sylvas was shunted out of the infirmary shortly after that, even though he still felt as if his bones were only half-healed. He ached all over, as was typical of any day on Strife, but there was a level of exhaustion that he hadn’t known before after the medic’s speech about his… habits.
Bael and Kaya were just coming out of the mess hall as he arrived, ...
2024-11-04 17:06:00 +0000 UTC
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“To be possessed by a fear of the future is natural, it is the unknown. Without falling victim to the fallacy of inductive reasoning, there is no possible way in which events yet to come can be predicted. But to be possessed by a fear of events that have already passed is a sickness. To obsess over that which has been and will never again be is madness. One does not cross the same river twice, and the bed that felt so vast and warm in your childhood no longer fits you as an adult. Chang...
2024-11-04 17:05:00 +0000 UTC
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“The difference between a soldier and a mage is that the former must accept realities as they are. Terrain is a fixed and unmovable reality, positioning, transportation, materiel and logistics are masters to be obeyed. The only master that a mage serves is their own mind, their only limitation is their imagination.”
—Libio Bellum Arcanum, Frondius Gallweaver
At the foot of the tower, everyone had now spread out, recognizing that any cluster of them w...
2024-11-04 17:04:00 +0000 UTC
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“Failure means death. Perhaps that death will not arrive now. Perhaps it will not arrive for many years. But the seed of it is planted in the moment that you first taste failure and allow yourself to swallow. Spit failure back into the face of any who try to force it on you.”
—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar
Like a comet, Sylvas streaked out into the gathered collection of mages chasing him down. They had sent forward scouts out, but had not bother...
2024-11-04 17:03:00 +0000 UTC
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“The most valuable resource on any battlefield is time. Time for you to cast. Time for you to assume a favorable position. If you can steal time from an opponent without cost, you should always do so. Delay is its own reward. Delay buys you the time you need to plan. Delay the inevitable until more options become available. The right tactical overview and approach can bring the chaos of war into order.”
—Squad Tactics, Fal’Vaelith
A coiling bolt of...
2024-11-04 17:00:09 +0000 UTC
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“Pressure. Without it the rough carbon of a mortal could never be compressed into the diamond of a wizard. Yet it is the same pressure that transforms some into the best possible version of themselves that destroys many others. Of all those who work with magic, only a fraction ascend beyond the third circle, and from there fewer still continue their ascent to higher places. Most of those who seek their own perfection are limited in their ascent not by some fault of training, some poorly...
2024-11-04 17:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone! It’s me again!
I’m back again with another big release today, this time with book three of Immortal’s Ascent – Blade and Banner! This book kicks off a brand new story arc for Gavin and Sadira that you won’t want to miss! If you’ve loved the first two books, then you already know what kind of mayhem and adventure to expect! On the flip side though, if you haven’t had a chance to start this Immortal’s Ascent just yet, well, today’s a great day to do it!
...
2024-10-15 13:39:48 +0000 UTC
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Nice uniform. Be a shame if something happened to it.
2024-10-09 17:13:31 +0000 UTC
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The world shook beneath the Emperor’s feet, but he was not daunted. Above him in the sky beyond the monolith, two black holes swallowed the stars, debris and anything else that came into their reach, everything but this barren rock, and the monolith atop it.
They were perfectly positioned between the two Eyes of the Beast to be held quavering but still by the opposing forces of the black holes instead of being dragged away into one or the other. An impossible little moon...
2024-09-25 16:05:01 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone! As you may have already seen, Starbreaker Book 1 is now complete! Thank you all so much for supporting me through this!
For those of you who have just been been supporting or have just joined, I have put together a comprehensive PDF and Epub file together for your reading pleasure below. That way you won't need to read the individual chapters if you don't want to!
Beyond that - with the completion of Starbreaker 1, we will be going into a temporary hiatus/transition ...
2024-09-25 16:05:01 +0000 UTC
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“The Hammerheart Consortium is a potent business enterprise within the Empyrean, with members stretching across almost every aspect of society. In government, the military and even the Ardent, you can find their members. The board of this organization retain the image of a family business through extreme nepotism, but while this would typically result in weakness, each member of the core Hammerheart bloodline seems to endure a baptism of fire to ensure that they are up to the tasks whic...
2024-09-25 16:00:01 +0000 UTC
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“In the Eidolon, witness perfection. It does not hunger, it does not tire, it consumes mana, but not at a rate less than it produces mana. Each Eidolon in our universe is a perfect engine of destruction, tailored to kill and kill and kill until there is nothing left to kill, and each one of them is uniquely designed with that goal in mind. Be as the Eidolon. Single-minded in your purpose, and unstoppable.”
—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar
<...
2024-09-23 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Don't be late for class.
2024-09-13 19:26:06 +0000 UTC
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“Of late, there has been some criticism of the training schedules and their intensity within the Ardent. Need I remind you all that the only way that it is possible for you all to live in moderate comfort is the constant sacrifices that the Corps Mageia make to ensure that our civilization is not utterly destroyed on a daily basis? The next time that you have a complaint about how much we push our soldiers, how much we demand nothing but excellence from them, hand deliver it to the near...
2024-09-13 16:00:02 +0000 UTC
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“The manners in which magic can be applied to improve yourself is endless. There are spells to improve every metric by which a person might be judged, and if applied correctly and consistently, growth in almost every area is a possibility. But with too much focus placed on advancement to higher circles by the education system, we end up with stunted mages who miss out on these opportunities until they are too old to take full advantage of them.”
—The Trouble With Mage...
2024-09-11 16:00:01 +0000 UTC
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“For every spell, there is an equal and opposite counterspell. A construct of spell forms that cancels out its effects. Sometimes these can be repurposed into a ward against a specific branch of magic, but typically only against a tight range of similarly cast spells.”
—Fundamentals of Arcana, Albrecht Magnus
Vaelith stood before them on the dusty field outside of the wards.
It was the first time that Sylvas had seen her since hi...
2024-09-09 16:00:02 +0000 UTC
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“This degree of psychological stability is a double edged sword, of course. There can be no using the excuse of an excess of emotions or a moment of madness when a mage is involved. If they commit a crime, it is because they have decided it is in their best interest to do so. If they misbehave, it is because they have made a judgement on how people will respond to that behavior. A mage is not omniscient. These judgements may be flawed, but they will be rational.”
—The...
2024-09-06 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone! Happy September!! I hope that you’ve all enjoyed the last month of Scion of Magic and Starbreaker, along with the last few weeks of Summer! It was a short working month for us here as we zoomed through a bunch of vacation (which I will be returning to again shortly soon as this weekend is over!) So without anything else said – let’s get right into another Patreon update!
Coasting Strong Into Vacation
So as I’ve mentioned last mont...
2024-09-05 18:12:15 +0000 UTC
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“The fine tuning of a recruit’s place within the Ardent is a rapid, and at times, unpredictable thing, at least for the recruits who enlist while still in the lower circles of magic. As such, it is common for career tracks and service branches to be to be adjusted at a moment’s notice depending on not only the aptitude shown by the recruit, but also their affinity. It would do no good for us to burn a life affinity marching in the mud for an instant longer when they could start stud...
2024-09-04 16:00:01 +0000 UTC
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“Gravity affinity is ranked among the rarest in the known galaxy, with only 134 known mages with that affinity having existed throughout the history of the Empyrean Alliance, and 4 of them existing currently. One serves as a fleet commander for the Ardent. The second as the Empyrean’s Navigator Prime. The third serves the Obsidian Dominion. And the fourth…well, the fourth has passed far beyond any and all scrying capability that we have available to us.”
—The Weig...
2024-09-02 16:00:01 +0000 UTC
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“Cut away the parts of you that are weak. Cut away the parts that care. Let your weakness bleed away. You are more than this.”
—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar
He lay in his cot the night before Affinity testing. Even Kaya’s usual sociable mumblings had been slow in coming since the death of the fiend.
Enore. Her name had been Enore. I’d only learned it two days after her passing.
His desperation before had b...
2024-08-30 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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“There will be loss. There will be suffering. There is a price that must be paid. But whether you will it to be so or not, the price will still be paid. If you choose to go kicking and screaming like some worthless weeping babe into the dark of night or stride out with your head held high, that is the only decision that you have to make. Cowering from the reality of cost does not make the cost go away. If you learn nothing else. Learn this. Whatever your worst fear is, it will come to p...
2024-08-28 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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