The Final Calling: Progress Report Eleven

Chapter Ten is now online, with a different viewpoint character from the nine previous chapters.

I’m almost finished writing Chapter Sixteen; it should have been done long ago, but the last couple of weeks have been crazy busy.

The serial is paid for through Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Eleven will be posted Wednesday, August 25th.

68 thoughts on “The Final Calling: Progress Report Eleven

  1. What do you think she should have done? If she told him about the towers, then there is the possibility of a large number of Lumeth warlocks and their power would be unlimited (well assuming that the towers are unlimited). A war over the towers between 10-20 Vond level warlocks could easily destroy the world. She made a reasonable tactical decision on behalf of the guild.

    Ofc, she could have been more sympathetic to his problems and not suggest that he could become a farmer (or stick the knife in and suggest that Hanner was the true chairman), but that doesn’t make her a monster.

    As for killing Vond, the power of the guild depends on its appearance of infallibility, and if he is killed by one of the more heroic characters, nobody would object. She just wants to do it from a reasonable distance away.

  2. Hmm, on re-read, the last 3 lines seem more ominous. Taking out Zallin to send a message to the warlocks would be pretty evil. My original read took the lines at face value and that they were just going to carry a message to someone.

  3. Hmm, interesting point. I assumed it meant that she was going to have to act on Vond sooner rather than later, and was consulting with other wizards — not that Zallin was about to have an unfortunate “accident”.

    As far as spells against Warlocks go, didn’t they use a transformation on one in _Night of Madness_? I seem to remember someone being turned into a rat…

  4. People know Vond got powerful before he left, and the Wizard’s Guild told the Council to avoid the southern Small Kingdoms when they forbid warlocks. Now that Vond’s back and a bunch of warlocks are about to come north telling the story of where they were and how they got there… This only ends poorly for the guild. It’s every dire prediction Hanner made to the Guild at the night of madness… and the Guild is moving as quickly as they can to pour gas on that fire. “become a farmer,” wow.

    raphfrk; those last lines caught me. Not so much because she was “sending a message,” that I take at face value. It sounds like the message involves who she’s planning to kill and how it will be done- and that Zallin is part of that, which seems a little harsh.
    Goljerp: Asherel’s Transformation

    Question; is the White Curse different from the White Death they tried on Tabaea?

  5. The way Ithinia is considering dealing with Vond, and her reaction to Zallin (at least, the less unambiguous parts of it) are not what makes her seem monstrous — it’s the way she considers killing off a large subset of the no-longer-Called warlocks to avoid economic disruption. Even then, the fact that she’s willing to consider a reversible petrifaction rather than killing them outright (which would presumabily be much easier) says something good about her… though not much.

    On first reading, I read the last three paragraphs as meaning Ithinia wanted to deal with Vond as quickly as possible before any other warlocks (not just Zallin) found out that he could make new warlocks tuned to the Towers. On second reading, it seems plausible that she’s considering a hit on Zallin, but still not very likely — why him in particular, and not all the other warlocks (there must be hundreds if not thousands) who are unhappy about losing their magic and would sooner become Lumeth-warlocks in debt to Vond than become farmers or carpenters? Clearly Ithinia has no qualms about killing people if it seems even somewhat helpful, never mind *necessary*, but I don’t see her wasting effort on killing someone who’s merely annoying, like Zallin.

    If Zallin (or anyone else) somehow found out about Vond’s ability to make new warlocks, of course, Ithinia would readily kill him before he had a chance to tell anyone else. But unless some situation like that arrises, I figure she’s going to focus most of her efforts on killing Vond, with secondary efforts going to reducing the disruption caused by the return of the Called warlocks, and preventing news about Vond from reaching Ethshar.

  6. Ahh, right, was trying to figure out what was being referred to.

    The transformation thing is pretty bad, but as you say, she is considering reversible transformations. Ofc, once the spell is cast, there is little reason to ever bother reversing it. Using the reversible spell, would just make the wizard feel better.

    They could release a few hundred every month or so and that should give enough time for assimilation. Also, would each of the Ethshars have a population of around 1 million? In that case, 15,000 immigrants wouldn’t be that bad. They could make a rule that a 1/3 has to go to each city and probably not all of them would go to one of the 3 cities.

    Btw, the perfect person to test out Vond’s defenses would be Sterren. Given his low level of power, they could test out some weak spells and see if he resists them. If he doesn’t then they can target Vond.

  7. Liked it.

    Ancient high sorcery, eh? Interesting.

    I’m fine with she characterization here. She’s just trying to do what’s best for the Guild and the World (and the un-Called warlocks) under the circumstances.

    However, I did have a strange moment at the end when she calls for the gargoyles. The text says gargolyles, but what I saw in my head was winged monkeys.

    Bill

  8. She’s not going to kill Zallin; if anyone got that impression, well, I’ll either fix it in the second draft, or let the reader see how it plays out.

    We’ve seen some of her gargoyles before, and they aren’t especially nasty. They aren’t winged monkeys, though.

    They tried the White Death on Tabaea? I’d forgotten that. I renamed it the White Curse here, but I guess I should change it back. (I invented the White Death in 1976 or ’77, for an RPG I ran in college.)

    As for the surplus Called, she’s not looking to kill them, just… postpone them. You’ll see what happens with that.

  9. I vote to keep it vague. Women by nature are vague to keep us men on our toes. 🙂 Also makes it more interesting not knowing exactly what she’s planning…

  10. Sarai turned to the wizards. “What spells have you tried against her?”
    “Several,” Tobas said. “From simple curses to the White Death. Whatever is protecting her blocks them all instantly.”
    p268

    I’m just a little surprised that after the fiasco with Tabaea the immediate jump is “hit hard and fast,” because that worked out so well for them the last time.
    I’m also surprised that a long-range organization like the Guild seems to have had no contingencies plans for a possibility a 23 year old previous-non-magician (Hanner) suggested at the outset. It’s not entirely unheard of for mortal-generated magical effects to keep people alive for centuries or jump them forward through time (a la the one transporting tapestry)… I can see the scale surprising them, but not the facts.
    It seems more and more like the biggest enemy of the Guild is itself. Keep Telurinon away from any big shiny spells and everyone might make it through alive at least.

  11. Zallin isn’t terribly clever. How did he get to be Chairman and somehow dismissive of the Calling? Or is he doing the same thing Hanner did, and already underestimating it after a few hours of blessed mental silence?

    The Warlocks really didn’t make a huge impression on Ithinia, did they? She seems to have always considered them a temporary situation. Although she seems to have some affection for Hanner, even if she thinks of him as childish.

    Always nice that we get a hint that the visible Guild Masters aren’t even close to the top of wizardly power. Ithinia’s musings are interesting, because they imply she grew up in a world that already had the Guild. Some Wizards are known to predate it, so are there any immortal wizards who HAVE practiced more than one type of magic? Or did the Hegemony of Ethshar also ban mixing magic types for practical reasons? (I recall research wizard being a fantastically dangerous job, perhaps they wanted to minimize risk to valuable magicians as well).

  12. hmm…
    So… if sneezing during Thrindal’s Combustion caused the Tower of Fire, does “overloading” the Call of Celestial Debris cause the source of the Calling to fall from beyond the universe?

  13. The phrase about high sorcery was pretty interesting. I’m wondering if sorcery is technology or maybe a technological magic. That would explain why sorcerers always have to use devices. It would explain the Source as a spaceship/space going entity or whatever, and why the towers are needed as machines to keep the air clear. The warlocks can tap the energy from these devices for their power. It would mean that other potential sources of warlockry could exist too, or be made in the future if someone could rediscover high sorcery.

  14. glad you were amused by that. 😉

    Hrm… “high sorcery”
    So, the gods don’t see/understand wizardry, but from comments made presumably they do “get” sorcery… The assumption is that Northern sorcerers got tutelage from demons on Sorcery (I haven’t seen anywhere where how demons perceive wizardry has come up), but if either group of beings can help relearn them, why haven’t modern (ethsharatic) sorcerers gone back to the source and relearned the “big secrets”?

    It might just be how much more we’ve seen of wizards than sorcerers, but it seems like sorcerery used to be a serious contender for power vs wizardry, but that not only has it lost a lot with the destruction of the Northern Empire, but that it’s continued to rot away since rather than redevelop.

    I’ve wondered for a bit (and the moment where Ithinia started to get distracted by a “grand unifying theory of magic” trailed into) whether post-calling warlocks were going to somehow help revitalize the practice of sorcery in the World.

  15. What always fascinated me is the two artificial deserts, the Eastern desert where half of Old Ethshar was and the Northern desert where the Northern Kingdom used to be. Though Demons made the former and the gods the latter I would expect both to be slowly healing and shrinking after 200 years, unless some curse/oath keeps rain from ever falling in either place? If or when the rains come back the land will resume it prior bounty and the Hegemony will be easily expanded into these vacant lands.

    Speaking of vacant lands I always wondered why the Hegemony hasn’t grown much in all these years. The three ‘camps’ became permanent cities but other than that we haven’t seen a lot of change from Valder’s war memories to present day/

  16. The Hegemony has grown; it just hasn’t been obvious. You’ll see a little more about that later in this novel, actually.

    The border between Shanna and the Hegemony has gradually crept northward, and population density all through the Hegemony outside the cities has been steadily increasing; one reason I’ve set most of the stories in the period I have is because that’s when population pressure is just starting to be felt. There was a lot of empty land to be filled right after the Great War, and by 5220 it has been filled.

    In Sardiron, population’s been increasing, driving expansion into and through the Passes — when the Baronies first formed that was all wilderness, and now the Passes and Tazmor are mostly settled. Aldagmor had been an area of expansion until the Night of Madness, but that was abruptly stopped, and with the dragons there probably won’t resume.

    For the most part, the Small Kingdoms have not had significant increases in population — stupid wars and bad management have reduced population directly and have driven emigration to other places (mostly the Hegemony).

    As for the deserts, the Great Eastern Desert, as described in Taking Flight, had all its topsoil stripped away; it was blasted down to bedrock, which was then ground into sand. Recovering from that will take a long time. The Northern Desert — well, maybe it has been recovering. We haven’t seen.

    Short version: Population of the Hegemony in 5000: 3.5 million. Population in 5220: 8.2 million.

  17. I thought the position was that nobody really gets why wizardry works, but the gods can perform/see it (they can presumably feel it when it is operating like wizards can). It was warlockry that they didn’t see.

    If demons taught the Northern Empire sorcery, then they could also be the source of all the talismans. Alternatively, they could have provided (lost) talismans/knowledge which allow the manufacture of talismans. Even with the ability to repair talismans, without the ability to make new ones, the question is how fast sorcery will decline, not if.

    They must have/regain the ability to make new ones, or sorcery will eventually die out. It is also possible that they (or at least some of them) can make new ones, but that it is extremely time consuming and not really worth the effort. This is functionally equivalent to not being able to make more, as the number of talismans still drops over time.

    If the towers are damaged in any way by Vond’s actions, then it would be surprising if sorcerers are not involved in resolving the situation. Ofc, if the towers are just a Mac Guffin and their internal function doesn’t matter, then that isn’t an issue. If high sorcery (or at least higher than currently available sorcery) is required to repair the towers, then that could also provide a boost. Some kind of research community could arise in Lumeth.

  18. Btw, is the Hegemony becoming more urbanised even though the land area is increasing? Improved farming efficiency would mean more farmland but less farmers, and so the urban population would grow faster than the rural.

    If not, is it possible that those outside the cities might demand more influence? For example, large towns might demand that the Triumvirate has additional members added. even if towns have less voting weight, or just that they get more say in local matters rather than a distance overlord.

  19. >> If the towers are damaged in any way by Vond’s actions

    One of the towers is already damaged. That may be why Vond can draw power from them/it. If it is the towers that he’s really getting power from.

    LWE is sneaky. In a good way.

    Bill

  20. However, Vond didn’t damage the damaged tower, that goes back to at least the war. However that is an interesting idea that it is the damaged tower that he is pulling power from.

    It could be generating a tone that the warlocks can draw power from instead of the correct field for holding back the vapours.

    It was apparently cut in two. If the power source is in the bottom half and the field generators are in the top half, then the maybe only the field generators were damaged, and that is why they are generating the tone.

    I think that in any case, either warlockry had to end in this book (which seems unlikely), or some kind of limit has to be imposed. A limit on how much power that the towers can safely provide would be one limit.

    Another option would be to have a sorcerer rig up some way to increase the buzzing zone if the to much power is drawn. Ideally, this would be a targeted effect, with the warlock who is using to much power being hit with a headache. The warlocks might even agree if drawing to much power damages the towers.

  21. >>One of the towers is already damaged. That may be why Vond can draw power from them/it. If it is the towers that he’s really getting power from.

    That’s an interesting idea, it’d fit with comments LWE’s made about the towers being at the center of the World originally (implying that it’s grown more in the other directions.

    IIRC, the tower isn’t broken in half, just the top knocked off, which would account for some sustainment of field + leakage

    >>LWE is sneaky. In a good way.

    +1

    >>I think that in any case, either warlockry had to end in this book (which seems unlikely), or some kind of limit has to be imposed.

    I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I think a limit is imposed; natural lifespan. Warlocks may be in better health, and thus able to extend their lifespan, but unlike Wizards they will eventually die of old age- and their magic prevents them from being enchanted to stop that. Mayfly gods vs the immortal powerhouses that are the pillars of the Guild. Pointing to the Seething Death, which I’m fairly sure no warlock could ever match, should be enough to make clear the pointlessness of that argument if the Guild wants to whine about how much power a Warlock can accumulate in one lifetime.

    More usefully to the Guild warlocks would almost reflexively help guard the Towers (close to the towers = stronger) unless they wanted to destroy the World for some reason and then they’d be opposed by warlocks who recognized that they had gone mad, just like a wizard who destroyed the world would.

    >>Another option would be to have a sorcerer rig up some way to increase the buzzing zone if the to much power is drawn.

    I really don’t think power’s being “drawn.” It seems more like the power’s passing through, pushing into them, and the warlock is simply rechanneling it- so I don’t think that’s actually a concern.

    that’s my wild guess at least.

  22. Hmm, so you think the guild would be willing to cede the towers to the warlock’s council? Warlocks could very easily end up destroying the towers as part of a battle between themselves.

    However, it sounds like with warlockry, defense has an advantage. A group of 5-10 warlocks could probably defend the towers. If Lumeth became a warlock’s city. They could possibly defend the towers from any warlock who tried to attack them, so a settlement is not impossible.

    OTOH, without limits every warlock would end up at Vond+ power levels. They could throw a mountain at the towers if needs be.

    The Calling imposed 2 limits. The first was that it placed an upper bound on how powerful a warlock could become, but it also meant that they wouldn’t over use their powers. The towers potentially overcome both of those limits. Warlocks would have a higher upper power level and could use as much power as they like.

    The limit could either be inherent in the towers, due to some limit in the towers themselves, or social, due to an agreement with the other disciplines. With sorcery, the towers could maybe be tweaked to allow enforcement of the agreement. However, for the other magic disciplines, the limits are inherent to the way that they work.

  23. One scene I always wanted before the end of Warlockry but don’t think I have ever seen is for a powerful Warlock to pick up Tobas’ flying castle and move it out of the dead zone so it will start flying again. Just think how impressed the King will be if his son-in-law can move the whole family around at ease in a splendid flying castle?

    Also what if Vond and his converts move to one of the two wizard proof zones themselves? The one near Dwomor (sp) is much larger and already has an abandoned city in it just waiting to be reclaimed, but their is the second one in the Palace of the Hegemon created to get rid of the Seething Death,

  24. Cede them? not on your life, but accommodations should be reachable.

    As much as a warlock battle could destroy the Towers so could a battle between mages. Meanwhile; if you throw a mountain the defenders can disintegrate it. Of course, you can just disintegrate the towers- assuming the defenders don’t defend against that. But the Wizards’ Guild really doesn’t get to use that logic against the warlocks unless they’re willing to ensure no wizard has a spell like Call of Celestial Debris or Seething Death.
    Can you imagine some of the warlock’s reactions if Ithinia tries to go through with any of her “mitigation plans” then they find out about the towers, never mind that the Guild knows about them? Vond is a loose cannon, but if Ithinia mishandles him she might get a pissed off Hanner who knows how to plan, negotiate, and lead.

    The Calling only imposed the first limit. A warlock who planned ahead and feared the Calling imposed the second, but not all did. Wizards have neither, so why is it necessary that warlocks do? I really don’t think the warlocks are any more of a threat than any significant guildmember might be. Heck, with the power miscast low order spells sometimes show I’d be more worried about an incompetent wizard accidentally destroying the World than malice by Vond-level warlocks. The Council was the right idea, use warlocks to police warlocks, create a culture of responsibility and accountability. Anything else ends badly for everyone.

  25. >>One scene I always wanted before the end of Warlockry but don’t think I have ever seen is for a powerful Warlock to pick up Tobas’ flying castle and move it out of the dead zone so it will start flying again.

    I assume the only reason he hasn’t is cost, and I’ve actually wondered from time to time what the cost on that endeavor would actually be.

    >>…two wizard proof zones…
    Here’s my question; where’s the third? The spell had to be cast once by Ellran when it was created…

  26. Okay, I’m not saying this is where the third dead zone is, but remember that when it was created the Great Eastern Desert wasn’t desert; it was part of Old Ethshar.

    As for moving Derithon’s fallen castle out of the dead area, that wouldn’t make it fly again; the spell that kept it aloft expired long ago. Varrin’s Greater Propulsion does need to be renewed every so often, same as Varrin’s Lesser Propulsion.

    Well, not the same as, but it does need to be renewed.

    As for all the musing about Lumeth’s towers and warlockry, I’m not going to say anything about that.

  27. > The Calling only imposed the first limit. A warlock who
    > planned ahead and feared the Calling imposed the second,
    > but not all did.

    Well, the Calling removed those who burned through their powers to fast.

    The point is that a warlock had a finite amount of warlockry he could use up.

    If there is no limit related to the towers, then warlockry has clearly taken a power boost. The 2 limits are gone without being replaced by anything else.

    In fact, preserving warlocks just gives more time for them to find out about the towers.

    If the towers were much weaker than the Source, then that would count as a power loss to compensate for the removal of the limits. OTOH, Vond was able to lift 100 people from halfway across the world. Maybe, the towers could be tweaked so that they provide less power. Also, Vond does suggest that they are less powerful, but that could just be distance.

    The third dead zone might actually be pretty small, say 1 meter diameter or lower, since he was just testing it. It would be good practice when casting a new spell to set the area of effect to minimum, if there is a choice. The other 2 castings had a target and so had a minimum size.

    Btw, now that one of the palaces are covered by a zone, have the wizard’s guild looked into reversing the effect? When it was just 2 not so important places, I could see why they wouldn’t have bothered. It was an annoying spell, but not absolutely essential to be reversed. Maybe, the zones slowly collapse, as chaos spreads from the surrounding area.

    Also, does the zone block the effect itself. I am thinking of something like Vinge’s bobbles. They were spheres that stopped time for everything inside for a while. However, you couldn’t bobble up a bobble. This meant that you could protect an area from being bobbled by having a few small bobbles lying around. If someone tried to bobble you, then it would fail since the volume of the sphere would have included a few of the small bobbles. This also prevented them bobbling the area in order to protect it from an explosion.

    I assume if a wizard stood just outside one of the zones and cast the spell, it would still generate a sphere, the overlap of the 2 spheres would just be doubly dead.

    Another option would be that the sphere would expand until it touched the other zone and then the spell would halt as it ran out of wizardry. This would mean that the 2 dead spheres would end up touching each other at one point. This would give a way to protect areas from the dissipation.

  28. The towers can’t have infinite power. You wouldn’t need more than one, and we know one is damaged. Maybe they store power, so Vond had a lot to draw on. If other warklocks start using the towers, we may see a limit to how much can be drawn.

  29. True, but if Ryan’s suggestion is correct, and they are merely leaking power that would otherwise be wasted, then many warlocks using the towers wouldn’t drain them.

    Ofc, it still would mean that there is a limit, as a warlock wouldn’t be able to use more than 100% of the power that passes him (and in the limit, 100% of the power output from the towers, if the warlock was right beside them).

    A mechanism where they all have to share the power from the towers means that warlocks have an interest in coordinating their use of the finite resource.

  30. >>As for all the musing about Lumeth’s towers and warlockry, I’m not going to say anything about that.

    My assumption is (most of) your comments on that topic will come in the story and the rest would only serve to spoil. 😉

    >>If there is no limit related to the towers, then warlockry has clearly taken a power boost. The 2 limits are gone without being replaced by anything else.

    No, like I said before the limit is the Warlock’s unenchantable lifespan.

    >>The third dead zone might actually be pretty small, say 1 meter diameter or lower, since he was just testing it. It would be good practice when casting a new spell to set the area of effect to minimum, if there is a choice.

    That assumes that he knew how to set it that small when he first cast it- remember the effects of new spells are almost entirely unpredictable.

    >>The towers can’t have infinite power.

    The technical definition of infinite is “higher than can be counted,” so why can’t it be infinite for the warlock’s purposes? I’ll buy that they might not be able to contain unlimited power, but we don’t know if their power is self-contained or being drawn from a regenerative source somewhere.

    >>You wouldn’t need more than one, and we know one is damaged.

    unless they are directional (which might fit with the irregular growth of the world) or the field-generation is otherwise the part that is limited.

    >>If other warklocks start using the towers, we may see a limit to how much can be drawn.

    I still don’t buy that warlocks draw power directly from their source; I think their sources are pushing out the power whether warlocks are there/using it or not. It fits with the Calling being a distress call- we know the warlocks were just getting bleedover of a signal being pushed out. I assume the creation of warlocks was akin to the induction of permanent magnetism when exposed to strong enough magnets. Also, why else would the Towers cause the warlocks headaches when they aren’t attuned? Unattuned warlocks certainly aren’t drawing from the Towers, so why would there be any affect unless the energy from the Tower was already bombarding them?

    There’s also an upper limit to what warlocks can do based on signal strength. This is already demonstrated by the drop off in power for all warlocks as they move away from their Source, but surely the signal has a limited strength, but given what a still-growing warlock can do based on that limit it’s not really an issue.

    But my central idea is that none of that matters in terms of “needed limits.” Warlocks aren’t going to be any more powerful than Wizards. Clearly they’ll be more powerful than they were, but we already know that even within the division of “major” and “minor” schools of magic there’s differentiation, with Wizardry having been supreme for the last 200 years. This just moves them from a second tier “major” (with all the other major schools) to the first tier (with wizards). It’s the first time wizards have had a real competitor in power since the fall of sorcery with the Northern Empire, but the Guild acknowledged the Council as their equal after the Night of Madness anyway… whether or not they meant it.

  31. >>A mechanism where they all have to share the power from the towers means that warlocks have an interest in coordinating their use of the finite resource.

    Not really. Do you have to coordinate the use of the radio in your car with the radios in all the other cars?

  32. At this point I’m willing to buy that Vond gets killed, the “demon” story that Sterren planted becomes the generally accepted explanation for his powers, and Warlockery in Ethshar does come to a definitive end. That seems rather more the way things are heading than massive Sorcerous intervention on the Towers and/or lots of warlocks of near godlike power running around. I mean I could certainly be wrong, but if you asked me which way I thought the story was going, that’s what I’d tell you.

    As for this chapter, it really showed the power of wizardry and why everyone is so afraid of the Guild. Ithinia seriously considered use of a spell can can call down meteors and flatten a kingdom (with the implication she could personally cast it), and her narration flat-out tells us that there are wizards far more powerful than she is.

    I’m surprised the Guild has managed to be as stable as it is, actually. The real movers-and-shakers in it get to their position not by having any particular moral virtue, leadership qualities, or even intelligence, but just by being really good at wizardry. Unlike the Overlords, they’re not dependent on a societal support structure to carry out their whims. What keeps the powerful guys from moving through the World, taking whatever they want, wiping out villages that tick them off, and otherwise behaving in unpleasant ways for anyone who isn’t themselves? To turn into a bunch of Vonds, in other words. They only ones who could oppose them are each other, and why should they?

  33. >>At this point I’m willing to buy that Vond gets killed, the “demon” story that Sterren planted becomes the generally accepted explanation for his powers, and Warlockery in Ethshar does come to a definitive end.

    There is an entire school of magic founded on interactions with demons. Even if less than 1 in 100 warlocks are willing to make that bargain, there are more than 15,000 warlocks in the Aldagmor group, nevermind the World… and does anyone really want the guys who are willing to flout the Guild (even if just for the little bit it takes to run in, attune, then run back) and sell their souls to be the only warlocks around?

    >>What keeps the powerful guys from moving through the World, taking whatever they want, wiping out villages that tick them off, and otherwise behaving in unpleasant ways for anyone who isn’t themselves? They only ones who could oppose them are each other, and why should they?

    I assume a part is laziness. If “normals” fear or hate wizards beyond reason the wizards have to collect their own supplies rather than just going to the corner store.

  34. >>As for all the musing about Lumeth’s towers and warlockry,
    >>I’m not going to say anything about that.

    As it should be.

    “This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”

    Bill

  35. >>What keeps the powerful guys from moving through the World, taking whatever they want, wiping out villages that tick them off, and otherwise behaving in unpleasant ways for anyone who isn’t themselves? They only ones who could oppose them are each other, and why should they?

    I think the implication in other novels is that you only get to the higher levels of wizardry by being obsessive compulsive about it. People who want to muck about overly in mundane affairs don’t have time to practice high order spells that take hours to cast (and go BOOM if you make a tiny mistake).

    Just my take, though.

    Bill

  36. Indeed, if Sterren’s story about how Vond got his powers becomes generally accepted, I can see a lot of former warlocks either consulting demonologists, or trying to apprentice themselves to demonologists, in hopes of figuring out what demon it was that gave Vond his powers, etc. Of course there is no such demon, but eventually they might find out about the Lumeth Towers via demonic divination.

  37. > Not really. Do you have to coordinate the use of the
    > radio in your car with the radios in all the other cars?

    No, but that is because it works as a transmission. If that is how the towers work (and I concede that we don’t know that isn’t they way they work), then one warlock wouldn’t interfere with another.

    By share, I meant that the total power available is finite, and the warlocks draw part of it. If 10 warlocks try to draw 20% power each, then they only get half of the power they want. Alternatively, they could get 20% each but intermittently.

    You could have a few warlocks who are flying, and then another warlock tries to melt a mountain. They all only get 1% of the power that they were trying to pull. This means that the flying warlocks can no longer stay in the air.

    This all depends on how the power gets shared. If each warlock gets x% of what they ask for then, trying to do something major would cause you to draw more power than others. OTOH, it could be that if there is contention, then each warlock gets the same power (subject to power level of the warlock I guess).

    It could even have diminishing returns. For example, if 2 warlocks are drawing power, they might only get 25% of what one warlock drawing the power would get. For example, if the strain that each warlock puts on the towers is equal to the square root of the power that they draw, the one warlock drawing lots of power is more efficient than many warlocks drawing a small amount of power.

    Anyway, what I was thinking was that if they don’t cooperate, then the value of their power decreases. There are many things which require reliable power and they would be harder if the total power available was to vary intermittently.

    Some kind of social rules to handle reliable sharing would be beneficial for the warlocks.

  38. >>No, but that is because it works as a transmission. If that is how the towers work (and I concede that we don’t know that isn’t they way they work), then one warlock wouldn’t interfere with another.

    That’s exactly what warlockry looks like to me.
    We know for a fact thats exactly what the Calling was. It also makes sense of the Lumith headaches for the unattuned- interference/untuned static for receiving a transmission on a different “frequency,” I don’t have an alternate theory that fits (then again, I’m obviously rather fond of this one)- and nothing I’ve seen suggests they’re reaching out to the power source as opposed to it reaching out to them. And only time we’ve ever seen Warlockry use “jam” or interfere with another warlock is when it was directed to do so by the user.

  39. As for the Signal idea I am 100% in agreement with Ryan on this point, I think the Towers of Lumeth are point sources for a background signal that Vond and Sterren are attuned too and that others can tune into as well.

    As for the ultimate limit of Warlockry, another scenario has come to mind recently. We know that Warlocks above a certain high level constantly crave using more and more power. It is possible that at a certain peak of power level they will ‘overload’ and their receiving center will ‘burn out’. If that is the case then the effects based on what I know of electronics could take two paths, either they die from the overload, or their ability to receive after being overloaded is very weak. If they die then enough said, it puts a very sharp limit on what they do with their power once they get close to peak power for fear of death. If it causes them to lose most but not all of their Warlock ability then they might still make a living at say a journeyman Warlock level.

    If this turns out to be the case either way then all those called Warlocks are not that far behind Vond in approaching the peak and even if they all tune in they will fade pretty soon.

    We know Warlocks can control the weather, and that Vond was able to fly into the yellow mist that surrounds the world and return, but he could not dissipate the mist himself IIRC. We also know the Towers of Lumeth keep the mist away from ‘the World’ Does the ocean fade out into the void mist off the map we have seen or does the world look like the Earth (an oblate spheroid) but only the part protected by the Towers is inhabitable? I got the impression from the description that Ethshar is shaped more like a Frisbee than a globe, but I might just not understand the description.

  40. It is unclear how the ocean works. The only maps show that it is roughly rectangular. The ocean runs right up to the border on the map.

    However, holding back water would require much more effort than holding back air. Building a wall to hold back a 500+ meter deep ocean would require massively thick walls.

    Handling the vapor would be much easier especially if it is at the same pressure as the air in the World.

    It might be that the depth of the ocean gets lower as you get closer to the edge. This would mean that the towers wouldn’t need to hold back the ocean, though they might need to seal the sea bed so that there are no leaks.

    That is an interesting suggestion about warlockry craving. A burned out receiver might cause suicide if the craving doesn’t end.

    Ofc, if there is no burn out, the equivalent to being Called, might be a warlock starving to death because all they can think of is using their powers (hopefully peacefully).

    It would be like those experiments with lab rats where they starved because they spent all their time pressing a button that triggered electrodes connected to their brain.

    Another option is that it becomes possible for a warlock to completely true to a source. The more the warlock uses power the more accurately they can hear the signal, but you can’t hear it better than 100%. This wouldn’t be an issue for the Source, because even if a warlock heard it at say 1% of its maximum, they would be Called.

    This could also mean that suddenly warlocks would no longer be inherently equal. The max power level could vary depending on natural ability.

  41. >>It is unclear how the ocean works.
    I’ve wondered about this for years. Part of my question is whether the maps show the edge of the world on that side, or just the edge of where Ethsharites have explored? Is their land on the other side of the ocean? (and a boundary beyond)? If there is not land boundary, is it restrained by a magic wall, or does it just dump out into whatever is beyond and get replaced by (magic?) springs somewhere?

    >>We know that Warlocks above a certain high level constantly crave using more and more power. It is possible that at a certain peak of power level they will ‘overload’ and their receiving center will ‘burn out’.

    Using electronics to develop our conception of warlockry, I’m not sure the signal would ever, naturally, burn out a high end warlock. To the best of our understanding it’s not like warlockry has multiple components and one could pass too much energy to another, there’s the ursetor fwal which seems to be a single structure.
    As sensitivity increases ability to convert the absorbed energy to useful effects seems to develop proportionally. It seems more likely that if a warlock could be burned out it would be by overwhelming their intake, suddenly placing them much closer to a source or placing them close to a much more powerful source.
    Of course I always assumed the warlock’s power was a 0 resistance path, and that the increase in power came from increasing the size of the path. Even if it’s not, the way electronics work is that a high-resistance path (low power warlock) would be more likely to ‘burn out’ when exposed to high power levels than a high power (low resistance) warlock.

    Either way, I don’t see burnout being a “normal” issue, though special circumstances might create such a thing.

    >>craving
    I never got the feeling that it was the high-end warlocks “craving” the power so much as being so attuned that it was naturally gathering in them and wanting out. It’s like the energy produced by the source is the water in a stream or river. When they become warlocks it’s like they’ve been given an intake and become able to draw in some of that water and convert it to other things. But that intake can’t ever be fully closed, and there’s a constant pressure of energy against it, so they’re “charged” with the power being pressed to move on through.
    My guess is that’s why warlocks have a hard time using other magic and the source of their natural personal wards. While they’re “little warlocks” the side effects aren’t necessarilly directly noticeable to the warlock, they exist (things like the natural wards, increased health, and probably increased “luck”) but you have to look for them to notice. When they become “big warlocks” you start to notice that leakage because there’s so much the effects become obvious and hard to miss (always floating, things moving “on their own”). I’d imagine it’ll be easier for warlocks to notice these effects now without the whispering to distract them, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stop.

    >>starving for use of power
    I seem to remember Vond sustaining himself on power and not needing to eat much anyway. Or sleep for that matter, as use of the power reinvigorates. I’d imagine these effects continue to increase.

    >>This could also mean that suddenly warlocks would no longer be inherently equal. The max power level could vary depending on natural ability.
    Warlocks have never been inherently equal, Sterren graphically demonstrates that as does the variation in power among warlocks on the Night of Madness. I’m not sure how that differentiation works out long-run, but it was already there. I’d also imagine there’s some variation in ability when they were Called based on how effective they were at blocking the compulsion of the Calling.

  42. Me, I have also assumed that warlocks operate on principles similar to the radio broadcast. That is, each warlock can use only so much power at maximal attunement, and each warlock actively using his/her powers creates a region of “shadow” “behind” hime (from the source), although it is small. I also think that the “hum” heard by warlocks is the output of the Towers, carrying power to the place of effect (world edges), although the leak is possible as well. Then, each strong warlock shall weaken the effect somewhat -but only in a single direction. Also, no single warlock shall be able to draw 100% of the tower’s power, unless they are large enough to cover them completely 😉 Also, I understood that more than a craving, it is the fact that the power is used, more and more on the subconscious level, rather than by the act of will. After all the attunement is in warlocks brain, starting with a speech recognition center (Lawrence have mentioned this), so maybe, with higher attunement more brain functions get atuuned to power control than we use consciously. That is, it is not like warlock craves the power, but more like his brain plugs new senses and new “muscles” instead of old ones, flying insted of walking, moving things with power istead of hands, etc. After all, most Called warlock don’t seem exhibit withdrawal, do they(according to Hanner POW chapters) ?

  43. > I also think that the “hum” heard by warlocks is the output
    > of the Towers, carrying power to the place of effect (world
    > edges), although the leak is possible as well.

    Vond went outside the world and still was able to use his power. I wonder if that would still work. He might have drawn from the Source at that point, since he was so strong.

    In any case, I wonder if he notices a drop in the signal from the towers.

    > Warlocks have never been inherently equal, Sterren
    > graphically demonstrates that as does the variation in
    > power among warlocks on the Night of Madness.

    It is unclear if Sterren is still weak, but it seems so. Also, he was weak enough that he could choose to not use his ability much.

    You are right that ability to withstand the Calling is not necessarily equal between warlocks, and so they would not all have equal max power output. It would be interesting to see how much each warlock could lift as they approached the Calling.

  44. >>and each warlock actively using his/her powers creates a region of “shadow” “behind” hime (from the source), although it is small.

    the transmission shadow a receiving radio creates doesn’t vary based on if it’s on or off…

    >>After all the attunement is in warlocks brain, starting with a speech recognition center (Lawrence have mentioned this)

    where’d this get mentioned?

    >>so maybe, with higher attunement more brain functions get atuuned to power control than we use consciously.

    this is an interesting theory.

    >>After all, most Called warlock don’t seem exhibit withdrawal, do they(according to Hanner POW chapters)

    Now that you mention it, the twice he was in the tapestry worlds Hanner didn’t notice anything but lack of power and the Call; no hint of withdrawal.

    >>Also, he was weak enough that he could choose to not use his ability much.

    No he couldn’t. He had to choose not to play dice. I’d imagine that his power still showed up in other tiny ways without him ever realizing it though.

    >>It would be interesting to see how much each warlock could lift as they approached the Calling.

    Rudhira did exactly that in Night of Madness.

  45. Well, I meant to test out if Called warlocks all have the exact same power.

    If they have done that, then my suggestion that all warlocks were equal in terms of max power is correct (or not if that was the result of the test 🙂 ).

  46. except that testing each warlock as they got close would hasten them to be Called. Hanner pretty directly blamed Faran’s little test over the gulf for Rudhira and Verrin getting called.

    Actually, come to it, the difference in power those two had right before being called suggests there is a differentiator there.

  47. I think that there is only so much current. So when more warlocks get the power vond’s will go down the more it is distributed.

    I guess you would have to band it. Only so many level X warlocks. Only so much current per band.

    I do like this book so far.

  48. @Ryan
    >>the transmission shadow a receiving radio creates doesn’t vary based on if it’s on or off…
    True. Haven’t thought about that. It depends on the antenna. Not sure about warlocks though.
    >>where’d this get mentioned?
    I have once asked Lawrence about brain surgery on warlocks in an email -long before I had the courage to post here. The answer was, to quote: “If you could do it, though, yes, that person would no longer be a warlock. However, he also wouldn’t be able to understand spoken language.” I don’t think he’ll object to reposting it here, as it is a question similar to many here.

  49. While I believe the signal from the towers is just the bleed over affecting the special ‘circuit’ in a Warlocks brain it would still have a firm limit. Any piece of shielded electronics does not stop bleeding off signal, it just feeds the bleed into a ‘grounding’ system to cancel it out, at least as I understand it. Electronics class was a long long time ago so I might be wrong. In any case there is a limit to how much bleed exists, If that is so then there will always be an inherent limit in the power drawn by all Warlocks together. I think of it like a pool at the end of a creek where the water gathers right before it crosses into an area of course sand and dissipates. Each Warlocks draws out of the pool and if none are drawing the water just flows over into the sand and sinks out of the world. On the other hand if lots of Warlocks are drawing from it then the pool will become empty because the stream can only refill it at a certain rate. Once the pool dries up they will only be able to use what the towers are putting out as a background bleed, not what has accumulated in the ether, as it were.

  50. >>I think that there is only so much current. So when more warlocks get the power vond’s will go down the more it is distributed.

    I think we all assume a limited current, I just think some of us see it as a broadcast rather than the circuit you’re describing. I certainly don’t think it relates to “level X” warlocks, I think both Sources transmit indiscriminately and the warlocks do what they do with the energy bombarding them based on their own sensitivity.

    >>However, he also wouldn’t be able to understand spoken language

    Now I’m wondering whether the involvement in a warlock’s brain increase with their power/sensitivity.

    >>In any case there is a limit to how much bleed exists, If that is so then there will always be an inherent limit in the power drawn by all Warlocks together.

    You’re generally right on your electronics.
    This, however, is where it starts going off the rails for me… With electronics you have to create special scenarios (capacitors and similar events, like static electricity and lightning) to create the sort of “pool” you’re talking about.
    That may be how it works, though.
    I prefer the idea that it doesn’t; partially because the Calling was clearly a broadcast without pooling, partially because the idea of “pooling” would seem intuitively to be counter the observation of effect-weakness further away from the Lumith source, and partially because I just like the idea warlockry is somewhat more durable than that.

  51. I don’t like the idea of warlockery without a control. The thing that tips me off is the mention of static/noise on the tower.

  52. Dang all my books are packed up and moved already, can someone tell me was Sterren among those who traveled to the Towers of Lumeth when the Wizards made their decree about Warlocks? If so being so close to his source might have made him stronger without his even realizing it…

  53. Yet another random question; What spell(s) produced Ithinia’s gargoyles? None of the animations we’ve seen described seem to quite get the level of intelligence and ability they have unless it’s simply a better application than we’ve seen.

  54. The wizards that examined it in Misenchanted sword pretty specifically said that it didn’t seem to have a personality as such, which the gargoyles seem to;

    … Derrend said. “You and Wirikidor are going to be together for the rest of your life, so you had better become accustomed to its behavior. Be grateful that it hasn’t got a mind of its own—reflexes, yes, but no mind that I can detect, no whims, no personality. It’s a very powerful and valuable item, and a very dangerous one as well, both to you and to others.”
    pg 149

  55. Well, yes; it’s limited by all the other spells put on it.

    Ellran’s Animation is fairly flexible, and usually it does produce personalities. Wirikidor was a special case.

  56. huh. Like I said, the direct references to it have never indicated it was *that* powerful.

    So, now I’m wondering if it was a part of how dragons were created. You’d still need something to provide *life* (and, through that, the ability to reproduce and grow)… but that seems like more than half the battle right there.

  57. What’s the fourth gargoyle’s name? I’m finding reference that there are four of them, and that there’s Old Rocky, Glitter, and Fang… but not the fourth one’s name.

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