They are both my characters; in Sharaka's case, i just need some feedback and I just worry if she's getting a bit too similar to another character (one-armed pyromancer that could get a phoenix summoning? Sound familiar?). Jack, on the other hand, is more or less Artifice Tony Stark with millennia of experience, but in addition to a few original inventions I'd like to experiment with existing cards; his approach to artifice, both in and off universe, is pretty different from Maral's (afaik), but I'm afraid there might be Issues concerning him.

ah, sorry, I was reading it as just one combined question about both characters. I think in both those cases it's probably better to just talk publicly unless you're worried about spoilers, you get a broader range of opinions. although I'm probably not the right person to weigh in on them 'cause I don't think character redundancy is actually that big a deal.

Yeah, Maral works more in the "objects of power" realm of artifice rather than anything mechanical. The things she deals with are innately magical rather than mechanical. That's why her secondary specialization is in enchantments.

Ok, I'll make a more elaborated thread about Jack to put all the cards on the table; in the meantime, Sharaka's case is probably simple enough to discuss here.

-troubled past
-left arm is missing from just under the shoulder, leaving just a stub.
-main skill lies in weapons, most notably the sword or spear
-has a sixth sense for the flow of mana, making [character] naturally talented in spellcraft.
-Highly advanced ability to learn new spells.
-can summon a great phoenix

They remind you or someone? They should, as they're copied (with very minor edits) straight from Sig Gram's character sheet for the VITAL tournament. The last two are not relevant for Sharaka yet, but I was thinking about letting Sharaka learn or discover a new spell basically for each of her future stories, a sort of testament to her broadening mind, and to start this trend specifically with her getting some Phoenix-related spell from her connection with the Mother Forge. The latter has two reasons:
1. her ADAF-Healing Path-Burning Home plays a bit like a resurrection arc, with Sharaka back from a situation where she should have rightly died and changed forever by the experience (missing arm, Spark ignited, sent to spread the culture and knowledge of her dying people across the planes)
2. The decline of the draconic rule over the Burnspine began as a titanic phoenix raised from the Forge and flew across the continent, starting a chain of events leading to the genocide of dragons and the ascent of the viashino.

As you may imagine, I'm worried this prospect steps over Sig's toes more than a bit. For this reason (and also because melee combat is way more interesting with additional limbs ) I had thought about having her buying or somehow getting a prosthetic, probably from Maral or Jack, but I don't want it to be an erasure of her injury. Full Metal Alchemist, for example, adds great details about the protagonist's mechanical limbs that stress how much those limbs are not really his own, and he physically suffers from it aside from the trauma tied to the related injury. So Sharaka's new arm could have problems doing light-duty work, like eating and manipulating handles without cracking them, but it would fly right in the face of her process of learning not to resort to violence as the easy way out...

Thoughts?

Do the people of Ilyta's world know about planeswalking? Does she share her findings of dead worlds with the people of her world? Does she lecture/publish about other planes?

working on a dossier for Vella finally, and kinda struggling with the history section. I have a good sense of who she is, but I don't have a very clear map of what she's done, and I feel like I'd rather explore that through stories instead of just making something up for a dossier. but I also feel like leaving the section largely blank kinda defeats the purpose. not entirely sure how to handle that, figured I'd see if anyone else has an opinion.

Okay, lots to unpack here.

Yes, it's very common knowledge. Not openly welcome knowledge either since the Archon and Kor of Qhera aren't natives to the world..

Yes, she publishes material about the worlds she finds, but they aren't widely regarded. The only two sectors that ever show any real interest are the ancient, dusty academics and the military. Of the two, ultimately, most of her expedition funding is provided by the military, a fact she actively resents and refuses to take their capitol as often as possible, but sadly, the hide-bound museum and university folk aren't really all that generous.

Her lectures, and consequently class, are on theoretical history and epochal patterns. It's the historical equivalent of quantum physics. It's not a terribly popular class. She has two teaching adjuncts that handle most of the coursework, but by the end of the semester, it almost always devolves into a lecture series on the worlds she's been to that are still aroundand she's a glorified cross between a travel agent and a docent.

Interesting. Would it be possible for a non-student to catch one of her lectures? Perhaps some stranger who hears vague rumors about someone with stories of dead worlds?

I think that's largely dependent on circumstances, but there's not exactly heavy security on campus where she holds her position. In a more official role, it becomes slightly more complicated.

Okay, sounds good. Thanks!

You can describe what kind of accomplishments she achieved and what kind of adventures she lived in general terms, maybe dropping a few evocative names that you will explain and explore later with the stories, like "she stole the Godsilk Cloak from the Arterra's High Priest, leaving a heap of gold leaf in its place". Depending on the kind of stories that will feature her, such pieces of information might not be proper spoilers.




Boost of my previous question, as it seems the line of questioning about Ilyta's lectures has been satisfied:

Sorry, I tend to pass over a lot of the questions related to the M:EM's expanded cast because I'm years behind on our canon. I can give my my two cents on it, especially considering you mention a character of mine.


I should comment directly on this considering Sig Gram is my character. I'll be completely honest, most of what I wrote regarding Sig's abilities were made up for the VITAL tournament because I actually needed something for our own little shounen tournament arc. More than half of what you listed here aren't even things I have set for the character. In my head, what I have for Sig are a set of personality traits, though I'll admit part of that is from a lack of writing for him.

I'd also like the point out that Sig is not actually in the Archives, and that I have put out information about him in these public forums. I fully accept the possibility that you borrow or wholeheartedly copying the concepts I've already posted, and bow to you executing it first.


As I said above, I find it hard to see you stepping on the toes of someone who doesn't officially exist. What's out there is out there, and even if I did think you were stealing (I don't), I still don't think it's right of me to stop you. I believe in the free flow of ideas and the concept of "there are no original concepts anymore", even if someone is "stealing" from me.

As for the prosthetics idea, obviously you already know some avenues you can explore, but I'd also like to point out that there are all types of prosthetics you could explore. I'm no longer familiar with Modern Ravnica, but back in Momir Vig's time, cytoplasm could be used to make fully functional (if an unappealing shade of translucent) biological prosthetics. I'm sure you could come up with other angles outside of the sliding scale of biological and mechanical replacement limbs -- for instance, you could have some machine-of-the-gods looking thing with no actual interlocking parts but which is held together by magic, or a literal phantom limb which can't interact with the material realm but which can grab/punch people in the spirits.

Let's not be hasty there, my writing is hopping everywhere else lately and plotting Burning Home is proving particularly arduous for some reason.


Funny you mention that, because one of the things I had thought about was Sharaka learning a spell to shape an arm (and later wings) out of "spirit fire" (with its overcharged version being a Bayonetta-like giant flaming fist) somewhat nodding to Ajani's avatar magic.

Thank you for replying!

How hard it is to create autonomous, sentient life via magic? Like sentient constructs, imps, lesser angels, elementals etc.

In lieu of a canon answer, I'd have to say that depending on what the life in question is, it's not necessarily hard but is usually complex. So you have to know what you're doing, but not necessarily be a mage of distinction to do it. The easiest categories seem to be constructs and Homuncului; Weirds (and other intelligent elementals, presumably) are a bit behind. Angels seem to be REALLY hard and we haven't seen sub-oldwalkers really pull that one off.

Aetherborn seem like an odd skew. If they're possible off Kaladesh (As I proposed in Maximilian Carter and the Temple of Origin), they would seem to be the absolute easiest, given that they're canonically created as a byproduct of magical sciences, but are probably somewhat harder to direct and program than life that's normally made from scratch.

It depends on how closely you intend for them to be life.
Serra, for example, created an entire race of 'humans' but her particular knowledge of how the body worked and the like kinda sucked. So, you end up with what are superficially human, but their internals weren't really all that accurate. For one, they didn't really age past a point.
They couldn't reproduce on their own, they had to go to Serra to effectively, put the baby in there.

My curiosity was mostly about sentience; the creation would basically be a familiar who ended up more sentient than intended, nore or less.

Is there a maximum number of spoiler tags a single post can hold? If there is, can it be circumvented somehow?

EDIT: I just discovered there was bonus material for Phantoms of the Past and if not for the NAA I'd NEVER have known. I'm torn between excitement and seething anger.

Well, you are talking about a character which I first posted... almost four years ago, which has been hanging around in my head for longer, who is supposed to exist in a story that I've been working on and off again for something like a decade. I think you'll get to it before I do.


I am not aware of it, but keep in mind this isn't tumblr. Tags here are non-functional from a programming perspective, so their only purpose is to clue the prospective reader in to what is going to be included. As such, I'd advise a "less is more" approach: two, maybe three tags.

(Also I know it's never caught on but I personally like putting tags after the title so that I can glance through forum pages for a specific story thread.)


I actually had to hop around quite a bit to see what you were talking about and why I may not have done anything about it. Turns out, firstly, that the "bonus material" was just a bunch of dossiers for the planes and characters which appeared in the story. However, I think I may have overlooked it when I initially uploaded Phantoms, most likely because by that point I knew I was WAY behind on uploaded Phantoms but had forgotten the vote was to include the bonus material. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, not that I'm likely to get around to uploading to the Archive anytime soon. Life, it turns out, is pretty heavy when you have a job.

Ah, no, I meant [tag]this[/tag] kind of tags, I'm afraid I reached the limit for spoiler sections in the NAA first post.