I guess it's entirely possible they did. I just can't say it ever came up when I was working with one. They do a lot of turning people into sheep, though.
[It would be a sad world indeed where no mage could even conceive of conjuring grease from thin air. Fortunately, Azeroth has Khadgar. If anyone's invented that spell, it's probably Khadgar.]
Mutton shortages? [Simon is appalled at the workings of your mind, sir.]
No, our cannibals aren't picky enough to need their food polymorphed before they eat it.
[He remembers that well.]
And the sheeping is temporary, you know, just to get people off your back if they're attacking you and then you can deal with them once they're...people again. Only takes a few minutes.
Also, they turn back into people as soon as you hit them, so I don't think you could be quick enough to get mutton off them even if you wanted to.
[He was totally thinking of the reformed one. He usually is, in one way or another. And especially when he talks to Myr, though he can't always put a finger on why, beyond the blindfold.]
Not as many as I just made it sound like, really. Promise. But, uh, more than two.
I wish I could explain the inner workings of the sheep spell, but I am about as far from a mage as it gets and I have no idea. I did want to be one, though, as a kid. Before I realized how much math it involved.
...I guess that's probably not something little kids daydream about growing up to be, in your world.
[There's a certain family resemblance there, isn't there.]
More than two? Maker's breath; I don't know I've even met one cannibal here.
[Turnskin or Arachne who might make questionable dietary choices given the chance? Sure. But otherwise...]
Don't suppose they've got knight-enchanters back home, do they? Though from the sound of what you've said about being a paladin you're near enough one as it was. [His smile, always so present in his voice, is a little less obvious--a little softer--as he responds to that next one.]
Not in the South, so much. If I'd been born in Tevinter, and human, though, you can believe I would have.
You could argue that the vampires count. I mean, when you're eating parts of person, the line between flesh and blood seems kind of arbitrary. [honeyyou'vegotabigstormcoming.gif]
Being a paladin is different. It's not so much magic that we do--it doesn't come from us; it's situationally granted to us. It's...hard to explain.
What is it that's different about Tevinter? They don't imprison the mages there?
[A thoughtful hum.] S'pose that's true, though I try to put their diet out of mind when I'm around them.
[It's all right he'll still care about you in your GRIMDARK FUTURE, Simon.]
I'm game to hear it if you're game to try; we haven't the like on Thedas.
No, they don't; mages rule there. Much like here, entirely at odds with Andraste's first commandment--but there you are. [He's at the stage of acceptance where he just seems weary at all of this Sinfulness around him, rather than outraged.] Their altus mages in the Magisterium rule the imperium and even poor folk of no breeding who come out mages are granted instant standing there.
I remember you talking about Andraste and how she came to be the Maker's wife. I guess I still don't quite get the connection between that and...why mages need to be locked up in towers. What are the commandments?
And I understand that there are scriptures, but they don't communicate with you at all? Not even with the priests? They're just...absent?
"Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they / Who have taken His gift / And turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world / Or beyond."
That's the one with the most bearing on mages; of course they read it differently in Tevinter, but in the true Chantry it's taken as an injunction against mages holding any sort of worldly power. Because we used to, you see--the whole world used to be like Tevinter is, or worse, with the strongest mages taking whatever they wanted from those helpless to resist them.
[He's a little impassioned about this; it's clear in his tone. And...the way he has to stop and take a breath before switching gears to the paladin's other question.]
If you keep to Chantry orthodoxy, They are. [There's a sad smile in his voice.] After Andraste's death, the Maker took Her up to His side and turned His back on the world once more, never to look back up on it unless and until the Chant's sung from all four corners of Thedas.
[If you didn't keep to Chantry orthodoxy, though...]
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You actually have a spell that's specifically just for conjuring grease out of nowhere? Like explicitly designed for that? And you learn it in school?
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Laughingly,] We do, and I did. If you're really good at it you can get twelve gallons of the stuff in one go.
Why, did your mages back home not have one for that?
[Perish the thought!]
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[It would be a sad world indeed where no mage could even conceive of conjuring grease from thin air. Fortunately, Azeroth has Khadgar. If anyone's invented that spell, it's probably Khadgar.]
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Wait, wait. Turning people into sheep? Other'n mutton shortages, what's the use of that?
[...Yes his mind apparently did go there.]
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No, our cannibals aren't picky enough to need their food polymorphed before they eat it.
[He remembers that well.]
And the sheeping is temporary, you know, just to get people off your back if they're attacking you and then you can deal with them once they're...people again. Only takes a few minutes.
Also, they turn back into people as soon as you hit them, so I don't think you could be quick enough to get mutton off them even if you wanted to.
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Let the record state I didn't think that one through before I said it. But I'm...gl...ad? to know your cannibals are...uh.
[Pause.] ...How many cannibals do you know, exactly?
[
other than the obvious, reformed one] Is that very common?...And how in the Void d'you make a spell that can turn someone into a sheep so fragile they pop right back once you hit them?
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Not as many as I just made it sound like, really. Promise. But, uh, more than two.
I wish I could explain the inner workings of the sheep spell, but I am about as far from a mage as it gets and I have no idea. I did want to be one, though, as a kid. Before I realized how much math it involved.
...I guess that's probably not something little kids daydream about growing up to be, in your world.
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More than two? Maker's breath; I don't know I've even met one cannibal here.
[Turnskin or Arachne who might make questionable dietary choices given the chance? Sure. But otherwise...]
Don't suppose they've got knight-enchanters back home, do they? Though from the sound of what you've said about being a paladin you're near enough one as it was. [His smile, always so present in his voice, is a little less obvious--a little softer--as he responds to that next one.]
Not in the South, so much. If I'd been born in Tevinter, and human, though, you can believe I would have.
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Being a paladin is different. It's not so much magic that we do--it doesn't come from us; it's situationally granted to us. It's...hard to explain.
What is it that's different about Tevinter? They don't imprison the mages there?
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[It's all right he'll still care about you in your GRIMDARK FUTURE, Simon.]
I'm game to hear it if you're game to try; we haven't the like on Thedas.
No, they don't; mages rule there. Much like here, entirely at odds with Andraste's first commandment--but there you are. [He's at the stage of acceptance where he just seems weary at all of this Sinfulness around him, rather than outraged.] Their altus mages in the Magisterium rule the imperium and even poor folk of no breeding who come out mages are granted instant standing there.
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And I understand that there are scriptures, but they don't communicate with you at all? Not even with the priests? They're just...absent?
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That's the one with the most bearing on mages; of course they read it differently in Tevinter, but in the true Chantry it's taken as an injunction against mages holding any sort of worldly power. Because we used to, you see--the whole world used to be like Tevinter is, or worse, with the strongest mages taking whatever they wanted from those helpless to resist them.
[He's a little impassioned about this; it's clear in his tone. And...the way he has to stop and take a breath before switching gears to the paladin's other question.]
If you keep to Chantry orthodoxy, They are. [There's a sad smile in his voice.] After Andraste's death, the Maker took Her up to His side and turned His back on the world once more, never to look back up on it unless and until the Chant's sung from all four corners of Thedas.
[If you didn't keep to Chantry orthodoxy, though...]