A few in game questions

[Metis]

Even if it isn't something a commoner would ever consider it might be something that comes up within specific circles, if only as a philosophical topic.

[Legate of Mineta]

M;

"That's generally true, though there's a legal exception made for the (rather hard to find) temples and monks of St. Fidelo the Weaver; they theoretically receive guidance and dispensation from the Gods when it comes to matters of intractable pain.

The thing is, when those temples and monks abuse their powers, they tend to get punished - apparently by the Gods themselves - spectacularly.  Horrific weather events, falling through unexplained Gates, harried by wild animals - the sky's the limit.  Most of them are gone now."

[Metis]

How much legal authority does the Academagia (or perhaps the Legate more specifically) have with regards to decidedly out there magic crimes committed in Mineta which doesn't otherwise involve them directly, at least in practice if not on paper?

[Metis]

If a physician wished to volunteer at a temple, putting their skills as a healer to good use, what would be a good place (or two, or three) to hit up?

[Legate of Mineta]

M;

Combined!

"That's an interesting question, and it very much depends on how public Orso's involvement is.  The Captain likes him personally (inasmuch as liking has a bearing on affairs of security and state), and trusts him as much as he trusts anyone.  Moreover, Orso's position in the Academy isn't just powerful - it's useful to the Captain, and the Captain would be willing to go to some lengths to keep Orso from being embarrassed or incriminated (so long as it's understood that he wasn't acting against the Captain's interests).  So if Orso gets involved in investigating non-Academy crimes without being conspicuous, he can get away with a lot, just because of his personal influence.  He may not be able to commandeer an investigation by the Guards, say, but he can conduct a parallel one behind the scenes, tell the Captain the results, and be fairly confident that his solution will be heard.

On the other hand, he can't be seen to be throwing his authority around in cases that don't involve the school.  Or, at least, if he does, he's more politically exposed.  There's always been a certain amount of tension between the City of Mineta and Academy of Mineta, and the civilian authorities (in this case, primarily the Guilds) don't like it when legates start coloring outside the lines.

Shorter answer: he has very little legal authority in situations like these, but that doesn't always stop him.  ;)"

And:

"Depends on the physician’s specializations.  If they’re good with injuries and physical traumas, one of the small guild-backed temples around the docks would be an obvious starting point - maybe the Temple of Blessed Iola near the Shipfitters’ guildhall.  If diagnosing and treating sicknesses is more your thing, maybe St. Nino’s, a converted apartment block in one of the quarters of the Undergate particularly prone to flooding and strange disease."

[Metis]

Does the Imperial Temple have a military arm that individual temples could...I'unno, call on, petition, ask? Whatever, for the type of support another organization would ask the city guard or hire mercenaries for?

[Legate of Mineta]

M;

"Not formally.  They could put out an open call for the faithful to take up arms in their defense, but in theory there has never been a really stark distinction between church and state; the Legions, and in modern terms the Guard, were the Emperors' sword and shield and protected the Temple just like the Palace and the capital city itself.  There have traditionally been legions more closely associated with the religious orders than others, granted - particularly the Crimson - but these days, if they can be said to really exist at all, they're more of a semi-secret society than an order you could mobilize and put in the field.

So, the basic answer is, they rely on members of the Minetan Guard on a special detail (and ultimately answering to the Captain)."

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: 1. How large is Zoe's familiar Carol?

2. Has there been any research into the magic through which familiars gain and lose intelligence?

 

[Schwarzbart]

3. Do the Academagia setting have something like shadow magic similar to D&D or Pathfinder?

[Legate of Mineta]

Qs!

"1. Carol's somewhere around 2 inches (or 5 cm) long.  She still seems to be growing, though.

 

2. Yeah, but it's far from being settled.  The religious purists argue that it's simply a sign that the Familiar has been favored by the Gods; the fringe transmigrationists suggest that it's proof that Familiars are reincarnated wizards being restored to their former selves, at least mentally, by association with human magic and all that it entails; the gestalt movement speculates that it's just a mistake to think of Mages and Familiars as separate entities, and that the bulk of Familiars' advanced thinking is actually going on in the Mage's brain.  And there's more!

 

Of course, part of the problem is that nobody really wants to talk about Gates magic in this context (or any other) anymore - but when Gates was legal that was where a lot of Bond theory came from, since an awful lot of Gates is about the permanent transformation of subjects.  When the Academy was founded, in fact, the prevailing hypothesis was that Mages unconsciously summoned their Familiars through Gates - that was how they were drawn together - and it was that summoning that empowered the Familiar for future changes.  That has since been discredited, mostly, but you can see where they were coming from...

 

3. It's not in the main magical corpus, and the main character wouldn't have explored it much yet, but... given the powers of the Shade familiar..."

[Metis]

Is Bond Theory rooted in Gates to the point where someone researching it would raise suspicion, if only on a level of "glance at what book they're reading if you're around"?

[Rhialto]

1 hour ago, Legate of Mineta said:

Qs!

"1. Carol's somewhere around 2 inches (or 5 cm) long.  She still seems to be growing, though.

I thought that Carol was male - according to cut content in Y1. Has that been changed, or is my memory tricking me?

1. Related to that, has there been any research about the relationship bewtween the bodies of mages and the bodies of familiars? In Dungeons and Dragons, there was a rule saying that mages of certain sizes must have familiars of certain sizes. Obviously, no such strict rule exists in Cyve - hence humans with elephant and spider familiars - but have similar things been researched or speculated about? Zoe is very small and frail, after all...

2. Have any mages had familiars which are so small as to be nearly invisible, if not outright invisible without microscopic vision?

[Legate of Mineta]

M & Rhi;

Re: Bond Theory.  No, reading relatively modern books about it is totally respectable. Older books are proscribed, and can get you into hot water.

 

Re: Carol's gender.  D'OH!  Yeah, you're absolutely right.  That mistake's on us.

 

1.  Research into familiar size hasn't really led anywhere, to be honest.  These days the hot field of study is into the astrological affinities of various animal species (as opposed to individual members), and whether that's a factor in the bonds they form, but it's proving hard to get sufficiently large sample sizes for the non-traditional types to be really confident of the results; research is ongoing.

 

2.  There have certainly been documented mosquitos and fleas - but, as with Carol, they tend to grow over time.

 

Which can be pretty horrifying, frankly.

 

Nobody has ever documented anything smaller.

[Schwarzbart]

if familiar that naturally can fly are growing from the bound will their movement assisted by magic at some point?

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

It could be, but not necessarily. It depends on how much the Bond is grown.

[Rhialto]

@Legate of Mineta: It is possible, through mastery and/or Gates, to switch minds and bodies completely and permanantly?

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

"The obvious caveat here is that the player has never seen it done, nor (to the best of their knowledge) met anyone who has.  But there are absolutely stories of it having happened in the past; there are even rumors that Durand's great-great grandfather, Aulnault III de Thiomenes, had his mind overwritten with that of a pretender wizard, though it's probably more likely that he just went mad."

[Rhialto]

8 hours ago, Legate of Mineta said:

there are even rumors that Durand's great-great grandfather, Aulnault III de Thiomenes, had his mind overwritten with that of a pretender wizard"

How widely known are such rumours? Are they the sort of thing which an averge person in Mineta, an average scholar at the Academagia, or only someone with mysterious sources of information and interest in forbidden magic (such as Sima Venesico or Lambert Cobo if he were lucky), would know about?

[Schwarzbart]

Even when Mastery was allowed would people who know the secret of permanent switch their body with someone else reveal that they know such a technique?
I would say no because revealing would make it more difficult to get their next choice of body.

Also I'm pretty sure such magic have limitations at what body they could be used.
 

Spoiler

i.e. the crystal I thought up for the final test at the Thai school need the mind already to know some level of Mastery.

 

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

"Body-swapping rumors, you mean?  It's actually reasonably well known as a fictional motif: there's an opera called La Duchessa di Lidi about a duchess who discovers that her husband's mind was swapped with that of a malevolent wizard, leaving her married to the real duke's murderer (who's wearing his face and getting away with it), leading her to plan and enact an incredibly gory revenge against the pseudo-duke and all his evil hangers-on at court - at the end of which she kills herself with poison for the crime of murdering her husband's body.

But that doesn't mean people actually know much of anything about the techniques.  The popular sentiment is probably that people did it all the time in the glory days of Mastery, but it's long forgotten now and good riddance."

S;

"Agreed.  Not many Mastery mages figured these techniques out to begin with, and the vast majority of those that did would never have voluntarily shared the knowledge."

[Schwarzbart]

Is it planed that the player can join the School Rimbal team if (s)je is good at it?

Are there other Competition, where the player can join a Academagia team, that will happen at other schools?

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

Yes, and yes.

[Schwarzbart]

Is both already planed for Year 2?

Have all College an core class they make Competitions with other School?

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

No, not all Colleges will have a competition against other Colleges or Universities. Lots of competitions that happen within a class, though.

[Rhialto]

On 11/4/2020 at 12:34 PM, Legate of Mineta said:

Rhi;

"1.  It certainly happens, though it's not as common as once it was.  A polite piece of slang for it in the south is to say that so-and-so has "gone for the vest," in reference to dominant styles of fashion on the other side of the line.

@Legate of Mineta: Is there any taboo around wearing vests in the South? I think, for example, about taboos surrounding Turbans in parts of North America because they are associated with feared and dispised cultures.