The light grew gradually bigger as he approached. There was something strange about it. Was it an odd shape? He slowed when he approached the sand.
Then he jerked the bike to a halt. He didn’t understand what he was seeing at first. The light was a person. A small person huddled near the water. She was surrounded by a ring of amber light that created what almost looked like a circular ray shield sprouting up from the ground and extending high above her head in a pillar until it faded out into nothing. Glowing lines were etched into her arms. The light illuminated her short blonde hair.
Oh no. Tech took stumbling steps forward. The closer he got, the more he was sure who it was. He cleared the rest of the distance between them in huge, flying strides. “Omega!”
She turned her head toward him with evident strain. Her eyes were wide and terrified. “Tech?”
Tech skidded to his knees beside her just outside the ring. She was in her undershirt and wore only one sock. The lines weren’t just on her arms. Glowing marks adorned her foot, her neck, and her face. The shining visible beneath her thin shirt indicated it covered her chest and back. Possibly her whole body. The marks looked like a garden of thorny vines.
No. Tech felt like the ground fell out from under him. They were the same markings he had been watching slowly disappear in the mirror. The ones on her left arm were oozing blood from her hand up past her elbow.
He tried to reach for her. His hand hit the pillar of light and could go no further. It was like a solid wall.
Omega grimaced. To Tech’s horror, he realized the blood was gradually spreading up her arm along the path of the vine as if she were being cut there with a knife.
“I’m sorry, Tech,” she said as a trail of tears dripped down one cheek. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”
Tech struck the wall of light with one fist. “What is happening? Why do you—? What is—?!” He was afraid he already knew. But he couldn’t put it into words.
“It’s okay,” Omega said. Even now, she tried to comfort him with a smile. “It was worth it to bring you back.”
Tech felt like he was stabbed simultaneously in the heart and in the gut. Everything made sense all at once. Why his resurrection seemed too easy. Why Omega always wore gloves. Why she asked him about his research everyday, always hoping for a different answer. He grabbed two fistfuls of sand. “And this was the price? Was this always the price?!”
Omega shrieked. A trickle of blood mingled with her tears and Tech realized one of the paths on her cheek had split open. “I d-didn’t know it at first. By the time I realized it, it was too late. I’m sorry. B-but you’ll be okay. You’ll—” She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip. The cut continued up to her temple.
Tech fumbled for his comm. He slammed the button on the side that would activate the emergency alert system he’d installed on the home console. Their brothers would receive the distress signal and the coordinates for his current location. “Hang on!” he cried. “We’ll figure this out.” He hit the force field one more time. “I can’t get to you. Can you move?”
She shook her head. “Not much. There’s too much pressure. Tech…please go home. I don’t want you to see this. I don’t want you to remember me like this.”
Tech’s already bleeding heart cracked open further. “You are not going to die! And I am not leaving!”
“I left a note on my datapad. It explains everything. Please, Tech.”
His eyes rapidly flew over the magic-induced force field. It extended up much higher than he could reach. If he couldn’t go through it and he couldn’t go over it… He scooped frantic handfuls of wet sand away from the base. Maybe he could dig down far enough to get under it. He flung sand behind and to either side of him like a canine. He quickly created a hole in the sand before him, but no matter how deep he went, the wall was still there. Still he dug. The tide washed in and filled the hole halfway before receding. His hands splashed through the water without slowing.
This couldn’t be happening. Omega couldn’t be sacrificing herself for him. She couldn’t be sitting here ready to accept an agonizing death on his behalf. Especially not when he had only just realized who she really was to him.
His body flooded with adrenaline, and his brain went into the overdrive state it often did when he was on the battlefield and needed to find a solution to a bad situation fast. What else could he do? There was no droid to be hacked. No detonator to disassemble. No precise shot to make. This was Force magic, and Tech was no jedi. What could he do against that?
A sharp sting sliced across his right pointer finger as he dug. He jerked his hand away and found a broken shard of a seashell deep inside the hole. He ripped it free and prepared to toss it away. The motion made his hand come into contact with the wall of light again.
He started when his fingers passed through. He dropped the shell shard. He pushed his hand forward. It went through the wall only up until his knuckles. Then the pressure was too great for him to proceed. His eyes blew wide. The cut on this finger began to glow. Where it was inside the wall, the line of blood on his hand shone with golden light. He could advance his hand only as far as the cut went.
He fumbled for the seashell piece. He took it into his left hand and, with no hesitation, pushed the sharp end into his skin right where the cut ended and sliced a long streak down his palm.
“Tech!” Omega cried in alarm.
But Tech had a theory to prove. He put his hand to the wall again, and this time, it went through down to the base of his palm. He could get inside the barrier as long as he was bleeding. He yanked his sleeve back, took the shell to his skin, and slashed down his arm to his elbow. He pushed his arm through the wall, his cut immediately lighting up. It was enough for him to be able to get a hold on Omega’s upper arm.
Her skin was burning. She was hotter than she had been on Eriadu. He held her above where her patterns were bleeding. He pulled back, hoping that perhaps if he could pull her out of the circle, the spell would end. He couldn’t move her. He could feel the pressure she mentioned bearing down on him. It was like it pushed everything to the center. Getting in was easy, but going back out was nearly impossible.
Then Tech noticed something else. Where he touched Omega’s skin, light crept up onto his fingers. The glowing vine pattern gradually bled away from her arm and crawled onto his hand.
Omega gasped. “Tech, let go!”
“I will not.” The marks elsewhere on her body had not changed, but where they made contact with Tech, they left her and attached to him.
“Stop!” Omega cried. “The whole reason I did this was to save you! You can’t undo that!”
Tech squeezed her arm harder. “I did not give my consent for you to trade your life for mine.”
“And I didn’t give my consent for you to die for us on Eriadu! I didn’t want you to do that!”
“I would do it again,” Tech said. “I will do it again.”
“No!” Omega attempted to pull out of his grasp, but she couldn't move more than an inch. She whimpered. A spot of red blossomed on the shoulder opposite Tech where another vine began to split open. She hung her head. “Let go, Tech. It’s not going to matter. It’s too late.”
Tech plunged the shell into the sand beside his knee, sharp side sticking up. He maneuvered his left hand against the point. It took a few tries, but he was at last able to cut a few messy streaks along his hand and arm. He reached that bleeding hand through the barrier and grasped Omega’s bare ankle. The pattern glowing there shifted on her skin as it slithered toward his fingers. “It’s never too late.”
(Excerpt from chapter 12 of my fic, The Call of the Amber Dawn. I decided to finally make an illustration for it.)
Force mages are a fearsome sight on the battlefield, bending the laws of nature to crush, toss, and debilitate their foes. Kirkwall's Circle houses a higher-than-usual percentage of mages who excel at this specialization, and their combined research has refined the school considerably.
I think Kirkwall's Circle having a huge amount of force mages is fascinating, and the fact that Hawke can specialize in it as well.
MERRIN SAID A WARRIOR BRANDISHING A LIGHTSABER ATTACKED THE NIGHT SUSTERS AND MALICOS USED THAT HATRED OF JEDI TO LEARN THEIR MAGIC BUT IT WAS GRIEVOUS THIS WHILE TIME?!?!??????!!?
Also the mother that took in morgan just abandoned merrin on that same battlefield? Like girl what?
And why did Morgan’s paint (tattoos?) vanish if merrin had kept the magic alive? Maybe she learned it later from texts but proximity to the altar of the all mother (name?) allowed her to keep it?
What magic is the other tribe (the mountain people) able to use? It looks like light side magic to balance the dark side magic that the night sisters use, but does this mean there are two different sects of the Witches of Dathomir? Why have we only ever seen the one faction til now???
Guys I have THIUGHTS about all this new dathomir lore omg
Another little throwback piece from 2021. I wanted to draw both Hecate and baby Grogu and eneded with a compromise of both. It's still one of my favourite pieces I've completed. 🥰🧙♀️🎨
I hope in the next game they bring back a healer mage option. With the spirit tree you could do support but I miss being able to heal other than just potions. I love playing a cleric or white mage so I hope this comes back. That or force mage, gravity powers are fun.
“As above so below”, that is the best description of the ways in which magic can affect the world and be utilized by the ones gifted with it. In the same way in which the world functions in pairs of equal opposites, so does magic have opposing manifestations that balance out each other. Although mages tend to have a natural inclination towards one particular school of magic, it doesn’t mean they cannot excel in more than one, provided they study diligently.
The 4 Schools Of Magic
Magic can be roughly split in two big categories: Magic of Energy and Magic of Matter. As the names suggest, the former has to do with all the manifestations of magic in the immaterial world and the latter with active and immediate manipulation of the matter around us. Each category includes two schools of magic, which represent opposing yet complimentary manipulations of Energy and Matter, thus forming 4 Schools in total:
Spirit School
Primal School
Creation School
Entropy School
Spirit School of Magic
Opposing and complimentary to the Primal School, Spirit school draws its power from the Fade itself. It manipulates energies that are invisible and outside of nature forces, yet surround us at all times. Also known as the school of mysteries and the ephemera, it includes everything from direct manipulation of mana and spell energies to the study and summoning of spirits themselves. It is the most esoteric from the schools of magic; and the ones who specalize in it are often misunderstood by the wide populus who knows next to nothing when it comes to the Fade.
Spirit spells can be used both in war and peace, including arcane magic (both in energy blasts and barrier creation ), mana manipulation, summoning and healing magic.
Healing magic has to do with manipulation of life-force acquired from the benevolent spirits which reside in the Fade. Not all things to come from the Fade are harmful. The spirits involved in this form of magic do not feed on the darker side of the psyche. These benign spirits of fortitude, compassion, hope and the like rarely seek to cross the Veil, but can sometimes be persuaded to protect and restore life, rather than corrupt or destroy it as demons would. However, this has two major implications: The spirit healer has to earn the spirit’s trust first in order to gain their services; and one must not forget the ever-present risk of posession which is even higher for spirit healers, since they seek to attract attention from the other side of the Veil. More than one tale exists of a spirit healer being fooled by a demon masquerading as a benevolent spirit, and inadvertently bringing them across the Veil... or being tricked into letting down their guard, and possessed.
Another domain of spirit magic -albeit on the macabre side- is Necromancy; in other words, the manipulation of the spirits of the deceased. Developed by the Mortalitasi (the Keepers of the Grand Necropolis of Nevarra), it can be used in either passive or active fashion; to simply contact a particular spirit of a deceased person or to bind the spirits that are drawn to death on the battlefield in order to put the fear of death into enemies, bring spirits to fight on the mage’s behalf and even cause devastating explosions when enemies die (this only happens through synergy with primal magic which will be discussed in a while).
Finally, dreamer magic is the discipline of spirit magic which allows the practitioner’s consciousness to enter the Fade in a dream state and interact with spirits in their own habitat. However, due to its rarity and dangerousness, it is not one of the disciplines widely taught within Circles of Magi.
Primal School of Magic
Sometimes called the School of Power, the Primal School is the second of the Schools of Energy, balanced by Spirit, and concerns the most visible and tangible forces of nature itself: the primal mage is capable of bending the elements under their will.
This is the magic of war: Fire, ice, and lightning. Devastation. This is what the vast majority imagines when they hear the word "magic." There is a great variety of elemental spells that a mage can be taught in a Circle -most classes and training sessions have to do with elemental magic in one form or another; especially since it is one of the most common and sought-after specializations.
At this point I would like to take the opportunity and discuss force magic: a distinct form of magic that lies in the gray zone between spirit and primal magic and happens to be the most common mage specialization in the Kirkwall Circle of Magi. The force mage uses their mind and focused will as a weapon, resulting in raw application of magic in all its vicious glory: maelstroms that draw opponents, ethereal weight that crush and slow, or great waves that throw enemies about like ragdolls. Targets not to be toyed with are simply slammed into the ground, as though pummeled by a great fist. And in their mastery of such damage, Force Mages can make themselves all but immune to similar attacks, an ability that hints at the true discipline they must maintain. After all, unsubtle doesn't mean unsophisticated—the Force Mage specialization requires uncommon precision to keep such overwhelming power under control.
Creation School of Magic
The School of Creation, sometimes called the School of Nature, is the first of the Schools of Matter, the balancing force and complement of Entropy. Creation magic manipulates natural forces, transforming what exists and bringing new things into being.
Creation requires considerable finesse, more than any other school, and is therefore rarely mastered. Those mages who have made a serious study of creation are the highest in demand, useful in times of peace as well as war.
Dalish Keepers have preserved most forms of Creation Magic and the discipline’s creation can be dated back to the years of Elvhenan domination. Lore has it that it was one of Mythal’s gifts to elves; so it is a discipline almost exclusive to elven mages. Some of the spells Dalish Keepers cast allow them to become one with nature thus creating defensive shields, call roots from beneath the earth to inflict physical damage on all enemies, as well as absorb energy from the dead within their casting field.
A form of magic which balances between the Creation and Spirit schools is shapeshifting; which allows a person to transform their body into the form of an animal.The path of the Shapeshifter is one that crosses the boundary between mage and warrior. Some mages see it as a form of self-mastery, while others use it as a method of survival; a physical bag of tricks that enable the mage to be unpredictable in battle. Shapeshifters must master one form at a time, the most common ones being those that are found in the Fereldan wilds. The mighty bear is popular as are wildcats, spiders, and even birds. Legend tells of mages who mastered even more fantastical and deadly forms. To a skilled Shapeshifter, no door is impassable, no fight is unwinnable, and no terrain inhospitable as long as they know a shape that can meet the task at hand.
Entropy School of Magic
The second of the two Schools of Matter, Entropy is the opposing force of Creation; for this reason it is often called the School of Negation or School of Chaos. Nothing lives without death. Time inevitably brings an end to all things in the material world, and yet in this ending is the seed of a beginning. A river may flood its banks, causing havoc, but bring new life to its floodplain. The fire that burns a forest ushers in new growth. And so it is with entropic magic that we manipulate the forces of erosion, decay, and destruction to create anew.
Although closely related to elemental magic due to their common destructive element, entropic magic is more deeply rooted in the psyche of the spellcaster and was thought to be a curse. Entropy mages can absorb one’s life-force through mere touch, cause buildings to collapse, erode the landscape and turn order into chaos. This specialization is rare to occur on its own, but if it does it is very dangerous to be mastered and often takes the practitioner’s life in one way or another. The most talented of elemental and force mages are entropy mages at heart or at least they have an inclination towards entropy magic.
Blood Magic: The Forbidden School
Technically I should not even be speaking of this school of magic since the Chantry forbids it; however I believe it is only fair that you have some knowledge of what it consists of and why you should not take it lightly. A knife can be used to slice bread or to kill someone; it is but a means to an end. Same goes with blood magic; it is not a school of magic per se, only a means to help someone cast complicated spells that require a lot of mana. Instead of exhausting oneself, the mage uses their own lifeforce through blood to fuel the spells. It is similar in its workings to lyrium-enforced magic, but without the health risks that lyrium poses. Also, unlike lyrium which allows a mage to send his conscious mind into the Fade, blood would allow them to find the sleeping minds of others, view their dreams, and even influence or dominate their thoughts. Additionally, blood magic allows the Veil to be opened completely so that demons may physically pass through it into our world.
It was common practice, at one time, for a magister to keep a number of slaves on hand so that, should he undertake the working of a spell that was physically beyond his abilities, he could use the blood of his slaves to bolster the casting. The more the blood the more powerful the spell. However, greed is a terrible vice, and soon slave bloodletting turned into sacrifice. Since this is no history manual, I will not go into the details of how this led to the First Blight and the fall of the Tevinter Imperium. Greed and vanity have existed for as long as conscience itself and blood magic should not be held accountable for these vices. It is not blood magic which corrupts people. Power corrupts people; it attracts the worst and destroys the best of them. Blood magic is only the means to achieve great power while allowing practitioners to overlook the great responsibility that comes with it.
Remember that mandalorian arc where Satine calls Obi wan for help because Maul was taking over Mandalore with Death Watch? What if before Satine is almost killed, Maul uses some sith magic/force thing that de ages/time travels BOTH Satine and Obi wan to sometime during the year they were on the run. As in, padawan Obi wan who has been in some wars is protecting this girl and they are on Mandalore where there is a lot of fighting.
He sees a sith, white mandos that have different types of style, and all this fighting along with something wrong with his bond to Qui gon and decides to run and protect Satine. That is his mission.
Also I head canon that before being a pacifist, Satine was one of the best shooters/mando during her youth. So young Satine is all shooty with a gun and just looks devastated by the destruction. When she is brought back to everyone she starts about how she is going to stop all the fighting, no more war and tries to give a speech to her people like when she was ‘younger’ and came back the first time. A lot of people see this and are more understanding of why Satine made Mandalore a pacifist planet if this was what she had to deal with.
I sometimes see Satine and Obi wan as sibling like relationship and romantic. Any choice is good.
Obi wan and Satine are basically doing what they did during the war, running and hiding until Qui gon says its okay and so they go to people and try to hide. When the truth comes out that they are de aged, they stare in shock of their life works in flames just come crashing down.
Before that, Obi wan sees Ahsoka (she is still there okay, creative license) as a fellow padawan and tells her stories of some of his missions. Which the 212th and 501st also get in on listening because here is a brighter general giving out stories and the ones he tells are so weird and frustrating to them as they need to have a more protective watch as the stuff he gets into is awful.
Also Bo-Katan, Satine’s sister is there, so how must it feel to see her sister young and realize that she was always thinking about the good of their people, its just that Satine saw too much war on the run with everyone tired that she stopped it, only for those with traditions ruin that along with throwing Mandalore in an unstable position. What about Satine’s nephew? The one that has known peace has now been thrown into war and knows what his aunt went through to get peace only for it to blow up in her face.
