A question about lagairtians? What if one ate the 'pearl' of another? Is it socially acceptable? Would they gain that other's spells as well?
This was an awesome question and Han and I were really excited to get it! Thanks! I’m just going to copy-paste our resulting conversation to save me the time of transcribing it.
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HAN: Pearls might be inert naturally to a laggy unlessthey’re broken open and the magic is eaten out or something. … I want to saythat pearls are in an “inert” state without some kind of trigger torelease the magic again? So if a lag just ate another lag’s pearl without doingwhatever triggered the magic energy to come back out (I figure it has to belatent by default or pearls would have no power retention), it would be likeeating a rock. If they DID trigger themagic, though, I think it would be possible to learn through that. The latentdefault would also have to be in place for the magic to ‘settle’ in their gutsand coalesce anyway, I think. But yeah, I bet it’s totally a possible thing.
WYRD: How would they trigger it? And another question: Dolags form multiple pearls at one time, and do they have the same magicalmakeup?
HAN: I… think they might form multiples at once. Since magic is coded into different types andI assume the energies are all different, they’d probably form into their ownrespective lumps? Cross-type pearls would be like a weird stomach glitch orsomething. I don’t think they’reintended to happen, and the result would be volatile.
WYRD: No kidding. Imagine a space/time x dark magic pearl. 8l
HAN: God. That’d be terrifying.
But say, a lag is eating/absorbing a lot of healing and/ortime magic or something, I think they’d form separate pearls for both of those“types”, and possibly multiple pearls if they eat so much of one typethat a pearl gets big enough or cracks or something. I think “mixed”pearls happen, but they’re not really intentional; they’re biologicalprocessing flukes that aren’t consciously controllable. And the magic inside MIGHT have some power,but because of the nature of the object, it’d also very likely be hellaunstable. They’re the rare accident. And not what smart, self-preserving mageswant to use.
WYRD: So for mages who are not the pearl-maker, do pearlsact like materia, then? You trigger it however and it unleashes the spell?Until it… runs out?
HAN: I think so, yeah. You might be able to ‘draw’ theenergy to channel through yourself for speller until it runs out. They’d belike physical energy batteries for spells of their type.
WYRD: And they can cast a certain number of spells based onthe amount of magic that was originally coalesced into the pearl. Bigger pearlscarry more spells.
HAN: Yeah, I think so! That sounds solid. And I imagine someare also more “pure” instead of just bigger, too. Purity and size both factor into the energy. Andreally prime ones must fetch huge money from mages. Lags can make a lot ofmoney if they’re good pearl pukers.
