#wild mage

[jesslindsay]

Darking

From Tamora Pierce's Wild Mage series.

[knaveofdoodles]

New art to keep up with Len's design

[dem0nixx]

Time to meet the depressed man himself.

Meet:

Ace of Diamonds

Gambler, alcoholic and generally an addict to more things than I can count, this mess of a wild magic sorcerer went from doing simple illusion and card tricks on the street to being roped into being a slave to the local casino (called the House of Diamonds) and losing his soul to it's owner who may or may not be an eldritch monstrosity disguised as a tall, imposing man in his mid 40's. Since he wasn't given a name, he simply took on the title of his position, the Ace of Diamonds or the junket who interrupts other people's winning streaks to win money back for the house, as his own name. Being owned by a monster has mostly downsides, but Ace revels in the constant life of the gamble, an open bar and adrenaline with no end in sight while staying young forever...for now.

Being the most important asset for one of the richest men in the world at that time also comes with committing a LOT of crimes...

Let's say we as a party committed a lot of bullshit during the campaign.

[liskadeart]

(I spent like 20 hours on this shit post) Gale is a wizard and Vaxx is a wild mage, and they don't always agree on how to magic.

Where Gale taps into the harmony of the weave to channel his like a musician, Vaxx channels the elemental planes of chaos like a lightening rod trying to connect the sky to the ground. Where Gale feels magic is to be conquered, Vaxx feels it is to be respected in its most raw and natural form. Where Gale has a prodigal talent to control it, Vaxx has the innate ability to cast it. Where Gale needs discipline to learn his spells, Vaxx needs discipline to direct it. They are polar opposites in several ways, and I love them, Your Honor.

[nimuetheseawitch]

She was human. Ma would have told her, if she weren’t.

Oh, Daine.

I'm on the Immortals quartet in my Tortall reread, and I always feel kind of terrible for Daine because she really has no idea in the beginning that she's definitely the main character. Poor girl is an orphaned demigod and has no idea what's going on.

[nopiedraws]

[OC] Magnifica's show ! ♠️♦️♣️♥️

[valiantvillain]

Welp, cue another fanfic idea to add to the list of future works: Beitris unwittingly drinking poor Wyll under the table because he tried to keep up with dwarven alcohol tolerance and she doesn't realize until it's too late and he's clearly very drunk.

[dr-dendritic-trees]

Before I get too far into Lady Knight which is very much peak Bigness Book, I want to go back to Daine and what I mean by the Bigness of Tamora Pierce novels.

There's 2 parts of Realms of the Gods that I think are really good (2.5 if you count the democracy dragons) the first is Daine getting to make her peace (and ultimately outgrow) her family. The second, which is what I want to talk about, is the final scene where she kills Ozorne.

Realms and Emperor Mage both have very similar climaxes, they both end with Daine running Ozorne down with the absolute intent of ripping his throat out. The only reason she doesn't do it in Emperor Mage is because Numair and Kaddar thwart her, but its absolutely the natural ending for them.

And then that's sorted (or not) and we get to the actual ending of the books. The ending of Realms is totally unremarkable, its practically a checklist. But the ending of Emperor Mage is amazing.

Daine starts off completely cut off from any of the wider picture. She's from a tiny village in a politically unimportant country (Galla never features in any of the political stuff in these books, its practically an afterthought), she hasn't had access to an education, she thinks of herself as unimportant.

And for the first two books, Daine is increasingly involved with doing powerful magic, and clearly is getting an education and a better opinion of herself, but she's outside the wider discussion. All the politics goes over her head, most of the wider discussion is taking place off page.

By the start of Emperor Mage that's starting to change. Daine has been given, at minimum a crash-course by Thayet. She isn't involved, directly, in peace talks, but she has a solid grasp of the impact her healing Ozorne's birds, or failing to, will have on them.

And then in the end of the book, Daine is actually wielding political power. Like, at the beginning of Wild Mage she didn't think she was important enough to ask Alanna for a job and at the end of Emperor Mage she tells the new Emperor that he needs to get his act together about slavery. Its an amazing personal arc but its also the really cool bit about Tortall world-building. Magical power affects the politics going on at the time, and this is where Daine finally goes from being someone other people make political decisions around to actually using all of her own power, not just the magical stuff.