Comments thread for "The Laws of Magic: Part 8 of 8"

[Empty Knight]

Yup. It was kind of like an old argument that cropped up in  my old D&D game. If a wizard threw a lightning bolt at a creature that was resistant to magic, the creature could use that defense against it. If on the other hand a druid used his spell Call Lightning, it could not use its resistance. The difference? The wizard was creating electricity magically. The druid was calling natural electricity. The same could be said of Harry using magical fire as in FUEGO, and someone else using magic to cause a gas main to blow. The Outsider may be able to shrug off the magical fire, but still take damage from the flames and explosion caused by burning gas.

[rgm0005]

That's possible, but, until I get more information, I'm going to opperate under assumption that all Outsiders are BAMF's, and won't be taken down that easily. Because, frankly, Harry's not that lucky.

[Empty Knight]

Oh I do not expect that it would be easy even if it did work that way. Look at it like this. Magical fire tingles and annoys. Real fire hurts. That doesn't mean it kills or injures, or incapacitates all at once. Only that it does have some affect. If you can understand Hero games systems, try something like this.

75% resistant damage reduction versus magical based attacks
25% to 50% resistant damage reduction versus natural based attacks

Notice that they always get SOME kind of damage reduction, just not as much against something natural. Remember they are not from our plane of existence, they are from "Outside", so maybe real natural forces could have some affect.

[rgm0005]

Ah, I understand. However, since they come from the Outside, it's also possible that normal things wouldn't work at all. I hope we learn something in 'Small Favor'.

[The Last Bean]

Almost seems to me that (on the logic that they are "outside" and therefore completely unrelated to the laws of reality we are used to) pure magic would be the ONLY thing that would be effective against them. "Fuego" should fail to harm them because it's working on the logic that fire is hot and burns things, as would real fire, which IS hot and burns things. Outsiders aren't things though. They're something totally different. They don't obey the rules of our reality, and the only other thing in the Dresdenverse that doesn't follow the rules is magic.

If I was to try and come up with something to hurt a being that doesn't conform to our laws, I would probably just try to make it not be, attack it on the fundamental level of existence, which is something you can only really do with magic. I guess in WoD:Mage terms we'd be talking about Prime, or the Negative Energy spells from DnD. Something that just unmakes something rather than trying to harm it and stop it from functioning.

[Lord Nedd]

Almost seems to me that (on the logic that they are "outside" and therefore completely unrelated to the laws of reality we are used to) pure magic would be the ONLY thing that would be effective against them. "Fuego" should fail to harm them because it's working on the logic that fire is hot and burns things, as would real fire, which IS hot and burns things. Outsiders aren't things though. They're something totally different. They don't obey the rules of our reality, and the only other thing in the Dresdenverse that doesn't follow the rules is magic.

If I was to try and come up with something to hurt a being that doesn't conform to our laws, I would probably just try to make it not be, attack it on the fundamental level of existence, which is something you can only really do with magic. I guess in WoD:Mage terms we'd be talking about Prime, or the Negative Energy spells from DnD. Something that just unmakes something rather than trying to harm it and stop it from functioning.

There are two different things that are classified by the Outside.  Things like Mordite, which are entirely orthogonal to our universe, hence, Outside.  Then there are those creatures which have been banished Outside, such as the creatures such as Outsiders, those servants of the Lovecraftian greater creatures.  The Outsiders had previously on lived on Earth and were worshiped.  They have been pushed back to the Outside for the benefit of Man by wizardry.

-LN

[Quantus]

Im thinking that the injunction on even researching the Outer Gates works much the same way as the Law against necromancy.  While you can find technicalities to do a bit and still fall within the laws (yay Sue), generally speaking going near the stuff is bad enough, cause the whole practice is considered vile.  The outer gates are just a worse version.  Its like how concealed weapons are illegal (without a permit, but in thins case there is only the one permit around), even if you dont shoot anyone with them.  Or even better, its like working with biological weapons:  sure making new vaccines is all well and good, noble and such, but the research requires you to make new and potentially dangerous viruses (virii?) which you dont want just anyone to be playing with. 

That being said you still run into the same problem Harry saw during DB with mind control:  nobody does it so nobody knows how to teach proper defenses against it.  The ward that stopped (or at least slowed) the Outsiders in DB was something done by the man said to be the most powerful wizard on earth (who also specializes in wards and defensive magic) and the man who is probably the actual most powerful wizard on earth (and a specialist in Outsiders and the Outer Gates).  I doubt anyone else could have done it without harry's outsider connection and even he would have needed a lot more power and class to pull it off (guess he needs to stop collecting bottle caps or something  )


On the Blackstaff as an artifact all its own,  Harry once mentions that McCoy's staff came from the same grove in th Ozarks that Harry's did.  Does that mean he's just wrong, or does Eb simply have two staffs (staves?).  I dont see any reason why he couldn't , I had just always imagined the staff as more personal and...i dunno...attuned?... than that.

And you can only have 13 people in a circle.

Says who?

[iago]

Says who?

Harry Dresden, when he talks about the number 13 in one of the earliest books.

[Quantus]

Ah, found it in SF (I really need to read the early books more, I tend to re-read the "save the world several years in a row" books more)

So if you can only use thirteen in a circle, does that mean there are only 13 members of Cowl's "Circle"?  That would be encouraging, from a perspective of simple enemy manpower.  And I think we can safely assume that Cowl is pretty close to the top of their power food chain, otherwise he wouldn't have been to one chosen to go after Godhood in DB.


Brings up another point though:

"Thirteen," I corrected her. "You can never use more than thirteen. But I don't think that's very likely. It's a bitch to do. Everyone in the circle has to be committed to the spell, have no doubts, no reservations. And they have to trust one another implicitly. You don't see that kind of thing from your average gang of killers. It just isn't something that's going to happen, outside of some kind of fanaticism. A cult or political organization."

Do you think members of the BC would be able to muster that kind of trust? 

[WyldCard4]

Ah, found it in SF (I really need to read the early books more, I tend to re-read the "save the world several years in a row" books more)

So if you can only use thirteen in a circle, does that mean there are only 13 members of Cowl's "Circle"?  That would be encouraging, from a perspective of simple enemy manpower.  And I think we can safely assume that Cowl is pretty close to the top of their power food chain, otherwise he wouldn't have been to one chosen to go after Godhood in DB.


Brings up another point though:
Do you think members of the BC would be able to muster that kind of trust? 

But what if the reason he went after power was because he needed more of it, he could have been the weekest of them who they sent on a mission with a low chance of success.

I see the Outsiders as either aliens or animal versions of Nevernever being as I outlined here.

The Animalistic Theory: they are from the Nevernever of animals whose thoughts and dreams give them shape as ours do the Fay and the rest of the Nevernever.

And The Alienist Theory: that they are from the Nevernever of an alien race, this is not impossible as Jim Butcher has already involved true aliens in the Codex Alera books.