Fairy Tale Enchanters

Okay. We’ve talked about the price (see this blog post) and limits of magic (see this blog post), but we’ve skirted talking about the role of enchanters and enchantress, so that’s our long overdue subject for today!

As you’re probably aware, enchanters and enchantresses are the most powerful magic users in the Timeless Fairy Tales world. Because they are so powerful most of them have a price for using their magic. As I mentioned in the previous post, sometimes they can edge around the price by using something to supplement their magic. An example, someone intending to cause darkness and chaos could use the blood of innocent creatures or people—like the sea witch. Or, someone whose heart is in the right place could use things like love to supplement their power. Angelique always uses the power of love when modifying curses, because love is the only thing that strong enough to overcome such dark magic.

As you can see by my examples, obviously enchanters and enchantresses are capable of doing more than core magic. You have not yet seen Angelique’s core magic, but you have seen her do some illusion magic, curse breaking, and a bit of weather magic. That’s because now, with centuries of schooling under their belts, enchanters and enchantresses have been able to harness their powerful core magic and use it for auxiliary powers. They can harness their powers through spells, or the use of magical artifacts.

However, just as there are limitations to their core magic, there are limitations to their auxiliary powers as well. To begin with, they aren’t that strong. A weather mage will always be able to beat out an enchanter or enchantress in terms of weather magic. This is true for just about every magic they can use. Someone whose core powers lie in that particular discipline will almost always be more powerful at it than enchanter or enchantress. Only the low-level mages would be less skillful.

You can see this kind of reflection in real life. Let’s use me as an example. As a writer, my greatest strength lies in my ability to write fiction. However, because I’m a writer, there are additional skills I’ve picked up along the way. For example, I’m a fairly skilled observer– because you never know when I could use something the book– I’ve had to improve in marketing and business matters to shore up my career, I’ve gotten much more skilled at budgeting, the list goes on.

The basic idea is that the enchanters and enchantresses are so powerful in one area, that their power spills over into all other areas of magic. They cannot do everything, and they have to be taught it. (As you might remember, Angelique is very limited in the number of curse modifiers she knows because her teacher only taught her two.)

Besides having a lot of power, enchanters and enchantresses are also different from other magic users because they’re limited in the kinds of jobs/positions they can fill. They can help anyone who asks for their aid–whether it’s royalty or a peasant–but they cannot hold a position outside of the Veneno Conclave. This is a rule to keep magic from being unevenly distributed–or the rich countries would try to hire all the top tier magic users, and the poor countries would be extremely limited. If an enchantress or enchanter swears alliance to a particular country–in example, Queen Ingrid of Arcainia, who was an enchantress before marrying the King of Arcainia–they have to forsake their magic and swear to never use it. Historically, this has only happened a few times. Queen Ingrid is the most recent, but otherwise it hasn’t happened in well over a century.

However, the ban that the Veneno Conclave placed from any and all magic being used in Arcainia was unprecedented. Most believe it was placed because the Conclave was worried other magic users would see it as their duty to come help Ingrid and Arcainia. (Before Queen Ingrid married the King, the Ogre was still ruling over Carabas. Other magic users very likely would have banded together to overthrow the ogre out of kindness to Ingrid, giving them an unfair advantage. As such, the Ogre remained alive until a particular miller’s daughter and her mouthy cat strolled onto the scene.)

Okay, this is a long post, so I’m ending it here. Have a lovely day, Champions! Thanks for reading!

The Price of Magic…

Today we’re continuing with our magic theme by taking a look at the way the price of magic has changed from the Snow Queen books to the Timeless Fairy Tales.

As you might recall from my previous post, I mentioned that magic users who pay a price to use their magic usually are a lot more powerful, like the Snow Queen. So why haven’t you seen anybody with a price in the modern timeless fairy tales?

There’s three reasons for that. First of all, the only magic users who have that kind of power are the enchanters and enchantresses. Thus far you’ve only seen Angelique, an enchantress-in-training. You haven’t seen Angelique’s price because she actually hasn’t used her core magic in front of anyone yet. As you may have pieced together between Cinderella and the Wild Swans, Angelique is extremely reluctant to use her core magic, and as a result mostly uses her auxiliary powers–which are much less powerful and would never activate her price.

Another reason why you haven’t seen it, is because the stakes and the situations are entirely different. Rakel and her people faced enslavement and war. Currently, Angelique and the other magic users are more focused on putting out fires so to speak than an actual war. They haven’t had to use the same amount of power that Rakel has, so their prices haven’t kicked in yet either.

The final reason, is that the magic users have gotten a lot better at working around their price. They’ve had time to research, experiment, and explore. Not to mention Rakel founded the first Academy for magic users, and it’s been centuries since then. The most obvious way you can see that magic usage has progressed and improved, is the use of actual spells.

In Snow Queen, magic users channel their magic in a raw format. In the Timeless Fairy Tales, magic users often have to say magic words, or follow a spell, but the trade-off is that they can do more complex things. For enchanters and enchantresses, when they use their core magic they use it in the same raw format that Rakel used her magic. When they use their auxiliary powers, they have to use tools in order to make it possible. I’ll soon be doing a post that focuses on enchanters and enchantresses and how Rakel was the start of their line, but for now we’re focusing on price.

So if you haven’t seen any enchanters or enchantresses use their magic and activate a price, how do you know it still exists in the Timeless Fairy Tale world? The answer, is to look at the villains. In The Little Selkie, a sea witch uses the blood of innocent marine animals to raise chaotic storms that cut off Ringsted. She didn’t have the power to do that using her own magic, she had to supplement her magic with the blood of the sea creatures. The witch who nearly takes over Arcainia–Clotilde–is similar. She uses dark tools to supplement her powers–without them she wouldn’t be a match for Puss, much less Angelique.

Those who are good also have ways of supplementing their power. Their methods, however, still keep checks and balance. For instance, Angelique is unable to entirely break off curses because she lacks the schooling. She is able, however, to modify the curses. Unfortunately, she only knows two modifiers; true love’s first kiss, or true love itself. Even if she was fully schooled, the modifiers would still be relatively slim pickings. Angelique explains it in Wild Swans, when she tells Elise that an act of love is what can destroy the curse Clotilde has put on the princes of Arcainia. This means Angelique would never be able to break off a curse without an equally strong but good counter.

If you are anxious to see an actual “price”–like Rakel’s unconsciousness–in Timeless Fairy Tales, fear not! Angelique and Master Evariste both have prices that will be revealed in that series.

That’s probably all I should say for today, otherwise this is going to turn into an essay. Until next time, thanks for reading, Champions!

The Limits of Magic…

Good day, Champions! Today’s topic will be the “limits” of magic in the Timeless Fairy Tale series and the Snow Queen books.

First, I need to lay down some building blocks. As some of you have noticed, there’s a big difference between the way magic is used in the Snow Queen books and the rest of the Timeless Fairy Tale series. The reason for that is time. The Snow Queen lives before magic was widely used and accepted. Very little was known about it, exploring it was discouraged, and those who had it were persecuted or enslaved. The Timeless Fairy Tale series takes place centuries later, which means they’ve had a long time to research and develop magic.

A main feature of the Snow Queen books is the presence of a limit or price to magic. It’s implied that those who have a lot of magic, like Rakel, usually have prices. Magic users who do not have as powerful magic, or as much magic, have limits. As you might guess, having a “price” is a lot rarer, but the Snow Queen is filled with it because Rakel is the main heroine, and her power saddles her with a price.

So, let’s dig into limits! An example of a magic user with limits is Tollak. Tollak is an early version of a craftmage. He is limited in what he can do because he doesn’t know much about his powers, but his real magic “limit” is how much magic he can channel, how quickly he can do it, and what he can enchant. It’s not often discussed in the book because you see him so little, and very little is known about magic… but you can see his constraints in his Timeless Fairy Tales equivalent, Rumpelstiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin is also a craft mage. As you might recall from his book, he does have a few limits to his magic. First of all, a low-quality item can only hold low-quality spells. Conversely, a high-quality item can hold high-quality spells and more spells. What this means is that Rumpelstiltskin cannot churn out high-quality enchantments with cheap products.

Additionally, time is a constraint for him. Rumpelstiltskin is considered the strongest craft mage alive because he can work his enchantments stronger and faster than the other craft mages. However, the enchantments still take time. For example, in Rumpelstiltskin, Stil says that he can enchant 100 swords in a day. (Other craftmages can produce approximately twelve a day.) Stil maxes out at 100. It’s a higher number, but it’s still a limit. He can’t go faster than that, nor can he sustain it forever.

The same rules apply to Tollak, he just doesn’t know it. Stil attended an Academy, has reference books, served as an apprentice, and more. Tollak had to make it up as he goes. Think of it like this: Stil can read books and spells created by every craftmage before him. Tollak is the author of the first craftmage reference books.

I do feel like I need to give Stil his proper due. Because he’s such a powerful craftmage, he actually has an additional “limit” that very few other craftmages have had. You’ll recall it from his book—if Stil is crafting a specific/customized spell for a person, he needs some sort of compensation. It doesn’t have to be an equal trade, but it’s still required. (Anything he makes in advance, or anything that isn’t cued to a specific person, skirts this requirement.) This is because Stil is that genius of a craftmage, it helps keep him in check.

So the limits of magic themselves haven’t changed much—the biggest difference is that now the mages know they are there and make sure they work within the boundaries. However, there are ways to work around a few of these limits, just as there are ways for powerful magic users to lessen the “price” of magic, but that’s another post for another time, and I’ve rambled enough for today.