Category: Notes

Mages and Humanity

Now that you’ve seen more of what mages are capable of, the question arises: Are mages human? This is a question that’s kind of interesting to look at, and it isn’t as simple to answer as it might seem. There are a number of elements that have to be considered to really assess it. The first, and probably the most intractable, part is: At what point does someone stop being human?

Certainly they started out human. But Kyoko thinks of vanilla humans and mages as being very distinct categories, and in some ways she has a point. How much humanity can someone shed and still be reasonably called human?…

Drugs and Poisons

So, as is now apparent, drugs and poisons are something Kyoko is linked with. And I think that this provides a good opportunity to showcase some of how I approach character design and writing more generally. There are a lot of details in that character element that are worth examining.

Because most people know very little about these things. They might know some of the names, but even that’s limited, because people rarely use chemical names for things, rarely use generic names. Slang terms and trade names are often the only ones people know. You might have an idea what ecstasy is, in this context, but not have a clue that it’s called methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Similarly, plenty of people take an over-the-counter acid reducer called Zantac. They will mostly not know that Zantac is the trade name being applied to a drug called famotidine, much less know that in the past Zantac was the trade name applied to a different, related drug called ranitidine, nor that the change happened because ranitidine was recalled after it was found to decay into a carcinogenic compound when stored for a prolonged time.…

The Sidhe Courts

The idea of Seelie and Unseelie Courts, as well as many other details about them in this setting, is a bit syncretic. The terms come from the British Isles, where various local variations of those words were used to distinguish between kind and unkind faeries. (I use the spelling fae and faerie both because of etymology and the cultural associations around “fairy” not fitting well. Fey is a very different, archaic word I use as an adjective, not as a term for the fae; the etymology is unrelated.) But a lot of the details are things I had to fit together from a wide variety of source material, much of which contradicts itself.…

Supernatural Language

The consultant says something interesting here, and there’s more to unpack than there might seem. In particular, I want to take a moment to address his comments on language, ambiguity, and to an extent on the actual magic in use, and all three tie together.…

Plant Selection & Phytochemistry

Kyoko’s selection of plants is very much intentional, and I think especially that the plants she picked out for their poisonous properties are worth discussing briefly. If you look into the mechanisms and the pharmacology of them, you’ll find that they vary widely. In fact, she has very little overlap in mechanism, and she has one example of each of the major modes of action employed by dangerously toxic plants.…

Photosensitivity vs. Visual Overload

Kyoko closes her eyes to mitigate her sensory overload. There’s an interesting point here, and it’s just obscure enough that if someone does notice, it would be easy to think it’s a mistake on my part. To avoid that, and because it brings up some interesting details, I thought I’d write up a discussion of the topic.…