The Far Side of Utopia

The magic effects in the comic have been very inconsistent, but there is a reason for that. It’s because the artist is a dummy. Err… Well, that’s not how I would have put it, but…

It’s a fair confusion, since a lot of the magic effects are legitimately different due to the different ways spells are being cast. Unfortunately, many of them are supposed to be similiar, but are not because the artist (me) gets better ideas, and am at this point valuing improvement over consistency, since I think that serves both the comic and learning to draw better in the long run.

In other news, I’ve launched a patreon! Ever thought “man, I have too much money, and the world doesn’t have enough webcomics?”… Well, probably no one else has it, but it would be pretty awesome if I could afford to do 5 or more updates a week, if you want to help out with that goal, clicky here:

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The wristbands that feature heavily in this page are a version of autocasters. We’ve seen a handful of them so far – they come in a lot of shapes.

 

The one we saw in the subway battle with Kally was shaped roughly like a gun. These tend to be simple to use for anyone that has a Eidos Key (all humans) and enough mana for their spell (most humans have enough for simple spells, few have enough for massive spells). The gun shaped ones typically act like a gun – point, push the button, spell. Fancy ones have selector switches for a few spells, but most have only a few, and the selection is done manually.

More utility based ones are typically shaped like a tablet or cell phone, and work very much like one might expect. You load your spell, activate it, supply mana, and bam, magic! These are typically not used as much in combat as they are clunky and slow, but can usually hold a few spells, though no more than three to ten depending on the cost.

The bracelet based ones are new tech. They work a little different – rather than completely handling the spell, they are preset calculation amplifiers – meaning that you cannot use them without being trained as a natural mage, but you don’t have to physically interface with them to activate them, a huge advantage. Plus, since a lot of the shared activation knowledge is already required by the mage, it doesn’t need to be stored in the autocaster, meaning that they have more storage for spells. As if that wasn’t enough, they have one more advantage – as the spell activation path is done by the mage, they can effect the mages own Form – like “Mr. Orange” did here, accelerating his reflex speed by four times his natural reflexes! They are very expensive though.

Well, that’s a wall of text for the day, enjoy!