Comic for Monday, August 1st
Well. That’s sort of the harder way to dispel an ethereal construct. Eidos constructs are a sort of magic cheat – magic typically is difficult to keep active when it actively defies reality, but when you make an Eidos construct it’s sort of like a semi-stable sub-loop that’s consistent with a handful of reality’s physics engine, but not all of it. While it still vanishes without the mage sustaining it, it’s a lot easier to maintain and control then something that completely defies reality. This means that they interact with both physical objects and eachother. It also means that when they get smashed too out of form, they collapse. We say with Kally’s that they can sustain certain damage (like bullets punching holes in them) to a certain extent. They can not usually survive being reformatted into a pancake.
Tyler’s defense here was not really the subtle approach. In truth, dealing with constructs tends to be one of his weaknesses, since he’s not all that good at making the animated ones, you can’t really freeze them, and they are fairly hard to actually destroy. The advantage, though, is that he doesn’t really have to worry about using lethal force against them.
In other news the next page will go up on Patreon tomorrow at the appropriate tier, meaning we are back to the exciting land of buffered comics. Coming soon I’ll keep a ‘buffer counter’ on the side bar somewhere or something. I’m going to stay at two updates a week for now anyway, once the buffer gets to a week or two we’ll see. I did start on the new pass of little chibi’s for the sidebars as well, but was discontent with the first round so more drawing will be required there.
Related Comics.
Ah, and I’ve redrawn another page. Not a big deal and the new one isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but I’m sort of attached to the last panel in the original one (as bad as it was 😛 ); while a lot changed since the very early drafts of the story (most notable we’ve started way later in the story then I originally planned), that panel was always pretty much the ‘character image’ for Mium. And one of the reasons for skipping way forward from the original starting point was so we had Mium at the start. He was one of the first characters, but was originally not slated to appear* for what I now know would have been years in comic writing time 😀
*explaining more there would still be spoilers 😛
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Are the colors of the constructs significant? Are they personal choice, genetically determined, or determined by the mage’s eidos manipulation style?
We also know that Rovak likes to talk, so I’m hoping that we get some backstory on someone before the eidos starts to fly. 🙂
I’m also happy to hear that you are getting your feet under you at work, and are able to carve out more comic time. I was sure it would happen sooner or later, but confirmation is always nice. 🙂
The color is typically based on the construct and how the mage is making it. A blue form is the easiest to make and hardest to maintain, a green is harder to make but easier to maintain, and a red is much harder to make but once made is almost stable, requiring only minimal input from the mage to maintain. Consequently, blue ones are easier to break.
It works along wavelength – violet would be very unstable, orange and yellow between green and red. The more stable they are, the more they interact with the world; ie; red are the closes to a ‘stable golem’ while violet are the closest to a ‘unstable ghost’; shields are usually at least blue as violet shields wouldn’t necessarily always block a bullet as their interaction with matter is a little tenuous.
There is a little more too it, but unfortunately we’ll already getting to an essay length; a few more footnotes in no real order of importance-
-Typically speaking, to animate it you need at least green. The further along the gradient, the more autonomous it can act.
-Being more effected by reality is not always a good thing.
-Marc’s shield has a base color of yellow; explaining why it has a green/blue/red overlay would expand this even more 😛
… I’m not going to touch genetics and magic here, I’d need a few pages… 😐
Someone like Tyler whose strong but not necessarily good at making things like that, making a red one would probably take several minutes, and he’d probably only be able to make a basic shape. He might also not be able to make one, as the mechanics of making Eidos Constructs requires more then just calculation (though it can be taught/trained to an extent).
Interesting. This explains a lot I think, or at least makes things seem more consistent. Mana particles don’t seem to interact with anything as they float around => are violet. Calculation circles are intentionally made and do things => are blue.
and explains why kali is belived to be one of the most powerful mages.
This has me curious. Before the last few pages I would have assumed Rovak would be an overwhelming match for Tyler. Now I’m not sure. Tyler even has a counter-power to Rovak’s immortality.
While it’s an interesting point that Tyler might be a walking loophole to Rovak’s so called ‘immortality’, Rovak did just use his own interference to break another mage out of it, so it’s safe to assume that at very least he doesn’t freeze easy 😉