8,347
edits
Labyrinths of Echo: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
(quote cleanup) |
No edit summary |
||
Line 53:
** Terror of Mages: Mages might materialize something straight out of their nightmares. Thus, horror as a genre is unknown until Max introduces Shurf to some works from our world.
** Ulviar the Faceless once wanted to level a castle, yet the enchantments on it were too strong. To save face, he put up a wall of fog and had the bards compose a detailed epic poem and even a dance about his work of destruction. As the fog spell dispersed several centuries ago, the castle was in ruins exactly as described.
* [[Code Name]]: The official job titles<ref>It's not like anyone keeps them pompous or obscure, but the local tradition demands a suitably sonorous name for any remotely important position, and officially even a storekeeper's assistant will be Some-Master-of-Something.</ref> and other titles of the LSIF are:
** Juffin Halli: Most Reverent Chief of the LSIF
** Melifaro: Day-Face of the Most Reverent Chief
Line 114:
* [[Great Offscreen War]]: The War of the Codex, which ended the Age of the Orders and brought about the Age of the Codex some hundred years before Max's arrival in Echo.
* [[Hereditary Curse]]: Manukhs used to control Uandook "mice". Mice kings used to curse all Manukhs. This didn't end well for either side.
* [[Hold Your Hippogriffs]]/[[Curse of the Ancients]]: There's local phraseology. Including "...your mother four times over the fox's tail!" - rare one, according to the local linguist who studied curses of Shimara.
* [[Hope Is Scary]]: Sir Max comments on it.
* [[How Dare You Die on Me!]]: Max saves a dying man ({{spoiler|Mokhi Faa}}) in ''Bakki Bugvin's Glasses'' by pleading him not to die. Since the man was under a [[Extreme Doormat|magical compulsion to fulfill]] ''any'' requests, he healed up instantly like a champ.
Line 123 ⟶ 124:
** Type III: sufficiently powerful mages, especially True Magic users, effectively stop aging and are notoriously hard to kill.
** Type IV: Certain entities have strange modes of existence (mostly as [[Cosmic Plaything]]s) that involve having yet another quasi-mortal life after the previous one ends; the degree of access to old memories varies.
*** Dopersts
*** Some entities including {{spoiler|Sir Max himself presumably by intent and "children" of Loyso
** Type V: Strong-willed people are
*** The ancient members of the Order of the Long Way collectively passed "the Paths of the Dead" to achieve a state of corporeal immortality, being somewhere between this and type III, although the ritual was imperfect.
** Type IX: there are spells geared towards [[Grand Theft Me]] for this purpose.
** Type X: The mirror dweller from ''The Debut in Echo''. The Green Waters' dweller. Fätans. {{spoiler|The members of the Order of the Long Way [[Came Back Wrong|now]] need blood to continue their existence}}, causing Max some amusement as he deports them to our world as "real vampires".
* [[Immortal Procreation Clause]]: while all pure-blooded elves are effectively immortal, their descendants from marriages with humans or krays are merely long-lived, yet mortal. The elves, [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|grieving for their family members]], built the city of Kharumba, where their descendants may stay forever, while their respective deaths wait outside.
* [[Immortality Seeker]]:
Line 139 ⟶ 140:
* [[The Kingdom]]: The United Kingdom, the capital of which is Echo.
* [[Klatchian Coffee]]: Kakhar's Balsam, with some side effects.
* [[Language of Magic]]: The old language of Khonkhona is used in high-grade spells. Subverting the [[Magical Incantation]] idea, Juffin tells Max that the actual words are not eloquent chants, but crude and simple orders, e.g. an interrogation spell
* [[Layered World]]: Material world -> the Dark Side -> the underside of the Dark Side ({{spoiler|though King Mönin reveals in the last book that the "underside" is not a location or space but a way for Arbiters and their minions to travel across worlds in spirit form}}).
* [[Leave No Survivors]]: the Arvarokhian response to unknown ships approaching Arvarokh. They will afterwards consult their shamans on the intentions of the slain. In the case of [[Unfriendly Fire]], the Arvarokhians will at least bury the hapless sailors with honors.
Line 168 ⟶ 169:
* [[Love Potion]]: Tehhi Shekk tries using one on Sir Max when they first meet, and it works... in a way. {{spoiler|Actually, it kills him on the spot due to his previously established abnormal reaction on all local drugs. Luckily, Juffin teleports in almost immediately, puts Tehhi and Max's body in bed together (according to a legend, death by love potion can be reversed if the poisoner "proceeds with seduction"), and leaves to procure a second heart for Max from his Shadow. Turns out, the legend was right and Max comes back to life, but Juffin implants a second heart into him, anyway.}} In any case, it was superfluous to begin with, and Tehhi and Max start dating after this.
* [[Magi Babble]]: Juffin's opinion on magical knowledge trying to sound profound is rather low, which is why he prefers "Corridor Between Worlds" over "Khumgat" -- and if apprentices don't think it's hard, it will be easier.
* [[Magic Is Mental]]: Explored to the point of [[deconstruction]].
* [[Magical Society]]: Lots of them, actually, at least, in the backstory. There was a whole three thousand years-long Age of the Orders, when an order was formed around every magical tradition and they fought each other for power or out of conflicting views. It was eventually brought to an end when the Order of the Seven-Leaf allied itself with the Gurig dynasty and won the War of the Codex, outlawing and exiling all other orders. Some orders disbanded peacefully shortly before the war. {{spoiler|Juffin, however, considers the Secret Investigations a modernized, "legal" version of an ancient Order.}}
* [[Mercy Kill]]: See [[Blatant Lies]] above. As Max is called out on his lie, the people ask him not to heal, but at least to kill them, as Anavuayna is rumoured to [[Deader Than Dead|destroy both body and soul]], while death by any other mundane means, especially from Max, means a high chance to come back as a ghost / be reborn in [[The Multiverse]].
Line 186 ⟶ 188:
* [[Only Smart People May Pass]]: While the Book of Uncommitted Crimes contains all the crimes ever thought up but never put into action, any given reader will only see those entries which he or she would be able to solve. Kofa Yokh used the Book as an aptitude test for police officers. To his dismay, his successor after the War of the Codes, Bubuta Bokh, could not see a single paragraph.
* [[Other Me Annoys Me]]: Max notes that his appearance and charisma are inversely proportional to the actual state of mind - he looks the happiest when in despair, and hates the Max who seems to walk around in his body.
* [[Our Demons Are Different]]: They are said to have well-defined, but mostly not mentioned qualities, such as being deliberate (as in, will lie in ambush in order to spook someone and get fear) [[Emotion Eater]]s and otherwise weird metabolism. Shurf speculated that his transformation during early time as the Mad Fishmonger was something close - at the time he "ate" gems by dissolving with skin contact and had strange reactions to the other people's emotions.
* [[Our Souls Are Different]]: Ostensibly referred as "the spark" (as in, "
* [[Our Werebeasts Are Different]]: There are various animals capable of turning into humans for a while, but they tend to end up childish and confused. One of a few exceptions are werewolves who like to live as humans. There even was a whole dynasty of these - they were considered too rustic by the elf-blooded aristocrats, but generally were adequate as monarchs go, if unusually gregarious.
* [[Pocket Protector]]: Happens twice in ''The Foxes of Magakhon'': once when a bottle of Kakhar's Balsam protects Max from a Baboom shot and the second time, when Magister Honna's headband (which Max wraps around his neck) prevents his magical decapitation--too bad it burns up on use. {{spoiler|In retrospect, the two events are connected, solidifying Max's status as [[Cosmic Plaything]]: Kakhar's Balsam is a stimulant that kept him awake on a long mission and Honna's headband was an amulet that prevented Khumgat from claiming him during his sleep: with both out of the way, Max almost disappears from the world of Echo the next time he falls asleep.}}
* [[Portal Door]]: Almost a motif. Max either tweaked his Khumgat entry or conditioned himself to leave the world only via doors opened in the darkness. Closing eyes counts -- which is good, since soon he began to see in normal darkness simply due to living in the Heart of the World long enough. Then the Labyrinth of Mönin used much the same form of travel, only directly and without darkness.
* [[Power Floats]]: while flight takes a lot out of the mage, levitation a few centimeters above ground is much easier, while keeping the added bonuses of not leaving footprints, not leaving a trace for Masters of Tracking and not triggering various traps and enchantments on the ground.
** See [[Power High]] below:
* [[Power High]]: In several variants. Specifically, the temporary boost from a holey chalice makes one literally power-drunk... thus the Order of the Holey Chalice quickly made adepts very loyal and diligent, but wasn't too keen on self-control - the latter didn't end too bad mainly because regular boosts also meant adepts normally have much less power than they are
* [[Power Parasite]]:
** The Old Kings' Incantation, used with leftover drinks in cups (and possibly leftovers on plates) and then drinking (and eating) those leftovers, transfers power from the drinker to the caster. Invented by king Khalla Makhun the Furry, as he blended Plain and True Magic in an attempt to prolong his life.
Line 199 ⟶ 202:
* [[Professional Killer]]: From "current" time, Misa Luddis, aka "the Noseless Misa" - an old lady (in)famous for her skills who killed ''[[Badass Normal|not]]'' by spells, but "did wonders with cold steel".
** In less peaceful times, one Juffin Halli "the Kettarian Hunter", who had to shoo away many shiny-eyed wannabe apprentices between hunting insane mages and being much less successfully hunted by (equally legendary) police chief Kofa Yokh. By the end of the civil war said to have personally eliminated about a half of the King's enemies. And managed to keep this part in secret, as the old king "knew a thing or two about secrecy" and contacted this particular ally only in dreams where no one but his [[Dream_Weaver|dream bodyguard]] could see them.
* [[Properly Paranoid]] with [[Crazy Prepared]]: there is a spell that prevents a person from featuring in another person's hallucinations,
* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]: Most Arvarokhians qualify.
* [[Raging Stiffie]]: result of the gräm potion. Gräm requires a lvl 20+ black magic and thus is forbidden under the Codex (naturally, illicit supplies pop up on Black Market often enough). Max happens to confiscate some counterfeit gräm and spikes Melifaro's kamra cup with a single serving. Melifaro simultaneously returns the favor by spiking the entire pitcher with at least a triple dose, but Max leaves after taking only a few sips. Juffin, aware of the mutual pranks, orders a fresh pitcher, but leaves the spiked one on the table. As Kofa Yokh helps himself to the spiked kamra, Juffin enjoys the show and Kofa ends up in the Rendezvous Quarter. LSIF is mostly incapacitated.
Line 228 ⟶ 231:
** The LSIF is called to deal with undead at a cemetery. As the undead prove regenerative, Max suggests using some sort of liquid stone on them to render them immobile. The undead turn out to be the Order of the Long Way and their new form of life a successful [[Immortality Seeker|attempt to traverse the Paths of the Dead]] and return into the world. After providing necessary explanations, the Order's Grand Magister notes that Max has thought up terrifyingly effective restrains - as the liquid stone hardened, it neither killed the Order members nor rendered them unconscious, leading to [[And I Must Scream]] scenario.
** Max [[Exact Words|literally]] orders Ugurbado to become a statue, leaving him conscious for the reanimated skeletons who rip Ugurbado to shreds.
** "The little Gorgon": Max and Melifaro are dispatched to a village which ceased all communications. They find the place full of incredibly life-like statues, a blind cat and a very scared girl hiding in a basement. The girl tells them that a woman appeared in her dream and kissed her on the eyes, which caused the effect. Due to his earlier summoning experiments, Max happens to carry a pair of sunglasses, which allow the girl to leave the place. She joins the Seven-Leaf in Lady Sotofa's care, and Max [[Properly Paranoid|has to summon a backup stash of sunglasses.]]
* [[Talking in Your Dreams]]: Experienced mages and powerful entities can visit dreams for various benevolent (teaching, communications) or malevolent (killing, consuming souls) reasons. Powerful, but inexperienced mages may cause small scale reality warping, as their dreams happen in reality.
* [[Thinking Up Portals]]: Using the Dark Way ''looks'' like teleportation and can be done near-instantly, but it's about creating or re-opening pathways, which remains in place, can be followed, barred with a locked door, etc. It mostly belongs to the basics of True Magic - wizards ignorant of it can do this, but the success rate varies, so creating a path ''instantly'' is a mark of true talent. The Dark Way should connect two places on ''terra firma''
* [[Time Skip]]: [[In-Universe]], Max embarks on an exploration of Khumgat and its various worlds in the end of ''The Foxes of Magakhon'', during which an entire year passes in Echo.
* [[Time Travel]] / [[Living Relic]]: The Order of the Long Way's members left the world for several millenia and traversed the Paths of the Dead. They find some of the changes amazing, e.g. the ability to tell lies, because in their time attempting a lie had 2 possible outcomes: either the person had enough power to make it happen by saying it, which was a wonder, or the person simply died from the effort. They also consider using the lives of people in your power as bargaining chips (for acquired immortality) acceptable, while Max believes that any [[Immortality Seeker]] should only gamble his or her own life.
Line 243 ⟶ 246:
* [[Urban Fantasy]]: Although it is set in another world, most of the series takes place and around the sprawling metropolis of Echo.
* [[Utility Magic]]: How most of the Plain Magic is used in Echo.
* [[Weather Control Machine]]: Of the magical variety. The kings of Echo [[Royalty Super Power|actively avert natural disasters and improve harvests]]. This is apparently not an inherited ability, but a set of skills and rituals which dates back several
* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: Eponymous Ugurbado aquires his power from some elder entity, but visibly slips in sanity.
* [[You Can't Fight Fate]] / [[Screw Destiny]]: This dichotomy spans the entire series as a leitmotif.
* [[Your Soul Is Mine]]: Not quite "soul", but in the world of Echo, losing the "spark of life" (it sometimes reappears
** The mirror dweller in ''The Debut in Echo'', Max's first case.
** Makhlilgl Annokh, the undead dweller of cell #5-Khokh-Au in the Holomi prison, {{spoiler|attempting his own resurrection.}}
| |||