Comic for March 1, 2018: Magic Stick!

[Ddraig]

Here you go.

You know, I didn't even think to check if it was on that map. Thanks!

[AndreRhineDavis]

It teleports to the place the current holder considers home. That means that it interfaces with the mind, specifically memories, of the user. That's not concerning, since magic is expected to do that. Now HOW it manages to determine the home location is where it gets interesting. See, memory works on a basis of assigning emotional impressions on the echo of sensory input. That means your memories are actually just phantom information cobbled together by your brain to resemble past sensory input, based on how they affect you emotionally. The more an input affects you, the stronger the memory. Having a home, a place you consider FAMILIAR, a place of SAFETY and perhaps SOLACE, must leave a distinct impression, nevermind the convoluted explanation that can be given by the Law of Contagion, Law of Identificaion and Law of Relevance, all subsets of the Law of ASSOCIATION[1].

This means that the gate key homes in on the user's memories of home, AND executes a teleport spell/ritual in one go. The trigger for this seems to be tapping, or slamming the thing on the ground, aside from the requisite mental trigger needed for magic. A straightforward mode of operation.

So, how can we make this a balanced and not story-breaking object? Simple. It obviously has a limited power suply. That giant crystal on it must be where it stores the mana needed and the working medium of the magic. Consequently, it must have a limited range and mass it can transport, since if it were able to teleport you across thhe continent then any notion of the perils of long distance travel for high value targets becomes NULL. This means that the current situation on this page can only come about BECAUSE the group is close to Legacy Estate. I assume if they were farther away, then it would not work.

Otherwise you would have a problem with storytelling, speciffically creating tension, since if these things were even in limited availibility, then it would make things extremely complicated for both sides. Yet we see that this key is possessed by RENI, who said she collects these things. We can assume that these things aren't exactly common, since teleporting is a VERY complicated piece of work in any setting. This implies without implying that gate keys must be EXTRMELY RARE, reserved for high ranking and high value individuals, like kings, high templars and DRAGON PRINCESSES.

Huh. Well, that wraps it up quite well.

Normally, you can’t just teleport into places like your estate. But for convenience, most have a gate set up that acts as a single well-protected entry point. If I held it, this key would go to my home in Morlin Hall, but with you, it should go to yours.

From Reni's quote, it sounds to me like many estates and other such buildings owned by rich and powerful people are protected by magic so people can't just teleport in, but they do have a built-in well-protected "teleporter entry point" which allows teleportation, but only for certain people it has been programmed to allow, who have been "keyed in". This would make sense, you would want to stop random people from teleporting into your estate, but you yourself would want to be able to teleport there.

There is no guarantee that this is common. In fact, the fact that Reni says "places like your estate" may imply that this setup is expensive, and only the richest people can afford to install this permanent suppression on teleportation on the whole estate and permanent specially-programmed teleporter entry point, and can afford these special keys that allow them to teleport there (without having to use their own magic to do it themselves, and probably can teleport a further distance than they *could* do themselves)

So I imagine that the key can take a user to any "teleporter point" (most likely within a certain distance range) to which they have been keyed in. And probably also allows them to take people with them. The problem is that I can imagine a single person might be keyed in to several places, in which case they'd have to decide which place they want to go, rather than just activating the key without thinking, like Trace is doing. Unless the whole idea is that you can only key yourself in to one teleport point at a time. Either way, Reni is assuming that Trace is still keyed in to his estate.

[SpottedKitty]

I think Reni sticking her head in the bag like that just doubled — or even tripled — her cuteness level.

[ZeroJinKui]

that little panel of reni smiling is so adorable... shame she has a thing for kei, that really ruins my opinion of her.

i love karen, she is probably one of the most huggable characters in this comic.

pretty convenient having a recall spell on hand, essentially... makes me wonder where reni finds stuff like that, though.

[Technic[Bot]]

Probably the connection between the destination and the traveler is stored on the person body. Not in his mind.
Otherwise this is a good excuse to send the party miles away in some random direction.

[NuclearBird]

Probably the connection between the destination and the traveler is stored on the person body. Not in his mind.
Otherwise this is a good excuse to send the party miles away in some random direction.

Exactly. Even if it's magic, you still gotta explain some s**t.

[Candycat]

Probably the connection between the destination and the traveler is stored on the person body. Not in his mind.
Otherwise this is a good excuse to send the party miles away in some random direction.

Exactly. Even if it's magic, you still gotta explain some s**t.

That Gatekey seems to be more like a key to a network than a key to a bunch of doors. Like if you were say a student at a university and had access to a wifi network you would only be able to access what your password let you access. You wouldn't be able to access say another student's machine or an administrator's machine. Unless you're hacker I guess but that's not important, although I wonder if that gatekey could be exploited...

Anyways, I'd say a key would be a pretty crappy key if it depended on your memory of there being a door that it unlocked. Back to computers. Your passwords don't go away if you forget them, they don't disappear if you forget what they're keeping safe, they don't fade from existence if you forget they exist. Not to mention, a mind-reading key sounds rather intrusive.

The gatekey probably analyses some other, permanent aspect of the user that it can use to identify them, somewhat like a fingerprint scanner, except it doesn't use fingerprints probably. Maybe people have some kind of aura-type thing it can identify. Or maybe magic can detect DNA, I don't know. Otherwise a gatekey would probably fail pretty often, if what was programmed as 'home' didn't match the user's idea of 'home'. Home is where the heart is after all.

Basically a key should not hinge on whether or not the user has a grasp on the concept of doors.

[Technic[Bot]]

Probably the connection between the destination and the traveler is stored on the person body. Not in his mind.
Otherwise this is a good excuse to send the party miles away in some random direction.

Exactly. Even if it's magic, you still gotta explain some s**t.

I once read that in fantasy writing there are two types of magic systems: Soft and Hard magic systems.
There are articles that could explaing this better than i could ever hope to but in summary:
Soft Magic: A wizard did it!!; Example Lord of the Rings
Hard magic: Fantasy version of star trek technobabble. Example: Avatar

In other words: an explanation would be nice, but it is not neccesary.

Probably the connection between the destination and the traveler is stored on the person body. Not in his mind.
Otherwise this is a good excuse to send the party miles away in some random direction.

Exactly. Even if it's magic, you still gotta explain some s**t.

That Gatekey seems to be more like a key to a network than a key to a bunch of doors. Like if you were say a student at a university and had access to a wifi network you would only be able to access what your password let you access. You wouldn't be able to access say another student's machine or an administrator's machine. Unless you're hacker I guess but that's not important, although I wonder if that gatekey could be exploited...

Anyways, I'd say a key would be a pretty crappy key if it depended on your memory of there being a door that it unlocked. Back to computers. Your passwords don't go away if you forget them, they don't disappear if you forget what they're keeping safe, they don't fade from existence if you forget they exist. Not to mention, a mind-reading key sounds rather intrusive.

The gatekey probably analyses some other, permanent aspect of the user that it can use to identify them, somewhat like a fingerprint scanner, except it doesn't use fingerprints probably. Maybe people have some kind of aura-type thing it can identify. Or maybe magic can detect DNA, I don't know. Otherwise a gatekey would probably fail pretty often, if what was programmed as 'home' didn't match the user's idea of 'home'. Home is where the heart is after all.

Basically a key should not hinge on whether or not the user has a grasp on the concept of doors.

Interesting analogue of cybersecurity using magic

[aitaituo]

Probably the connection between the destination and the traveler is stored on the person body. Not in his mind.
Otherwise this is a good excuse to send the party miles away in some random direction.

Exactly. Even if it's magic, you still gotta explain some s**t.

I once read that in fantasy writing there are two types of magic systems: Soft and Hard magic systems.
There are articles that could explaing this better than i could ever hope to but in summary:
Soft Magic: A wizard did it!!; Example Lord of the Rings
Hard magic: Fantasy version of star trek technobabble. Example: Avatar

In other words: an explanation would be nice, but it is not neccesary.

Yeah, consistency is what really matters. Gandalf is OP, but there's only four of him and they're basically god. Frodo's superpower is just having a lot of willpower and friends who make up the difference when that's not enough. If Frodo suddenly can survive lava, that's what ruins the story.

[Hulk10]

Bilbo also had a lot of willpower and remember that Frodo in the end couldn't resist the pull of the ring?

[JohnTheWysard]

Bilbo also had a lot of willpower and remember that Frodo in the end couldn't resist the pull of the ring?

My favorite (alas now lost) lapel pin (in Tengwar):

Sméagol Jumped!

[Warrl]

Trace has amnesia - but were his memories erased, or merely made inaccessible? IMHO the existence of the black-cloud voice that occasionally bugs him, hints that the latter is the case - and further that there's a functional mind with access to them, separate from his conscious mind.

So the staff's magic could (if it's based on the holder's memories) identify Trace's home from his pre-amnesia memories. Even though he himself can't access them.

[amenon]

Trace has amnesia - but were his memories erased, or merely made inaccessible? IMHO the existence of the black-cloud voice that occasionally bugs him, hints that the latter is the case - and further that there's a functional mind with access to them, separate from his conscious mind.

Well, that and the fact that the plan was always for him to regain his memories.

Smoke could also represent a mask, I think.

[Hulk10]

Imagine a staff that could allow you to do anything? Travel to other worlds, other dimensions, increase lifespan. Alter biology whatever you wanted?

[Schrodinger]

Imagine a staff that could allow you to do anything? Travel to other worlds, other dimensions, increase lifespan. Alter biology whatever you wanted?

I don't have to. I play Dungeons and Dragons.