Post by Toz76 on Dec 26, 2019 20:46:13 GMT -5
Alright, class, settle in. You're here because you want to join Magika Supremus, and fight magical crime. But in order to do that, you first need to know what you're looking for. As you would all know if you paid attention in Researcher My's lecture last week, Brian, when our organization searches crime scenes, we use magic detection spells to find, among other things, what spells were cast here recently. Each spell has a unique signature, and today I'm going to teach you some of the spells that are most commonly connected to crime scenes.
First up, we have the obvious one: Akrimov's Instant Death. Named after the famous magical serial killer, this spell, when cast on a person, renders them dead instantly, as if from a heart attack. Fortunately, this spell's "signature" is very distinctive, and even rookie investigators can tell the difference between an actual heart attack and a murder with this spell instantly. Unfortunately for us, there's another spell, Akrimov's Week To Live, which works the same way, but when it is cast, it instead starts a timer of a random length between an hour and a week before that person dies. People move around a lot, and magical signatures don't linger that long, so this spell is tricky to detect, but thankfully most mages simply aren't capable of casting it.
But what's more important here are the spells that violate the Four Taboos of magic. Most important to us here in the city is Famine Magic. Famine Magic is any magic associated with rot, decay, and the killing of plants. Now, I know what you're thinking, "that doesn't sound so bad". And yeah, it's not a big deal if someone uses famine magic to cast Deborah's Shower Mold Enhancer or Jefferson's Unsatisfying Tomatoes. But real famine magic isn't like that. Spells like Piskrima's Pestilence, Solanum, and Nbinga's Enhanced Malaria produce dangerous, hard-to-treat magic illnesses. Blight kills crops instantly. And Venn's Wood Rot can destroy entire buildings by eating away at the material. One plague mage casting a few spells can destroy an entire city. So stay vigilant.
Then we have mind control spells. The two most significant ones are Control Creature and Hijack Mind. These spells have been around for millenia, and we still don't fully understand them. Control Creature takes over the mind of any "lower-life form" and makes it a puppet of its creator. Hijack Mind does the same to "higher-life forms". What's the difference, you ask? We don't know. Control Creature can control golems, zombies, and most animals, but not all, and some say it can control children under the age of two, but obviously no one wants to test that. Hijack Mind is completely illegal, but Druid mages still use Control Creature on animals for various reasons, and farmers occasionally use it on livestock. Don't make furry jokes in my classroom, Shelby. And of course, licensed necromancers use it too, which brings us to the next taboo.
Necromancy is legal in certain districts in the city, but anywhere else in the city, someone casting Create Undead is a pretty clear sign that something illegal is going on. Create Undead animates a body and makes it the puppet of its creator for a short period of time. Closely related is Improve Undead, which makes such creations last longer and able to follow more complex orders. Unfortunately, undead improved too many times tend to turn into liches, which isn't super great for obvious reasons.
And finally, there's human sacrifice. We know very little about these spells, and for good reason. No one wants to study them. We don't usually look for spell signatures for this, ritual sacrifice is pretty easy to spot. But what I can tell you is that human sacrifice is only used for very powerful spells. Appeasing supernatural creatures or the Teatro-Toicho gods, blessing or cursing a land, or gaining extreme power fast, this is the way to it. But it's obviously very evil, and we crack down on it whenever possible.
There is one spell that combines all four of these taboos... Binderion's Profane Summon. This spell has only been cast a handful of times by one mage who died hundreds of years ago, and we don't know exactly what it does. But to this day, the signature of the spell casts a blight over certain regions of Austria, making crops fail and giving people nightmares to this day. All we know for sure about this spell is that it involved stolen Masteri research, newborn children and their mothers, earth magic, and some sort of transfiguration and enlarging magic.
One spell to look out for that isn't strictly illegal but we really don't like very much, is Zemlya's Mage Blinder. The spell doesn't do anything visible to the naked eye, but creates a very bright "magic signature" that blots out all other nearby signatures and makes them dissapate faster. It's not illegal, and it has legitimate uses, but it's also very useful for criminals trying to hide their tracks from us. So if someone's casted this spell recently, it's pretty suspicious.
And finally, this type of magical signature is very dangerous. If you ever see it, contact a superior and report a Code Yellow Jacket immediately. I can't tell you what it means until you're higher in the organization, but let's just say that some things simply should not be, and the rumors about a ninth elemental type have some truth to them.
That's all for today, class. For homework, study the history of necromancy, there will be a quiz on Friday. Paladin Fard will be in tomorrow to teach you about magical ethics. Until then, farewell.
First up, we have the obvious one: Akrimov's Instant Death. Named after the famous magical serial killer, this spell, when cast on a person, renders them dead instantly, as if from a heart attack. Fortunately, this spell's "signature" is very distinctive, and even rookie investigators can tell the difference between an actual heart attack and a murder with this spell instantly. Unfortunately for us, there's another spell, Akrimov's Week To Live, which works the same way, but when it is cast, it instead starts a timer of a random length between an hour and a week before that person dies. People move around a lot, and magical signatures don't linger that long, so this spell is tricky to detect, but thankfully most mages simply aren't capable of casting it.
But what's more important here are the spells that violate the Four Taboos of magic. Most important to us here in the city is Famine Magic. Famine Magic is any magic associated with rot, decay, and the killing of plants. Now, I know what you're thinking, "that doesn't sound so bad". And yeah, it's not a big deal if someone uses famine magic to cast Deborah's Shower Mold Enhancer or Jefferson's Unsatisfying Tomatoes. But real famine magic isn't like that. Spells like Piskrima's Pestilence, Solanum, and Nbinga's Enhanced Malaria produce dangerous, hard-to-treat magic illnesses. Blight kills crops instantly. And Venn's Wood Rot can destroy entire buildings by eating away at the material. One plague mage casting a few spells can destroy an entire city. So stay vigilant.
Then we have mind control spells. The two most significant ones are Control Creature and Hijack Mind. These spells have been around for millenia, and we still don't fully understand them. Control Creature takes over the mind of any "lower-life form" and makes it a puppet of its creator. Hijack Mind does the same to "higher-life forms". What's the difference, you ask? We don't know. Control Creature can control golems, zombies, and most animals, but not all, and some say it can control children under the age of two, but obviously no one wants to test that. Hijack Mind is completely illegal, but Druid mages still use Control Creature on animals for various reasons, and farmers occasionally use it on livestock. Don't make furry jokes in my classroom, Shelby. And of course, licensed necromancers use it too, which brings us to the next taboo.
Necromancy is legal in certain districts in the city, but anywhere else in the city, someone casting Create Undead is a pretty clear sign that something illegal is going on. Create Undead animates a body and makes it the puppet of its creator for a short period of time. Closely related is Improve Undead, which makes such creations last longer and able to follow more complex orders. Unfortunately, undead improved too many times tend to turn into liches, which isn't super great for obvious reasons.
And finally, there's human sacrifice. We know very little about these spells, and for good reason. No one wants to study them. We don't usually look for spell signatures for this, ritual sacrifice is pretty easy to spot. But what I can tell you is that human sacrifice is only used for very powerful spells. Appeasing supernatural creatures or the Teatro-Toicho gods, blessing or cursing a land, or gaining extreme power fast, this is the way to it. But it's obviously very evil, and we crack down on it whenever possible.
There is one spell that combines all four of these taboos... Binderion's Profane Summon. This spell has only been cast a handful of times by one mage who died hundreds of years ago, and we don't know exactly what it does. But to this day, the signature of the spell casts a blight over certain regions of Austria, making crops fail and giving people nightmares to this day. All we know for sure about this spell is that it involved stolen Masteri research, newborn children and their mothers, earth magic, and some sort of transfiguration and enlarging magic.
One spell to look out for that isn't strictly illegal but we really don't like very much, is Zemlya's Mage Blinder. The spell doesn't do anything visible to the naked eye, but creates a very bright "magic signature" that blots out all other nearby signatures and makes them dissapate faster. It's not illegal, and it has legitimate uses, but it's also very useful for criminals trying to hide their tracks from us. So if someone's casted this spell recently, it's pretty suspicious.
And finally, this type of magical signature is very dangerous. If you ever see it, contact a superior and report a Code Yellow Jacket immediately. I can't tell you what it means until you're higher in the organization, but let's just say that some things simply should not be, and the rumors about a ninth elemental type have some truth to them.
That's all for today, class. For homework, study the history of necromancy, there will be a quiz on Friday. Paladin Fard will be in tomorrow to teach you about magical ethics. Until then, farewell.