"so showing up in libraries asking for odd books seems completely normal."

The "it's for a book I'm writing" excuse... or how Richard Castle operates.

Never actually seen that show, but yeah, it does seem like a perfect excuse. Granted, book signing tours can take up time. (Honestly, that being her career was pretty much a throwaway line in the first story, but it makes sense.)

Oh, I am very fond of this picture, I is. Richard's crisp colouring work and linework really shine in his drawing of Charmer; she looks like the sort of magic-user who's all but daring the bad guys to underestimate her.

Have two questions (possibly three), tho': can she fit wholly in the hat, or can her hat fit wholly on her head; or both?

-2Paw.

The hat can fit on her head easily enough. Making herself fit in the hat would require a little magic use. Granted, one of her common tricks is essentially a 'bag of holding' or 'hammerspace' spell so she can just reach behind her back and pull out the hat whenever she wants it. Or anything else she's 'stored' there. The spell is easier to cast as long as nobody can actually see her hand when she does that.

I was wondering if she had a hammerspace-esque portal and storage 'vault', whether accessed via the hat (or the hat as a conductive 'ingredient' necessary to access or make use of it) or the hat being part of her chosen style-flourish to make use of her personal Charmerspace, but not necessarily dependent on it as a component. I was being a little bit tongue-in-cheek about asking whether the hat fit on her head, as her ears I presumed would make that physically difficult (at least if the hat doesn't have earhole haberdasheries).

That said, I doubt Charmer is short on technique or clever workarounds, when it comes to her magickal skill and her sleight-of-hand. ^_^

-2Paw.

Mostly the hat is a stylistic thing, though she can use it as a portal if she wants to. And yes, she does have to be a little careful with it and her ears, though again, magic can be used as a 'cheat' for a lot of things.

I haven't gone into too much detail on how magic works in the stories I was doing, especially since Charmer wasn't the protagonist, but I figure she's something akin to a Hermetic mage most of the time, lots of research and rituals; but given her flair for the dramatic (and you don't wear an outfit like that unless you have a flair for the dramatic) she has a number of magic items and other prepared spells that can be used to do things quickly.

Ars Magica's magick-method I've been fond of for quite a few years, despite the stereotypical pretentiousness that got stuffed into the modern-day Mages of Mage: the Ascension and how, say, werewolves interacted with and perceived them. White Wolf did understand, I think, that The Apocalypse/Gehenna/Ascension/Second Sundering was eventually going to happen, but the original World of Darkness was railroaded to that end by the background narrative supplied over the 12 years or so that they could stand to keep their pants on about it down in Stone Mountain. I know you know about a lot of my beef with White Wolf and the creators and sustainers of the oWoD, and I won't spoil the conversation by grumpeting further than I already have.

The idea that the hand-motions- very specific ones, with specific casting and end-result definition- were part of deliberate casting, or coincidental magick (making it look like something just happened all of a sudden; the curtain with the real effort behind it) which was expanded upon in the modern WoD Mage-business, made Ars Magica/Mage: the Ascension's magick system tremendously unique, and wonderfully original. If I can put up any one thing I have never disliked about the World of Darkness, it's the Hermetic/Quintessence magick system.

Would it create a paradox loop (quantum physics-wise) if Charmer pulled herself out of her own hat, or would the portal-transit method be more akin to Valve's Portal game, as long as she herself was not duplicated in quanta or mass?

-2Paw.

Yes, I liked Ars Magica myself; heck, I had the polar bear shapeshifter character I made up for that game drawn as well. Partly because it had an actual magic system rather than just lots of pre-generated spells, and later editions started giving you decent guidelines for how powerful spells had to be for specific effects. In-game, it was very much a 'natural philosophy' (early science) approach to magic, with all the pros and cons that implied. (Pro: easier to extrapolate from basics; con: certain specific ideas were often very difficult to do if they weren't in the original framework.)

I will admit some of the 'paradox' thinking of Mage was involved here as well, just in the idea that certain things get done because people expect them to be done, and having your hands out of sight (inside the hat or behind your back) can make spells to retrieve things easier. It's all about justifying what you're doing.

It would probably be a problem if Charmer tried to pull herself out of her hat, yes. That said, I did have a silly short piece where there were multiple copies of Charmer, but that was a matter of a spell to cross between alternate universes going wrong and creating an attractor so any other copy of her trying the spell ended up in the main universe...

I remember that drawing by Richard Bartrop, and I had not recalled until your mention herein that she, Raureif was a character of yours. I just took a peek at your bear-woman shapeshifter's posting again, and I was right: House Bjornaer, the shapeshifting heart-beast persons amongst the Order of Hermes. (Possibly an order or six of grilled venison steak, for a lovely lady that big.)

That I remembered as well, that there were many 'canon' suggestions for the two-part, one-mage (if not cast as a Ritual casting) spells, but there was no codified limit in-game or in the magick-mechanics as to what spells could exist between two compatible casting-syntax parts. The various Houses had their customized stereotypes, but enforced more for ease of settling into a character than having a chunk of personality framework slapped onto a new character by default. Guidelines, rather than rules.

The biggest thing that kept me away from Mage: the Ascension as opposed to Ars Magica is that it was firmly strapped onto the oWoD/nWoD; that, and the limitation on technology to what existed several hundred years ago (depending on the breadth of time period, but pre-Medieval, Mythic Europe (mostly Europe, in the basic game context)), rather than mages who could gear up steampunk cybernetics or use other supernatural races' material weaknesses against them. In Ars Magica, a werewolf of even relatively limited power was a formidable hunt, assuming the hunt found it and succeeded. In the WoD, the Garou might as well be knocked each over the head with a silver skillet and that's that. They might as well be cannon fodder gnolls or goblins in-game to most Mages.

Twilight was something that, if implemented in Mage: the Ascension as it had been in Ars Magica, would've made Mage a much more reasoned and reasonable magick-user RPG. Mages in Ars Magica went head-to-head in magical combat to handle honour and deed-duels, not to grab everything they could get their hands on. The original Order of Hermes Magi had no intent or desire to live forever in physical form, nor to reign as kings, priests or knights over anyone but themselves. They understood honour, and why it was important to keep your word, your bond and your friends in kindness. Mages in Mage: the Ascension were with few exceptions power-hungry jerks.

Even canon rules are ignored when it comes to major events in the oWoD involving Garou, and why they should be something Mages don't take lightly: they aren't affected by Paradox-expulsion/detonation or the effects of those detonations. I don't know if you're familiar or not with The Chaos Factor, which ended the journey of Samuel Haight, the Skinner: when the 'Paradox Nuke' that was the Verbena coven's staff finally went off near the end of the story and Haight's one-on-one with a rather unpleasant Baali Antediluvian, the basic rules on Quintessence vs. Paradox relations to werecreatures (since Garou and other weres operate on Rage vs. Gnosis) state clearly that the werewolves present would've been aware of the visual effects but the Paradox bomb wouldn't have scratched them a sliver. Instead, it affected everyone in the explosion radius. Stupid, rule-breaking stuff like that wrecked Mages vs. Werewolves in the oWoD for me.

As for the Xeroxed Charmer; well, Jadestar is a size-mass shifter, being super-hero you. She might've offered some wonderful smaller multiple-bun-bun companionship if you bumped up your relative size a bit. Footrubs, muzzle-snugs, tucked into somewhere star-cat magical, that kind of thing. <3

-2Paw.

I didn't read a lot of the backstory on the World of Darkness; a lot of what I did read seemed to have even more of the 'so edgy you'll cut yourself' aspect that was problematic with a lot of the World of Darkness to begin with. And the attempts at shoehorning Ars Magica in with it (I think third edition?) didn't entirely make sense anyway; why would a 'Reason' aura as exemplified by libraries affect mages when mages were often people with the biggest libraries aside from monasteries which were already Divine? There's a reason that connection got broken with later versions of Ars Magica; it didn't really fit.

Ars Magica mages were in a very political position and they knew it. The entire point of the Order was to keep mages from being at each other's throats so much, and one of its requirements involved not attaching yourself too blatantly to any other political force such as local barons or princes, because it would be pretty much impossible for that to not end in bloodshed eventually. That's why there were actual rules about 'don't create so much stuff that you destabilize the economy', because coming to the attention of people in power is rarely safe, and the Order very much preferred that if anybody knew about them at all, it would be known that they tried to disconnect from mundane politics as much as possible. The Order of Hermes had enough problems already, and the total population of full mages wasn't high enough that they could risk getting into an extended war that could end up wiping them out. Best to be seen as equally mildly annoying to everybody.

And, well, 'Sodales' was always a thing: most people have always liked to hang out with others who share their interests. The 'social club' aspects of the Order of Hermes was always kept around, as many of them weren't terribly social otherwise.

Does she ever transport the entire team through her hat?

Do Canadians call a group of rabbits a fluffle?

No, a lot of her teammates get a bit weirded out by being pulled through a hat, so she'll use other forms of teleportation normally.

Don't think I've heard 'fluffle' before, usually a colony or warren, though I've heard a drove of rabbits occasionally.

Speaking as a Canadian 2Paw, I call a group of rabbits a Snuggle Attack Vector Escrow. But that's just me and my imagination. ^_^

-2Paw.

A chrome leotard? I approve!

After all, one of the key abilities of the stage magician is the art of distraction...