Question Ayla - what's next?

Given the number of attacks that Ayla has endured bullet proof won't be his only worry. As far as how he will dress, it will vary with the occasion, and even with the people whom he wishes to do business. At all times he will try to be modern yet conservative, he is after all a northeastern Republican.

MM2ss wrote: Which tells you all you need to know about how I wear my suits (single color, full windsor on the tie, square or shell folded handkerchief in the pocket and french cuffs with either silk knots or cuff links)... One must dress appropriately when teaching or preaching after all.

What? No hat, gloves and stick? For shame sir!

And for me, fashion will always be Jeeves and Wooster as portrayed by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. He may have been a complete idiot, but Bertie Wooster was always dressed to the nines!

Strangely I do go with a fedora and sometimes do have to use my stick since my knees are shot. As for gloves, they are impractical. I only put gloves on when I need them for safety, comfort or work.

One thing that has somewhat confused me is that Ayla is very willing to talk to Devisors about there inventions and finance them, but as best I can remember, he hasn't really put out feelers regarding the creation of magic item buisnesses or that sort of thing.

Jirachi47 wrote: One thing that has somewhat confused me is that Ayla is very willing to talk to Devisors about there inventions and finance them, but as best I can remember, he hasn't really put out feelers regarding the creation of magic item buisnesses or that sort of thing.

gadgeteers, and those that make objects that can work with quantifiable physics, that he can understand. Devisors and Mages, that falls into a realm of dealing with things beyond his understanding. and you don't want to deal in things that you don't understand, because liability questions.

The point of the question is that he has reached out to Devisors for financing (see: The bag of holding pockets from Mobius, Slapdash etc.), but not mages.

Unfinanced Mages don’t really produce the same level of criminal mahem that unfinanced gadgeteers and divisors manage to get up to.

... also, there is that whole exploitive existing tech industry that gets them into trouble as well.

Mages are more like really cranky librarians ... not really the type of people most of the rest of the world needs to deal with. Unless you’re in the magical artefacts world already you’ll almost never actually run into a criminal Mage, and even if you do, chances are you don’t remember it.

Jirachi47 wrote: The point of the question is that he has reached out to Devisors for financing (see: The bag of holding pockets from Mobius, Slapdash etc.), but not mages.

magic is hard to market, unless you are looking specifically for magic, and it has weird rules and limitations based on the tradition the mage follows

Ayla is dealing mostly with gadgeteers. Yes, he did give Möbius some advice on maximizing profits on his devises, but Ayla is not representing him -- Möbius sells his wares directly to his customers. He helped Möbius mostly to be a good friend, and what he gained in exchange was that Möbius is always willing to put someone else on hold if Ayla has an urgent order.
Ayla is a customer of various devisors -- Möbius, Rubik, the guy who makes those psi-bombs... but he does not finance or represent them. He might have convinced Möbius to put his money on the AJG investment funds, but that's pretty much it.
The devisors he does represent (Jericho, Bunny...) are devisor/gadgeteer combos, and his interest is in marketing the gadgets, not the devises.

I imagine in the case of Mobius Ayla may eventually represent him, if his dimensional pockets are stable and prove to carry no negative effects. The main thing against most devises, is that the creator has to 'tune them up' on a regular basis, and no one except the original creator can tune them. Indeed often someone else trying to 'tune' a devise or to even open it to investigate it finds that completely destroys the devise. Not just letting the magic blue smoke that powers your computer out (though that is bad enough!) but possibly even worse things can happen. In which case, Ayla would not wish to have his company associated with that level of risk.
Also consider that devises are 'one off' affairs. That is that the devisor has to create each one individually, they may not even be able to buy 'cases' or other parts pre-made.... So devises are generally more expensive and more 'picky' without any stability...

Devises and magic artifacts can be very profitable, but they're not great investments because everything hinges around that one special individual. Once they're gone, all you can do is sell off the remaining stock. Cashflow stops right away.

Contrast to gadgeteers. If your gadgeteer dies or quits working with you, well, you still have the patents. You can keep building and selling those designs (or pulling royalties when you let others do so) for the remainders of your 20 year government enforced monopolies. You'll also have an easier time trying to slot in a baseline engineer or a new gadgeteer to pick up where the other left off. (Yeah, that's theoretically doable with mages as well, but they're rare, rarer than mutants.)

Then there's the ability to scale. It's easy to think that specialty devises and magic artifacts could be sold for ludicrous sums, but the problem with that is you're putting a lot of eggs in just a few baskets. The market for such expensive things is small, the danger of being robbed for large portions of your livelihood is high, the devisor/mage tends to be fickle, and basically it's just not a stable, reliable income source. Cheaper gadgets, on the other hand, can be built by the million in distributed factories all around the world and sold to massive consumer markets. Much easier to work with. If the occasional supervillain or Somali hijacks a shipment, that's just a drop in the bucket, not an entire quarter's revenue lost.

mhalpern wrote:

Jirachi47 wrote: The point of the question is that he has reached out to Devisors for financing (see: The bag of holding pockets from Mobius, Slapdash etc.), but not mages.

magic is hard to market, unless you are looking specifically for magic, and it has weird rules and limitations based on the tradition the mage follows

In "Amongst The Shadows", it's mentioned that Wyatt is receiving royalties from the diagnostics spell he learned from Kodiak. It would be reasonable to treat plans and recipes for other magical works as IP as well.

null0trooper wrote:

mhalpern wrote:

Jirachi47 wrote: The point of the question is that he has reached out to Devisors for financing (see: The bag of holding pockets from Mobius, Slapdash etc.), but not mages.

magic is hard to market, unless you are looking specifically for magic, and it has weird rules and limitations based on the tradition the mage follows

In "Amongst The Shadows", it's mentioned that Wyatt is receiving royalties from the diagnostics spell he learned from Kodiak. It would be reasonable to treat plans and recipes for other magical works as IP as well.

On that note I would bet that once Ayla gets enough knowledge of magic, he will start representing such things as basic grimmories, unempowered spell slips, or cards, particular spells, or books of spells that can be used by other mages. In other words, the instruction sheets, etc that a mage might like to have so that (s)he doesn't have to make a spell essentially from scratch. Even ingredients for spells might be a good business to be in if it were a small part of your whole business plan.

Ayla is representing Möbius, and collects a 10% commission. Go check the Weapons Fair. He also discussed the sale of a belt with Journeyman? while he defending Molly's family.

I saw the flurry of activity in this thread, and I was hoping to find some speculation, since I had mentioned that I have some events planned in fall 07 with Ayla and Adalie. Alas, that wasn't what it was.

But I am slowly getting back into writing. Slowly.

Alya moves into the Farm Buffalo for Food market in a big way?
Then Kayda finds out...

Astrodragon wrote: Alya moves into the Farm Buffalo for Food market in a big way?
Then Kayda finds out...

Doesn’t Kayda hunt buffalo?!

Besides the fact buffalo seems as easy to farm as Kangaroos (fence? What fence?) I don’t see her actually having a problem with this, wouldn’t it increase the herd size and ranges?

I mean, somewhat? He has been willing to talk to Devisors about making sure that they are treated fairly, and can get proper money from there stuff, and the stuff he buys in gadget first, then devise, but he doesn't even seem to consider 'ask a mage to whip something up' to be an option.
I find this very odd.
Devises have basically all of the same problems to market (repairs, no one else can fix etc.) that magic does, and while it is true that magic has odd limitations at times, that is hardly untrue of devises.
There doesn't seem to be anything that makes working with a magical item very different (much less worse) than working with a device (if anything, magic seems easier to work with), but it seems to be something he hasn't look into, which seems to be incongruous.
I get the "mages don't have diedrick's" point, but it isn't like mages aren't exploited for there talents.
Maybe it's just about the fact that mages spend less of there time on item creation and are less reliant on money? While I bet that say, Nikki could whip up magical items of immense value for very little cost to herself, it doesn't seem to be a default solution or anything like that.

Anne wrote:

null0trooper wrote:

mhalpern wrote:

Jirachi47 wrote: The point of the question is that he has reached out to Devisors for financing (see: The bag of holding pockets from Mobius, Slapdash etc.), but not mages.

magic is hard to market, unless you are looking specifically for magic, and it has weird rules and limitations based on the tradition the mage follows

In "Amongst The Shadows", it's mentioned that Wyatt is receiving royalties from the diagnostics spell he learned from Kodiak. It would be reasonable to treat plans and recipes for other magical works as IP as well.

On that note I would bet that once Ayla gets enough knowledge of magic, he will start representing such things as basic grimmories, unempowered spell slips, or cards, particular spells, or books of spells that can be used by other mages. In other words, the instruction sheets, etc that a mage might like to have so that (s)he doesn't have to make a spell essentially from scratch. Even ingredients for spells might be a good business to be in if it were a small part of your whole business plan.

I guess that is one perspective for why Ayla isn't the market yet, but you would be hard pressed to claim that he understands devises better than magic, which was the point of my original comment.
Considering this is the Ayla discussion and speculation thread, I don't have a ton to say about the whole 'magic patent' thing, but that is an arguement towards replicability in magic, which if anything should be something that would point Ayla towards investing in magic, as opposed to devises, which isn't what he has done.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote:

Doesn’t Kayda hunt buffalo?!

Not every day. I recall reading that The Nations were considering requesting permission to hunt from the Medawhila, but I don't think that's happened yet. Maybe they could offer Ayla a chance to help butcher the kill?

Devises are essentially handmade, artisan craft stuff. From a business standpoint, it's not unlike the art market. A representative of a devisor would work as an art marchand, or an art gallery owner -- they invest a lot of time in each individual sale. Ayla can put that time into better use.

A possibility would be to create a legit, aboveboard, devise marketplace to compete with Syn d'Rome's Emporium, in the Etsy model. But that entails a lot of politics,since ISPs and search engines usually block or hide mutant-related websites.

It seems that even if Ayla was interested in breaking into the 'magical goods' business it would be far more difficult than the gadgeteer and devisor markets.

To manage magical IP the same way as gadgeteer technology Ayla would need to recognise that a mage has developed a new spell rather than simply cast a pre-existing one, which is far harder than gadgets given the esoteric nature of magic compared to gadgeteering (which is after all conventional technology).

On the other hand, to manage magical goods the same way as devisor products Ayla would need to find something that a mage is willing to reliably produce, which is more difficult given the requirement to invest essence as well as time.

Mobius, for example, seems quite happy to build a collection of storage solutions while improving and refining his technology while (with the notable exception of Eldritch) it's difficult to see a mage turning out a dozen essence foci while 'figuring out' their design.

The fact that the Workshop has a 'weapons fair' with no evidence of a similar event among the magical students speaks to me of magic's secrecy and personal nature, not traits conducive to marketability.

Different outlook. Grossly oversimplifying, gadgeteers and devisors see themselves as in the transformation business; mages see themselves as in the service business. You order a devise or gadget and buy it; you hire the services of a mage.

Sir Lee wrote: Different outlook. Grossly oversimplifying, gadgeteers and devisors see themselves as in the transformation business; mages see themselves as in the service business. You order a devise or gadget and buy it; you hire the services of a mage.

That does fit better with legends like the Pied Piper of Hameln. Even for "standard" potions, a person might want something customized to their circumstances. In turn, that puts the village wise woman in a similar situation to bartenders, munitions suppliers, and - occasionally - therapists.

The fact that there isn't a 'magic weapons fair' to me says that there is probably an unexploited possibility not something that couldn't happen.
As best I can tell from a variety of sources including the wiki seems to indicate that Essence is at least significantly something to conserve in the short term, with it regenerating to 'full' over sleep even if you aren't Nikki.
Mages are often high level exemplar mental package types, with all of the benefits and mindset that that implies, so I don't think that curiosity or intelligence is really a problem.

Perhaps? That might explain a reason why it doesn't currently exist, but that doesn't mean that a keen outside interest wouldn't observe the potential for breaking from the trend.
Also, it is normal to order relatively custom Devisor products. Plus, many are teenagers who got dumped spotaneously into the magical community, so that probably means that they don't have very strict concepts of 'what a mage should do' outside of dissmissable fictional contexts.

I think part of the reason that there probably isn't a 'magic' weapons' fair is that it is a lot harder (for certain values of harder) to demonstrate the properties of magical items. Also it may be that none of the magic users has considered the possibility of say enchanting T-shirts to be +5 armor and selling them. It may be that for current magic users it is nearly impossible to make items that don't lose their charge as it were... All of which militates against them being common (not to say that they would be cheap even if they were common) and therefore available for sale.
A good example of what could be salable is Fey's privacy charm. That is if she figured a way to put in a simple switch and if it didn't lose its 'charge' and therefore become useless in short order.
A better thing would be what I had Sally do for the police badges in my Fan-Fic. Now a mage who could do that and sold it to police departments would be nearly as well liked as Loophole.

Maybe?
But it isn't like we haven't seen magical items, or items connected to magic (see: Hekate's Athame, Dragonsfyre having creating an Athame being a process that every mage in her class does, Astarte's staff etc.) really much less than devises (easily accountable by the fact that a significant percentage of mages don't bother with item creation).

This includes 'with obvious effects'.

There are magical items, and then there are magical items that are useful to someone who is not a magic-user... I think we haven't seen too many examples of the second type, which is the more marketable one.

Sir Lee wrote: There are magical items, and then there are magical items that are useful to someone who is not a magic-user... I think we haven't seen too many examples of the second type, which is the more marketable one.

Exactly. How useful to a non mage is an athame? A wand? A staff? A non-magic user wants a blade that never breaks, armor that never fails, and a staff that helps them walk and womp their enemies. They don't intend to do magic with their item, but use it as an enhanced set of armor, or an enhanced weapon.
So if PFGs are available from any old gadgeteer or even from devisors... Who are you going to go to? The mage who may not only tell you to get lost, but enforce that command, or the gadgeteer who is happy to take your geld?

Sir Lee wrote: There are magical items, and then there are magical items that are useful to someone who is not a magic-user... I think we haven't seen too many examples of the second type, which is the more marketable one.

I think Imp is one of the few nonmages we've seen using Magic items.

Anne wrote: How useful to a non mage is an athame? A wand? A staff?

Extortion potential. Of course, that could also result in earning you a rather permanent and humorless Enemy afterwards.

Anne wrote: A non-magic user wants a blade that never breaks, armor that never fails, and a staff that helps them walk and womp their enemies. They don't intend to do magic with their item, but use it as an enhanced set of armor, or an enhanced weapon.

Outside of the SCA and RPG crowd, and other throwbacks who don't realize that a bow is just as likely to fail or run out of ammo as a handgun, not so much. Armor's the deadlier one to own, as it encourages the owner to take more risks without realizing that the energy of a impact has to go somewhere. The most amazing thing about Captain America's shield is that his forearm hasn't been ripped from his body yet.

Against conventional weapons, Metro puts his trust in carbon-fiber fabrics, ceramet, and shock padding - in battle armor if needed - and cover. Cover is good. Not being where an opponent is aiming is almost better. Not being found in the first place: golden. He carries easily-replaced survival knives and a tac baton that doesn't draw notice.

The bigger problem with magical toys for muggles, aside from precharged one-shot items like spell slips, is that the power has to come from somewhere. If ambient essence, or that generated by the person carrying it around 24/7, is sufficient that's great. If the power was built into the work of creation, you don't know where it came from or the fine print attached.

By far the worst of all were two incidents that Hekate had performed in her climb to power.  Under the tutelage and guidance of her dark mentor, two times she had sacrificed innocent souls, murdering children and channeling that pure essence to unspeakable abominations in return for advancement along her path of dark magic.

There's also a minor detail in that there's almost always a link between spell and caster as well as between item and owner. The local authorities may not come after the crafter as an accomplice to the user's crimes, but their victims' relatives just might.

If that doesn't stuff your money back into your wallet: magic can be countered. Maybe not the first time an item's used, but there's always a better magician than your supplier. One day one of your opponents might show up with a custom can-opener.

FWIW, the one arcane spell that a veteran D&D/Pathfinder party will insist on having access to is Prestidigitation . It's the Tabasco sauce of arcane magic.

ROFL at all the assumptions you guys are making...

null0trooper wrote: FWIW, the one arcane spell that a veteran D&D/Pathfinder party will insist on having access to is Prestidigitation . It's the Tabasco sauce of arcane magic.

All those drinking contests where our barbarian won because I subtly cast predigistation on the opponent's drink to make it taste very better, instead of sweet (we always chose the drink, and it was always honeyed mead. It was meant to throw the other person off, when their drink that was meant to taste as it always did (don't ask me what it tasted like: I'm a teetotaller, except for that one drink I have whenever the day that Firefly was cancelled rolls round. If anyone wants my Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster recipe, it's in the cook book section of this site) instead tasted like they had taken a bite out of a grapefruit. Best part was that they just kept ordering different drinks, until they finally passed out, all while the barbarian passed con saves, and the bets just kept getting wilder. Eventually though, the DM secretly pitted the barbarian against a mage belonging to the local guards...who detected my spell and threw us in jail. We broke out, but in the process half the town burned down, the ranger's pet bird was killed (which eventually caused the ranger to realise how bad Rangers are), the Warlock had their foot cut off, the wizard (me) lost my spellbook (luckily I had a spare), the Barbarian was fine (although his beard was singed), and the DMPC cleric got incinerated. That cleric was always our redshirt character, so we eventually forced him to always wear a red shoulder cape. The DM got into it, and after than, he suffered -5 penalties to all saving throws. He just kept coming back though, because his god wanted him to stay in the world of the living. I guess his god was a sadistic bastard who enjoyed eating popcorn while our cleric got killed over and over again. At one point, a asthmatic Lvl-1 kobold killed him. By accident. When the said kobold tripped and knocked a pebble off a cliff. Which then fell on him as he was about to restore his health from 1 point to a grand total of 20 points. Don't ask why a level 19 cleric had only 20hp. It's a long story involving a deck of many things, a DM who reworked the deck (cause honestly that thing as a base item is frakking terrible game-breaking drekkage), and a chance encounter with a Soul-sucking Vampire Queen. In any case, I have no idea why the DM decided to kill HIS character with a pebble while we were casually taking a long rest, but damm was it funny.

Sorry, what were we talking about again???

Astrodragon wrote: ROFL at all the assumptions you guys are making...

Don't worry, you'll see some of them again. Morgana and Bianca are practically vanilla compared to some folks.

CrazyMinh wrote: All those drinking contests where our barbarian won because I subtly cast predigistation on the opponent's drink to make it taste very bitter, instead of sweet (we always chose the drink, and it was always honeyed mead. It was meant to throw the other person off, when their drink that was meant to taste as it always did (don't ask me what it tasted like: I'm a teetotaller,

If the mead had to have honey added right before serving, you were getting the cheap stuff anyway.

With regard to what mead tastes like, it can vary quite a bit, depending on what else other than honey, water, and yeast went into the batch. If nothing else, and the brewer knew their business, the strain of yeast can affect the flavor and the final alcohol level, and the source of the honey can also affect the flavor.


If Ayla wants to continue in the business of fine beverage distribution, he might need to learn about such things.

And for other reasons as well. Both wine and mead have long histories of ceremonial use IRL; it is a fair bet they both play roles in certain ceremonial/Hermetic traditions in the WU (and some Shamanic ones as well - in Norse mythos the skáldskapar mjaðar (The Mead of Poetry) and the category of bardic sorcerers called (IIRC) 'mead-singers' - I expect you actually would know more about this than I do, though at one point I did have a copy of Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers which also discussed mead and mead ales at length), and knowing about the details of such may prove useful knowledge.

(I'd still love the chance to make the Heather Honey Mead recipe from that book someday, but I think I'd need to take out a loan to buy enough to make it, that stuff is about $10-16 for 100 grams - though from the one time I ordered some, it is wonderful enough to justify that price. Maybe I'll just do the heather ale instead, that's not nearly as expensive.).

For that matter, both Nectar and Soma are often described as divine meads, though this may be inaccurate translations at work. Perhaps Rich would be willing to fill Ayla in on the former. Of course, if Renshaw happens to comment on it, it could mean he's got a secret he wouldn't want getting back to Jason and June... are we sure all of his complaints about his parents really refer to Mr and Mrs Egerton?

Schol-R-LEA wrote: For that matter, both Nectar and Soma are often described as divine meads, though this may be inaccurate translations at work.

Plus some ethnopolitical posturing over Proto-Indo-European language, among other things. Barley, rye, bread, and beer (probably more like DYI kvass than Tuborg) would have arrived in northeastern Europe ahead of PIE/Proto-Germanic speakers from the Pontic-Caspian steppes. That the Vanir are said by some to come from the East is surely coincidental.

If soma use originated in Bactria, and moved south with an early Indo-European language, the climate favors Ephedra sp. over most of the other candidates. Also, alcohols are a preferred solvent for ephedrine extraction.

W/r/t Ren Egerton, who knows what his interests may be beyond getting sloshed?

Considering Ayla's background, and the fact that he barely escaped the tender indoctrination clutches of his family at the time of writing of his stories, it is not so surprising.

Ayla understands gadgets, they may be mad scientist crazy advanced, but they are technology and he has a grasp on that (not on the actual working obviously, just on the concept of it). Devises are just a step up from gadgets in that world view, at least a step up in the mad part of the scientist and the crazy part of advanced. They may be unique products and different and more difficult to market, but they are still within the realm of at least science fantasy when it comes to understanding.

Magic on the other hand, I can not imagine the Goodkind family having anything directly to do with (other than the basic spell and magic security their defense forces have drilled into them) as you can either be obscure and old to be a good baseline mage (and those are likely already employed by the powerful with historical connections in those circles, or by government agencies) or you have to be a mutant of sort. The first Goodkind family might try to attract, but their general arrogance is likely to put off those mages, the second obviously is out of the question.
So it is not that surprising to me that Ayla started with reaching out to Gadgeteers, and when he learned of the weapons fair jumped at the chance to meet his future clientele.

Mages on the other hand, Ayla only knew Fey who herself knew next to nothing about what was going on at Whateley. Combined with the observation that the Magic (and Psionic) communities at Whateley are quite a bit more secretive than the gadgeteer/devisor crowd also makes it hard for him to get an 'in' to even find if there is the equivalent of the weapons fair. Though, likely there is something as few wizard ratings are even remotely near Fey's level of power and versatility, but all of them face combat finals and need above all things the ability to whip up something /fast/. In other words, they need magical holdouts of some sort, and those who are good at enchanting cantrips or one shot effects, are likely to look at a way to make a little money off that ability.

It is quite reasonable and likely in my understanding that if another Ayla story ever gets written there might be one where he starts thinking on how to approach other mages to let him represent them and their products or services. In fact, how I think of it, he already /is/ considering something quite like that with his notion of creating an investment bank for Essence.

So even if there is no magic fair ./now/ it is all but guaranteed that there will be one by the time Ayla graduates (and they really should call it the scarborough fair to distinguish it from the workshop weapons fair, just because that pun is too good to resist even for those serious mage types).

Erianaiel wrote:
So even if there is no magic fair ./now/ it is all but guaranteed that there will be one by the time Ayla graduates (and they really should call it the scarborough fair to distinguish it from the workshop weapons fair, just because that pun is too good to resist even for those serious mage types).

Of course the entry must require parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme if they call it that...

mhalpern wrote:

Erianaiel wrote:
So even if there is no magic fair ./now/ it is all but guaranteed that there will be one by the time Ayla graduates (and they really should call it the scarborough fair to distinguish it from the workshop weapons fair, just because that pun is too good to resist even for those serious mage types).

Of course the entry must require parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme if they call it that...

As well as having to provide proof to an ex they'd jilted that they've done a bunch of impossible things in order to get them back. But those who don't have an ex like that are SOL, I guess. They just get to side on the sidelines, ah, polishing their gun, as it were ( thumbs up to Paul and Art for that little palimpsest - who says you can't teach an old tune new protest song tricks?).

First of all, greetings and thanks for joining the discussion. I think over all your analyses is spot on.

Erianaiel wrote: Considering Ayla's background, and the fact that he barely escaped the tender indoctrination clutches of his family at the time of writing of his stories, it is not so surprising.

Ayla understands gadgets, they may be mad scientist crazy advanced, but they are technology and he has a grasp on that (not on the actual working obviously, just on the concept of it). Devises are just a step up from gadgets in that world view, at least a step up in the mad part of the scientist and the crazy part of advanced. They may be unique products and different and more difficult to market, but they are still within the realm of at least science fantasy when it comes to understanding.

Magic on the other hand, I can not imagine the Goodkind family having anything directly to do with (other than the basic spell and magic security their defense forces have drilled into them) as you can either be obscure and old to be a good baseline mage (and those are likely already employed by the powerful with historical connections in those circles, or by government agencies) or you have to be a mutant of sort. The first Goodkind family might try to attract, but their general arrogance is likely to put off those mages, the second obviously is out of the question.
So it is not that surprising to me that Ayla started with reaching out to Gadgeteers, and when he learned of the weapons fair jumped at the chance to meet his future clientele.

Mages on the other hand, Ayla only knew Fey who herself knew next to nothing about what was going on at Whateley. Combined with the observation that the Magic (and Psionic) communities at Whateley are quite a bit more secretive than the gadgeteer/devisor crowd also makes it hard for him to get an 'in' to even find if there is the equivalent of the weapons fair. Though, likely there is something as few wizard ratings are even remotely near Fey's level of power and versatility, but all of them face combat finals and need above all things the ability to whip up something /fast/. In other words, they need magical holdouts of some sort, and those who are good at enchanting cantrips or one shot effects, are likely to look at a way to make a little money off that ability.

I wonder how many mages would be willing to trust the work of another mage? I'd say more likely they will do as Shebeast and Diamondback do and prep their own sets of one shots ahead of time. So it would only be people who are maybe hoping to have some advantage (ala Imp's disguise) on a minor scale such as a see me not bauble. If Fey had been a bit mercenary she could have sold the beads she made to cause Peeper to see men instead of women when he looked at her and her friends for a mint! If she ever gets another story I wouldn't be surprised if she gets a lot of requests for minor glamor/disguise amulets, whatever form those take. I can see that Absinthe might have some customers too! That is if she can make items that will allow her illusions to be semi-permanent. But the very nature of magic means that I would suspect that there isn't going to ever be a large market among the mages.

It is quite reasonable and likely in my understanding that if another Ayla story ever gets written there might be one where he starts thinking on how to approach other mages to let him represent them and their products or services. In fact, how I think of it, he already /is/ considering something quite like that with his notion of creating an investment bank for Essence.

So even if there is no magic fair ./now/ it is all but guaranteed that there will be one by the time Ayla graduates (and they really should call it the scarborough fair to distinguish it from the workshop weapons fair, just because that pun is too good to resist even for those serious mage types).

LOL at the Scarborough Fair name, so appropriate!

Schol-R-LEA wrote:

mhalpern wrote:

Erianaiel wrote:
So even if there is no magic fair ./now/ it is all but guaranteed that there will be one by the time Ayla graduates (and they really should call it the scarborough fair to distinguish it from the workshop weapons fair, just because that pun is too good to resist even for those serious mage types).

Of course the entry must require parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme if they call it that...

As well as having to provide proof to an ex they'd jilted that they've done a bunch of impossible things in order to get them back. But those who don't have an ex like that are SOL, I guess. They just get to side on the sidelines, ah, polishing their gun, as it were ( thumbs up to Paul and Art for that little palimpsest - who says you can't teach an old tune new protest song tricks?).

Too restrictive.

True, true.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:

mhalpern wrote: Of course the entry must require parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme if they call it that...

As well as having to provide proof to an ex they'd jilted that they've done a bunch of impossible things in order to get them back. But those who don't have an ex like that are SOL, I guess.

A friend of mine analyzed the song for one of her classes. Not only do the lyrics tie in to the Child ballads, but some of the tasks are specifically chosen so as to reveal the faithless lover as one of the Gentry. The herbs aren't much more innocent:

Of parsley it is said only pregnant women and witches can grow it properly. Though it is sacred to Aphrodite, you could kill someone by plucking a sprig of parsley while speaking his name.

Sage may be used for healing and purification.

Rosemary not only wards off evil spirits, but is also part of some wedding customs as it promotes fidelity. It also is known to attract the fae.

Thyme may help one see the fae if they are hidden.

Soooooo, yeah. Scarborough Fair is the troubadour's hot take on Cee Lo Green's "F--- You"