N’Halia’s Original Powers

If the characters were to be classified into gaming archetypes, she would obviously be the mage. It occurred to me that if Powers like what you see in a game actually existed, the world would be a barren wasteland in a year. Read on to learn how this changed my ideas for N’Halia!

Her Power

N’Halia was set to be the mage and there are three classic Powers of a mage: fire, lightning, and ice. Since she was the main character, I gave her the one that is obviously the coolest. Lightning. I mean, come on, Lightning is obviously the best of those Powers, how could she have anything else?

Control

As I mentioned above, I wanted there to be some limits on Power. I thought of using your Power like you would do anything with strenuous effort. Imagine you were going to pick something heavy up. You wouldn’t be able to summon that level of strength in a second. You’d have to concentrate, gather your strength, and then do it. I made Power Wielding the same way. It had the additional effect that people didn’t just fight by throwing Fireballs back and forth. Using your Power was a selective thing, a trick up your sleeve. It only formed a component of combat while normal fighting was still primary.

The Flow

Each Power has different effects on people when it Flows through their body. I took Lightning very literally since our body’s actually do function with electricity. It speeds up your thoughts, improves reflexes, and increases strength. The primary difference between the boosts from Lightning versus other Powers was that Lightning increased those abilities within a normal human range. You would be stronger and faster, but still human. Other Powers exceeded those limits.

The Wings

No spoilers, even though the temptation is strong… I’ll just say that in the second book, each of the fighters get some sort of weapon to use, some from Blood Forging (a magical item) and some just a normal weapon. I won’t give it away, except to reveal the name of her weapon: the Wings (no, it has nothing to do with flying). I conceived of her having the Wings since I thought of her character. Full disclosure: they’re awesome.

Next up

Next post will be talking about Araina’s Power. Going to be hard to discuss that without some spoilers…