Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 5513906" data-attributes="member: 7883">In Scott Bakker's "Prince of Nothing" series, the sorcerers (known as schoolmen) are quite powerful.  They're known to be quite deadly...to the point that armies keep their own units of schoolmen to use against each other.  However, they're also somewhat fragile and delicate......so typically, they're kind of like nukes.  The armies have them, but try to avoid putting them in harm's way.  They'll try to take out the opposing army's sorcerers, and then, if they do, their own sorcerers then massacre the opposing army.The mechanism he uses is that sorcerers traffic in forbidden powers....even the good ones.  Basically, they're working with evil knowledge, even if they are good people.  That traffic in darkness stains their souls, and as a result, they are vulnerable to the effect of items called "Chorae".  It's some kind of mystic rock.  When held by a non-spellcaster, it makes him invulnerable to incantations.  If it touches a schoolman, it turns him into a statue of salt (thus killing him).The stuff is very valuable, so it's not like it's everywhere...but kinds and nobles tend to have it, and they'll have it on arrowheads held by groups of archers, etc.It's an interesting way to control the power of the spellcasters, while allowing them to be lethal.  If a schoolman encounters a bunch of warriors, and they have no chorae, they're dead.  But if they encounter him and have chorae with him, all they have to do is make a touch attack and he's petrified.Banshee</blockquote>

Verification