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A loose end that might not be tied up

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Mar 12, 2012
20
Ok, so we all know our battle with morganthe, and we all know how they all use shadow creatures and transformations.

And almost everyone who's learned shadow magic and knows the history behind it assumes that we will learn more of it in the future, BUT, the one thing Kingsisle did is left a loose end.

IF we were going to learn new shadow spells, why did Morganthe, supposedly one of the most powerful wizards on the spiral, who was in total command of shadow magic, only know these versions of them?

If shadow magic can be expanded upon, it would make sense that Morganthe, the queen of the shadow, know more shadow spells, ones that could possibly give us a sneak-peek as to what new spells might come.

While it could be argued that since these four forms of Morganthe were simply made from Shadow Magic, it could be stated that these forms couldn't use all types of shadow magic, as they were merely shadow things, and weren't capable of handling too much power.

What do you think? Let me know!

Developer
xenbay on May 27, 2014 wrote:
Ok, so we all know our battle with morganthe, and we all know how they all use shadow creatures and transformations.

And almost everyone who's learned shadow magic and knows the history behind it assumes that we will learn more of it in the future, BUT, the one thing Kingsisle did is left a loose end.

IF we were going to learn new shadow spells, why did Morganthe, supposedly one of the most powerful wizards on the spiral, who was in total command of shadow magic, only know these versions of them?

If shadow magic can be expanded upon, it would make sense that Morganthe, the queen of the shadow, know more shadow spells, ones that could possibly give us a sneak-peek as to what new spells might come.

While it could be argued that since these four forms of Morganthe were simply made from Shadow Magic, it could be stated that these forms couldn't use all types of shadow magic, as they were merely shadow things, and weren't capable of handling too much power.

What do you think? Let me know!
There's a story answer, and a "behind the curtain" answer here.

The story answer is that Morganthe, despite being the self-proclaimed Queen of the Shadow Web, may have exaggerated her capabilities. As well, the last Act of the Morganthe story releases a whole lot of new potential into the Spiral - it's conceivable that Morganthe knew just about as much as anyone /could/ until that point.

And of course, there are certain rituals she pulled off with Shadow magic *outside* of a combat circle (like transforming the denizens of Bastion to crystal) that we can't easily fashion into a tool for your Wizards.

The "behind the curtain" answer pertains to the realities of making a game, and how much time and resources go into building every asset in the game. I would have loved to give Morganthe a dozen new spells to hint at what might come, but because each of those would cost: character art time, animator time, FX artist time, lead game designer time (and possibly programmer time), sound design time, and playtest time, they become too labor-intensive to make. (Or if we made them we would have had to cut many major features).

And, as always, we want to leave room to grow!

Survivor
Mar 12, 2012
20
Thanks for the response and clearing it all up.