Guild Wars 2

Since Tyrian dragons store magic by eating magical items, my characters have been asking if they qualify as magical items.

Buck Valor is convinced he is a magical item, but he doesn’t use gravity so I do not trust his instincts.
The Manafang sisters are less convinced. They are scientists. They point to the evidence that even when they remove their weapon, armor, and jewelry, they are still able to use utility skills and racial skills.
Being an amateur scientist, I remind them they they are still wearing underwear.

edited for “Somehow BrunoBRS is closest”

pdavis.8031:

Also the term “item” implies a inanimate non-sentient object.

or a nice couple ;D

i’ll see myself out.

Well fist, Dragons don’t just eat magical items, the devour magic in general. Also the term “item” implies a inanimate non-sentient object. So no, heroes cannot be considered magical items. And you could be stark nekkid and still use magic. Of course having weapons/armor/jewelry enchances your use of magic, but it’s not restricted to having such things in order to use magic.

Magical items would most likely be items with concentrated magic in side of it, so for the ED it’s probably a nice easy source of magic. However as we’ve seen with Mordy they (or maybe just him) can also absorb magic from the ley-lines.
As for the PCs being magic… yeah I guess. All professions except engineers use magic either consciously (elementalists who train and hone their magic abilities) or unconsciously (like warriors who use it to supplement their abilities). The very fabric of reality if composed of the mists (which are also magical), and in the last few LW releases we know that the mind and soul (or maybe just ghosts… although the dichotomy is a bit tricky) are also magic.
However I’d say that magical items have a far higher magical content than say some random NPC, and thus would be the primary focus of the EDs.

BrunoBRS.5178:

pdavis.8031:

Also the term “item” implies a inanimate non-sentient object.

or a nice couple ;D

i’ll see myself out.

LOL!

CureForLiving.5360:

Magical items would most likely be items with concentrated magic in side of it, so for the ED it’s probably a nice easy source of magic. However as we’ve seen with Mordy they (or maybe just him) can also absorb magic from the ley-lines.
As for the PCs being magic… yeah I guess. All professions except engineers use magic either consciously (elementalists who train and hone their magic abilities) or unconsciously (like warriors who use it to supplement their abilities). The very fabric of reality if composed of the mists (which are also magical), and in the last few LW releases we know that the mind and soul (or maybe just ghosts… although the dichotomy is a bit tricky) are also magic.
However I’d say that magical items have a far higher magical content than say some random NPC, and thus would be the primary focus of the EDs.

Thanks for the effort of organizing your thoughts, the effort shows.

Sounds like magic theory is missing a magic particle force carrier and a field to work across. Would Aether qualify? If we allow for a force carrier we could look at “magical items” as meta-materials (sentient and asentient). Items such as Gwen’s Flute (asentient) would be a very stable meta-material with predictable behavior, while sentient meta-materials would be less predictable and able to apply will power to affect the magic particle carrier.

Your description of ED’s consuming magical items makes me wonder whether magical items, once consumed, can be retrieved as they once where. Could EDs be approached as black holes?

edited for syntax

Retrieving a magical artifact after consumption by a dragon would be an interesting point of exploration. We know that once dormant, magic seeps out from the dragons, but is it the same magic as before, and does it want to become reattached to the object?

Personally, I don’t think it’s possible to reclaim a magical object with the magical properties intact once consumed, at least not without effort of someone actively trying to re-imbue the same effect. Magic is constantly being compared to river, implying it is free flowing, perhaps the dragons leak the magic back into the ley lines.

Going back to the field-particle analogies, perhaps magic does exactly work this way. The magic “field” permeates out from the ley lines and magical effect are themselves the “particles”. Any magic, in that case would be an excitation (read: particle) of the all-pervasive magic field. Some magic lasts longer perhaps due to larger draws of the magic field, making a magical artifact that will last hundreds of years more appealing to an elder dragon than some little fireball meant to last only a few seconds before fading back into field.

Also, it could be that magical objects aren’t magic made physical, but physical objects used as anchors to hold large particles of magic. This also nicely explains why most magic that lasts for some time is in the shape of a bubble or an area. It’s easier to anchor magic field particles to simple constructs, like a weapon for an artifact, or the air in a sphere around someone in the case of one of the many “bubble” magics. Anchoring magic to a complex living being is probably much more difficult, and not often done, which is why necromancer minions are rather simple and just bone and flesh. People are probably no more than conduits, the magic flowing through you much like electricity rather than storing it and having a “reserve” within you.

Er, wow, that’s a lot of text, I hope it’s not too much or too poorly expressed to not be understood.

Edit: And I just realized I forgot all about transformations… That kind of messes up the whole not being able to store magic in complex living beings. Someone in a form would probably make a tasty ED snack…

According to the writers, Magic pervades the world, like air surrounds us. When a character uses magic, they draw on this ambient energy and manipulate it into a spell or skill. Its the talent & skill of the individual that produces the effect.

So, going with a kind of science analogy, the players are more like catalysts.