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#thaumodynamics
hypnopabinia · 2 years
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Oh no, I did it again.
"The Infernal Combustion Engine is widely regarded as one of the most impactful thaumaturgical devices ever conceived in the history of the world. The underlying principle behind it is a fairly simple one – using the appropriate arcane equations, a small speed demon is summoned, bound, and made to sort pressurised gas particles in a bifurcated chamber by the speed of their movement. Faster-moving, higher-energy particles are collected by the demon into one chamber, where they gather and thus heat the chamber up, whereas slower-moving, lower-energy particles are not permitted to leave the other chamber, thus cooling it down.¹ The temperature-differences between the two chambers can then be harnessed to perform work – and such engines were promptly utilised in powering assorted devices, eventually sparking a small revolution in the field of transportation.
Naturally, concerns have been raised on whether or not the entrapment of demons in such manner was ethical or sustainable. Proponents suggested that being exploited for their labour without reward was fitting punishment for the demons in question, and the good inherent to punishing the wicked thus offsets the decidedly evil act of summoning them to begin with. Those opposed, however, suggested that – beyond two wrongs not making a right – the runoff of inert particles vented into the environment as a waste product may lead to the buildup of a miasma of low-grade evil, which could have dire consequences in the future if kept unchecked. The prevalence of Infernal Combustion Engines in this day and age suggest, above else, that the proponents have much better public relations.
Meanwhile, the man who initially conceived of the device – the famed arch-warlock Maxwell – has refused to weigh in on the discourse as, in his own words, he is not qualified to opine on the ethics of the situation when his sole purpose in creating the damned thing in the first place was to see whether or not he could break the second law of thaumodynamics and actually get away with it.²"
¹ As slower-moving, lower-temperature particles may rapidly decay into an inert state and are generally not desired, and vice versa for the faster-moving, higher-temperature particles, these chambers have come to be referred to as "Malice" and "Bonfire".
² He did, as the Infernal Combustion Engine made it possible for his getaway car to be fast enough.
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overelegantstranger · 7 years
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this user talks to vaerself about magical theory vis energy and energy exchange; wonders if a spell can self-perpetuate if you use as its energy source the heat soaked up by stone
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theinvulnerabletide · 6 years
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Headcanon meme: (answer for whoever you can think of things for I guess) 1, 8, 11, 12, 23, 26, 29, 30, 34 :3
Okay okay okay. This got long because some of them turned into vignettes, so it’s gonna be under thecut.
1.) Love
Forsomeone who professed to be a loner, Lyra has loved so many people in her life.Her mother, first and brightest and most dearly, murdered on her way back fromher shift at the pub, the Stone Crows, her gang growing up, including her bestfriend Kora, who got scooped off the streets when some passing mage saw her set something on fire with her mind (which now strikes Lyra as ironic, consideringher current travelling companions, and her own predicament).
And then her newfound family,her Magpies. The ones that were murdered so cruelly in front of her.
Love and loss are intertwinedfor Lyra, the brilliance of lightning followed by world-shaking thunder. Whichis why she has, wholeheartedly, decided to stop caring about people. They won’tleave if she doesn’t get attached, and even if they do, well, she won’t feelanything right? Win win.
8.) DreamsIt’s not uncommon for Whisperto dream of water. Even if it wasn’t literally her element,she spent so much of her life surrounded by it; snow and rain pattering on thestone, the underground inlet, the blighted mermaid tank, that it of course itwould enter her dreams at some point.
Tonight though, tonight isdifferent. Tonight she dreams of depths, of an ocean so deep there is nogranulated sunlight to illuminate it, and even her comfort with the dark isn’tenough to make it feel less… crushing. She sees in staticky black and whitehere, feels the way the currents tug insistently at her. She has to remindherself that she can breathe.
There’s movement there, in thedepths. It takes up the whole of her vision. It’s just the suggestion of agreat thing slowly winding and unwinding, pulsing slightly as if with laboredbreath. It does not move against the current. It directs it, and it makes herown breath catch in her throat. Not with fear, but with excitement. 
When she wakes, she swears shecan still feel it, the current tugging at her, the great thing directing herforwards. The letter appears the next day, and the day after that, she isgone. 
12.) Worst Enemy
According to Az’ar, her worst enemies are the Godsthemselves.
The Gods are arbitrary and cruel things, starting and endinglife as it pleases them, for mere entertainment. They set up laws,contradictory and unforgiving, a universe full of pain and misery, and createdsentient creatures to wade through the mud and experience every bit of it.Growing up in the Shadowfell, Az’ar has witnessed it all, and grew to despisethe traditions of the Shadar’kai, the same traditions that honor Hala by tryingto protect the living things she holds so dear, especially from the unnaturalundead things she abhors, the traditions that pretend to honor Her brother bysending them back to His domain, and by dying well.
She left her people, somethingelse that was forbidden, and fought and killed far too many of them in order tocross over to the Prime Material Plane, the tear she made between worldsallowing a few of those undead monstrosities to cross with her. It was aregrettable loss, ones that she lays again at the feet of the Gods; if herpeople had not been obsessed with their supposed sacred duties, they would nothave needed to die.
Az’ar intends to wrest their claws from her chest, by making itso she can never die, and then, she will end their grip on the rest of thePlanes, even if it means killing them. She hope it does. That would be a sweetirony indeed.
23.) Romance
Orianais a romantic. Probably in the classical movement sense as well as in thehopeless romantic sense. She has this ideal of herself: knight in shiningarmor, a blazing paragon of Wahreight’s mercy and light, beating back thedarkness and protecting the innocent.
She also is kind of obsessedwith romance novels, and novels that we might consider romance novels due tothe way books are sold, but, unlike Whisper, prefers the ones that hold a highideal of love than the vulgar. Which isn’t to say she won’t read books with sexin them, only that she prefers more comedies of manners. Jehanne Augere’s Dignityand Discrimination remains her favorite novel (and she finally got a copyof her own the last time we visited Fantasy Half Price Books), and she’s morelikely to blush at the scene where the elven hero confesses his love for thevery human Elisabet. 26.) Beauty
Thecostume is… well. It’s tight. And barely there. Whisper runs her hands thelength of her torso, fingers skimming cut-outs in the shimmering golden fabricat her sides where her midnight skin provides contrast, and she lets out ashuddering breath. She doesn’t know whether its nerves or awe that’s making herstomach clench uncomfortably but… either way.
She sneaks a peak in themirror and looks away almost immediately. Salt and storm, she is glad hermother will never see her in this, or she’d be dead. Brutally and messily andall over the place.
She sneaks another look, outof the corner of her eye at first, then straight on. The leotard is almostblinding in the way the golden cloth catches the light (Ignatius’ choice, nodoubt), small black stitching and sequins giving the illusion of scales downher stomach. At her hips is this strange, diaphanous half-skirt, more like thefrills of a tiger fish than an actual garment. The neckline—if it can be calledthat— plunges far deeper than anything she’s ever worn, and she mutters a quickprayer that she won’t spill out of this thing at an inopportune moment. Or anopportune one. She is not being paid enough for that.
But the effect… She takes astep back, so she can see the whole effect, the golden ribbons wrapped aroundher horns and pinned in her hair, the ridiculous amount of eyeshadow, thestreaks of gold shimmer on her cheeks, she looks… ethereal. Magical. Shestretches one indigo hand out, and her reflection does the same, lightlymeeting her in the mirror. She watches herself smile.
“It looks beautiful on you,”comes a voice from behind her, wobbling like the owner is about to burst intotears. “You look beautiful, Whisper. Just brilliant…”
She whirls around, a scowlslotting into place. “I can’t believe he wants me to wear this, Terrance!”  
The huge man doesn’t seem tohear her, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. “Oh, I outdid myself. Just wait until the audience see you. You’re going to dazzle them.”
Whisper laughs under herbreath, and sneaks another look at herself. Okay. Maybe it’s not so bad afterall.
29.) Bedroom (and 11.) Best Friend).
She wasclose, she was so freaking close! If she could just figure out thethaumodynamic stabilizers and the aetheric channels and how to connect them tothe theurgic couplings, then the armor would definitely be finished beforeschool started. Her tongue peaked out of the corner of her mouth as sheconcentrated, wand on one hand, tweezers in the other, a soldering ironfloating above her, held by her mage hand. 
The workbench in front of heris littered with such tools, awl and a few other small sharp blades and hergrindstone, linen thread and an assortment of needles, little colored glass ballsshe’d spent weeks making and enchanting so they wouldn’t break when she used them,and small gems that had cost quite a chunk of the money she made from selling herclockwork toys, not to mention all the other tools she didn’t currently needfor this project. The bed next to her, on the other side, had the rest of thearmor, chest plate and second gauntlet, both nearly finished save for the collectorsthat would collect the untethered thaumic energy from the aether.  
She’s so close. She can feelit.
“Celandine!” her mother calledfrom downstairs, “Celandine, your friend is here!” 
“What?” she freezes, and thewand released the spell it was holding… at the wrong part of the gauntlet. Andsomething started smoking. “Shit!”“Celandine?”
A quick prestidigitation puts the fire out but it definitely smelt like magic gone wrong and scorched leather.“Oh, hell. Coming Mom!”
”I’m sending her up!”  
“Shit!” Celandine cast a lookabout her room. Her chairs were full of clothes and her bed was covered in armorand there was spare leather and clothes and books all over the floor and why hadn’tshe learned the invisible servant spell.
“Hey, Celandine? Your Momsaid—” Caela pauses in the doorway, the top of her head nearly brushing thetop of the doorframe. Her eyes widen as she takes in the state of the room. 
“I know! It’s messy I’m sorry.I got uh…” she looks down at the gauntlet and then back up at her best friend,smiling weakly. “I forgot you were coming over. I’m sorry.” She puts the gauntleton the workbench and reaches over the small space to her bed, which at leastonly had the breastplate and the other gauntlet on it. “Sit down and give me asecond, I’ll have this place tidied up in a…”
But Caela is already bendingover, gathering up the nearest books that had fallen over. “It’s okay. I’llhelp. Why don’t you tell me what you were working on?”And Celandine beams.  
30.) Sex
Oriana pressesthe pillow harder over her head, trying to block out the sound from the onlyother bed in the room. Since she’d been knighted in the service of Wahreight,she’d been moved out of the general barracks and into a shared room;unfortunately, her roommate decided that that was enough privacy in order tocarry on her… assignations with one of the paladins still in training. And theidea of actually talking to Ritika about it was blighted mortifying, so hereshe lies, pillows piled on her head, face burning as she tried to pretend shewas not hearing what she was hearing.
34.) AffectionIt’s not that Whisper’s family was not affectionate. Sheremembers her father’s hand on her head, her mother’s approving smile. Hugsfrom her brothers, kisses on her forehead from the governess. But compared tothe carnival, her family was as touched-starved as any dwarf.
Affection wasphysical and platonic and above all, free among them, holding hands and huggingfor no reason, kisses on cheeks and foreheads and lips, giant cuddle piles inone of the main tents the afternoon after a big show, all of them just waitingfor the inevitable cry to start packing up. 
And the sex. Oh, seaand storms, the sex. There was just so much of it. After the first year she’dgone from having sex once in her entire life to having had more partners thanshe could count, of so many genders, in several different… permutations. Things would just…escalate. Someone would be feeling bad and a cuddle pile or a platonic kisswould turn into make-you-feel-better sex, someone would decide that they wereboard and seek someone out, or two people would be fighting and suddenly they’dbe up against the wall (that happened with Ignatius and a few of the othersmore than she would care to admit), or they’d be coming down off a high of asuccessful heist or a show, adrenaline still singing high gospel within them,and next thing you knew you’d be tearing off someone’s clothes. Maybeseveral someone’s.
But the real world doesn’twork that way. And after a bad experience or two on her way to Hazelscar, she isthoroughly aware of that. Most people don’t like being touched.
She meets Adoraor and Keithiafirst, and she makes sure to keep her hands to herself. Even when Adoraor isbleeding out and she has the stupid idea to stick a knife in his chest to seeif it’ll heal him, because, hey, it worked on that orc, or when Keithia (notThia, not yet) places a hand on her shoulder to press healing magic, warm andtingling, into her skin. Not even when they’re barring the door of a cold stonechamber and waiting out the night, and she knows she could stop them both fromshivering. 
She’s almost starving from it,achingly aware of where people are in relation to her at all times. She finallygives in and hugs Keithia about two weeks in. She feels Keithia freeze up for ahalf a second and she closes her eyes, waiting for the rejection, before Keithiasqueezes back, just for a second, before she eases back. Whisper has to forceherself not to cling, to let her new friend go. 
Oriana, she learns, hatesbeing touched at all and the boys are weird about it, so she has to make ithigh fives and playful slaps and punches to the arm. She can hug Frank, atleast, he’s not strange about it. Sing-songtoo, until he vanishes. 
She nearly cries when it getscold enough that they have to huddle in the Magnificent Bubble (also screw Leomund,she’s the one casting the spell, she’ll call it what she wants), and the Bubbleis just big enough for them. If they huddle. It’s almost like the piles she’sused to, and she plays it off with a few sighs and rolled eyes, but when sheends up cuddled next to Twiggy and Isao of all people, she has to bury her headin her arms, so no one will see her face. It’s almost good enough.
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