wanderingmagus

What if they could both keep the big guns out of civilian hands, and also make Great Magic possible to a chosen few with uniquely sane and rational characteristics? Give everyone lesser magics, like minor telekinesis and ball-of-light spells, or self-focused gender-change spells and furry spells, to allow everyone the sort of self-actualization Tedd's blessed with on a daily basis (with adjustments to keep self-transformation spells from being abused to escape authorities), but keep the big guns like Greater Fireball or Summon Dragon or Raise Undead as works which require a highly rational mind, expensive and time-consuming rituals, and a very steep learning curve.

Re: illegal to buy a gun: https://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/18_year_olds_can_buy_handguns/ All she needs to do is go to a gun show. Her mother might support it if she says it's for "self-defense" against men, bringing up national assault statistics and such. Re: guns being too Lord Tedd Susan could explain it to him as basically a phaser. Set permanently to stun if he wants to. Re: grenade launchers Anarchist's cookbook, or have Tedd have a long and frank discussion about self-defense, aberrations, and the current state of magical affairs with his dad and the DGB in general. Heck, Sarah and Elliot could even build their own as part of a ripoff Mythbusters or Man At Arms thing, just call it a "potato launcher" instead and manufacture the actual grenades offscreen. After all, the best defense is a good offense. If the gang wants to stop getting into life-threatening situations where their friends and family are in danger, maybe it's time to pull a Noriko and take the fight to the monsters themselves. They can't hurt you or your family if they're all dead.

I don't know, aberrations in general seem really concerned about Nanase, Tedd, Diane and Susan; the griffons think Nanase is a princess based on sheer magical potential alone; Not-Tengu wanted to rip and tear to prevent a second Noriko; Voltaire seems to want to bring about Lord Tedd by any means necessary. On that note, why hasn't Tedd created a magitek gun, perhaps to augment his gauntlet? Gauntlets are cool and all, but a line-of-sight auto-target multi-target instant Avada Kedavra or Petrificus Totalus seems more useful and flexible. Noriko's shown with lots of weapons, but they seem to be all old-fashioned, when you'd expect a legendary monster hunter to carry the magical equivalent of mini-nukes and chainsword machineguns for taking down necromantic zombie dinosaurs or elder dragons. Is it sentimentality over practicality, preferring to kill with style and poise? Are most monsters immune to bullets, requiring very specific holy swords forged with the nails of the True Cross dipped in holy oil blessed by the Pope to kill? At least have silver shotgun rounds for werewolves, or blessed garlic powder smoke bombs for vampires.

Wait, so if this is becoming THAT kind of comic, why stop at revolvers and hunting rifles? With the cast getting actively targeted by inhuman aberrations, and superior firepower being shown to beat magic any day, why doesn't Susan keep an arsenal of pistols, grenade launchers and full auto machine guns in her chest next to her swords, maybe loaded with extended clips of magical armor-piercing bullets? Heck, why don't aberrations just raze Mopersville to the ground with black market plastic explosives and thermite? Is there some sort of "MAD" agreement keeping the place from going full Dresden Files?

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2286

Maybe they could go on a storyline or quest to the other side of the world, find Magic Itself and bind it in chains of will and nails of creation, and MAKE it the slave of Mankind now and forevermore. Becoming Lord Tedd actually sounds like an excellent idea right now. Maybe this is how it starts. The fever. The rage. The feeling of powerlessness that turns good men... cruel.

I mean, Sarah is useful, clever, shows proper respect for Pandora while still being able to snark and backtalk, understands her without repetition or explaining, and happens to be heavily involved with of some of the mortals that Pandora's most interested in. Of course she gets along well with her.

Aware of my hands? You mean aware of my tongue, manually breathing, blinking, swallowing, itching in one place on my body and reading the following in Morgan Freeman's smooth, silky voice like molten molasses?

Heart is an AWESOME power, I don't know what Pandora is going on about. Can you imagine the sort of things emotion sharing, pain dulling and minor healing powers can do? How does Magic define "minor" anyhow? Cataracts are "just" thin layers of milky tissue clouding the lens, but a minor spell later, and suddenly a blind man can see. A lot of back pain problems can be solved with a "minor" adjustment to the arch of the foot. Pain dulling can help others or yourself push beyond the normal "safe" limits of the human body for superhuman strength and endurance in exchange for long periods of bed rest and a shorter length of time before arthritis and other problems set in. Muscle mass is built up by healing "minor" tears in the muscles. Imagine what emotional sharing can do in building up confidence on one hand, or utterly tearing someone apart in an interrogation on the other.

So humans are... parasites, feeding off of a living force of nature... as humans are wont to be, it seems.

For some reason, the text of the link is correct, but the link itself goes to 492 instead. Might want to look at that?

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2186 I guess I can see Diane's concern... a bit...