[Abyss]

Aptorian, on Nov 29 2008, 05:25 PM, said:

This topic actually has two main questions. One concerns Bottle and the other is a question about the nature of being a High Mage.

Lets take the essential question first, what is a High Mage? ...actually able to do some serious damage or you can weave powerfull complicated spells in the heat of battle. High Mages are sort of the WMD of the army.

I agree with this interp - in the Malazan army and other groups, 'High Mage' refers to a level of power AND possibly skill. Sinn had little training, but sufficient natural power/talent that people took one look at her work at Yghatan and called her a High Mage.


So it's a subjective title, dependant on context of use. In GotM, we saw Tattersail's Mage Cadre, yet at the very least 'Sail and Hairlock were 'High Mage' power level, but without the title.

Quote

There's a lot about Bottle we still don't know and understand,...He seems to have a great potential but also knows the risk of using such powers. He does know how to use warrens, he just prefers to use the older stuff. ...The big questiom we're left with after RG, was what the Dal Hon warlock was talking about when he was making accusations at Bottle. Something about bad things he will cause in the future. Something about Bottle being bad news.

Yes, and yes. Bottle lacks 'active' raw power but has a tremendous amount of skill, natural and taught by his grandmother apprently. He may have the potential to hit higher levels, especially with the Eres'al masturbating manipulating his powers on a regular basis, plus all the other crazy stuff he gets up to with the Bonehunters, surviving Yghatan, the Jaghut honey, Beak's big white light, etc etc.

The warlock's predictions were ominous.

Imperial High Mage Tayschrenn, on Nov 30 2008, 02:12 AM, said:

I thought you neede to completely master a Warren to become a high mage, I mean Tayschrenn has been said to use HIGH Telas in MOI

The distinction, imnsho, is in usage. Any squad level mage can use Telas to light a camp fire, but Tayshrenn lights up entire castles including the battlemage-priests standing on the walls at the time, AND defends against an attack by the Crippled God's power at the same time.

Brood is described in MoI as HIGH Denul - as opposed to a squad healer who just uses denul (debateable whether Mallet is High Denul or not - seemed more likely he was just a talented squad mage, but he did lead a healer batallion back in the day).


As for titles and terms, these are pretty flexible. A 'Shaman' can rely on spirits but still access Meanas. A 'Witch' can be a priestess of Burn but still invoke Tennes... there are cultural and heirarchical elements. An Imass Bonecaster in theory only has access to Tellan, but Olar Ethil is compared to Tayshrenn in power regarding the magis used at some point. And then of course there's Beak...


- Abyss, HIGH Caffeine...

[Jude]

Urizen, on Nov 30 2008, 06:15 AM, said:

The Bonehunters seem to be in fairly good shape magically. Quick Ben re-appearing, Sinn and Bottle being High Mages-in training and guys like Ebron, Balgrid, Nep Furrow having solid /Power/skills.

Now compare that with Bellurdan, Tays, Nightchill, and A'Karonys. Throw even 'Sail, Calot, and Hairlock into the mix. Good shape? Nae. They just don't build'em like they used to, do they?

[Aptorian]

The last greats of the Infilade of Pale were the greatest of their time. They were the best an empire than spanned three continents could offer.

You can't compare that with what a mobile fighting force has to offer. For a small division of the empires forces, I think the 14th is well equipped allthough in the olden days the empire had more mages to draw upon.

Silly Lasseen and her culling of the Malazan magicwielders.

[D'rek]

Plus the way in which the armies are structured during Kellenvad and Laseen's times are quite different with regard to the mages. From the flashbacks and mentions we have, Kellenvad's time seemed to feature a significant mage cadre with every army, cadres capable of making enormous magical assaults, though if the enemy had its own cadre they would tend to negate each other. Laseen's time seems to feature more squad mages and less cadres. The only cadre we've seen since was the 7th's, and it had only 3 mages left by the end of the siege of Pale, so most likely Laseen just stopped sending new mages to fill out its ranks and let it disintegrate of its own accord. However, with Laseen even medium infantry squads like Sergeant Cord's squad have their own squad-mages and healers, which may not have been quite as common as in Kellenvad's time. This leads to more low-level magic being used when things get mixed up in the heat of battle, whereas a big cadre on a hill can't discriminate with it's enormous fireballs between friend and foe as easily.

Of course, a huge advantage of Kellenvad's style is that the super-cadres of High Mages could teleport around to wherever they were needed the most...

[Jude]

maybe it was just different with the bridgeburners but there seemed to be alot of squad mages in the 2nd as well.

Still, you're right about the cadre being put to rest. Even the 7th didn't really have a cadre like the second did. it was a couple of warlocks. And they were no where near as powerful as Tayschrenn's boys, or even 'Sail and Hairlock. Sormo MIGHT have been but i don't think he could have taken a hound like Hairlock did.

Again though, the second was packed with guys like spindle and bluepearl and even Quick. (he counts because Dujek thought he was alot shittier than he actually was) so it SEEMS like the bone hunters are still alot like the second except they're missing a Cadre.

[heboric]

i dont think bottle is a high mage. he might got it in him but who know? (steve ofc) but beak must have been a high mage. QB "fight" aginst the edur on the ships was only a ilusion (until bottels eresal made it real) and he says to karlam that he now way wuld have the power to stop the edur spell, BUT beak stoped a spell even more powerfull (it cost im his life but he was exausted allready) so in raw power beak probably wuld have wone aginst QB. QB is better than beak bekuse he have is brains in working order (beak anit stupid he only thinks he is) so QB can fight people more powerfull than himself (like CG) but beak cant. bottle need to learn to be more like QB to become a high mage.

[Abyss]

Of course, the real catch with High Mages is that they are automatic targets for the enemy, in terms of troop movements, 'firepower' and/or assassins. Obviously its great to have them, and that's where the whole 'always a fair exchange' thing with Tattersail and the Host came from, but it seems the flaw in the plan is that any force, realizing that a single individual can wipe out large red icky chunks of them in seconds, is going to do everything they can to take that individual out of the picture, hence why the life expectancy of a High Mage in the Malazan Army is low even before the internal power struggles kick in.


- Abyss, political playa.

[D'rek]

Abyss, on Dec 2 2008, 07:25 PM, said:

Of course, the real catch with High Mages is that they are automatic targets for the enemy, in terms of troop movements, 'firepower' and/or assassins. Obviously its great to have them, and that's where the whole 'always a fair exchange' thing with Tattersail and the Host came from, but it seems the flaw in the plan is that any force, realizing that a single individual can wipe out large red icky chunks of them in seconds, is going to do everything they can to take that individual out of the picture, hence why the life expectancy of a High Mage in the Malazan Army is low even before the internal power struggles kick in.


- Abyss, political playa.

That is a most definitely awesome point to add into this!

Also, just to substantiate:

GotM, on Chapter 2, said:

(Just before the enfilade)
"At full strength, six mages should have been arrayed behind her, but there were only two."
-Tattersail's cadre

[The Drum]

heboric, on Dec 2 2008, 10:20 PM, said:

i dont think bottle is a high mage. he might got it in him but who know? (steve ofc) but beak must have been a high mage. QB "fight" aginst the edur on the ships was only a ilusion (until bottels eresal made it real) and he says to karlam that he now way wuld have the power to stop the edur spell, BUT beak stoped a spell even more powerfull (it cost im his life but he was exausted allready) so in raw power beak probably wuld have wone aginst QB. QB is better than beak bekuse he have is brains in working order (beak anit stupid he only thinks he is) so QB can fight people more powerfull than himself (like CG) but beak cant. bottle need to learn to be more like QB to become a high mage.

The way i read it was that Beak was like a child, the events of his brothers suicide traumatised him so much that he mentally stayed the same age that he was when it happened.

[Ursus]

Like many others i wouldn't put Bottle up there with Tay and the crew just yet but he sure seems to have a lot of potential even discounting honeymonkey.
During the clash with the edur fleet Bottle goes 'no you idiot, not like that!' when QB fires up the illusion and later on QB goes 'first i had help...and then i had HELP' Meaning it wasnt just sweetiepie-monkeygirl that helped out. One or several of QBs souls are natural meanas and likely mockra but Bottle possessed greater knowledge of the warren than the high mage and former priest of shadow. Secondly Fiddler makes a lot of remarks about how alike Bottle and Quick are. Also isnt toyboy quite young, like 25ish? Lotsa time to grow in power.


And by the way, was it Bottle that mused on his joining the military and thought about how he could never tell the others his only reason was that he was bored?

This post has been edited by Ursus: 04 December 2008 - 04:05 PM

[Jude]

Ursus, on Dec 4 2008, 11:04 AM, said:

And by the way, was it Bottle that mused on his joining the military and thought about how he could never tell the others his only reason was that he was bored?

That's badass! You just changed my whole perspective on Bottle.

[Silencer]

Quick was only referring to Bottle as help - the Eres was the HELP. Bottle was useless to Quick, imo. Seriously, that scene was pathetic, considering the various activities we've seen Quick do.

Also, whoever brought up Nightchill etc when talking about Cadres - they weren't attatched to the 2nd permanently, they were brought out deliberately. Compared to the normal Second, (Calot, Hairlock, Tattersail), I'd say Quick Ben alone is a huge boost. And if you add to that Sinn, Ebron, even Bottle...well...

[Jude]

not to argue with an admin but I dunno, Silencer, they weren't cadre mages but I'm pretty sure they were attached to the second all the way through, or atleast worked together in the same army. You hear all the time about how different the seven cities campaign was because of 1) The Imass, and, 2) those mages being around in battle time. It got different in Genabackis ofcourse cause they had to deal with magic dudes on their own level.

[Silencer]

No, remember how Tattersail and co were talking about them? How Hairlock "guessed" who they would be? Only Tay had been with the army, and that was only due to the Old Guard thing that was going on.

...I can find quotes if you want?

[Jude]

I CALL GOTMISMS!

im sure they talk about Bellurdan, Nightchill, and A'Karonys in DG and maybe even HoC in relation to the seven cities campaign and im sure for a fact that Ak is around in NoK in Temper's flashbacks. Ofcourse I dont have the quotes to back that up

[Silencer]

Jude, that was not the Second army, that was back during the Seven City campaign when there was a sort of High Mage cadre, and Dassem was in overall command of the Malazan armies. Not Laseen's reformed armies, nor were they even attatched directly to the army at that point. They were still an independant unit.

[beru]

'sail (and then proably her cader) was a part of the 2. (see her flasbacks right before dinner with lorn) there she says that she had a break after Mouse incident (nok) as atached to the 5. then back to the 2. some years later

[D'rek]

beru, on Dec 13 2008, 09:39 PM, said:

'sail (and then proably her cader) was a part of the 2. (see her flasbacks right before dinner with lorn) there she says that she had a break after Mouse incident (nok) as atached to the 5. then back to the 2. some years later

'Sail was a mage officer until the Mouse Quarter incident, then resigned from the officer corps right after and was reassigned as a regular mage in the 5th. The head of the mage cadre of the Second was Nedurian until the battle of Mott Wood, I believe, and by that point 'Sail was back with the 2nd and was appointed the new cadre leader.

And yes, Bel, NC and A'k formed specialized mage units that were not assigned to particular armies during the 7C Conquest. Additionally, they could probably be sent around to various places when necessary (you're right Jude, A'karonys was at Dassem's fall in Y'Ghatan).

[Excellence]

Olar Ethil, the First Soletaken, is to the Imass what Rake is to the Andii, Osserc to Liosan.

[Steel General]

I agree with Bottle having the potential to be a Highmage, but I don't think we don't know enough about him (and his powers/skills) yet to say for sure.