Having thought about it some more since my last reply, I have a minor comment about this and two further questions.
First, the comment. Most of the metaphor was quite useful, but there is one thing that has been bugging me. I would be so bad at minting if coins were made out of boredom. As soon as I made a coin I would stop being bored because I had magic. This would eventually wear off, but it couldn't do it quickly because that would require me to get used to having coins, which I couldn't do while generating them so slowly.
Now, for the first question. Suppose that, before becoming a mint yourself, you heard that Lazarus had made a bunch of unusuals and uniques. I imagine that when he came by to unshren you and Finnah, you would have asked about that; you've said several times that you wanted more form choices. From my understanding of the magic involved, it would be impossible to have an unusual or unique shren; given the choice between "unique dragon" and "shren", which would you have chosen? I suppose Lazarus could also have offered you a shapeshifting power unrelated to your species, but for all I know such a power would have weird interactions with your existing forms. You could probably have designed a suitable power yourself eventually, but at this point you didn't know you'd become a mint and Lazarus was busy curing all the other shrens.
Finally, Lazarus did not give any of the baby shrens a choice about whether to become dragons or not, and given the circumstances this was probably the right choice (even if you would trust 20-year-old dragonishes with such a big question, speed was probably more important in this case). Suppose that for some reason you were given the choice of turning into a dragon or not when you were partly through a 20-year course of esu. Would your answer have been different in that case?
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Some random questions
Date: 2015-11-26 08:37 am (UTC)First, the comment. Most of the metaphor was quite useful, but there is one thing that has been bugging me. I would be so bad at minting if coins were made out of boredom. As soon as I made a coin I would stop being bored because I had magic. This would eventually wear off, but it couldn't do it quickly because that would require me to get used to having coins, which I couldn't do while generating them so slowly.
Now, for the first question. Suppose that, before becoming a mint yourself, you heard that Lazarus had made a bunch of unusuals and uniques. I imagine that when he came by to unshren you and Finnah, you would have asked about that; you've said several times that you wanted more form choices. From my understanding of the magic involved, it would be impossible to have an unusual or unique shren; given the choice between "unique dragon" and "shren", which would you have chosen? I suppose Lazarus could also have offered you a shapeshifting power unrelated to your species, but for all I know such a power would have weird interactions with your existing forms. You could probably have designed a suitable power yourself eventually, but at this point you didn't know you'd become a mint and Lazarus was busy curing all the other shrens.
Finally, Lazarus did not give any of the baby shrens a choice about whether to become dragons or not, and given the circumstances this was probably the right choice (even if you would trust 20-year-old dragonishes with such a big question, speed was probably more important in this case). Suppose that for some reason you were given the choice of turning into a dragon or not when you were partly through a 20-year course of esu. Would your answer have been different in that case?