I'm a fan of the Forgotten Realms/D&D type of magic users where the long-lived races like elves see humans as reckless, bordering on insane, for how quickly they race through learning and understanding magic. An elf might take a decade to fully understand a single spell before she wants to use it regularly, a human will race through ALL her learning in 3 years.

And because humans are humans, they just might spend decades pushing a specific magic type or spell to its absolute limits, in a way that elves would never even think of because it's just outright insane.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

Scrunch

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Literally The Black Company

There's a battle involving wizard gods (basically) and it's horrifying

[–] [email protected] 5 points 18 hours ago

Oh man. The drip feed of lore in that series is amazing

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Friend, I came here to say just this.

Siege of the Tower by the White Rose and it's just absolute nightmare fuel. Man and Woman slaughtering one another by day only gives way to wizards trying to find the most creative ways to slaughter them all by night.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

It's been like 15+ years since I read em and I just found my copy of the trilogy let's gooooo

Absolutely had DnD characters based on the drum-playing shaman illusionists

Edit: ooh I've been looking for a good book to read to my wife at bedtime, this will be up there with Ursula K Le Guin's stories

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

I had the pleasure of reading them for the first time maybe two years ago. I think I crushed a book a week.

I definitely based my most recent warlock/rogue off of Raven and I have no shame. I think I owe the books a re-read. Maybe then I'll be off to dread empire and Malazan.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think the absolute best thing they did was the slow reveal of the true history of the Company.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

You've gotta love it. Even going back to the very beginning where he chekov's guns us with a certain Company relic that only comes into play like... IRL 16 years later.

It probably wasn't planned like that from the very beginning but he made it all so very believable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

do you mean

Tap for spoiler

the standard?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

That I do