I’m working on draft four’s chapter 8 right now. However, during 7, I realized that certain magical spells cast by characters could use a little more ‘visual representation’ shall we say?

So I came up with a new idea: SIGILS. (Name subject to change.)

I had already been experimenting with flashing arrays and other colorful effects in the earlier drafts, but now it’s time to finalize them and add them to the growing lore of Abandonment Party.

So here’s what I’m thinking: sigils can be a visual representation of a pattern, able to be seen by normal people without training. A sigil would use less magical power for greater or more predictable results, but would come at the cost of advertising to everyone that a spell is being cast. It would also easier for people that see the sigil to replicate the spell. So there would be a risk to using sigils in a fight. They could also be disrupted easier, for those that know how.

In non-combat situations, the sigils wouldn’t have those drawbacks and could be more useful. They could also be used to teach other people a spell quickly.

Now, what spurred this idea, might you ask? Ha! I knew you would be curious so I made a list!

Certain spells in Abandonment Party 2 are going to have an ‘area of effect.’ Because of this, I thought it would be helpful to the reader to have a visual representation of what the area is. (By having the sigil be equal in size to the area of the spell.)

Certain characters are going to use spells that are a bit more complex. Say, splitting an object’s pattern up into three pieces to cause the object itself to split. THEN taking one part of the object and re-assembling it later. Having a sigil break apart and re-form in real time can help visualize the concept.

It does not directly contradict anything in the first book. I get it, sigils weren’t mentioned anywhere before, but they didn’t need to be. Parlay had no use for them, since he didn’t use any ‘conventional’ spells anyway. Mean, Trisk, and the rest were just using what magic they found, so if no one told them about sigils then how would they know? Vornis also used no conventional magic so he’s covered too. Now Tome, Tome WILL make use of sigils as soon as the next book starts. He is the sigil master. So why didn’t he use them in the FIRST book? It’s because he didn’t have a body! He couldn’t use spells at all! What, don’t tell me you forgot!

Ah. One more thing: You may have noticed in the first book that hex doors sometimes used a visual effect already: a hexagonal array of light. This right here is my ticket to link the concept of sigils to the first book. So now, when sigils are explained to Mean and her friends in part two, they can say: ‘Oh yeah! We have seen sigils before! They were the hex door lights! So it turns out that sigils were present in the world the entire time. Amazing!’

THEN the reader will go: ‘This is very believable! Brad planned sigils from the start! He just didn’t want to bother me with the information back then; sigils would have complicated things. What a guy.’

Well… unless they read this blog entry. Then they’ll see the truth. But who reads these anyway! Until next time! 🤣