The High Magus' personal team
Other Characters
A note on AI-generated art
This novel uses plenty of AI-generated art to illustrate its characters and locations. I realize that many artists are upset at how AI art has deprived them of business and I’m sorry for that, but the truth is that this amateur project, which has no financial backing, would not be filled with real art from human artists if there was no AI art available. Instead, it would simply have been text only.
I truly hope that the artists and illustrators of this world will be able to keep on making both art and a living, and I am sorry that AI technology will be a problem for you. But this technology has also enabled an amateur author to fill his novel with beautiful illustrations in a way that would not have been possible before. Should there ever be commercial interest in this novel, I promise I will add as much human-made art to it as I can afford.
One well-known problem with AI is that it replicates the prejudices of our past – especially since I have based the illustrations used in this novel predominantly on European masters from the 16th to the early 20th century. One of the main characters in this novel was intended to be non-white, but the AI made beautiful images of her as a white woman and, convinced by the esthetics of these images, I ended up going with that as her visual profile (she is explicitly non-white, or non-light pink, in the text). Another main character occasionally got an Asian look when I specified that her hair was black rather than dark, and I decided to just go with that too.
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If people can be gender fluid, can they also be ethnoracially fluid? There is zero mention of “race” in this text, because I wanted to create a utopian (of sorts) future society where people don’t care very much about such things. I realize that in the real world, non-attention to race and ethnicity tends to reflect white privilege, but this novel is not about the real world. Maybe a vision of a different world where the color of one’s skin is of no more significance than the color of one’s eyes can also be empowering.
Fields of magic
In Confluence society, magic is divided into nine different fields. Each field of magic is also a powerful organization that administers and protects the interests of Magi belonging to that field. These are the nine fields of Confluence magic, sorted from large to small according to the number of mages who belong to them:
- Mages belonging to this field are known as Transmuters and have the ability to change the form of matter and energy. Their formal robe is colored red and gold.
- Mages belonging to this field are known as Conjurers and have the ability to create matter and energy, either from nothing or by drawing it from a different dimension of reality (no one quite knows). Their formal robe is colored white, red, and black.
- Mages belonging to this field are known as Conveyers and have the ability to move themselves, others or physical objects around, either through physical space or by teleportation. Their formal robe is colored yellow.
- Mages belonging to this field are known as Disseminators and have the ability to operate magical lines of communication. Their formal robe is colored grey.
- Mages belonging to this field are known as Evokers and have the ability to heal and rejuvenate biological bodies. Their formal robe is colored blue.
- Mages belonging to this field are known as Invokers and have the ability to affect people’s minds, normally with enhancement magics. Their formal robe is colored dark blue with violet stripes.
- Mages belonging to this field are known as Diviners and have the ability to gather information through magical means. Their formal robe is colored white with silver streaks.
- Mages belonging to this field are known as Conjoiners and have the ability to facilitate cooperation between other mages, normally those belonging to different fields of magic. Their formal robe is rainbow-colored.
- This field is special in the sense that the people who belong to it do not refer to themselves as Abjurers. Instead, mages belonging to this field are called Protectors. However, there are also Protectors who belong to other fields of magic than Abjuration. Abjuration magic most commonly serves to counteract other magics, either by cancellation or by obfuscating something from Divination magics. Furthermore, the field of Abjuration also includes illusion magic. Protectors wear purple robes.
Back cover sales pitch writte by Chat-GPT
In the distant future of the Confluence, where magic governs all aspects of life, an unprecedented crisis threatens civilization. The Energy Blight is draining the world’s strength, leaving its people listless and exhausted. As the High Magus, Olz Hap, struggles to take control of the investigation, she realizes that the mysterious affliction is not just a natural disaster—it’s an attack. But by whom?
With time running out, Olz challenges the secretive Protectors, the Confluence’s shadowy enforcers, whose reluctance to act raises more questions than answers. Meanwhile, Yutten Turse, a brilliant and relentless investigator, unearths a long-buried conspiracy tied to a forgotten war and an ancient experiment gone wrong. And on the fringes of society, a renegade named Raistlin Upadesa has spent his life evading surveillance and protecting a secret that could shake the foundations of the Confluence itself—but is now getting ready to act.
As the countdown to collapse accelerates, their paths converge in a high-stakes battle of intellect, magic, and deception. But in a world where even knowledge can be erased, will they uncover the truth before it’s too late?
SILENCE is a spellbinding journey into a richly crafted world where power is wielded through secrecy, and the future hangs in the balance of those daring enough to question everything.