Questions of a Voidly Nature

[Numia]

Hello there, ladies and gents (and ladygents or ents) I have a few questions! I'm making a Pycon PC who will be a voider, but I have a few questions about voiding.

1. Is the outer edge of a void portal a solid barrier? Sort of like the nozzle around a vacuum cleaner.

2. Can void portals be different shapes? Ovular or hourglass, for example.

3. A portal can be created 'near the body' which probably means a foot or so away in my interpretation. Would this distance be relative to size, smaller for a 3-inch Pycon?

4. Can you grow a portal so that it grows upwards and outwards instead of in all directions, feeding it from the lower edge? Or would I have to move it as I grow it and still be close enough to the center to feed it?

5. Can a portal 'knife' through materials if grown into them at a sharp angle?

6. Can you grow a portal inside of someone or something, or do you need to see the starting point? I know this can happen with overgiving.

7. You can create a portal at a small distance, but do you need to be within the creation range of it to grow it?

[Clyde Sullins]

I'm not sure on some of the questions, but I'll try to answer the ones I can. --- 1- I'm fairly certain the outer edge of the voiding portal isn't solid, its more of a hazy halfway area, sort of of the portal, sort of not. So I'd not go sticking your hand up against it. Nor will things bounce off of it unharmed like if it was a solid thing. If they fall on the one side the will fly by. If they fly on the void side they will go in. If they fall in between, a bit of both will happen. 2- Using Voiding alone, no, I don't believe one can shape their voiding portals. I believe they are vaguely circular, though not perfectly so. 3- I'm unsure on this, since its a bit vague, but I've always imagined close to the body meant even only a few inches for human sized users, let alone pycon. Like just above ones open palm. Everyone has an area of immediate influence, sort of like what hypnotists invade. Perhaps its sort of like that, in that you open the portal within your domain and control. Bear in mind though that this is when using only Voiding, this range can be altered by use of other magics or specific items even. 4- I'm pretty sure voiding portals are roughly circular, so working just within Voiding no, I'd imagine they'd expand in all directions more or less evenly. Perhaps with other inventive uses of other magics this could changed, but I'm unsure. But I'm leaning towards no. However if you moved the center of the portal as you expanded it, you could effectively do something similar, if not exactly the same. 5- You can't use voiding as a knife per say, since first of all portals aren't shaped that way, but if the edge of the portal met with a substance, in the portals attempt to void it the process could "cut" a bit into the material. Less like a knife, more like getting your body part too close to a high speed spinning mechanism within a machine, yanking bits off. But bear in mind this might damage the portal, or perhaps even force it closed if too much matter met with the portals edge, or if the object you met in such a way was larger than the portal. More of a grinding and a yanking than a cutting. And if your portal runs into something larger than it, it'll likely be forced closed in its attempt to void it. 6- I think not, since a person is made up of matter. It'd be pretty difficult to make an area of space utterly devoid of matter, when a person and all their mattery matter is there. So I imagine the issue here is less to do with seeing, and more to do with big chunks of matter being there, which blocks the emptying process. Then again at this point you and they are close enough to stab each other, so I'd advise against getting that close to an enemy. 7- Its only the initial opening that requires being right next to the point in space. Once you've done that, you can expand it or move it, feeding it djed, even remotely, without having to have it right on you. Bearing in mind that the farther away the portal is, likely the larger the lag between command and action there will be, which is true of any personal magic at range. it also may grow a bit harder to control, and less easy to finesse finely, the farther it is from you, due to this lag. At a few feet this won't be an issue, but at 10, or 20 or etc feet, the lag is going to become a issue. Assuming you can even get it that far from you.

[Numia]

All of these were great answers! My mental image of voiding is a lot more refined now. Thank you, Clyde.