Happy 4/13! To celebrate (I guess), I’m publishing my first official classpect analysis, it’s long overdue! (Mage of Life requested by pi-romantic.)
Mages actively know/understand their aspect or know/understand through their aspect for the benefit of themselves. Mages tend to have personal knowledge of their aspect, and they’ll usually act on this knowledge. Mages also tend to suffer from their aspect. The challenge of a Mage seems to be knowing how deeply they should understand their aspect; namely when they know their aspect far too deeply or don’t understand it enough. Mages tend to be speakers, teachers, and prophets. (Read more about the Mage class here)
Life is the aspect of health, growth, nature, vitality, nourishment, and kindness. The challenge of the Life-bound is knowing how to balance helping themselves and helping others. The Life-bound tend to make great healers, helpers, cultivators, cooks, and therapists. (Read more about the Life aspect here)
A Mage of Life understands Life or understands through Life for themselves.
Passive Equivalent: Seer of Life
Classpect Inverse: Heir of Doom
The Mage of Life understands Life. At face value, this makes the Mage of Life the ultimate biologist. I mean, biology IS the study of life, as well as how it grows and sustains itself. This makes the Mage of Life a very likely (and skillful) candidate to perform the session’s ectobiology. The Mage of Life could also be a very skillful gardener and/or cook. Having an understanding of living life, and what brings Life.
One thing that sets the Mage apart from the Seer is that the Mage has an intimate understanding of their aspect, whereas the Seer has a more conceptual understanding. It’s quite likely the Mage of Life would have (or will) experience a death that would greatly affect them and their outlook on Life. They themselves might be affected by a disease. They also would have an understanding of their own upbringing; how they were raised, and what worked and what didn’t work in said raising. Life is also the aspect of kindness, so the Mage of Life would understand kindness. How to be kind, and the benefits that it brings. Mages are shaped by their experiences, and any two of the same aspect can have wildly different views on their aspect. So I imagine there would be two major takes on “understanding kindness”. One Mage of Life might be cynical, understanding why people are kind, using that knowledge to benefit themselves. They’d be kind for their own practical gain, doing whatever pleases people and benefits themselves. Another might take a more optimistic approach, understanding kindness, and by extent how to be kind so that they could be as kind as possible. Mages suffer when they know their aspect too little or way too much. Life players can get annoyed if their own self-care is stifled, and the Mage of Life would certainly know this. I could see the Mage of Life understanding their own need for care and kindness, and ultimately end up making themselves obsessed for a caring partner or becoming incredibly awkward because they know they want to feel accepted or loved. A healthy Mage of Life would understand they need someone to keep their own care in mind, which is really good when you think about it. Knowing your weaknesses and addressing them yourself is very responsible and makes the Mage of Life great at taking care of themselves and their own problems without much conflict. (That’s a common theme for this classpect.)
A Mage of Life would also understand growth and progress. Understanding growth for themselves would allow them to “grow” themselves. They would be very effective in improving themselves, making them very self-reliant. They would be stable, working on their goals and quests diligently. They’d accept help; if it proved beneficial to do so. I imagine progress would be especially important to the Mage of Life. They would understand how to “grow” someone, making them very good at taking care of themselves. They would also have a natural sense of whether something or someone has a great potential for growth. They see when someone has untapped potential and could help them grow and realize their true potential (especially if it proves beneficial to them). Because they are more active, this ability to see the potential for growth wouldn’t be as prevalent. I imagine this would be the primary role and ability of the Seer of Life instead.
Having an understanding of Life would likely mean that the Mage of Life would have an understanding of the beginning of Life. The Mage of Life would likely have a very strong opinion on how the world was created, and it would probably be a point of great significance or obsession to them.
And of course, they would understand health. The Mage of Life would have a very good understanding of their own health and personal wellbeing. The Mage of Life could be a great doctor, understanding health and how to heal. They’d be especially good at caring for themselves.
Inversion is when a player changes to act like their opposite classpect. The inverse of a Mage of Life would be an Heir of Doom. An Heir of Doom changes Doom or changes through Doom for others. Heirs also inherit their aspect in some way. As much as a Mage of Life knows how to be kind, they would know how not to be kind. As much as they would understand being healthy, they would understand how not to be healthy. And as a Mage of Life, they might be challenged by a physical disease or disability. All things considered, it makes total sense that the Mage of Life could inverse into (or even enter the session acting as) an Heir of Doom. They’d be bitter and much more cynical. Instead of taking care of themselves, they might try and change the Doom others have. They might think their knowledge of progress can solve all of their problems, and as a Life-bound, their pushiness could aggravate others instead of solving anything. They would also “inherit” Doom, destroying the progress they know they need.
Pre-god tiering, the Mage of Life would be great at improving themselves and understanding the potential for growth and how to grow others. They might be able to accelerate the growth of plants or animals, and they would have a natural sense of what decisions would result in growth and progress. They would also have a great grasp on the health and wellbeing of themselves and would catch on quickly to any hidden injuries or diseases others may have. In a Sburb session, they’d have an innate understanding of how Health Vials work.
Post-god tiering, the Mage of Life would be a very strategic and tactical healer. Whereas before they would have a sense of what decisions result in progress, after god-tiering this sense would be much stronger, and they would likely be able to physically see a future of growth and abundance. In terms of healing powers, I don’t think they would be a particularly exceptional healer. They’d have standard healing powers, but I don’t think they’d be able to revive people. They would, however, be able to monitor anyone’s health vial at any time, as well as anyone’s position on the echeladder. In addition, they’d have a natural sense of how much healing someone needs, and where. They might even be able to know where other players are in a session.
In the grand scheme of a Sburb session, the Mage of Life would be an average healer but a reliable player. Although they might not be the best in terms of powers, I’d say they’re likely one of the best classpects in the game at taking care of themselves. They’d handle their own quests and problems, and would understand how to complete said quests and take care of said problems. They’d also make a great server player and alchemist, understanding how to “grow” the client’s house and how to best “grow” their personal inventory and weaponry. Because they’re so self-sufficient (and possibly cynical), they likely wouldn’t interact too much with other players. Knowing how to grow themselves would make them great at “growing up”. Sburb is about kids growing up, and the Mage of Life would be great at doing this. I also don’t think they would vacillate between other classpects much. They’d be focused on their own tasks, but they’d still be able to guide players toward making progress on their own quests. In battles, I’d pair them up with a Space player. Having an understanding of the health of other players, combined with teleportation, would make the Mage of Life and appropriate Space player a very effective healing duo, much like Jane and Jasprose in [S] Collide.
TL;DR: The Mage of Life would make great progress toward their own quests, understand the benefits and motives of kindness, and would understand how to best improve themselves. They are an average but tactical healer, best paired with the Space player.
Wow. After nearly two months(?!?!), I finally officially analyzed my first classpect. Whew! Sorry it took so long, I can assure you these analyses will start coming out a bit faster. Thanks to optimisticDuelist for the Mage and Life cards used at the beginning of the post. Thank you for reading!
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