Talking about areal superiority its kinda hard to me to understand how actually bugbears could even move, because now Alma is Tier 2 and much faster, also she has Chameleon 1.. and during a night don't think anyone would see her even if they could.. what could they do? shoot a fireball? 1km+ ?or 1.5km+ ? also summon an air elemental vs a mage Tier 2 beast who nows deeper magics and is more magically powerful than Richto. alma alone could devastate the Bugbear cam in an unexpected ambush.. still 200 arrows will bring her down. And quite easily. Though for scouting its super great. Probably MV does not expect such a fast attack, should have learned after the quickening lightning beakon! Should have started scouting already.
Her spells are no longer ranged than anyone elses and most low-level spells have low range. Being second tier doesn't change that, and that assumes she is second tier rather than a more advanced tier 1 dragontype. Basically if she can hit them with a spell they can hit back. Their mages can hit back with powerful attacks of their own, their professionals can hit her with all sorts of specialized talents designed to help groups close the gap against powerful single opponents and their archers can hit her with arrows. Worse, they could focus on stuff that prevents her from flying off and/or limits her mobility, spells/talents that can't be avoided. Take the 4 professional orcs vs 1 tier 2 wyrm that had 30-40 levels on them, similar to one Richter had a tough fight with earlier as an example of how an alma vs half a dozen professional bugbears fight could go. The enemy know they are facing some form of lesser dragon, so no surprise when it shows up. She probably will try attacking them, its just not clear that she can do enough damage to slow down or stop an invasion force.
Spoiler: When Elora was swearing fealty At least we can now assume we know the third option, furthering chaos.
I am wondering that if Richter was to gain something like a SpriteKin Mark whether he could Bond with Elora and become her Meidon?
Has enough Meidons?? Or enough Bonded? Has enough Marks? Anyway I think it's pretty unlikely to happen, what is more likely to happen is if Elora's Meidon turned out to be a Sprite Chaos Seed.
Completely unofficial but my personal headcanon is that the royals don't bond meidons at all. I figure her bond to the tree is special and it basically fills the same function. Their bond is obviously different if she can produce so many pixies compared to an ordinary version and it's permanent, with her even sensing the tree's mind or thoughts in some way. Not sure if we have any specific info about whether the normal pixie bonding to a tree is less permanent but i pictured it that way in my head for some reason. Either way, this would free up the pixies key figures from the risks attached to losing their partner, given that seems to be an issue and the queens are probably the ones responsible for dealing with it usually. It also conveniently clears up any potential plot problems that come from her having her loyalty split away from Richter and the mists if she bonds a sprite. Failing that, her four affinities could make finding a potential partner much more difficult, unless bonding her gives them any missing affinities, but i'm not sure we've seen it work that way so far.
I am pretty certain that Bonding with Celestial Pixies does course the Sprite to gain the Pixies Affinity/ies in the Meidon process. Although it maybe that those with at least some Affinity in common are more likely to become Meidons? Doesn't seem to work the other way round though, or maybe it would if they were to Bond with a Master of a Place of Power or with someone that has a 100% Affinity in a Magic (and) is already a powerful Magic User.
Ah, i stand corrected then. I couldn't think of an example where the sprite didn't have a pre-existing affinity that matched the pixie. Though i don't think we know much about any of them other than Sion and Sumiko. They are also the only ones i remember, so i probably just based that on them. In reverse, i'd expect that to be a fairly radical change. I thought the pixies affinities and magic were ability based, like Alma. The four they have as options came from their newly celestial nature, via the quickening, but obviously coming from the Place of Power. That's a pretty big and rare event. So i doubt a regular master would be enough, though bonding a sprite who is a master of a different Place of Power might work. Or bonding a tree that shares a similar connection to one, like the Hearth Tree. Or both, if i'm wrong about how it works. Either way, i'd agree we should expect to see some kind of change from that. Though that leads me on a tangent. I'm curious what a new pixie queen would get as an affinity. Would they be like regular pixies and only receive one or be like Elora with all four? Because if it's the former, bonding a new Place of Power would probably just make them like Elora, picking up Light and Earth in the case of the Hearth Tree. If it's the latter, would they lose the other three or just bet boosted to six? Because getting up to six seems like a big upgrade with messy implications.
I like your take. It would probably cause huge problems for a royal to bond some schmuck unless the dude wants to stay around her tree all the time.
Which he probably would. I imagine it would be quite comfortable, once the grows to the point that he has tens of thousands of pixie and sprites nearby. Also, queens aren't trapped at their tree.
But they can't be apart from it for too long, at least not at Elona's and the Quickenings present Levels.
The only way a royal pixie can happen at this point is a pixie bonding with a tree. Now I'd say that only Elora can produce a royal but nothing has confirmed it one way or the other. So if a royal pixie come from Elora it would be a bond with the quickening. It has been mentioned that only royal pixies can cast spells. While this does not guarantee affinities with all four powers I would say its very likely. A new royal pixie would likely leave the area to start spreading the pixies back into the world...likely a number of the current pixie females will as well once mature.
It was stated that as Celestial Pixies (due to Elora bonding with Quickening) there is a increase Chance of a new Queen being born. I suspect that even non Royal Pixies now have a chance of birthing a Queen, but that it is much, much less then from a Royal Pixie Queen like Elora.
Still, after a few groups of new pixies all bonding there’d be a decent chance at a second one. Then you’d need to find a really good tree + you’d see if they stay celestial after bonding with a less special tree.
Also easy choice for the next royal pixie, Hearth Tree is right next to the MV. Assuming personalities mesh, even if it doesn't bond with the HM try telling me the HM wouldn't be ecstatic to have a royal pixie bond with the Hearth Tree
The only plausible alternative to this i can see is if they enter the dungeon instead. There's basically nothing in the text to support it but i can't quite shake the idea of a second seed core (produced by either the quickening or the hearth tree?) being planted in the dungeon and then bonded by a new royal pixie to produce some kind of dungeon pixie. That could be a path to unlock all manner of stuff. You could get new affinities for the pixies or pixie caretakers for the dungeon. This seems a good way to encourage the growth of herbs and other useful plantlife as resources. It might also act as a safehaven to keep the race from going extinct again, assuming the room the tree is planted in ends up being some type of shamballa or they can be respawned by the dungeon. It might even contribute towards the magic motivations in some way, especially if the royal inherits the four powers of the Mist Village Place of Power. The Hearth Tree does seem more likely though and it's possibly the only way to allow them to remain independent since any meidon sprites seem to become vassals but those produced by the children of a new royal might not. Alternatively, it could be the way to integrate the Hearth Mother as a vassal despite her vastly superior power and experience making it seem implausible.
Your assuming that Dungeon Pixies haven't already Evolved to exist in the Labyrinth, the trick would be to figure out how to coach some of then to move into the Barrow of the Chaos Serpent.
