death curse quality

domino7: 3) Is there a qualitative difference between Death Curses and regular magic? Not just using someone’s lifeforce to supercharge a spell, but to do something intrinsically different. Would it be hypothetically possible for someone to stockpile magical energy to cast a huge spell and fake a Death Curse, like drawing blood to spray an otherwise fatal amount around a crime scene?
Jim: 3) Definitely a qualitative difference. I mean, we rate nukes in terms of “how many thousand tons of TNT is this equal to?” but let me see you try to deploy 80,000 tons of TNT as a weapon. If you could, the destruction would be the same, in theory, but the nuke has a quality all its own that makes it stand out. A death curse is the same thing. A really powerful practitioner (any member of the Council) could probably simulate a death curse with enough time and forethought, but there would be traces that an investigator could find, afterward. “Hey, why are there tire tracks worn into this road? Because someone was using it to haul 80,000 tons of TNT to the site of the explosion, and you can’t do that without a LOT of trucks.”


2012 Reddit AMA