Duality

This is the post you're looking for, methinks; primarily the first half of the last paragraph.

If they're small enough they'll actually evaporate via Hawking radiation if they're not constantly fed with large amounts of focussed energy, so as far as I know of the subject only the nigh-OP-size ones would be self-sustaining. Rather fortunate, that, as otherwise even a single microscopic black hole left undissipated and forgotten about by Ghalan could prove world-ending.

It should be fine as long as Ghalan doesn't create massive ones that can spaghettify people from a distance, create many at once while controlling them all independently, or have them be utterly unstoppable and demolish everything in their path if used projectile-style.

That style is exquisite. My dear 'zotl, you have outdone yourself here - and I tell you, that is no small feat. Decisively saved to my hard drive.

'Conventional laws of physics' includes the principle of causation, which time travel has a famed tendency to violate. Quite besides that, time travel in the sense of 'disappearing' from one point in time and 'appearing' at another would require at least the same amount of reality warping as instantaneous teleportation (due to the spacetime violation similarly inherent in both), stabilising and utilising a wormhole for time travel as apparently permitted by Einstein's field equations would require both an exceptionally resilient transportation vehicle and large regions of space possessing negative energy density (not currently known to physics outside the Casimir effect), and the second law of thermodynamics arguably throws a spanner in the works every now and then to boot. The icing on the cake is that nobody has the foggiest clue why we perceive time as 'flowing' in the first place, let alone why it seems to 'flow' only one direction - the laws of physics do not dictate a 'flow', nor is there any physical reason that the forwards direction should be the only one possible to perceive. It may be that the only way to truly travel through time is to violate our own baseline perception of it, but that's not a task that physics can achieve. But, yes, 'tis definitely out of reach of all but perhaps the most ludicrously powerful of spells. Time travel is never not OP.

I would peg time freezes and 'rewind' runes as incredibly complex and high-energy-demand magic; time spells are too OP for any usage beyond a one-off deus ex machina world-saving event, and they violate far too many conventional laws of physics to use anything less than vast amounts of reality warping to achieve. That, and if the duelling hall had runes like that, there wouldn't need to be an impartial panel of teachers on hand to make sure fights don't go too far.

What Passion means is that the arena is no longer there, let alone the runes it had. The place is a smoking crater.

I support all but this bit. Most magic people aren't as powerful as Druantia, perhaps, but the vast majority of them are still of significant ability nonetheless. Since magic ability is something of a continuum, I would deem someone with only parlour-trick-level magic to fall below the conventional in-universe cutoff point for classification as a 'mage', in fact, and thus be excluded from the one-in-a-million statistic. It's still up to you, though. I won't deny Ghalan a magical task force past if it contributes good backstory.

*continues falling from thousands of metres of height to impact violently on the sensitive mortal flesh of the humans below, distributing vast property damage as well as proportionate psychological damage to the majority of the world's population on a regular basis with absolutely zero realistic threat of retaliation whatsoever*

@Denim&Venom @dragon4111 Whoa, cool it there, folks, no need for void banishments; it started as a mere concept suggestion, after all. Dragon, you can make Ghalan's former field of employment a rogue-mage takedown squad if you want to, Denim was just putting forth an idea for you along the lines that Ghalan could've been involved in a specially-trained police department or army division fighting terrorist groups, mafia, or other heavily armed criminal organisations in various violence-stricken countries around the world (instead of specifically a mage task force hunting down individual rogue mages, since there are so few significantly powerful rogue mages anyway). Perhaps these criminal organisations could have recruited an untrained mage or two from among their own ranks to strengthen their attacks, and that's where the Janitor got involved for cleanup. It's just an interesting alternative take on a tough-as-nails crime-fighting backstory for Ghalan.

Perhaps I'm projecting myself onto you, but peaceful delights spring to mind - botanical gardens are always nice for an late afternoon or early evening stroll, especially followed by a relaxing evening at a nice restaurant or listening to soothing music at home with a good book. Pleasant company optional but recommended for all but perhaps the latter activity, and only the outdoor stroll has the potential to be significantly detrimented by the wintry chill probable to have set in by the time your birthday arrives. Ooh, what's the story about? Apologies; somewhat ambiguous phrasing on my part. I meant which word do you use more often: 'yes' or 'no'? What character from any book/intellectual property/franchise do you identify with personally the most? What everyday object from any book/intellectual property/franchise do you identify with personally the most? What animal from any book/intellectual property/franchise do you identify with personally the most? What weapon/tool from any book/intellectual property/franchise do you identify with personally the most?

*lands on the Black Pearl and sails off into the sunset waving your Spiderman plushie at you because I'm secretly Jack Sparrow* yes good *sneaks in and devours them all* but what do eaves look like 'amount' is for continuous quantities you clearly meant 'a particular number' No X-ray vision? Disappointing. You've been playing against me too often. What's the most impressively erudite word you know? What's the longest word you know? What's the weirdest word you know? I expect different answers to each question.

around these parts there is only one Inquisition Judging from the rough comparison chart below, Ursa Majors are about 50 times the height of a full-grown pony when standing upright (at a conservative estimate). Assuming the conventional pony height of approximately 3.5 feet, this puts Ursa Majors at a towering 175 feet tall. Now, if an object's height is scaled by a factor of x (with all proportions along with the object's average density kept constant), the object's mass scales by a factor of exactly x^3, which might seem peculiar but is an easily verifiable physical fact. Taking the proportions of an Ursa Major and its average density to be roughly equal to those of a grizzly bear with mass 680 kg and height 9.8 ft (a very large male grizzly, but that doesn't really affect the accuracy of the estimate), Ursa Majors weigh approximately 680 * (175 / 9.8)^3 = 3900 tonnes. Conclusion: without magic and/or selective Equestrian gravity, Ursa Majors would almost certainly implode under their own weight. According to the story, she saw her husband cheating on her and 'without thinking, picked up her two boys and threw them into the river to drown'. Those are some seriously complex reflexes she's got there. Sets. Early mornings are not my happy time. They made plenty of money off being haunted, that's for sure. Well, there's no way to easily determine average Equestrian gravity intensity, there's no way to easily determine average Equestrian atmospheric density, and there's no way to easily determine average pegasus mass, so I'm afraid there's no way to easily determine that.

I implemented that idea the other week. The full list of everyone in the RP and all their characters is in the original post of this thread, spoilered near the bottom.

Ooh, yes, good call. Having someone like him in the University, even in a janitorial position, has the potential to head off a lot of rogue-mages-to-be. It was mentioned way back in his application. Just enough of a knack to keep his steam-powered car running supernaturally smoothly, if I recall correctly.

They don't even have to be best friends; old Gabe had a lot of business contacts in the mage world. However, the question is why is he not a combat tutor? Is he trying to completely turn over a new leaf?

Oh, there's a thought. Wanted to get away from it all?

That's true, that's true. It doesn't have to be the least well-known unit, though, just one that's niche enough that he'd end up a janitor rather than in a combat role somewhere else.

But if it was a very well-known task force or a particularly skilled one then Ghalan would have learnt to control his temper better for the sake of their missions and he would have been employed in a more significant position than he is now. It would have to have been a relatively minor force, perhaps stationed in a poor or politically weak country.

How long ago are you thinking? It'd probably be a now-disbanded task force if anything, since he's currently a janitor.

Not demons, not since their realm was sealed away, but there are a couple of task forces for rogue mages in various parts of the world. Not very large, though, since mages are still very rare, let alone ones powerful enough to go rogue and evade capture.

Ah, yes, I remember that. Planning to add some more lore regarding that aspect of his personality? It's probably at least halfway done, by my reckoning, but I haven't been working on it much since I came down with a horrid cold a few days ago. I'll get onto it and hopefully I can get it posted within the week.

You want to show Ghalan 'dented', so to speak?

Yes good A 'defrosting ice queen'. Was there ever any doubt?

According to industry guidelines for professional tea-tasters, a standard tea-water mix for orange pekoe (classified as a loose-leaf tea) is 2 grams of tea to 8 ounces of water. That works out to about 8.82 grams of tea for every litre of water, or 8.82 kg per cubic metre. Lake Ontario has a volume of approximately 1640 cubic kilometres, or 1.64 * 10^12 cubic metres, and thus roughly 8.82 * 1.64 * 10^12 = 1.45 * 10^13 kg = 1.45 * 10^10 tonnes of orange pekoe is needed to fully convert Lake Ontario into standardised tea. To put this into perspective, the Great Pyramid of Giza weighs approximately 5.22 * 10^6 tonnes, so we're talking something like 2800 Great Pyramids worth of tea. The Great Wall of China weighs an order of magnitude more than the Pyramid (about 5.27 * 10^7 tonnes), so it's 280-ish Great Walls of China. Global production of tea is roughly 6 million tonnes of tea per year, so if we dedicated the entirety of our tea-growing infrastructure to growing pekoe tea (effective immediately) it would take until 4435 AD to grow the amount of tea necessary to turn Lake Ontario into a nice cuppa, not to say anything about the energy that would need to be sunk into the lake to heat it up to a temperature in excess of insipidity (although by that time global warming might have done it for you). It's definitely a good idea. I propose beginning your mission by strategically petitioning the Queen; she's likely to be the easiest to convince.