Heh, merry second holiday of Christmas from me (the fancy Christmas dinner was two days ago, and the greater extended family meeting and exchanging presents was yesterday, today we're all just being lazy and watching a Die Hard marathon - for some reason, these have been the traditional Christmas movies for as long as Die hard has existed, brought to you on Christmas by at least three separate Estonian channels).

Happy belated Christmas to all!

M3

Just in case I can't get to typing things again within this year - have a nice New Year's Eve, people!

Yeah, happy New Year's Eve everyone.

Happy National Calender change day. :)

I figure it's probably best to inform you all that I am not, in fact, a figment of Shien's imagination and wish you all a pleasant and comfortable New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Post will be coming Soon (tm).

Happy Year Change friends!

Just as a heads up guys, I might not be able to post for a while. On Saturday, I had suffered a head injury while I was ice skating which involved going to the hospital (Lorienne can vouch for me on that one if DJ and Shien are still in contact with her). My head is still a bit off from the incident and it might take some time for me to recover from it. I'll try to post when I can, but if there is a big delay with posts on my end, you know the reason why.

M3

How are your post coming along, Legion? Should I wait for it?

Also, @Ashgan: how are you doing?

@Jack: That depends on whether either of your characters would address (or otherwise interact with) Iridiel directly. If not, feel free to go first, otherwise let us know that you'll be waiting for him and Legion will get his post out first (for the matter, Iridiel is and will still be up in her tree, so not all that easily observable; there might be some agitated muttering to herself, though).

I haven't checked here in forever, but I have to admit that I'm quite happy to see you haven't forgotten about me. ;)
I'm all right, though I can't say the same for my PC at the time of writing. I hope I can fix all the issues in the coming days at least; right now I'm using my moms laptop to kill some time.

Did y'all have good holidays? I sure hope you did. Mine were all right.

So it's been a long time (probably longer than I'd even care to guess at), and lest I become completely out of touch with the quill, I should see about getting back in the creative writing business; ergo, I should get back to writing with you folks. It's rough for me to stay on the ball and keep myself motivated to do something, anything, on a regular basis - it's just my nature and my curse - but I'd really wish I could do it. If I had that level of commitment, I may be able to run semi-competent roleplays myself too. That would be awesome, but alas; I have to become more comfortable with keeping pace first it seems. It's getting late here, but since I'm here and have little else to distract me anyway as it stands, how about I produce a post for Jill tomorrow? We had a good thing going, and I genuinely enjoyed myself. I just have to get better at not falling into the procrastination abyss where only disappointment and hollowness dwell. If you see a lull in my activity, don't feel shy about being proactive and bothering me about it. Give me a good shove. I need it probably.

So far so good. Hello Jack, and hello everyone else. I'm alive again, such as it is. What did I miss?

Hey Ashgan! Long time, no see indeed...
Suffice to say, I haven't forgotten about you, either, and should perhaps say hi on Skype a bit more often or something, but characteristically to me I always tend to have a backlog of n+1 things I should probably do at some point that at least feel like they have higher priority than being generally social, and other people have the tendency to take action and precede me by going forth and bothering me first, before I get to contacting all those people I've probably not spoken to for far too long. But if you'd just like me to poke you whenever it seems you've been quiet for a while, then sure, I can certainly do that. That won't take too much time or effort. :-P
- Don't ask me whether I qualify as an extrovert or an introvert ... I usually say that I reckon I'm somewhere exactly in the middle. On one hand I might have a greater than average number of people I seem to know, and can freely converse with almost anyone and find at least something that's interesting to talk about to me, too, on the other hand prolonged human contact can be more tiring than something that constitutes for actual work, with certain people much more so than others (granted, I often also postpone replying to messages simply because I figure I'm too tired to make sense and/or would probably neglect to mention about three quarters of the things I intended to talk about ... putting my thoughts down properly works much better when I'm actually awake), and often enough don't feel the need to be social just for the sake of it. I will want to talk to people because I already care about them, and I will talk to new people since they might have something interesting to say, but I don't really talk to people because I feel the need to talk as such? If that makes sense. In practice I'll probably go somewhere that requires me to actively interact with people on my own initiative two days a week and can effectively plain forget to speak to anyone for the other five if I didn't have others contact me first or a specific reason to contact someone (granted, specific reason can be anything, really, including a random thought that somehow pertains to some previous discussion with that person).
Motivation is an even stranger beast. I will effectively have a few weeks where I don't feel like doing all that much (usually after the end of some massive and time-exhaustive project), at other times I'll pick up something (occasionally even things I've not touched for years) and potentially keep up with it for months. If I'm properly motivated for something, I can basically be engaged enough for sleep to be something that absolutely needs to be optional, since the tiredness is actively stopping me from doing something I want to do, damnit. And that does not only apply to hobby-things like writing and pet projects, but also my actual work, which probably further proves that I'm some kind of odd lunatic. Nothing like getting back up and behind the computer again when you were about to since your tired brain is somehow convinced that you've figured out some brilliant solution to something you've been working on for the entire day...
But I'm derailing again, ain't I? It's been somewhat slow in here due to work, university, or other things getting in the way of living (but we haven't lost anyone, so probably nothing to be too concerned about), and we're pretty much still in the same places; feel free to jump back in where you left off.
((My holidays were the usual kind of deal - a number of sittings with family and the new years' spent with friends. For some reason it feels like at least half a year has passed since...))

So, despite my already having a battlmage character (good ole I'on) and since I've been throwing ideas around (mentally) for a second character here, I shall truly begin work on one. She shall be called Ilitas, for short.

Part of me finds it funny that her name also starts with an "I", but meh I like how it sounds so I shall use it.

My plan for her so far is that she will be a True Deigan and perhaps a member of the Deo'iel, perhaps of the fifth or sixth circle I'm thinking. I will of course likely have a similar problem as I did with I'on early on in that she may not have any player characters to interact with. We'll see, not sure where I'll start her off on her...current quest.

Pretty sure she has an intense interest in two things, those being:

1.) The Demiurge.

2.) The Land of Eternal Night.

3.) The Lands outside the limiters of Relevance of Reniam (this is a third thing because I figured I'd run it by Jack first. Wouldn't want to overstep my bounds).

---

I have the intention of her likely having made a deal with The Weighter (I'll probably need some help with that @Shienvien, since Korakaan is your creation ^_^). Something related to intelligence and magic most likely since she's almost entirely a full on mage. I'll need to figure out exactly what sort of deal she'd make and, additionally, what she will be giving up for that gift. The second part I will probably need some assistance with. We'll see.

I fully intend for her to be the sort of person to try to discover new things about magic that have either been lost to the ages, shunned and hidden, or have been yet undiscovered. Hence her interest in the Lands of Eternal Night and the Demiurge respectively.

I do of course have some questions. These being as follows:

"So necromancy is outlawed in Rodoria and Wegam Fermos, but the Deo'iel take in criminals and individuals of all sorts, yeah? So if a member of the Deo'iel practiced necromancy, in this case not meaning the resurrection of the dead for the purposes of creating an undead horde, but for the original purpose, what would happen? If anything. Would it be allowed? Would their fellow Deo'iel shun them or find themselves disgusted almost by default? Would the individual be implored to keep their use of necromancy a secret to the public, or perhaps they'd be removed from the order and turned over to the authorities. Just something I oughta know since she'll probably go the route of black magic, arcane magic, necromancy and likely some enchanting to round her out magically."

"So to clarify my understanding of Runes I need to know if basically they work either by storing magical energy within them (when written on an object or surface) and/or channeling magical energy through them to cause an effect. This would mean you can either charge a rune with magical energy and set the rune/spell off later, or that you can only cause the effect of a given rune by channeling energy through it. If both are applicable that's great.

Additionally, I'd like to know if someone could write what amounted to an entire spell in runes on an object or surface, then channel energy or charge it with energy to institute that spell effect whenever they chose to set it off (or chose to fuel it with the necessary energy)."

"So, necromancy is essentially the manipulation of magical energy in its purest form without altering it into something else. It allows heightened senses in regards to energies and also much more fine-tuned manipulation of said energies. I know from the description of necromancy that it can be used to empower a dead body and force it to act as an undead minion/soldier, or whatnot and it can be utilized to possibly overpower ghosts and other such beings composed entirely of such energies, as well as to bring someone briefly back from the dead (revitalizing the magical energy of a dead body) so as to have it share its knowledge and experience (though I imagine it does not truly restore them to life as that is stated to be essentially impossible) can it do anything else? If not, that's alright, I'm just curious as to if there are any other uses I could come to be aware of."

Hmm, I think that's it for the moment, or at least all I can currently think of.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Shien, if you feel it is easier to converse over Skype, which it probably will be, feel free to do so. You know where to find me :P

@Veridis Quo: How have you been you?

@yoshua171, @Rhaevnn Xeno, @Mercinus3: Who would be going next on the Zerul-side? I'd figure it's Ixion->I'on->Morgan?

But okay; my comments and thoughts on Yoshua's new character idea. (Skype might be easier for discussion, but I'd reckon that while I'm trying to answer questions and comment on things that were already posted here before Jack gets the time to look them over, it might be better if I do it also on here, so Jack would be able to see what I said and we'd not be doubling one another... For later discussions, sure.) My word does not count as much as Jack's does, obviously, but they're at least there as some manner of gauge.

My plan for her so far is that she will be a true deigan and perhaps a member of the Deo'iel, perhaps of the fifth or sixth circle I'm thinking.

As far as race goes, true deigan sounds good to me. If you are to make her a deo'iel, though... I'd say you have at least two things to consider:
1.) Why would she joining up with some random team of adventurers, rather than working with the deo'iel?The deo'iel are a structured organization of monster-hunters, rather than simply a profession or more general-purpose do-gooders. I wouldn't even exclude the possibility of some manner of repercussions for arbitrarily "defecting", especially if she joined the deo'iel in order to escape prosecution as a necromancer. She'd almost definitely have to get permission from the higher-ups of her order etc, etc. (Deo'iel also more commonly work in teams, rather than alone, from what I know.)
2.) Sixth circle especially is ... high up. The deo'iel only have seven circles, with the seventh circle being the leaders. The sixth circle is composed of select few very extraordinary and generally widely recognized individuals. I daren't say Jack would not allow it, but making such a high-ranking character of a four-digit-strong structured organization is certainly to be carefully considered.

I will of course likely have a similar problem as I did with I'on early on in that she may not have any player characters to interact with. We'll see, not sure where I'll start her off on her...current quest.

...It might be better not to branch the story further at the time being. *cough* I'd say either party in Zerul or Jillian's lot (although that one is already entirely composed of mages of somewhat questionable practices), since the roadside group probably doesn't need any more delays.

Pretty sure she has an intense interest in two things, those being:
1.) The Demiurge.
2.) The Land of Eternal Night.
3.) The Lands outside the limiters of Relevance of Reniam (this is a third thing because I figured I'd run it by Jack first. Wouldn't want to overstep my bounds).

That ... is three things? Was the last one meant to be its own thing?
I personally don't see anything wrong with her taking interest in any of those things. It's not like any of those things was wholly unknown - there are quite a few canonical mentions of the lands to the west at least, including that of Junica (?), which is a nation of mages of sorts west of the Yawning Gorge.

I have the intention of her likely having made a deal with The Weighter (I'll probably need some help with that @Shienvien, since Korakaan is your creation ^_^). Something related to intelligence and magic most likely since she's almost entirely a full on mage. I'll need to figure out exactly what sort of deal she'd make and, additionally, what she will be giving up for that gift. The second part I will probably need some assistance with. We'll see.

Sure, I'll be happy to help you. Will talk to you on Skype sometime tomorrow, most likely. (I'm fairly busy today and leaving house in about quarter of an hour.)

So necromancy is outlawed in Rodoria and Wegam Fermos, but the Deo'iel take in criminals and individuals of all sorts, yeah? So if a member of the Deo'iel practiced necromancy, in this case not meaning the resurrection of the dead for the purposes of creating an undead horde, but for the original purpose, what would happen? If anything. Would it be allowed? Would their fellow Deo'iel shun them or find themselves disgusted almost by default? Would the individual be implored to keep their use of necromancy a secret to the public, or perhaps they'd be removed from the order and turned over to the authorities. Just something I oughta know since she'll probably go the route of black magic, arcane magic, necromancy and likely some enchanting to round her out magically.

I ... actually daren't give a specific answer here, so let's just wait for Jack.

So to clarify my understanding of Runes I need to know if basically they work either by storing magical energy within them (when written on an object or surface) and/or channeling magical energy through them to cause an effect. This would mean you can either charge a rune with magical energy and set the rune/spell off later, or that you can only cause the effect of a given rune by channeling energy through it. If both are applicable that's great.

Both are applicable. You can restore magic in arcane/black glyphs and make them triggerable (example(s): Trap glyphs, all those markings Gerald had on the walls of his manor that he released to blow up his old home to remove traces of his activities), as well as put them onto something magically conductive and channel magical energy through them to change its properties (example: runeswords).

Additionally, I'd like to know if someone could write what amounted to an entire spell in runes on an object or surface, then channel energy or charge it with energy to institute that spell effect whenever they chose to set it off (or chose to fuel it with the necessary energy).

I am not sure whether you can charge glyphs without touching them, but yes, you can make entire complex spells out of them and have them trigger to something they've been made to trigger to.

Necromancy....

It allows heightened senses in regards to energies and also much more fine-tuned manipulation of said energies.

Yes.

I know from the description of necromancy that it can be used to empower a dead body and force it to act as an undead minion/soldier

Use your own magical energy to animate a dead body. Yes.

it can be utilized to possibly overpower ghosts and other such beings composed entirely of such energies,

Yes.

as well as to bring someone briefly back from the dead (revitalizing the magical energy of a dead body)

Not quite... Dead people are dead because the magical energy / soul has left, so there is nothing left to revitalize. (Or they'd still be revivable by any sufficiently powerful healing magic.) You will have to essentially summon the soul from whatever plane it has ended up on - which is to say, you can have ghosts at your command, to question or to order around depending on what your intentions are. You *can* bind the soul to its former dead body, which would make it an artificially created true undead. (It'll be animated and have its own mind, but still continue rotting and whatnot.) Generally, you might want to use animated corpses as soldiers over true undead, since the latter can try to wrestle control from you and so on and so forth. You can also bind souls to objects. Including your own. That's how you turn yourself into a lich...

Can it do anything else?

Ehh... Potentially anything requiring fine manipulation of magical energy? I can't think of much right here and now. Gerald has been controlling his instance of the withering quite well.

It never fails: whenever I have a day during which I don't really go near my computer, stuff happens. It's good to see you here again, Ashgan! Now I just need to figure out where in my log of posts I left off with what scene so that I can remind myself what occurred previous to current events...

And yoshua is making a new character? Well, let's see about it, then, though it seems that Shien has already addressed most of the details about the character and such. Just to clarify in case there was any confusion about it, the label "limiters of relevance" isn't one that is used IC, but is a purely OOC label to refer to the conditions that limit the area of simple and/or frequent interaction between the countries on different sides of which, or the denizens thereof.
About her membership in the deo'iel, I'd reiterate Shien's comment that sixth circle is maybe a bit advanced. Sixth circle deo'iel are the kind that deal with "legendary difficulty encounters", to put it in gaming-terms, and they're generally in possession of nothing short of superhuman abilities in one field or another. I'm not saying that Ilitas can't be in the sixth circle, mind you, (though it is also worth noting that sixth circle deo'iel are free to command anyone below their own rank, unless their orders are negated by orders from someone from the seventh circle) but it'd be a fairly big job to take onto oneself. And as Shien also pointed out, a downright defection from the deo'iel - abandoning one's team if one has one, or otherwise ignoring orders from one's superiors - will have consequences, especially at such high ranks as fifth or sixth circle. If one just defects one will most likely just be captured and brought back to a nearby base to explain themselves, but if one starts exhibiting monster-like behavior (they do have a definition for what is considered monstrous, by the way)... well, deo'iel exist to kill monsters. And they'll always send someone of at least the same rank as the deserter to bring them back. If the deserter is of the sixth circle, it's fairly likely that one would receive a visit from Lord Nightmare.
So basically, she will either have to abide to deo'iel regulations and orders, or she will have to deal with persecution that will grow more and more intense the longer she stays out of touch, and will become particularly bad if she tries to defend herself.

True deigan necromancer... Heh, looking at the Compendium I realize there is no mention of this in there, and to be honest I'm not even sure whether I've mentioned it at all, but the true deigan have a "special" relationship to the forbidden arts of magic (necromancy, black magic and summoning magic). It's still technically illegal, as per the law of the lands they inhabit, but they have a system that can allow true deigan to research and practice the forbidden arts if their desire to do so is strong enough.
Each true deigan city has it's own faction of Karh'wai; "no-name" or "Nameless". As their collective moniker hints, members of this group are not allowed to have names... but they are not allowed to have identities, or even faces, either. Upon joining the Nameless, a true deigan is registered as and reported to be dead, ensuring that no one but the leader of the Nameless and the head of the given city knows the truth. The Nameless is then taken to their local residence, where the feathers down its back and neck are removed - ensuring that they never grow back -, leaving only the ones on the scalp, and from then on one is only ever allowed to show oneself wearing the black-and-red robes of the Nameless, with hands and arms wrapped in bandages and heads wrapped in cloth so that no one will recognize them. In return for the sacrifice of one's identity, the Nameless are allowed to practice the forbidden arts. The leader of the Nameless is the Sel'wai ("new-name" or "Renamed"), which - despite what the moniker suggests - still has no name, but is renamed only in that it is known as the Renamed. The Renamed is always a member of the Court of the given city (meaning that they serve as part of the group that makes decisions for the city, headed by the patriarch or matriarch) and wears a white ceramic mask with a thin black "smile" and two black hollows where the eyes would be.
Use that information however you like, but it just seemed rather relevant.

The forbidden arts are actually permitted to be used by the deo'iel, as the only ones besides the aforementioned Nameless. The reason that they're allowed to do so is exactly the fact that they're supervised by the deo'iel, though, and that anyone falling to using the forbidden arts for darker purposes (which is to say, "monstrous" purposes) would be quickly noticed and summarily terminated before they could become a scourge upon the land.

You can charge runes without touching them, though it's harder than - and not as cost-effective as - doing so while touching them. Necromancy would make one particularly capable of doing so, though, at minimal additional loss of magical energy, though the difference in difficulty would still be the same. (Necromancy is not an ability that is learned and from then on makes everything easier, after all; it is a skill that means that one has the senses and the mental capacity to do such things.)

And as to other uses of necromancy, I think I'll stick to Shien's suggestion until something more specific comes up: practically anything requiring the manipulation of magical energy is potentially made "sharper", more accurate and more cost-effective by necromancy.

(The deo'iel's definition of what a monster is, by the way, is "something or someone that indiscriminately causes injury or death to sentient races, and/or which poses an unmotivated palpable mortal danger to a large number of sentient beings". This is why Morgan and the Sisters of Torment, while a vampire and demonspawn, respectively, would not be categorized as monsters (at the moment), and why most bandits and such are of no interest to them. Interestingly, this also means that Vilhej the Righteous violated her own rules when she lead her siege against the Land of Eternal Night since the Black Tribunal, according to the deo'iel, are not monsters.)

@Jack: The Compendium archives actually have Jillian's part of the story up to date (minus Ashgan's post just now), so it might actually be easiest to read the posts uninterrupted over there: theprophecycompendium.tk/forumarchieve..
I'll probably put remainder of missing posts up up in the evening. (Secureshell, how I miss thee...)
Hmm, and the nameless-deigan bit is definitely new. (Also, why wouldn't deigan's feathers grow back when removed? Feathers on birds and such will grow back when ripped out just fine - in fact, if a bird's feathers get too damaged, it is occasionally advised to remove them prematurely just because it makes them properly grow back long before the bird would have naturally molted.)
Oh well, back to work for me...

This is why I ask such questions because even if it isn't applicable to my plans, I always get interesting insights into additional parts of the world haha.

I figured people wouldn't call the "limiters of relevance" as such ICly, but would refer to each limiter as its given name instead. So, if I understand that properly, those limiters are basically the limits which a given player can reach at which point they should not seek to leave. If I misunderstand this, that's alright as I said it's only a possible interest as Ilitas is in her infancy (so to speak).

Knowing that necromancy more or less just sharpens one's abilities with other magics is still useful knowledge even if it doesn't have any terribly specific uses aside from the aforementioned. As a note Shien, though I thank you nonetheless, when I said revitalize I more or less meant what you said in regards to the summoning of ghosts and the like. I just remembered it wrong I suppose haha.

In regards to the Deo'iel, that is entirely fair. Also I more meant the fifth circle. However, given the rather absurd level that'd mean Ilitas had reached already I think it might make for a less interesting set of possible paths for character development. So yeah, I think I may do without the Deo'iel, though I am intrigued by them personally and would love to see more of how they function haha.

Ilitas' necromanctic abilities will focus less on Resurrection for the purpose of creating mindless minions and more on gathering possibly lost knowledge from the dead before dismissing them once more. So far I am seeing her as an ambitious woman who, despite the rather shaky morals (from a human standpoint) of the True Deigan and the amount of agency allowed to her, decided that she'd be better off outside of any system, rather than part of one even so open as the one she grew up in.

She is unlikely to be the sort who bows or acquiesces to the wishes of any higher authority. This may develop into an obsession with power later on, but I think the act of walking that line should be interesting as I usually either play characters who never reach that point (due to who they are as people), have already reached a balance on that line, or have crossed the line and almost forgotten it altogether.

So actually walking the line and seeing where she ends up should be fun.

OH

One other question. Would using black magic at the same time as arcane render a spell null.

Like if someone spoke a few arcane words and then some in the demon's tongue to say a spell would it just outright not work or would it cause weird mixed results? Is there any way to mix the two?

(Also, why wouldn't deigan's feathers grow back when removed? Feathers on birds and such will grow back when ripped out just fine - in fact, if a bird's feathers get too damaged, it is occasionally advised to remove them prematurely just because it makes them properly grow back long before the bird would have naturally molted.)

Eh, I probably expressed myself a bit strangely before. What I meant to say was that they remove the feathers and make sure they don't grow back; the action of removing them is not what causes them not to grow back.

So, if I understand that properly, those limiters are basically the limits which a given player can reach at which point they should not seek to leave.

Oh, not at all. The characters are entirely free to go beyond the limiters of relevance. What they limit is mostly just the information flow across them, and the formation of any significant relations between nations on different sides thereof. We already have several characters that have come from outside the limiters of relevance, and just as they were free to enter, everyone are also free to leave and explore the rest of the world.

In regards to the Deo'iel, that is entirely fair. Also I more meant the fifth circle. However, given the rather absurd level that'd mean Ilitas had reached already I think it might make for a less interesting set of possible paths for character development. So yeah, I think I may do without the Deo'iel, though I am intrigued by them personally and would love to see more of how they function haha.

Actually there's a quite huge gap between fifth and sixth circle of the deo'iel. First and second circle are very close to one another, and advancing from one to the other basically just marks the transition from "newbie" to "low-ranking agent", the third circle is slightly higher than the second, meaning that one has acquired some experience in the field, fourth is even farther from the third, signifying that one is good enough to lead a team... What I'm getting at is that the "gap" between ranks in the deo'iel increases exponentially in size with each circle. Fifth is quite a bit above fourth circle, to the point where they are counted on to have sound judgment without the need to have a large number of individuals to seek counsel with, and sixth circle is far above fifth, just as seventh circle is - technically, but not practically - way past the sixth circle. Each circle is drawn around the last one, after all, meaning that each new circle will have a larger circumference than the last one.
Eh, but the characters are free to learn about anything they want to learn about, obviously, including the deo'iel, in whichever way they see fit.

One other question. Would using black magic at the same time as arcane render a spell null.

Like if someone spoke a few arcane words and then some in the demon's tongue to say a spell would it just outright not work or would it cause weird mixed results? Is there any way to mix the two?

I think I remember someone (not sure who) once asking what would happen if one mixed runes of the arcane language and Devil's Tongue and tried to make a mixed spell with those. The result of doing so is quite similar to the result of trying to cast a spell partway arcane and partway black; arcane and black magic are two sides of the same coin, eerily similar yet polar opposites. The metaphor I used with the runes was comparing them to matter and antimatter, and the comparison remains apt: each on their own they function normally, but trying to bring them together makes things turn ugly. I mean that spells experience "epic failure", to use a slightly humorous term, and tend to violently explode, unleashing all of the magical energy stored in the words upon the caster and its vicinity.

But one could say prepare (say the chant of, but not release the spell) a fireball spell with arcane, then use black magic to create, say oil or some form of flammable gas near/around a target location, then release the fireball.

I'd figure as long as you don't actually mix the two magic types in the same spell it'd be fine, yeah?

---

Noted in regards to the exponential bit. I am leaning more towards her just not respecting authority and hierarchy much unless it suits her...for a time.

What I meant to say was that they remove the feathers and make sure they don't grow back; the action of removing them is not what causes them not to grow back.

Ah, I see. Sounds like it should be a very bloody process, in any case...

Mixing black magic with arcane was a discussion, yes... There were two different discussions, actually - one time in regards to a Reniam-version of my own magefolk and their iconic weapons (which basically concluded with runes of both kinds being fine on the same object as long as you never try to activate both at once), and the other time in regards to Jillian and her practices.

But one could say prepare (say the chant of, but not release the spell) a fireball spell with arcane, then use black magic to create, say oil or some form of flammable gas near/around a target location, then release the fireball.

You're still sustaining an unfinished arcane spell while you do your black magic ... which would probably work about as well as trying to drill a hole into a metal container of gunpowder. From what Jack said the last time it was talked about, I'm fairly confident it'd just blow up in your face, and potentially in a spectacular manner.
If you created the oil/gas first (given it's possible and doesn't violate the laws of magic ... maybe draw it from the surroundings or something) and then, after being completely done with one type of magic, tried to use the other in succession, it might work.
Jack has also mentioned that the fire, light and other phenomena created by magic aren't actually true versions of themselves, but rather still carry more semblance to the original magical energy, and tend to have unnatural properties which stem from our (or our characters', rather) flawed conceptions. I'm not certain how well mixing magical phenomena of two kinds (not applicable for "draw from surroundings", of course) would go, either, even if I suspect would be significantly less violent since the magic has already been mostly transformed into a semblance of the real thing...

Speaking of magic, there was also the part about mind-affecting spells which personally bothered me quite a bit: "If it's not specifically thought-control or the spell isn't sophisticated enough to separately null your knowledge of self and/or erase your memories of what you were feeling and sensing right before ... I'd expect any kind of generic-effect spell or abrupt illusion to be consciously very jarring and immediately identifiable, the latter especially when you're already aware that someone was casting a mind-affecting spell."

Incidentally, I'm also getting the feeling that our "translations" of arcane words are supposed to be very inaccurate, and their proper meanings do not really correspond to the English interpretations. (This has nothing to do with mind control.)