There’s two reasons: the more powerful numerically a magician is, the more demons will swarm to feast on them when they drown. They basically gather more mass in a shorter amount of time.

The other reason is that they both spent a considerably longer time in the Abyss, and beings that do so will accumulate more size over that extended period. So Nid was a tier 6 mage when he drowned, and spent about one year in the Abyss, so as an amalgam he’s about the size of an SUV. Rosier and Olivier were tier 10-11 mages and spent probably upwards of five years in, and the result is that they can pick fights with aircraft carriers.

Hey! :> You’re correct in that assumption, I haven’t really elaborated on it much on my blog yet, but the flow of time in the Abyss is bizarre and has strange and unpredictable effects. Amalgams tend to somehow leave the place with scraps of specific, occasionally advantageous knowledge—sometimes it turns the tide in espionage because some construct emerges with perfect recall of a nuclear weapons document that will be published five years in the future.

There is a tendency to return to their original time, however. When he’s drowning in the Abyss, Nid surfaces briefly and encounters…a ten year old Lafayette after she nearly drowns herself. When he finally leaves, though, he exits a year after he fell in. Weird time shit isn’t exclusive to the Abyss, a LOT of anachronistic reverse-engineered technology is in full effect by the 1960s because weaponry from the 80’s and 90’s keeps suddenly appearing across the globe (it’s theorized to be the result of some sort of magical conflict during that period.)

Hey, thank you! :> And yes, it does happen, but its pretty rare because it’s a viscerally horrifying and painful process that can often erase or erode most if not all of the personality of the magician. Magicians that intentionally enter the Abyss also tend to leave it much farther removed from their original identity.

Yeah, it’s pretty safe. Demons obey Newton’s first law for the most part—once they’ve manifested around the core magical source in a familiar or amalgam, they don’t usually leave it, even when another magician touches them. Dispersion is a different story though—if the demons are leaving a critically wounded amalgam, they’ll flock to the next best source of magic.

Demons are actually unable to form in blood, saline water, or most types of solutions that aren’t about 97%-99% H20. They are attracted to exposed blood, and will swarm towards it to consume when active, but they can’t appear in it natively.

Unfortunately, many families do reject a recovered child amalgam, especially if their personality has significantly changed due to the drowning, and may treat them as if they have died. This is more common with non-magician parents. However, there are also plenty of families that love and embrace their returning child, and go out of their way to accommodate their altered needs. Most governments provide services free of charge to child amalgams, who are safeguarded against conscription. 

That honestly depends on how the amalgam feels about it, but people who remain in close contact with amalgams have a tendency to view them primarily as their host due to the use of their appearance when communicating.

Yep! There are entire squadrons purposed for battling demonic constructs, and recruitment calls usually go out for people of high faith for this very reason. Magicians with such qualities tend to incur a much more minimal, or even adverse, response from demons in the vicinity, and it takes a lot longer for them to drown on average. People further compound on this effect by wearing tattoos with religious, mythological, or cultural imagery, or by donning modes of dress tied to their beliefs (ex: the habit, the hijab).

Hey, thank you!! Happy you like it.

Dousing a drowning magician in holy water would kill at least most of the demons, and is typically used in treatment for this very reason. However, it has to be used with care in a medical setting. Demons burrow into the flesh, their effect on magicians is similar to how trees can become infested with wood-boring insects. You can kill the worms, but the holes and damage inflicted will remain. Doctors will have to be poised to immediately treat the (now bleeding) wounds when the demons are cleansed.

Demons are unable to inhabit rivers or lakes considered holy or of great importance, making them popular swimming spots for young magicians.

Hey, don’t feel bad for asking! :> This is a cool question. The information presented on the blog is pretty consistent with what the characters know—I’ve tried to make the infographics similar to scientific reports that would be released at the time. There’s some stuff that I only know and won’t reveal right now though.

Yep, Edward Montblanc was the tier 12 magician that they engaged. He’ll be a prominent antagonist in the story.

Hey, thank you so much! :> An inventory is a secure area surrounded by a magical schematic that contains items. When set up properly, objects can be stored or removed to be on hand from virtually any location, and it will appear as if the magician is pulling items from thin air. Most magicians have weapons and miscellaneous accessories (such as rope) in their personal inventories, and government magicians are typically also granted access to large communal storehouse-type inventories, which contain chemical resources to draw upon in battle (such as iron oxide, dry ice, molten onyx, etc).

A stronger magician with a larger radius could forcibly suppress the effects of a weaker magician in the case of a crossfire, but the effort is tiring and requires total concentration—a potentially fatal distraction. Most likely they would teleport away instead, or let the magic run its course if they are not in danger.

Their forms are neither extremely dense, nor is the mass negated. The schematic employs some extremely bizarre physics and spatial reorientation, but basically: the amalgams’ mass still exists in the real world its original density, but only the volume defined by the falseform can be tangibly interacted with.