Ello, all! I have a magic-ish related question.

Ok: my female MC is a prophetess. However, she also had other God-given powers, but if her energy source is God, then her power never dimishes and she is unbeatable. In the course of the story, that isn't feasible, so...I need help!

Her powers include pyrokinesis, healing (others, not herself), wind control, can spread disease and plague with a word, and...some other things that I can't think of with Tim Hawkins in the background...

Any ideas? Helps? Thoughts?

How can I make her possible to be beaten in combat?

Well, there are two ways I have thought of to do this:

The way I usually do this is to set up Cobhaic powers in such a fashion that they're granted by God, but God is NOT the power source. There is a power source (naturally occurring in the world, usually somehow linked to 'powering Creation') which the characters draw on to perform their 'magical' feats. They're limited by their innate strength (how much they can handle), countermeasures (ways of preventing access to the power sources), and perhaps finity (how much is available) [is that even a word? XD].

The second way you can do this is to keep God as the power source, but to limit what He permits the character to use, in addition to having the use thereof be dependent on His will. I think, however, this doesn't work very well (for Cobhaic powers, though prophetic related powers could work well under this system); because I view Cobhaic powers as gifts like any others, to be used or misused according to free will.

Hope that helps!

*ponders deeply and is happy someone posted before the start of NaNo* Thanks, Jakorosin! I like that...I'll mull it over and let you know what I decide!

I've used both of these in my work.


As far as I know, yes, that's a word, though I'm not sure it means what you think it does.

In my Shine Cycle, the Vaynar, who are sort of like angels, were granted vast powers to use to shape the world in the first very few years after its ex nihilo creation to make it particularly fit for mortal habitation. And while the scope of this power dwindled over the following decades and centuries, it regenerated to some degree (less, fortunately, in the ones that fell). And there are various creatures (dragons, fairies, etc.) that naturally have their own powers. And any of these can lend his, her, or its power to a mortal mage (one with the aptitude to use "the other kind")---but for a mage to use power from such a source is nearly always forbidden.



In my Shine Cycle, the one form of "applied metaphysics" that is permitted by the divine Law is the use of power that God gives. Mages find that the amount of power that they can handle at any given time is more or less in proportion to how closely they're "walking with God." In one place in one main character's backstory, she feels the Holy Spirit telling her that she was supposed to do something, and turns off her inner ear so she doesn't hear that voice any longer, and can't do the simplest working for months.

In response to the original question, however:


If we look at the Bible, there are several stories where power of one sort or another came from God and yet was taken away: Samson after he broke every one of the conditions laid on his life, Joshua's army when Achan sinned, Peter walking on the water ...

I understand what is read here.....however, I read in the podcast sometime ago that a balance needs to be in there otherwise too much miraculous and/or magical powers in a store can bore a reader and not make the story interesting anytime there is an issue or a problem that comes up.

Usually, what keeps a reader interested in a story is the characters. Dramatic tension comes (to simplify significantly!) from the understanding that the protagonist must do something, but seemingly cannot. But used clumsily, magical or miraculous powers can make "the character can't do such-and-such" a lie: he has magic, so of course he can!