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This looks cool.

Yeah... Finley falls into the category of 'characters that I have a lot of backstory for in my head but I've written almost none of it down', sadly.

(Evalia: "Go through? Dear, here is a cudgel for those who try. And a crossbow for those who manage to sneak past.")

Finely: "Many thanks. It is always useful to be ready for those who don't get the hint the easy way."

Looks great! Is this before or after she became a giantess?

Well, she's not a full-time giantess; she and the enchantress stay at a more normal size most of the time for a number of reasons. (Keeping the food budget down, not making the other nearby nobles too nervous, her own sense of fair play and giving other people chances, letting people underestimate her before a fight, etc.) Most of the kingdom isn't even aware she can be. So it's probably after the first time she was a giantess when she defeated the dragon, but everybody still knows she defeated the dragon, so smart folks should take her seriously even at normal size.

Yes, I can definitely see the advantage of returning to normal size. How big can she and the Enchantress get? And, can they shift sizes on a dime like Giganta?

I suppose since magic is up to the world builder, you could have transmutation magic to feed and supply giants.

Either go the Star Trek route with the magical equivalent of a replicator. Or maybe, just up-sizing seeds and planting your own farm. Hmm, maybe one run by golems for automation.

Of course, options like those open up a lot of questions about magic and the world.

Yeah, and they're questions I mostly hadn't thought about in too much detail yet because that wasn't where the story in my head was going.

Another part of the reason it's that the enchantress was more a researcher than an adventuring wizard to start with. Powerful and with access to many secrets thought lost, but not interested in political power other than 'how to get them to leave me alone to do my work'. Being giant tends to hinder that. Finley's arrival and what started as practically a crush on the unicorn's side has drawn her away from that some.

As for what size they can get to... basically the size of a middle-aged dragon; maybe a hundred feet or so. It's not a casual thing to do, though with Finley having a suit of dragon-scale mail after they defeated the dragon, enchanting that to include 'make the wearer the size of a dragon again' is inherently easier.

As for magical food production, that's all going to be possible, but not necessarily worth the cost. I figure usable magic is rare in this world: the enchantress in the story is a 'once in a generation' level of talent, and a good chunk of what she can do is the result of research and uncovering things that people didn't understand the value of.

And then a good chunk of what she does do is the result of Finley coming up with ideas that would make things 'possible but still a challenge' and the enchantress coming up with ways to do that.

Magic does indeed benefit from having limits. Otherwise, it opens the question on why a world isn't post scarcity, or at least like Eberron.

In my own world building project, I also chose to have magic be rare. Although, it's more that the ingredients for Alchemy in my own setting are very rare and don't take to being grown on a farm.

Sounds like neither like the spotlight. How long does it take for the rumors of giant knights and mages to begin spreading?

Well, yes, limitations are usually the main drivers of story, when you get right down to it. If there's nothing to be a challenge, there's no story.

And yeah, a couple of my more-written stories on here are both urban fantasy, and they both strongly limit magic. The Mercedes stories have a number of full mages that's less than a hundred worldwide, and most of the magical spirits actively hide because they're way too easy to find and kill these days, what with the 'true forms showing up in mirrors' limitation, and cameras being everywhere. The 'Sketch Upgrade' stories have more mages, but there magic is still rather deliberately limited, for similar reasons: even back when the longbow was king, wizards could be vulnerable to surprise attacks.

As for this pair, really, the only time they've seriously been giant was inside the dragon's cave, so the only people who really know are them, the dragon, and the few people they rescued from the dragon's cave, and all the latter are basically working for them now. So the details of being giants aren't going to spread too much... though the fact that the people they rescued ended up with a bit of overcharged healing magic and are about seven feet tall now doesn't help with the 'lying low' thing. Something is going to happen inevitably, but they're trying to make sure everybody around them trusts them as much as possible before that happens.

As I mentioned on one of the previous pics, after defeating the dragon, buying off several of the other nobles by returning things that had been hoarded by the dragon previously, and generally getting themselves in the king's good graces, the next big task will be dealing with a mercenary on its way. Led by a mercenary captain who also has a number of magical items, and who isn't above a little underhanded play if he thinks it's necessary. That won't require going giant, but it's not going to help with the 'lying low' part either...

"As for magical food production, that's all going to be possible, but not necessarily worth the cost."

(Evalia: "Of course not. It's worth it more to come up with spells to prepare the food instead. With enough finesse with the magic, one should be able to prepare, and cook, then serve a meal worthy of a noble's table. Granted, spells of that sort have... other... applications... which would probably be why I need to ensure that spellbook is locked tightly away.")

*chuckles* In one Ars Magica game I was in, our covenant had lots of Herbam vis... so we used it to create spices, since pound for pound those are more valuable than gold, and easier to fence anyway. (Not much, of course, there are rules about attracting attention, but we bought a couple of favours.)

But yeah, magically creating food enhancers and preparations is generally much more efficient than just brute force creating all the food.

And yeah, preparation spells could have... disturbing uses.

It's where the inspiration for that come up. See... Ars Magica 5e had a book about covenants, and it included spells which could act as a substitute for some craftsfolk but you needed decent Finesse to make a good product. (And the bit about the alternate uses is from a Star Wars novel where a crew of pilots with useful secondary skills explained patiently how they could use any of the tools of their trades as a weapon - if need be. "What weapon? This scalpel is a medical tool.")

Well, yes, any food preparation setup meant to deal with meat isn't generally going to care where the meat is from.

(Have you ever seen Fried Green Tomatoes by any chance?)

As for Ars Magica, I've worked that sort of Finesse tradeoff into magic systems like what I'm using in Sketch Upgrade.
You can do magic in a more ritual style where you specify everything and use as little power as possible at the cost of having to really understand what you're doing in detail. Or you can throw more power into it and get something good at the cost of being less sure of the exact results (especially if some spirit decides to 'help' and maybe supplies some power as well).

On a side note unrelated to any story I've posted publicly, under that sort of scheme D&D 'divine' magic is basically magic that relies on some form of god or genius loci to actually manage the spell, allowing people to perform greater feats of power with less personal cost, but they can only do things their patron approves of.