Showing posts with label wand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wand. Show all posts

Jul 30, 2012

Fantasy Weapons Lore: Callandor of Rand al’Thor


One of the most powerful weapons ever imagined up is the sword called Callandor. Despite its appearance it is not actually a sword. This flashy crystal-like sword is a conduit for the male channelers of saidin (The One Power). Channeling this power and weaving it into the elements in the Wheel of Time series is how magicians cast spells. They don’t use wands and some are powerful enough to sink entire cities.

Callandor is one of the most powerful tools ever designed in this world and was molded into the shape of a sword for the man who wielded it into battle at the head of his huge armies against the Dark One's forces. It was made to allow a man to greatly increase the amount of power that he can normally channel.

This is not the same as the wands and staffs of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Although those items increases a sorcerer’s power and allows the caster to cast spells at greater speeds without instant fatigue, the casters in the Wheel of Time don’t require hand movements or words to cast spells. All they have to do is learn to mentally manipulate the elements they can draw on to do what they want. Each “spell” is actually a weave of elements that is controlled through channeling the One Power.

Jun 30, 2012

Fantasy Weapons Lore: The Elder Wand of Harry Potter


Believe it or not, in the hands of a trained wizard, this little dinky branch is an extremely dangerous weapon. What some people may not realize, unless they are Harry Potter fans, is that wands are partially sentient. They choose their master as much as they are chosen. The Elder Wand in the Harry Potter series is no exception, but unlike most, it is believed to be the most powerful wand ever created. The power isn’t the only thing that sets the wand apart from other wands. What makes the Elder Wand so different is its lack of loyalty. It only bonds with whichever wizard it feels is the more powerful which is proven by defeating the current master.

Then it moves on and works with the new owner without any disruption in power. This becomes tricky in the series however when Harry Potter becomes the master of the wand through a series of actions that he was not aware of. Voldemort struggled after that to discover who the true master of the wand was after he gained possession of it and killed those he thought had earned its allegiance. It wasn’t till he tried using the wand against its true master did he realize that Harry was the man all along he needed to defeat.