Wards

**Wards** — Appears in all books

## About

A Ward is a magical protection created by a spell. Some mages are so good at making wards, they hire out as Ward-smiths.

Good wards are better than a security alarm because they tell you basic facts about who it was who broke in—human or not, aural imprint—and, if you get a good enough one, what they did while in your place. But they don't tell you where the intruder went after he or she left, unless you get one of the really intricate, expensive über-wards specially crafted by a wardmaster.

### Categories of Wards

* **Perimeter Wards**: sometimes used to camouflage
	+ Hidden doorways at M.A.G.I.C. are an example
* **Energy Wards**: more complex:
	+ At their best, great at relieving stress and helping people work through emotional problems
	+ At their worst, anyone within the perimeter of and Energy ward would start to feel very mellow and would suddenly decide to do whatever was wanted of them.
* **Protection Wards**: two types:
	1. **Personal Shields**: shields are only as powerful as the person building them, since they usually draw on personal power, and most aren't enough to thwart a major spiritual or physical attack.
	2. **Guards**: Crafted by a group of magic users, they are designed to protect a person, object or location from harm. They can be set to fend off danger, usually by turning the evil intent back on its sender or, in cases like mine, ensuring that anyone touching me with harm in mind ends up screaming in agony. These types of wards are big business in the supernatural community.

### Maintainence

* Maintaining shields requires a little daily meditation.

### Characteristics

* Anything run on electricity doesn't do well around powerful wards.

### Other Details

* You can shield with anything as long as it has meaning for you: rock, metal, water, even air. It's simply a way of visualizing and manipulating your power.
* Tony always kept two wardsmiths on staff to maintain the fortress of magical protections around his home and businesses.
* Tony uses perimeter wards when he's up to something illegal.
* Mages can sometimes use a spoken word that will look like a glowing symbol writes itself in the air for an instant, then dissolves into the shields—it's used a focus.

## Cassie's Ward

➢ See main article: **Cassie's Ward**

✥ Cassandra Palmer has a lopsided **pentagram ward** tattooed on her back from the time she was very young. Its original pentagram shape had stretched as she grew older, and it ended up being an ugly tattoo that covered half her back and part of her left shoulder. It flares t protect whenever she's under attack.

## Wards at M.A.G.I.C.

Exammples:

* **Perimeter Wards**: Hidden doors;
* **Defensive Wards:**: the iron wall sconces had turned outward, with the sharp, knifelike decorations on their bottom edges chandeliers that become spears,

## List of Other Wards and Charms

* **Pritkin's Charm Necklace**: a sturdy red cord with several charms and smelled like verbena. Contains: Rowan wood cross set with amber and coral (all three ward off Fey attacks), and an iron pentagram.

## Associated Characters, Things, Groups, Places, etc.

* Cassandra Palmer
* Aura
* Eugenie
* Tony
* John Pritkin
* Silver Circle
* Mages
* Magic Tattoos
* Mac
* Mac's Tattoo Shop
* Convocation
* Augusta
* Jonathan (Dark Mage)

## Events in the Series

*The purpose of this section is to be able to **find things in the series**. Please use References.*
*This section may have **spoilers**. If you want to avoid spoilers, think of the book title as a "Spoiler Warning" for books you have not read yet. If you have a spoiler to add, please add it to this section.*

### 1. Touch the Dark

Cassie's ward flared up and burned one of Tony's vampires that was strangling Cassie. During the parking lot battle at Dante's, Cassie was outside her body and had to enter the Dark Mage to survive. His ward was a wall made of wood. Cassie also used a wall to shield but her's was made of fire. While passing throuh the corridors of M.A.G.I.C., Cassie encounters numerous wards of various types. Then Mircea figures it out—Tomas has betrayed them to Rasputin—it's how Rasputin had gotten through the outer wards so quickly. Cassie's ward gets one of the dark mages who attacked her—then set a perimeter guard before her that jprotected her from a mages fire blast.

### 2. Claimed by Shadow

Andrew and Stephan, war mages trying to capture Cassie, triggered the automatic defenses—animated suits of armor—by drawing arms inside Dante's Casino. The defenses confused Cassie and Pritkin with the aggressors. Mac creates magical tattoo wards and weapons. He applied a magic sword on Pritkin, and fixed Cassie's pentagram ward. Mac gave her Sheba for extra protection. When Mac died, Mac's wards had solidified and fallen away in a shower of gold, leaving the skin between the tattooed leaves bare.

## See Also

* Magical Objects and Weapons
* Mac's Tattoo Shop
* Aura
* Magic
* Magical Paperweight Snare

## Book References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *Touch the Dark*, ch. 7 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; name "CP1ch7" defined multiple times with different content Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; name "CP1ch7" defined multiple times with different content
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 *Touch the Dark*, ch. 13
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 *Touch the Dark*, ch. 2
4. ↑ *Claimed by Shadow*, ch. 2
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 *Touch the Dark*, ch. 8
6. ↑ *Claimed by Shadow*, ch. 8
7. ↑ *Touch the Dark*, ch. 14
8. ↑ *Claimed by Shadow*, ch. 3
9. ↑ *Claimed by Shadow*, ch. 5
10. ↑ *Claimed by Shadow*, ch. 8

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