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Powers and Abilities
Matthew is an urban sorcerer, which means that he essentially derives his power from the city. Things like street lights, gas mains, power lines, water pipes, the traffic of the streets - these are the sorts of things that power Matthew's magic. On a deeper level, magic in Matthew's universe is comes from life. A city might not be alive biologically, but the routines and movement of living creatures within it imbue it with the trappings of life, and therefore power.
Sorcerers like Matthew differ from magicians in that magicians rely upon pre-written incantations, spells, and the invocation of powerful magical entities, while a sorcerer's magic relies on will, raw magic, and a more intuitive understanding of mystical forces. This gives sorcerers much greater power and flexibility, but it also means that they run the risk of getting lost in the magic of particularly powerful places.
Urban places aren't the only places that sorcerers can gain their power from - some sorcerers are more suited to drawing their power from nature, and things like blood and living creatures will always contain magic. As an urban sorcerer though, Matthew is naturally more suited to deriving his power from cities, and he's best with cities he's familiar with. Given enough time and motivation, he can adapt - but generally if you stick him in the forest he'll have very little that he can actually do.
As for what sorcerers actually do - quite a lot, and the limits are very fuzzy since it's a magic that is so dependent and changeable according to environment. But at it's core, sorcery is a manipulation of one's surroundings, and of the things which are already there.
Examples of what sorcerers have been seen to be able to do are:
As wide ranging as a sorcerer's abilities are, there are limits to them - since much of it is essentially a manipulation of what is already there, they can't pull things out of nowhere. In order for them to manipulate a gas main, it has to be there in the first place. It's easier to make someone fall asleep if it's the middle of the night and they are already tired, so they probably couldn't make someone who was wide awake fall asleep in the middle of the day. They can manipulate perceptions, but only by manipulating what people already expect - such as expecting that someone in a boring beige coat isn't someone they need to pay attention to.
In addition to his abilities as a sorcerer, Matthew is also sharing his body with the Blue Electric Angels. It’s more of a mind-merging than possession, though it does look an awful lot like possession. The angels are spirits of the telephone wire, who were born from the 'life' of people's conversations made over them. As such, they come with their own specific abilities.
As telephonic spirits, they can recall anything that people said into the phones, word for word (although presumably this only applies to things said before they were resurrected, and in their own universe). They can connect a mobile phone to a telephone switch-box and listen in on conversations on the wire. They also tend to know instantly whenever telephone conversations are happening nearby, and when they are close enough they can listen in without having to connect to a wire. They can also understand all of the languages that have been spoken on the telephone - but this is aural only, as they can't understand written language the same way.
The angels also have a very strong affinity for electricity and fire. They don't generate it out of nowhere, but they can draw upon the power of the city to create blue electric fire that burns across their skin. Manipulating electricity comes very naturally to them. And given enough power - enough meaning a hell of a lot - this can even manifest as a pair of blue electric wings that they can actually fly with. This is a dangerous move though, as the power to manifest the wings also means accessing so much power that they come extremely close to being lost in it, and it makes the angels dangerously high on the power.
Their blood also has unique properties, appearing as wriggling worms of bright blue light. (Their blood isn't always blue - often it's a normal red - but seems to become blue when they choose it to be so, or are doing particularly angely things.) They can set their blood on fire, and if their blood enters another person's bloodstream, they can use it both to curse that person or to keep them alive (although this isn't a very good way of healing, as it's extremely painful for the person being healed, and also can't completely heal someone).
Sorcerers like Matthew differ from magicians in that magicians rely upon pre-written incantations, spells, and the invocation of powerful magical entities, while a sorcerer's magic relies on will, raw magic, and a more intuitive understanding of mystical forces. This gives sorcerers much greater power and flexibility, but it also means that they run the risk of getting lost in the magic of particularly powerful places.
Urban places aren't the only places that sorcerers can gain their power from - some sorcerers are more suited to drawing their power from nature, and things like blood and living creatures will always contain magic. As an urban sorcerer though, Matthew is naturally more suited to deriving his power from cities, and he's best with cities he's familiar with. Given enough time and motivation, he can adapt - but generally if you stick him in the forest he'll have very little that he can actually do.
As for what sorcerers actually do - quite a lot, and the limits are very fuzzy since it's a magic that is so dependent and changeable according to environment. But at it's core, sorcery is a manipulation of one's surroundings, and of the things which are already there.
Examples of what sorcerers have been seen to be able to do are:
- Make wards, either through the use of circles or by spray painting symbols of the city (such as the London Underground symbol)
- Use spray paint to curse a building, which causes nylon chairs to give electric shocks, markers to squeak on the whiteboard, hinges to rust, glass to run, windows to stick shut, fans to whir, chairs to break, computers to crash, paper to crease, pens to smear, pipes to leak, cooler to drop, pictures to sag, phones to crackle, and wires to spark
- Manipulate vibrations to amplify a sound enough to burst people's eardrums, or pull sounds from the environment to release as thunder or force
- Control/manipulate parts of the environment, such as by pulling pipes or wires out of the walls and wrapping them around people, or warping concrete
- Pulling the light and heat out of lights, and then releasing/controlling that light
- Controlling the air, making it into walls of force, or using a fire extinguisher to make a small tornado from the gas
- Manipulating glass to shatter it, make it into a whirlwind of glass, or a protective barrier
- Draw strength and speed from electricity
- Transmutate objects, such as changing water into acid (although this is difficult and Matthew doesn't do it much)
- Change the shape of uncut keys to fit any lock
- Borrow the eyes of animals that live in the city, or communicating with them
- Hide from notice by enchanting the kind of coat that is ubiquitous to make people not notice you
- Manipulate the perception of objects, such as by making a quickly-flashed Oyster card look like official credentials
- Make someone unattentive or sleepy
- Manipulate machines, such as by tricking an ATM into thinking a business card is a bank card with unlimited balance, making CCTV cameras turn away, coaxing alarms into giving up their codes
- Scry someone from their belongings, or (with much more difficulty), from a phone connection after they've called
- Using city rules and regulations to create barriers - in London, the strongest ward you can create involves the Oyster card for the London Transport system
- Summon mystical entities such as the spirit of a railway line
- Sensing magic (which, due to the nature of their magic, also means sensing things like electrical and gas mains)
As wide ranging as a sorcerer's abilities are, there are limits to them - since much of it is essentially a manipulation of what is already there, they can't pull things out of nowhere. In order for them to manipulate a gas main, it has to be there in the first place. It's easier to make someone fall asleep if it's the middle of the night and they are already tired, so they probably couldn't make someone who was wide awake fall asleep in the middle of the day. They can manipulate perceptions, but only by manipulating what people already expect - such as expecting that someone in a boring beige coat isn't someone they need to pay attention to.
In addition to his abilities as a sorcerer, Matthew is also sharing his body with the Blue Electric Angels. It’s more of a mind-merging than possession, though it does look an awful lot like possession. The angels are spirits of the telephone wire, who were born from the 'life' of people's conversations made over them. As such, they come with their own specific abilities.
As telephonic spirits, they can recall anything that people said into the phones, word for word (although presumably this only applies to things said before they were resurrected, and in their own universe). They can connect a mobile phone to a telephone switch-box and listen in on conversations on the wire. They also tend to know instantly whenever telephone conversations are happening nearby, and when they are close enough they can listen in without having to connect to a wire. They can also understand all of the languages that have been spoken on the telephone - but this is aural only, as they can't understand written language the same way.
The angels also have a very strong affinity for electricity and fire. They don't generate it out of nowhere, but they can draw upon the power of the city to create blue electric fire that burns across their skin. Manipulating electricity comes very naturally to them. And given enough power - enough meaning a hell of a lot - this can even manifest as a pair of blue electric wings that they can actually fly with. This is a dangerous move though, as the power to manifest the wings also means accessing so much power that they come extremely close to being lost in it, and it makes the angels dangerously high on the power.
Their blood also has unique properties, appearing as wriggling worms of bright blue light. (Their blood isn't always blue - often it's a normal red - but seems to become blue when they choose it to be so, or are doing particularly angely things.) They can set their blood on fire, and if their blood enters another person's bloodstream, they can use it both to curse that person or to keep them alive (although this isn't a very good way of healing, as it's extremely painful for the person being healed, and also can't completely heal someone).