[quantum_mechani]

On the subject of MA Ulm and Mackaka:

There is a reason I haven't arbitrarily upped the power of their national mages (or nerfed the magic levels of powerful nations mages). If anything is thematically defining about a nation it's the paths the mages have, so I am very reluctant to meddle with them.

Mackaka I don't think is nearly so bad off as people seem to think. As they stand I would say they are at probably better than Man, Eriu, MA Ulm or MA Agartha, and arguably better than Bandar Log or MA Marignon. Which is not to say I'm opposed to boosting them, I already made the hunter spiders much cheaper and upped the MR of the spider form, and improved PD is in the works.

MA Ulm is perhaps more legitamitly poor, but they are much harder to boost within the theme. In any case it's not like being forced to branch into blood was really a good solution to them being better either (it's also a bit hard to swallow that a nation without the native ability to forge any gem gens is made comparatively worse off by the change than those that could). I do think making the iron angel easier/cheaper to cast is an excellent idea.