Slayers Information

INTRODUCTION
    HEY! Good to see you. Welcome to a page of firsts. The first time I took on a single anime series other than Ranma 1/2, the first time I wrote the fanfic from the ground up in HTML, the first time I really did tons of research and preplanning before launching willy nilly into the story itself. I'm glad to be off on this endeavor and glad to see you here.
    This series should appeal to casual fans of Slayers and hardcore fans alike. A firm grounding in the first four tapes is nice, but really not required; we've got some basic starter info you can refresh your memory on and fill in any gaps, along with links. Slayers otaku note that this series, emulating a 'season' of Slayers, can takes place after Slayers Try but primarily draws from the other two seasons. Many thanks go to Andre Germain for his invaluable help in research!
     The tone of the series wobbles around between wild spoofy fun and serious, dark undertakings. Slayers itself also does this, interspersing comic relief (and the occasional purely screwball episode) amoung a very well designed, complicated fantasy epic. One of the goals I set in starting this project is to try to capture classic Slayers comedy, intrigue and action as best I can.
    Because I'm leaving this flexible and web-based, some episodes may be revised from time to time. New ones will be added gradually and if you're a maniac and tune in many times a day x.x you might see a page in progress -- signs will be posted to make sure folks realize which pages are being edited, which are done but being tweaked and which are final. I considered just not opening the page or telling anyone until it's finished, but since it's episodial and I prefer to have the pages stay in one place for readers and PRE readers alike... you're ALL PREREADERS! NYAAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!! ...most stories will be posted to here and the FanFic Mailing List simultaneously once complete, but will not show up on rec.arts.anime.creative until I'm sure it's in ultimate, final form. Bookmark this page and check back often, minna! ^_^
    Specific thanks go to the following pages from whom I've filched images for use in the story. Thank you thank you! Keep on scanning and providing groovy new Slayers material for us fans! ^_^

A WORD ABOUT ACCURACY
    While attempts have been made to keep Slayers Reflect and Chaos (and ReBirth) accurate to the anime series and partly to the original novels themselves, slips occur. Any ones not deemed signifigant enough to merit going back and reediting a passage, or violations of canon that lend themselves to really swell plot points or humorous exchanges will be ignored. I may be a perfectionist sometimes, but I'm not really all that strict about obscure or controversial details.
    As a result, you might see some things which are rumored to be true being true, or some things which don't fit a translation of a japanese-only factbook. Slayers is a very involved, complex series, and is open to interpretation even within the material available; a lot of the translations that are available to intense web.researchers contradict themselves. So, I've decided to stop worrying about wether this or that is possible and just produce a work which is enjoyable to read.
    If this is a problem for you, and you feel that inability to adhere to the many japanese sources of Slayers perfectly disables your ability to enjoy the story, I have two responses. One, that this work could be viewed as an elseworlds of sorts where the rules of the Slayers universe are bent in the ways that you see, as are character background notes and so on which don't fit what you know. Two, if you still have a problem, bite me. Thank you and have a nice read. ^_^;

THE SLAYERS WORKING INTERPRETATION
These are the assumptions about Slayers history, physics and metaphysics I'll work from to keep this stuff consistent with
itself. Hopefully they are not far off the mark of the realities behind the series. Please don't e-mail me to 'correct' me on this, because there's simply too much information out there to verify any of it. The stories themselves may expand upon these points or expose unknown (fictional as directed by this series) truths behind them. Some spoilers ahoy!!!

The Lord of Nightmares created the Slayers world through chaos. She is the highest power, and seems to be the most generalized, ruling over the Dragon race which seek life and the Mazoku who seek destruction. (Some pages claim L-sama is named 'Lucifer', others don't, some say she's purely evil, others just chaos, others say she's ruler over all, others don't... here she'll play the primary 'god' role. According to the Slayers ML, just because she's named 'The Lord of Nightmares' doesn't mean she's evil. Just chaotic, like nature itself.)
UPDATED ^_^; ... There are three primary races, in terms of how much power they have and/or how much of the population they represent. Dragons, under the rule of Ceipheed, with a number of dragon kings below him.. Mazoku, under the rule of Shaburanigdo, who has a number of minor lords below him. One of them is Zellas-Metallum (the Beastmaster) who employs Xelloss as her priest. Each has a human knight as well, a defender of their interests; Luna Inverse for the dragons, and the other is unknown.. Finally we have the humans, who don't seem to have any leader. (The heirarchy is pretty well defined. Luna is confirmed to be Ceipheed's knight, although what that actually means is up for debate.)
Amelia and Naga are sisters, with Naga's original name being Gracia. They witnessed their mother's death, which is why Naga is afraid of blood. (Read this on more than one webpage, as both rumor and factbook entry, meaning even if it isn't true it's close enough to be an acceptably interesting angle to use. They've never actually met in Slayers ontinuity, except in the video games, which may or may not count considering they kill Xelloss in the SNES game.)
The three most widely known forms of magic are White, Black and Shamanism. White is mostly for defense, healing and sealing evil. Black is destructive spells and summonings and curses. Shamanism deals with elements and astral planes. (Basically acceptable as canon.)
White magic hasn't proven to be very powerful; you can annihilate a city with the Dragon Slave, which might not even be the most powerful black magic spell, but there isn't a white spell that is equivilant to it. It's useful, but not as strong, so it seems. (I've never seen White used for anything other than healing and so on in the series, and in summaries it's also rarely used; Shilfeil has to resort to using the Dragon Slave to be of use in battle against heavy enemies in Next.)
Mazoku grow stronger when they feed on negative emotional energy, from hate and rage or sadness and pain, and so on. They can cultivate humans psychologically and physically for these needs. (Clear from the definition of what a Mazoku is. Also, Hellmaster delights in capturing a whole town in the end of Next.)
You can't kill a Mazoku with black magic, but it is possible to injure them with it if they aren't strong compared to the spell you're using. Using a spell which draws power from the same Mazoku you're attacking will do nothing. (Really debatable point which I made up myself, afraid... the problem is that in the first Slayers series, Lina isn't able to amage a simple four armed Mazoku with black magic, nor is she able to dent Shaburanigdo with a Dragon Slave. Val Gaav is immune to Gaav Flare. The latter two are understandable since the power comes FROM their targets, but the generic four-armed Mazoku being immune to all as well? Contrary, Xelloss is a Mazoku himself, but is clearly able to be injured severely; he gets turned into hamburger a few times, even if he can heal back after. If it was impossible for humans to harm a Mazoku without a Sword of Light then they'd be able to easily slaughter the population, since the Dragons can't always be around to defend humans.)
The Giga Slave appears to combine a summoning call to the Lord of Nightmares and a Dragon Slave. This allows the merging of a black magic spell with a higher power than any Mazoku including Shaburanigdo, L-sama herself, overriding any protection from black magic a Mazoku may have and destroying them. The spell is almost like a 'wish' spell, in that you summon the Lord of Nightmares for a purpose and her will is what does the action. If cast improperly, the chaos of the Lord of Nightmares may get out of control and destroy the world. (L-sama in the end of Next is called on with the Giga Slave, and she explains to Hellmaster that he disobeyed her will, and would be destroyed as a result. Giga Slave isn't just a standard attack spell, it seems. Aqua also shows Lina a vision in a reflecting pool of how it could have gone wrong at one point in Next. The question is, which I'll try to answer in the story since I've never seen an answer, why call it the Giga Slave? A Dragon Slave is called that because it was once 'Dragon Slayer', slaying a dragon, but did this slay a Giga? All this and more, in these fine Slayers fanfics -- Yet Another Spin On An Already Confusing Universe(tm)!)