How often do magical objects gain sentience (ie Tully)?
It’s actually pretty rare. So much so, it didn’t even happen to Tully. What is more common is for magically constructed intelligence to contain vagueness in the spell that leaves room for magic to solve the problem of making a thing that does x, y and z, and that leaves open the possibility that magic’s solution will be to make it sapient enough to understand what it’s being asked to do and how to do it and when. It’s a bug/feature.
When Tully was created, the vagueness was in place on purpose and the results expected and accounted for. His growing into sentience was really more a matter of growing beyond constraints that concealed what was already there.
Hello! I love the world you've created and the various characters. Tully intrigues me, and after searching I couldn't find much about his back story. Could you tell me a little about him? Thank you!
Well he was once a magic washcloth. One of a handful made by an ex-magic weaver to make a bit of side money. Tully did as he was created to do and washed dishes and counter tops. When he started getting thin and ragged, the family that bought him - being unaware this was basically a small living thing - handed the cloth over to their kid who cut him up repeatedly for the hell of it. The repeated damage eventually caused the spell in his body to lose information and reform somewhat differently, which freed him to speak and caused his body to begin (slowly) growing until he was the size he is now.
The child’s aunt, Martha Rosenthal, witnessed this finally and took Tully home with her, patched him up and gave him his name.
