Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
[X] Basic Alchemy
[X] Remedial Spellcraft
Okay, right, well, convinced enough.
Vorstallen Magic Preparatory - The Third-Best School for Young Mages in the Nation! Enrol Today!
- Thread starter occipitallobe
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
[X] Remedial Spellcraft
Okay, right, well, convinced enough.
- Location
- Straya
Yes, but this is a lot rarer than you might think. Really subtle effects might work, but good practice involves casting detect magic (which is a fairly simple spell) every hour or so as standard, and anyone with a bit of cash will have a runed amulet, bracelet, or brooch that can be charged up and left to detect magic being cast around you for hours at a time. Of course, such an artifact only tells you if someone is casting, whereas casting the spell yourself gives you more info, so you might be able to get away with an illusion in a magic-heavy environment.
Mental magic in general is tweaking things like the senses, memories, feelings, and so on. You can gain limited write-access to minds, but not read-access. So if you're replacing someone's memories, you'd better have learned what actually happened in extreme detail first (for this reason most memory-replacement spells are temporary and have to be maintained, as the damage that can be done if you just start writing without having some idea of what to look for can be pretty bad). Most places won't teach you memory editing as it's seen as pretty horrifying, but if you're good enough you can hit your opponents with a wave of despair (or euphoria) powerful enough to prevent them from wanting to cancel the spell.
Of course, if you miss just one of your opponents they can break your mental construct pretty easily, and they're very complex spells to cast, that can't be precast because they require on-the-fly editing based on the number of enemies, the sort of emotion you're trying to evoke, and your personal evaluation of their current emotional state (if you think they're angry, cast a despair spell, but they were actually joyful, you're liable to do nothing). You need to be really good at casting spells to set one up in combat.
However, it is all very light on magic power.
In theory (as alchemical teachers will tell you), alchemy can do anything. This is generally true for all magic, and a Grand Unifying Theory of Alchemy, Runes, Sigils and Spirits is something you'd be known for eternally if you could create one. As a rule, Runes are long-lasting, repeatable spells, Sigils are your standard spells, Spirits can do weird stuff but nobody really knows how they do it, and Alchemy transfers things - you generally need a base where the quality comes from, a magical substance to empower the transfer, a set of substances that synergise with the original substance to extract the desired quality (you could extract a cat's reflexes from a cat hair, a cat's sleepiness, or even a cat's proclivity to grow fur if you want to go full Harry Potter and prank someone), and a substance from the desired drinker (though this generally just means a human hair or nail clipping, most humans are similar enough that they can use potions made for any human, though if you use someone's hair or nail in particular you'll get a better result).]
Making a potion's effects permanent is impossible, though if you found a powerful enough source of magic you could make potions that lasted for two or three hundred years, which would have a similar effect.
edit: Potions that have effects on human bodies can be permanent in a sense. Take a potion that accelerated healing. You'd lose the healing factor after awhile, but you wouldn't get hurt again. Likewise, if you discovered a potion that reversed aging, you'd stop reverse aging after a bit, but you wouldn't re-age once the potion wore off. A cat fur potion, for instance, would make the fur grow on the body, but then the body would reject all the fur and it'd fall out shortly afterwards, returning to normal once the potion wore off.
In practice, alchemy is extremely difficult, and about one-quarter to one-third of all potions you make will fail through no fault of your own - they just required specific conditions, and since modern equipment has frustratingly large margins of error in terms of measurement for heat, volume, etc, you'll have fallen prey to society's current level of technological advancement. A Extract of Youth is potentially possible, but nobody has ever succeeded at making one. You'll be able to do most things, but inventing a new potion might take three or four months of Actions outside class.
Alchemy has the same limitations as most spellcasting (mages are greedy and secretive about knowledge, and even at a magic school they'll disgorge some of that hoarded knowledge, but usually only the mediocre stuff unless you can convince them you're trustworthy or it'll be worth their while), and generally speaking someone who gets really good at standard magic will have a lot more options open to them than your standard Alchemist in most circumstances.
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- Location
- NZ
[X] Theory of Souls and Spirits
[X] Remedial Spellcraft
[X] Remedial Spellcraft
- Location
- Straya
Spellcraft is winning at 9, Souls and Spirits coming second at 6, Alchemy at 5, and Illusions at 4. Runecraft and Continental History are both sitting at 1.
So I thought I might offer some arguments against Spellcraft, and some for Runecraft and Continental History.
Firstly, as a weak caster, good Spellcraft isn't as important as you might think. Spellcraft is crucial in casting spells quickly and efficiently, but you don't have the Magic Pool to cast a lot of spells in a day. Even if it takes you twice as long to cast a spell, you're not going to be spending hours casting spells like a high Channeling character might. Secondly, you're already kind of touchy about the whole Flit thing. Giving people more of a reason to look down on you might not help your self-esteem.
Runecraft, on the other hand, is really advantageous as long as you can get someone else to throw the magic in. Unlike a spell sigil (which activates instantly and generally has a quick, temporary effect) which does something once, you can realistically forge a rune, get a friend to charge it, and wear it for the next day (or week, depending on how powerful the runic effect is). You can't carry a buddy around to cast spells for you, but you can cast runes well in advance of when they're actually needed, meaning providing the power isn't such an issue. I mean, you still need someone to do it, but it's perfectly plausible to forge runes and have others charge them.
Continental History seems weak because it's not a magical elective, but keep in mind that:
(1) All teachers are mages
(2) Continental History is likely taught by a mage who really likes it.
So doing well in that class is much easier (you don't need any magic to excel!), and all of the skills are somewhat Diplomacy-applicable. Given our atrocious diplomatic results thus far (the only Diplomacy roll we passed we passed by one), this isn't a bad thing. As an character from the Empire it's easier to offend people (after all, the Empire ruled everyone else only a few centuries ago), and with our poor Cha on top of that we're much less likely to make friends than we are to make enemies.
So I thought I might offer some arguments against Spellcraft, and some for Runecraft and Continental History.
Firstly, as a weak caster, good Spellcraft isn't as important as you might think. Spellcraft is crucial in casting spells quickly and efficiently, but you don't have the Magic Pool to cast a lot of spells in a day. Even if it takes you twice as long to cast a spell, you're not going to be spending hours casting spells like a high Channeling character might. Secondly, you're already kind of touchy about the whole Flit thing. Giving people more of a reason to look down on you might not help your self-esteem.
Runecraft, on the other hand, is really advantageous as long as you can get someone else to throw the magic in. Unlike a spell sigil (which activates instantly and generally has a quick, temporary effect) which does something once, you can realistically forge a rune, get a friend to charge it, and wear it for the next day (or week, depending on how powerful the runic effect is). You can't carry a buddy around to cast spells for you, but you can cast runes well in advance of when they're actually needed, meaning providing the power isn't such an issue. I mean, you still need someone to do it, but it's perfectly plausible to forge runes and have others charge them.
Continental History seems weak because it's not a magical elective, but keep in mind that:
(1) All teachers are mages
(2) Continental History is likely taught by a mage who really likes it.
So doing well in that class is much easier (you don't need any magic to excel!), and all of the skills are somewhat Diplomacy-applicable. Given our atrocious diplomatic results thus far (the only Diplomacy roll we passed we passed by one), this isn't a bad thing. As an character from the Empire it's easier to offend people (after all, the Empire ruled everyone else only a few centuries ago), and with our poor Cha on top of that we're much less likely to make friends than we are to make enemies.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
[X] Continental History
[X] Basic Alchemy
Thinking about it, I agree that we really need connections to end our curse before we can really get started. Abilities to shore up those weaknesses would definitely help. Accelerated progression due to motivated teachers certainly doesn't hurt.
[X] Basic Alchemy
Thinking about it, I agree that we really need connections to end our curse before we can really get started. Abilities to shore up those weaknesses would definitely help. Accelerated progression due to motivated teachers certainly doesn't hurt.
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[X] Continental History
[X] Basic Alchemy
[X] Basic Alchemy
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
[X] Basic Alchemy
[X] Continental History
Just read the part about how alchemy gives us alcohol and the non-jittery alternative to coffee. Study bonus due to needing less sleep + money as a drug dealer is a-go.
Continental History for social bonuses but want us to get better at magic and being useful first.
Edited vote.
[X] Continental History
Just read the part about how alchemy gives us alcohol and the non-jittery alternative to coffee. Study bonus due to needing less sleep + money as a drug dealer is a-go.
Continental History for social bonuses but want us to get better at magic and being useful first.
Edited vote.
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WanderingEye
smol skeleton
Right changing my vote then
[X] Continental History
[X] Basic Alchemy
Seriously though studying Theory of Souls and Spirits might give us benefit in the end but it really doesn't give us anything right now, or at least anything that we can use.
[X] Continental History
[X] Basic Alchemy
Seriously though studying Theory of Souls and Spirits might give us benefit in the end but it really doesn't give us anything right now, or at least anything that we can use.
- Location
- Straya
A coin (well, a silver numismata, though trying to make questers figure out how much they have in a system where there are nine different national coinages, each sharing only the gold solidus and having different silver weights and bronze weights for their lesser currencies seemed like a bad idea) is roughly equivalent to $100 in purchasing power. Yes, Madavian's dad gave him $50,000 for the year on top of his accommodations.
On a vote note, things are very close.
Basic Alchemy - 7
Continental History - 7
Remedial Spellcraft - 7
Theory of Souls and Spirits - 6
Theory of Illusions - 2
Theory of Runes - 1
Can I just say holy shit, Continental History. The last vote count had it at 1, with Illusions bringing up the rear. Illusions has collapsed, and Continental History has taken equal first.
The interesting thing is at this point it's pretty much divided into two plans. Every single voter who has voted for Alchemy has also voted for Continental History.
Every single voter who has voted for Remedial Spellcraft has voted for either Souls and Spirits, Illusions, or Runes, and the same is true for those three.
Essentially it's divided between the Make Money, Make Friends plan, which is centred around improving diplomacy-adjacent skills with Continental History and taking Basic Alchemy to cover the spells and whatnot. Summed by up @PotentialPlateau as "Alchemy cause potions have lots of utility for a low channeling cost; Continental History to cure our foot-in-mouth disease and help us make friends".
Conversely, the other plan might be described as Fuck Everyone, Get Power, aptly summed up by @manatee_supreme - "They might look down on us for this but we will show them.".
To be honest, both plans are probably better than the alternate pairing (Alchemy + Spirits, Spellcraft + History). The only thing Spellcraft synergises with is Souls and Spirits or Illusions, whereas Alchemy has zero synergy with other areas of magic but great synergy with friends and money. Spirits + History is pretty viable (a lot of the history of the continent has to do with spirit users, so while they might not be a great pairing, you can get some decent synergy there).
For anyone who's voted for Illusions and Runes, if you prefer any of the other options, it might be time to consider switching votes.
I was going to consider updating at this point, but the vote is super close, so I'll leave it for the next twelve hours. If there's a tie, I'll decide based on which side has the more convincing arguments.
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WanderingEye
smol skeleton
Vote for Alchemy! Vote for being rich and acquiring magic of throwing your money to solve your problems away!
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
Do it anyways and force us to ganbatte our way through it.
If I wasn't set on improving our $ and Cha first, this quote would make me change sides.
@occipitallobe We can go and do Spirits and Remedial Spellcraft and Runic Theory next turn, yes??
Edit:
We don't live in a culture where everyone wants to kill *us.* Just in a culture where war occurs. Although, obviously, improving our spellcraft is of value.
There's two other ways to get our full power back: breaking the contract through superior knowledge; having him assassinated through superior friends.
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- Location
- Sweden
Here is my argument for spellcraft we live in a culture where everyone wants to kill us, and the only way for us to get our full power back is to kill of that bastard we sold them too so we must get good at combat. Also I dont trus mercenarys to take care of our safety so we should get good at protecting ourself.
- Location
- Sweden
Thats not true its just that we can cast as long as they, we can learn runes and probably some rare spells which can help with that.
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
aka in a straight fight we'd still suck.
Runes and alchemy would both help, though.
- Location
- Sweden
Yes but standard spells will still help, also I am sure that there are some spells that we can learn that will help with that.
Also how will Alchemy help us in combat?
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
How will we learn rare spells if no one likes us? How will standard spells help if our opponent knows all the spells we know and can cast them for a longer period of time?
Regeneration potions, acid flasks, clouds of blinding, poison our enemy beforehand, etc. It's as likely to be useful as Runes would be.
Um, except we don't? We don't even live in a culture where everyone dislikes us, as our Vorstallen roommate evidences, the Voorstallens that make up the majority of the local population don't much give a flip as to our backgound. It's just the Six-Fox pact people who are bound to dislike us somewhat, and even in that case their reactions will have a lot more to do with our behavior than our origin. We're literally an innocent schoolboy, not the heir of anyone or anything. Vorstal itself is no more dangerous than Old London or any other cosmopolitan trade city.
Granted, if we're stupid enough to spread the idea that killing us will depower a lich to a decent degree to the wrong people, things could get more dangerous. But that's why I don't think getting our power back is going to be as simple as some would like.
As for us personally killing the lich who bargained for our power... Yeah, no, that's not going to happen, I think the QM said as much.
Our best bet is to break the spell- and the thing is, unless we've suddenly become an IC dickhead we're going to want to arrange protection for our family before breaking the spell anyway, which will take some connections or some money. The alternative, arranging for the lich in question to be killed, doesn't require we arrange additional protection for our family but DOES require even more connections or money.
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- Location
- Sweden
Back home is a culture where everyone wants to kill us it seems.
But most of those attacks dont sound like they will so much damage. I would think that properly powerd up runic attacks would be super powerful.
