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My intution - which isn't based on much, admittedly - is that it's a bit like an electric current. Say that electric charges want to go from point A to point B because of some arcane principle called 'electric potential' or whatever. I connect a cable in a straight line from point A to B and electricty flows from A to B just as we think it should. But then I replace the cable with a much longer cable, that twists around in a big loop. Electricty still flows from the point of the cable that's connected to point A to the point that's connected to point B, but it's no longer taking the shortest path; at some points in its path it's moving away from point B! The crux of the matter is that electricty can move easily through the cable, but it has a real hard time moving through air. The shortest path in space from A to B is a straight line, but in fact moving along the cable is much faster even if it's a very long path, just like a road connecting two towns will often take a path that isn't a straight line but will still be preferable to a straight line because it's easier to travel on the road.

The reason this came to mind is that Dhar being attracted to the Vortex isn't enough to explain what's going on. The Dhar and winds are moving along the leylines, instead of just being sucked away to the Vortex in a straight line as if it were a big vacuum, which makes sense if leylines are a medium through which the winds and Dhar can move more easily, like a conductor with electric currents. So maybe the closed loop in the Kislev circuit isn't quite closed - the start and end point could both be in Erengrad for example, but one is somewhat closer to the Vortex than the other one, and the winds take the long way around because the Ice Witches twisted the leylines that way. Or maybe something completely different is going on, I don't know.
This was a while ago but to explain it in simpler terms, I'll break apart the logic:
-Each 'particle' of Dhar attracts and is attracted by all forms of magic.
-Each 'particle' of Wind magic attracts and is attracted by its own Wind.
-Each 'particle' of Wind magic repels and is repelled by non-Dhar Winds.
-Both attraction and repulsion is governed by field effect rules, the strength of the effect is proportional to the 'particles' proximity.
-Both attraction and repulsion effects scale with the intensity of the Wind present.

From these base principles, you can derive several rules of thumb, that are true, but not axiomatically true:
-Magic already in contact has the greatest attraction to each other. A continuous thread of Dhar linking two Waystones can be stretched and bent by the presence of magic, but is extremely unlikely to be broken. The same applies to the paired orbiting Winds.

-The presence of magic creates an 'ionization path', where things are slightly less real and thus more receptive to more magic passing through it. This is a similar basis to a lightning bolt - once a pathway exists, it is so enormously easier to travel down that path that the pathway would continue to exist until it has run out of energy to sustain the pathway.

-Magic naturally sorts itself at high concentrations.
--Dhar attracts Dhar, so ironically, it is extremely hard for a given 'particle' of Dhar to escape the warp rift it originates from. Most Dhar created in the Chaos Wastes are drawn right back in unless they embed into something too 'heavy'.
--The Winds attract themselves and repels all other Winds but Dhar, this means high concentrations of the Winds given sufficient space would rapidly sort themselves into eighths, producing small amounts of Dhar only where the streams are forced to touch.
--However, at such high concentrations, any produced Dhar would be drawn to the center of streams of pure Winds(which would be the natural behavior of anyhing attracted to magic), and as long as the Dhar is a small proportion of the stream, it can only attract more of the Wind itself. A channel of 99% Ulgu and 1% Dhar would only attract even more Ulgu, the other Winds cannot overcome the repulsion of the Ulgu, and the Dhar cannot escape the center of the stream until it loses coherence.


Assuming the base premises continue to be true(they might not, due to the weakening of reality at very high magic levels), then you have two solutions to transferring magic over long distances:
-At low quantities, you want to 'pulse' trios of magical particles in the general direction of the next Waystone. A Hysh|Dhar|Ulgu trio would attract all Hysh, Dhar and Ulgu in the area it passes through VERY slightly, but:
--It is moving too fast to actually combine with anything other than what it runs into directly.
--The Hysh and Ulgu will repel all Winds it runs into, preventing them from combining with the Dhar.
--The Hysh and Ulgu will absorb any Hysh and Ulgu it runs into, preventing them from joining the Dhar.
--If it runs into Dhar, the trio would collapse into a single blob of Dhar once they overcome the repulsion, which...is still moving towards the Waystone, and is attracted to the blob ahead and the blob behind it, staying on course. The bigger the trio, the more Dhar it takes to subvert.
--To break up the trio, you just need a large, relatively pure mass of the component Winds except Dhar, which would peel off the two orbiting pairs, and absorb the Dhar.

-At high quantities, you want thick streams of pure Winds, which will naturally gather up all Winds aligned with it, as well as any Dhar in the area, without forming more Dhar, because the Dhar can't actually get at any other Wind. You can peel off useful quantities of the pure Winds, unless you peeled enough off that you have a stream of mostly-dhar, which would be a very bad idea.

So, going further from this, it sounds like you generally speaking, do not want your transmissions to be traveling at ground level, where they are easily intercepted by aggregations. You want them traveling underground or high above ground, where they basically act as giant magnet-bullets, dragging all the Winds in the area they pass through towards the next Waystone.
As stone is an excellent insulator of magic, the attracted magic cannot actually combine into Dhar.

This I would note is very rickety theorycraft based only on the known to be flexible rules of how the Winds work.
Generally it was the agricultural revolution meaning you did not have to use your kids as farm labor combined in many places with the state forcing parents to send their kids to school. Libraries played a part no doubt but a small one
Not quite the state forcing, but rather the beneficial side effect.

Schooling freed up parents to work longer hours, as their children are gainfully occupied and require less supervision. That said children are also being prepared into more versatile workers is also a boon.
Oh fuck I've just spotted the pun.

"Weber's library is full of spiders"

"Weber says they're dwarves."
"She what? No, you misunderstood. She didn't say they were Dawi, she said they were The We."
"That's what I said!"

It'll be on the Weber network
"I knew she loved puns, but is this going too far?"
 
The way Boney puts it, I assume normal Powerstones just aren't significant enough to be worth the cost. Not enough oomph, as it were.
Also valid i suppose. It would serve as a lot cheaper proof of concept that its possible at all, and you wouldn't want Kragg to blow up because he went chiselling into something he should't've, so starting small would be better. But idk.
 
? No
We know exactly how powerstone works(Namely, they passively make reality more enabling of the effects of a spell, thus allowing you to do more with less, or they can be consumed to cast a single spell. In case of Orb of Sorcery, this would most likely lead to death, as the raw power contained within is too much for a mortal wizard to safely handle), and Orb of Sorcery is a powerstone. Unless you provide a quote, my original statement stands.
I think DragonParadox was referring to this question:

I would have imagined the key difference being whether or not the orb is eventually discharged under regular use.
To which Boney answered:
That's a separate matter, conservation of energy isn't necessarily a given when you're talking about magic.
 
Actually they could, Boney said we do not really know if they just soften reality or if they just give infinite energy, because this is magic and conservation of energy/mass is hardly a suggestion

I didn't say that, I think you're misremembering this exchange:

Actually how does this sound to everyone, a custom gyrobomber that has swapped out the bomb compartment for a battle altar thing with a Sphere powering it that is configured to carpet bomb an area with Pits of Shade.
It doesn't sound like the orbs can be used as ongoing power supplies. The options seem to be to use them all at once (which sounds Unwise) or to take advantage of their passive effects on nearby reality to amplify other spellcasting.
Outside of a few edge scenarios like having to operate in a complete magical vacuum, the difference between 'provides power' and 'makes the available ambient power go a longer way' is academic.
I would have imagined the key difference being whether or not the orb is eventually discharged under regular use.
That's a separate matter, conservation of energy isn't necessarily a given when you're talking about magic.

It is absolutely known for certain that power stones work by softening reality, it's just that the effect of making available power go further is functionally identical to providing additional power in a lot of scenarios.
 
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You want them traveling underground or high above ground, where they basically act as giant magnet-bullets, dragging all the Winds in the area they pass through towards the next Waystone.
As stone is an excellent insulator of magic, the attracted magic cannot actually combine into Dhar.
I don't think that leyline traveling Winds attract more Winds. That's what Waystones do, and that's why they are needed for network to function.
 
Hmm…
- The Weapon slots can each be filled with a matched pair of weapons, such as dual pistols or a sword and dagger. They must be intended to be used together.
I wonder, would an Orb be too big to be carved into a dagger? Or maybe a small hammer or something… :V

Nah, Mathilde would have to relearn how to fight with it, and that would probably cramp Branalhune's style—hah!—just a bit. Still a funny thought though. I wonder if Mandred would like a big hammer though.
 
To which Boney answered:
I mean thats an entirely separate matter. ITs basically asking if the regular use of powerstone erodes it in any fashion, to which there should already be an answer, because some of those used in larger scale enchantments are bound to be fairly old, and reduction of their size should therefore be either measurable, or so small as to be irrelevant entirely for scope of entire civilizations.

It doesn'T really change anything about the fact that the way Orb of Sorcery provides power is by making a magical effect of its nature easier to achieve instead of, actually, you know, providing power. That the reality being more permeable to make the boiling of soil available by heat runes seems to suggest that runes don't actually interact with magic that way. They can enable new exotic effects by second hand application, but they do not affect the actual working of the rune.


I suppose the easiest way to conclusively test this would be putting the orbs on a Gronti Duraz and trying to wake it up, but thats kind of a lethal way to test something.

As it stands, i would say that carving a rune on Powerstone/Orb of Sorcery is a more intermediate step to carving rune on magic itself, which is what makes Bok possible at all.
 
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I don't think that's how magic particles work. Otherwise, power stones, like Dhar, would be able to grow from ambient magic or be made infinitely big at creation, rather than limited by the size of that particular strand of Wind.
You need more than just lots of magic compressed to make a powerstone. Its got to be all of a single flow of magic.
 
You need more than just lots of magic compressed to make a powerstone. Its got to be all of a single flow of magic.
But even still, at the macro level, different strands of the same Wind don't actually attract each other. They're just attracted to the same material thing (something that resonates with their concepts) and don't repel each other, so they pool together.

Think about how a flower patch would have multiple insects attracted to it, but none of those insects attract each other, they're just fine with coexisting.
 
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Although, one last tired thought before I sleep for people to probably tear apart. Orbs in enchantment make reality weaker so big effects can be achieved with less magic. That… sounds a lot like how our current staff makes fog based spells count as one category lower? Just… more, because Orb of Sorcery.

I'm not even saying make a staff at the moment, just curious if I've got the comparison right in how that works or if the in-universe mechanics of the staff are different. I can't remember.
 
But even still, at the macro level, different strands of the same Wind don't actually attract each other. They're just attracted to the same material thing (something that resonates with their concepts) and don't repel each other, so they pool together.

Think about how a flower patch would have multiple insects attracted to it, but none of those insects attract each other, they're just fine with coexisting.
On the other hand the Windfall we observed requires a Wind to either attract itself or the streams to each have a Dhar core.

Net result is the same, but the Dhar goes from convenient simplifying element to absolutely essential.
 
Although, one last tired thought before I sleep for people to probably tear apart. Orbs in enchantment make reality weaker so big effects can be achieved with less magic. That… sounds a lot like how our current staff makes fog based spells count as one category lower? Just… more, because Orb of Sorcery.

I'm not even saying make a staff at the moment, just curious if I've got the comparison right in how that works or if the in-universe mechanics of the staff are different. I can't remember.
Staffs actively provide more power for casting iirc, so while their effect is similar, they do not achieve it the same way.
 
Although, one last tired thought before I sleep for people to probably tear apart. Orbs in enchantment make reality weaker so big effects can be achieved with less magic. That… sounds a lot like how our current staff makes fog based spells count as one category lower? Just… more, because Orb of Sorcery.

I'm not even saying make a staff at the moment, just curious if I've got the comparison right in how that works or if the in-universe mechanics of the staff are different. I can't remember.
If I understand correctly the staff inherently leaks Ulgu infused mist, which Mathilde can use to cast fog spells, meaning they requrie less energy, hence being safer. So not quite the same mechanism. If this is correct, one could do the same thing with any Ulgu infused mist, it's just that Mathilde's staff constantly generates it.

Staffs actively provide more power for casting iirc, so while their effect is similar, they do not achieve it the same way.
The Staff of Mistery does both, giving +1 Magic and making fog based spells in particular easier.
 
Actually wait a second...

The reason wizards cannot wear armor is that the metal gets in the way of casting, but that would not be the case for armor that is wrought of the raw substance of their Wind. I mean it is a pretty long way from 'the size of a human head' to 'plate armor' but what if we made it into scales for scalemail? I think the question of 'just how hard is a powerstone' got a lot more interesting. We could replace our robes with a suit of raw Ulgu carved with runes of power by the dwarfs.

*insert evil laughter* :V
 
Staffs actively provide more power for casting iirc, so while their effect is similar, they do not achieve it the same way.
That's their general use, yeah, the +1 magic thing. I just meant the specific effect ours has on fog-based magic.
If I understand correctly the staff inherently leaks Ulgu infused mist, which Mathilde can use to cast fog spells, meaning they requrie less energy, hence being safer. So not quite the same mechanism. If this is correct, one could do the same thing with any Ulgu infused mist, it's just that Mathilde's staff constantly generates it.
Mm. Still, basic effect of less personal magic cost=safer spell? Just different sides of the equation. Extra energy on one side, or a lowered cost on the other?
 
It would probably be possible to staffturn very tall powerstone, but the consumption would be ruinous and the effect would be a staff that we aren't sure now would be better and that would have high risk of killing Mathilde in case someone happens to hit it too hard in combat, which, not ideal lemme tell you.

We are already using one thing that could make us explode if we are particularily unlucky, lets not unnecessarily add on more.
 
Actually wait a second...

The reason wizards cannot wear armor is that the metal gets in the way of casting, but that would not be the case for armor that is wrought of the raw substance of their Wind. I mean it is a pretty long way from 'the size of a human head' to 'plate armor' but what if we made it into scales for scalemail? I think the question of 'just how hard is a powerstone' got a lot more interesting. We could replace our robes with a suit of raw Ulgu carved with runes of power by the dwarfs.

*insert evil laughter* :V
Looks at Boney post saying powerstones explode when broken

Well, as long as they're not too close to the rest of the troops I suppose.

Mm. Still, basic effect of less personal magic cost=safer spell? Just different sides of the equation. Extra energy on one side, or a lowered cost on the other?
Generally speaking yes. Although the thinner nature of reality might make miscasts more dangerous when they do happen, as there's already less reality for a miscast to 'push' against.
 
Actually wait a second...

The reason wizards cannot wear armor is that the metal gets in the way of casting, but that would not be the case for armor that is wrought of the raw substance of their Wind. I mean it is a pretty long way from 'the size of a human head' to 'plate armor' but what if we made it into scales for scalemail? I think the question of 'just how hard is a powerstone' got a lot more interesting. We could replace our robes with a suit of raw Ulgu carved with runes of power by the dwarfs.

*insert evil laughter* :V
This sounds like a terrible idea, for so many reasons.

Lets do it!
 
[X] Locals

I just do not quite understand the argument for spiders, ngl. Like, instant communication between librarians is nice I guess, but
a) 3D movement is easily achievable using a ladder
b) increasing numbers is easily achievable by recruiting more people
c) being scary as a librarian is easily achievable by calling for a nearest Dwarf warrior or someshit

Meanwhile, better integration into the locale just means that...yeah, it is not another Weird Wizard Tower, it is a full-fledged part of the Karak. As it should be.
 
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