- Location
- Scotland
[X] Mirage Map
[x] King Belegar Ironhammer
[x] Head Ranger Ulthar Alriksson
[x] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
[x] King Belegar Ironhammer
[x] Head Ranger Ulthar Alriksson
[x] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Trapped in the Warp
[x] King Belegar Ironhammer
[x] Head Ranger Ulthar Alriksson
[x] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
[x] Wolf
[x] Head Ranger Ulthar Alriksson
[x] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
[x] Wolf
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
I'm not up on Warhammer magic stuff, but is there a mid tier healing spell that can be cast on others? I'm thinking that imbuing one into an elector count's bodyguard or two might be very worthwhile in case shit happens. Obviously this is outside of the scope of the quest to go into what the matrix can be used for, but imbuement of spells is actually pretty damm awesome imo.
Edit: elector county? Fuck you, autocorrupt. :/
Edit: elector county? Fuck you, autocorrupt. :/
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- Location
- Australia
There are, but shadow magic doesn't have any.
Jade Wizards have decided to learn the matrix and are no doubt using it for this very purpose. Having a wizard on call is an expensive and difficult thing, getting an hour of a wizard's time to install a matrix is much more viable.
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So poking at the Ulgu spell list and working out how they might interact with Ulgu's aspects.
Skipping the Lesser and Petty stuff since they're universal
Relatively Simple:
-Bewilder
--Targets: Non-mindless creatures
--Focus: Mind
--Effect: Conceals or dissociates the target's reasoning from their actions, causing random activity.
--Assessment: Really simple because its using Ulgu to perform an Ulgu effect on an Ulgu governed target. Odds are good that you could achieve a decent success rate outright blundering into this spell, because if you chuck a blob of Ulgu at a person its PROBABLY going to produce something similar.
-Doppleganger
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception
--Effect: Shifts a humanoid creature's appearance along the humanoid axis(I wonder if an non-humanoid was capable of learning the spell it might be limited to their body configuration?), including equipment.
--Assessment: This spell looks like its more complex than most of the other Relatively Simple spells. Likely the mitigating factor is that the caster is anchoring the effect on themselves exclusively, cutting the complexity by altering something they are extremely intimately familiar with, themselves. One of the numerous 'morphic field' shift spells, to use Discworld terminology.
-Eye of the Beholder
--Targets: Object
--Focus: Perception
--Effect: Shifts ONE mental conceptual element of an object's appearance, namely its subjective value. Its unclear if this shifts what it feels like, what its shaped like, if it just changes the looks or if it just changes what people think about it though. @BoneyM could this be clarified?
--Assessment: Now this is more along the lines of what a Relatively Simple disguise spell should look like. Its interesting that it affects value, which is subjective, and only actually exists in minds, but it works on an object. Its like doing a man-in-the-middle injection between where a person seeing a copper coin and recognizes it as Coin->Valuable->Must be Gold coin.
-Mindhole
--Targets: Person
--Focus: Mind
--Effect: Rips out all memories associated with the caster, daisy-chained until anything they know ABOUT the caster is gone. If someone knew Mathilde was a stockholder of a company, they'd forget everything they knew about the company too, but if they didn't they'd still remember the company.
--Assessment: Similar to Doppleganger, the effect seems too complex at first glance to be Relatively Simple...except we know one of the Arcane Marks does similar things to this, so Ulgu already likes being forgotten, and extends that preference to someone 'in tune' with Ulgu. A major mitigating factor is that it uses the memory of the caster as a sympathetic connection, its more of pulling out a plant by the roots. Making people forget about specific things is much harder.
-Mutable Visage
--Targets: Person
--Focus: Perception
--Effect: Pretty much exactly Eye of the Beholder, as applied to a person. Appearance being exactly as subjective as value isn't it?
--Assessment: Its very interesting that Ulgu, even at a low level, has a lot of spells intervening in MENTAL(rather than the nasuverse favored metaphysical) concepts. Its very good at playing with what people think are important.
-Shadowcloak
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Shadow, Concealment
--Effect: Effectively active camouflage, you sort of blend into the surroundings as I understand it.
--Assessement: Another thing Ulgu naturally likes to do, not be seen. It just smears your appearance with the scenery a bit.
-Shadowsteed
--Targets: A shadow
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: It...pulls the idea of a horse out of shadows and makes it real enough to ride for a while. It pretty much behaves like a horse, except being an imperfect emulation of a horse it's actually better by dint of not actually being solid enough to trip or get tired.
--Assessment: This is pretty much the first "make a shadow pretend to be something real" spell. Its surprisingly low level too, suggesting that Ulgu is pretty happy with 'summoning' solid shadow effects. And I'm PRETTY sure summoning animals is Ghur normally.
-Take No Heed
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Mind, Perception, Concealment
--Effect: Reinforces natural tendencies to well...take no heed. Pretty limited, since it just stops people from asking questions if you aren't doing anything weird.
--Assessment: Pretty much textbook Ulgu for dummies. Makes people not think about what they are looking at. Like Mindhole, but tugging at everyone's attention directed to you rather than ripping it out wholesale running along the sympathetic link of awareness of you.
Moderately Complicated:
-Burning Shadows
--Targets: Shadow
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Makes a shadow burn like the light that cast it.
--Assessment: One of the first "Ulgu pretends to be other Wind" effects out there. In this case, its cosplaying Aqshy using a fire source, with the catch being that its pretty awkward as an attack spell due to the many circumstantial requirements, and it doesn't burn nearly as much as sizzle a bit on anything but exposed meat. So it imitates the surface of Aqshy.
-Cloak Activity
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Concealment
--Effect: Action looks like another action.
--Assessment: Ultimately its extending from the same thing as Doppleganger(swapping out the appearance change for changing what you appear to be doing) and basically designed for synergy with Take No Heed, since it covers SPECIFICALLY the catch for being noticed while under that.
-Mockery of Death
--Targets: Person
--Focus: Perception
--Effect: Make a person appear to be dead, disabling them in the process.
--Assessment: Another "Ulgu pretends to be other Wind" effect. In this case, cosplaying Shyish means they seem dead but not actually being dead. Appearance, not the meat of the matter.
-Pall of Darkness
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Shadow, Concealment
--Effect: Makes darkness(which is an important distinction, since most Ulgu things use SHADOW) in the area.
--Assessment: Not very sure how this works but I suppose if you saturate an area with enough shadows 'moved in' it becomes pretty impenetrably dark
-Shadow of Death
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Mind
--Effect: Generates a terror aura
--Assessment: I'm not sure if this is emulating Shyish type terror, directly inducing fear with Ulgu's Mind effects, or combining both. Anyone knows this better enough to tell? Or how its different from Dead Aspect?
-Shroud of Invisibility
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Concealment
--Effect: Be invisible.
--Assessment: Pretty straightforward Ulgu effect, hide all visual signs of your position. Might have some synergy with Take No Heed to mask the various noises of your movement? Or would a noise without a visible source break it by being inherently attention worthy?
-Throttling
--Targets: Something with a chokable neck
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Makes shadow tentacles move to strangle a target.
--Assessment: Yet another borderline effect. It could be making shadows behave like snakes(Shadow Ghur), it could be making shadows behave like vines(Shadow Ghyran). Either way, it makes shadows behave like what they look like, and makes them semi-solid in the process.
Fiendishly Complex:
-Dread Aspect
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Mind
--Effect: Generates a terror aura
--Assessment: I'm not sure if this is emulating Shyish type terror, directly inducing fear with Ulgu's Mind effects, or combining both. Anyone knows this better enough to tell? See Shadow of Death.
-Illusion
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Perception, Mind, Boundaries
--Effect: Generates a full spectrum illusion, excluding only tactile senses.
--Assessment: My read on this, given the intense concentration requirement, is that it directly projects a mental image into a real image. Basically just copy-pastes from the caster's mind, at the expense that the caster has to maintain concentration on the whole image.
-Shadow Knives
--Targets: Shadow
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Creates noclip knives of shadow.
--Assessement: This is kind of like a bunch of the Chamon spells isn't it? Except shorter range, and since the knives aren't all the way real, they can pass through stuff. Again, appearance over reality.
-Substance of Shadow
--Targets: Person or Object
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Turns the target insubstantial until light hits them.
--Assessment: We got a lot of "Make shadows real" stuff, but this is the first which makes a real thing sort of unreal, until they are illuminated.
-Universal Confusion
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Mind
--Effect: Mass Bewilder
--Assessment: Something I JUST noticed at this point...Ulgu is actually better at tracing along abstract connections, especially mental concepts, than along real connections like a physical space. When its affecting an area it almost always affects something OF Ulgu which happens to occupy an area or which creates something of Ulgu which occupies a certain volume. Almost like the Wind doesn't recognize distances and conventional geometry that well. On the other hand it can chain-contagion along things like "people looking at me" or "that Skaven over there" without needing more details. Simply extending one of its simplest spells to cover a radius instead makes it the hardest spell short of Battle Magic!
Battle Magic:
-Smoke and Mirrors
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Boundaries
--Effect: Other spells generate a teleport each.
--Assessment: Extending from the remark in Universal Confusion...Ulgu gives up and tells conventional geometry to fuck off. Not the safest thing for the wizard, but it seems to just fuzz out your current location to be another location.
-Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma
--Targets: Fog
--Focus: ???
--Effect: ???
--Assessment: I don't actually know what this spell does other than it makes a debuffing fog.
-Steed of Shadows
--Targets: Shadow
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Like Shadowsteed, but much more badass
--Assessment: Its basically summoning a Pegasus/Wyvern like Ghur spells do, but again, since its actually a shadow not an animal its got more perks to it, in exchange for being harder to cast than the equialent.
-The Enfeebling Foe
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Mind(?)
--Effect: Physical(?) debuff to group of enemies
--Assessment: Its odd, you don't SEE any physical debuffs in Ulgu until Battlemagic, but its not much different from The Withering. How does it work? Mind trick to feel tired and weak?
-The Withering
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Mind(?)
--Effect: Morale debuff to group of enemies
--Assessment: This one is easier to figure out. Direct hit to psychology using the Wind of Mindfuck.
-The Penumbral Pendulum
--Targets: Shadow(?)
--Focus: Shadow(?), Boundaries
--Effect: Giant conjured pendulum of razor sharpness just goes snicker-snack like a Looney Tunes prop.
--Assessment: This REALLY sounds like Ulgu pretending to Chamon again, this time exploitingthe fact that Ulgu doesn't need to care if the pendulum has an anchor. Just let it rip, noclip through the inconvenient stuff and shred the rest like it doesn't care about momentum.
-Pit of Shades
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Boundaries
--Effect: Banishes everyone in the area to the Shadow Realm.
--Assessment: This looks like it literally opens a physical passage to their fears and nightmares. Either that or it physically hurls them into the Warp.
-Okkam's Mindrazor
--Targets: Allied group
--Focus: Mind, Boundaries
--Effect: Creates weapons literally out of people's willpower, which then can stab enemies in the willpower.
--Assessment: Relatively straightforward one. Turns an intangible attribute tangible so that it can stab an intangible attribute physically.
Overall conclusions:
-Ulgu is relatively bad at understanding physical distances, but is abnormally good at bridging mental and informational distances.
-Ulgu pretending to be another wind works in 2.5 ways:
--Shadow and Boundaries almost exclusively applies that to physical(or at least, visible) manifestations, by turning the shadow of those things into demi-real things. Such things are usually at an orthrogonal difficulty to doing it with the 'real' Wind, Ulgu isn't at any point actually using those Winds, its taking shadows with attributes of those Winds and making them realer. This is relatiely easy for Ulgu.
--Mind takes the mental manifestations of those winds and does it using Ulgu's direct manipulation of mental concepts. Ulgu governs thought and memory, even if Logic, Belief, Passion and Instinct belongs to other winds, they are ALSO thoughts.
--Mind + Boundaries is the hardest one. Taking mental concepts and making them real is HARD, but there are very few limits beyond the inherent risks in relying on the inherently confusing, fuzzy mind. But thats why Ulgu is fuzzy and confusing isn't it?
-Mist effects are underrepresented. Theres a lot of concept space to work in there.
-Mind effects are underrepresented. Theres a lot of concept space to work in there...but rather sparse ways to experiment ethically AND safely in developing this.
-Theres a bunch of shapeshifting potential stuff if you work your way up. Ways to change how you look, ways to make appearance and information into reality, but it'd be more like wearing a mist-evangelion than actually shifting, unless you want to cast yourself into the Warp or a pocket dimension.
More philosophically, Ulgu seems to be effectively focused on edge cases, the differences between ink on paper and words, and how you can shift your perspective to manipulate each so as to affect the other side.
E: Man, where did the day go.
Skipping the Lesser and Petty stuff since they're universal
Relatively Simple:
-Bewilder
--Targets: Non-mindless creatures
--Focus: Mind
--Effect: Conceals or dissociates the target's reasoning from their actions, causing random activity.
--Assessment: Really simple because its using Ulgu to perform an Ulgu effect on an Ulgu governed target. Odds are good that you could achieve a decent success rate outright blundering into this spell, because if you chuck a blob of Ulgu at a person its PROBABLY going to produce something similar.
-Doppleganger
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception
--Effect: Shifts a humanoid creature's appearance along the humanoid axis(I wonder if an non-humanoid was capable of learning the spell it might be limited to their body configuration?), including equipment.
--Assessment: This spell looks like its more complex than most of the other Relatively Simple spells. Likely the mitigating factor is that the caster is anchoring the effect on themselves exclusively, cutting the complexity by altering something they are extremely intimately familiar with, themselves. One of the numerous 'morphic field' shift spells, to use Discworld terminology.
-Eye of the Beholder
--Targets: Object
--Focus: Perception
--Effect: Shifts ONE mental conceptual element of an object's appearance, namely its subjective value. Its unclear if this shifts what it feels like, what its shaped like, if it just changes the looks or if it just changes what people think about it though. @BoneyM could this be clarified?
--Assessment: Now this is more along the lines of what a Relatively Simple disguise spell should look like. Its interesting that it affects value, which is subjective, and only actually exists in minds, but it works on an object. Its like doing a man-in-the-middle injection between where a person seeing a copper coin and recognizes it as Coin->Valuable->Must be Gold coin.
-Mindhole
--Targets: Person
--Focus: Mind
--Effect: Rips out all memories associated with the caster, daisy-chained until anything they know ABOUT the caster is gone. If someone knew Mathilde was a stockholder of a company, they'd forget everything they knew about the company too, but if they didn't they'd still remember the company.
--Assessment: Similar to Doppleganger, the effect seems too complex at first glance to be Relatively Simple...except we know one of the Arcane Marks does similar things to this, so Ulgu already likes being forgotten, and extends that preference to someone 'in tune' with Ulgu. A major mitigating factor is that it uses the memory of the caster as a sympathetic connection, its more of pulling out a plant by the roots. Making people forget about specific things is much harder.
-Mutable Visage
--Targets: Person
--Focus: Perception
--Effect: Pretty much exactly Eye of the Beholder, as applied to a person. Appearance being exactly as subjective as value isn't it?
--Assessment: Its very interesting that Ulgu, even at a low level, has a lot of spells intervening in MENTAL(rather than the nasuverse favored metaphysical) concepts. Its very good at playing with what people think are important.
-Shadowcloak
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Shadow, Concealment
--Effect: Effectively active camouflage, you sort of blend into the surroundings as I understand it.
--Assessement: Another thing Ulgu naturally likes to do, not be seen. It just smears your appearance with the scenery a bit.
-Shadowsteed
--Targets: A shadow
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: It...pulls the idea of a horse out of shadows and makes it real enough to ride for a while. It pretty much behaves like a horse, except being an imperfect emulation of a horse it's actually better by dint of not actually being solid enough to trip or get tired.
--Assessment: This is pretty much the first "make a shadow pretend to be something real" spell. Its surprisingly low level too, suggesting that Ulgu is pretty happy with 'summoning' solid shadow effects. And I'm PRETTY sure summoning animals is Ghur normally.
-Take No Heed
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Mind, Perception, Concealment
--Effect: Reinforces natural tendencies to well...take no heed. Pretty limited, since it just stops people from asking questions if you aren't doing anything weird.
--Assessment: Pretty much textbook Ulgu for dummies. Makes people not think about what they are looking at. Like Mindhole, but tugging at everyone's attention directed to you rather than ripping it out wholesale running along the sympathetic link of awareness of you.
Moderately Complicated:
-Burning Shadows
--Targets: Shadow
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Makes a shadow burn like the light that cast it.
--Assessment: One of the first "Ulgu pretends to be other Wind" effects out there. In this case, its cosplaying Aqshy using a fire source, with the catch being that its pretty awkward as an attack spell due to the many circumstantial requirements, and it doesn't burn nearly as much as sizzle a bit on anything but exposed meat. So it imitates the surface of Aqshy.
-Cloak Activity
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Concealment
--Effect: Action looks like another action.
--Assessment: Ultimately its extending from the same thing as Doppleganger(swapping out the appearance change for changing what you appear to be doing) and basically designed for synergy with Take No Heed, since it covers SPECIFICALLY the catch for being noticed while under that.
-Mockery of Death
--Targets: Person
--Focus: Perception
--Effect: Make a person appear to be dead, disabling them in the process.
--Assessment: Another "Ulgu pretends to be other Wind" effect. In this case, cosplaying Shyish means they seem dead but not actually being dead. Appearance, not the meat of the matter.
-Pall of Darkness
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Shadow, Concealment
--Effect: Makes darkness(which is an important distinction, since most Ulgu things use SHADOW) in the area.
--Assessment: Not very sure how this works but I suppose if you saturate an area with enough shadows 'moved in' it becomes pretty impenetrably dark
-Shadow of Death
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Mind
--Effect: Generates a terror aura
--Assessment: I'm not sure if this is emulating Shyish type terror, directly inducing fear with Ulgu's Mind effects, or combining both. Anyone knows this better enough to tell? Or how its different from Dead Aspect?
-Shroud of Invisibility
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Concealment
--Effect: Be invisible.
--Assessment: Pretty straightforward Ulgu effect, hide all visual signs of your position. Might have some synergy with Take No Heed to mask the various noises of your movement? Or would a noise without a visible source break it by being inherently attention worthy?
-Throttling
--Targets: Something with a chokable neck
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Makes shadow tentacles move to strangle a target.
--Assessment: Yet another borderline effect. It could be making shadows behave like snakes(Shadow Ghur), it could be making shadows behave like vines(Shadow Ghyran). Either way, it makes shadows behave like what they look like, and makes them semi-solid in the process.
Fiendishly Complex:
-Dread Aspect
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Perception, Mind
--Effect: Generates a terror aura
--Assessment: I'm not sure if this is emulating Shyish type terror, directly inducing fear with Ulgu's Mind effects, or combining both. Anyone knows this better enough to tell? See Shadow of Death.
-Illusion
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Perception, Mind, Boundaries
--Effect: Generates a full spectrum illusion, excluding only tactile senses.
--Assessment: My read on this, given the intense concentration requirement, is that it directly projects a mental image into a real image. Basically just copy-pastes from the caster's mind, at the expense that the caster has to maintain concentration on the whole image.
-Shadow Knives
--Targets: Shadow
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Creates noclip knives of shadow.
--Assessement: This is kind of like a bunch of the Chamon spells isn't it? Except shorter range, and since the knives aren't all the way real, they can pass through stuff. Again, appearance over reality.
-Substance of Shadow
--Targets: Person or Object
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Turns the target insubstantial until light hits them.
--Assessment: We got a lot of "Make shadows real" stuff, but this is the first which makes a real thing sort of unreal, until they are illuminated.
-Universal Confusion
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Mind
--Effect: Mass Bewilder
--Assessment: Something I JUST noticed at this point...Ulgu is actually better at tracing along abstract connections, especially mental concepts, than along real connections like a physical space. When its affecting an area it almost always affects something OF Ulgu which happens to occupy an area or which creates something of Ulgu which occupies a certain volume. Almost like the Wind doesn't recognize distances and conventional geometry that well. On the other hand it can chain-contagion along things like "people looking at me" or "that Skaven over there" without needing more details. Simply extending one of its simplest spells to cover a radius instead makes it the hardest spell short of Battle Magic!
Battle Magic:
-Smoke and Mirrors
--Targets: Self
--Focus: Boundaries
--Effect: Other spells generate a teleport each.
--Assessment: Extending from the remark in Universal Confusion...Ulgu gives up and tells conventional geometry to fuck off. Not the safest thing for the wizard, but it seems to just fuzz out your current location to be another location.
-Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma
--Targets: Fog
--Focus: ???
--Effect: ???
--Assessment: I don't actually know what this spell does other than it makes a debuffing fog.
-Steed of Shadows
--Targets: Shadow
--Focus: Shadow, Boundaries
--Effect: Like Shadowsteed, but much more badass
--Assessment: Its basically summoning a Pegasus/Wyvern like Ghur spells do, but again, since its actually a shadow not an animal its got more perks to it, in exchange for being harder to cast than the equialent.
-The Enfeebling Foe
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Mind(?)
--Effect: Physical(?) debuff to group of enemies
--Assessment: Its odd, you don't SEE any physical debuffs in Ulgu until Battlemagic, but its not much different from The Withering. How does it work? Mind trick to feel tired and weak?
-The Withering
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Mind(?)
--Effect: Morale debuff to group of enemies
--Assessment: This one is easier to figure out. Direct hit to psychology using the Wind of Mindfuck.
-The Penumbral Pendulum
--Targets: Shadow(?)
--Focus: Shadow(?), Boundaries
--Effect: Giant conjured pendulum of razor sharpness just goes snicker-snack like a Looney Tunes prop.
--Assessment: This REALLY sounds like Ulgu pretending to Chamon again, this time exploitingthe fact that Ulgu doesn't need to care if the pendulum has an anchor. Just let it rip, noclip through the inconvenient stuff and shred the rest like it doesn't care about momentum.
-Pit of Shades
--Targets: Area
--Focus: Boundaries
--Effect: Banishes everyone in the area to the Shadow Realm.
--Assessment: This looks like it literally opens a physical passage to their fears and nightmares. Either that or it physically hurls them into the Warp.
-Okkam's Mindrazor
--Targets: Allied group
--Focus: Mind, Boundaries
--Effect: Creates weapons literally out of people's willpower, which then can stab enemies in the willpower.
--Assessment: Relatively straightforward one. Turns an intangible attribute tangible so that it can stab an intangible attribute physically.
Overall conclusions:
-Ulgu is relatively bad at understanding physical distances, but is abnormally good at bridging mental and informational distances.
-Ulgu pretending to be another wind works in 2.5 ways:
--Shadow and Boundaries almost exclusively applies that to physical(or at least, visible) manifestations, by turning the shadow of those things into demi-real things. Such things are usually at an orthrogonal difficulty to doing it with the 'real' Wind, Ulgu isn't at any point actually using those Winds, its taking shadows with attributes of those Winds and making them realer. This is relatiely easy for Ulgu.
--Mind takes the mental manifestations of those winds and does it using Ulgu's direct manipulation of mental concepts. Ulgu governs thought and memory, even if Logic, Belief, Passion and Instinct belongs to other winds, they are ALSO thoughts.
--Mind + Boundaries is the hardest one. Taking mental concepts and making them real is HARD, but there are very few limits beyond the inherent risks in relying on the inherently confusing, fuzzy mind. But thats why Ulgu is fuzzy and confusing isn't it?
-Mist effects are underrepresented. Theres a lot of concept space to work in there.
-Mind effects are underrepresented. Theres a lot of concept space to work in there...but rather sparse ways to experiment ethically AND safely in developing this.
-Theres a bunch of shapeshifting potential stuff if you work your way up. Ways to change how you look, ways to make appearance and information into reality, but it'd be more like wearing a mist-evangelion than actually shifting, unless you want to cast yourself into the Warp or a pocket dimension.
More philosophically, Ulgu seems to be effectively focused on edge cases, the differences between ink on paper and words, and how you can shift your perspective to manipulate each so as to affect the other side.
E: Man, where did the day go.
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I would say that Ulgu is actually not underrepresented in Mind effects because *most* of its spells fuck with the target's head, particularly at the relatively simple level. And as you noted yourself Ulgu has issues with its phyisical space and distance so makes more sense for its spells to cleave towards mental chicanery.
Otherwise this is a really good post.
E: (god I hate typing on my phone
)
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We needed trigonometry to describe it, because replicating the spell matrix in Ulgu is effectively constructing a net of shadows and thoughts very precisely to hang a spell to a host's mind and perceptions without the whole thing collapsing and releasing the bound effect.
Ulgu isn't very good at storing stuff or keeping it suspended. Its super complex to do in Ulgu.
Its on the other hand, very good at reacting to complicated triggers because an Ulgu effect is good at conditionals and interpreting off what the host mind understands.
Hysh and Azyr probably has similar issues, in that they should be very good at setting up conditionals via divination and destiny effects but can't store shit for shit.
The Amber and Jade orders(who adopted it) have more accessible metaphors for storing effects for later. Eggs and seeds. I suspect they'd have a completely different problem of trying to make good triggers, since Amber and Jade tend to physical, direct triggers.
Chamon...Gold College: "LOL why do this when we can just use Alchemy."
As for Shyish...I'm frankly amazed at the work of the necromancer who made it happen. Neither Shyish nor Dhar are going to have a good time being stored inside a living person without killing said person.
More that at the higher level spells it just avoids more advanced metal effects in favor of making AoE versions of the simpler spells. At the lower levels yes.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Given that they would probably use those spells to hand out heals or buffs, I think they could just attach them to the blood clotting response or the fight/flight response, as both a metaphor for prepared release of a substance (platlets/adrenaline) and direct trigger.
- Location
- Norway
Oddly enough, Realms of Sorcery contains no such thing.
It has Ghur spells for talking to, taming, or commanding existing animals, but no proper summons to call or create new ones. Crow's Feast is the closest, having the appearance of summoning -- a murder of angry crows suddenly attacks your enemies -- but its mechanical effect is area-of-effect damage. Aethyric crow shapes appear for an instant, pass right through cover and obstacles, go for the eyes ("do not roll for hit location, all hits are to the head"), and promptly disappear.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So less summoning birds, more summoning what it feels like to be attacked by a bird x100.Oddly enough, Realms of Sorcery contains no such thing.
Yes, but its going to be much simpler triggers than the Ulgu version which can likely understand the meaning of words and intentions.
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
I like your analysis, and think that it's very interesting. However, I think that attributing some spells to the emulation of other winds downplays the thematic breadth of Ulgu, to its detriment. While I certainly don't claim to speak with authority on the matter, I'd like to suggest some alternate interpretations.
Shadowsteed, for example, might be better understood with a focus on what the steed is for, rather than its source; I here refer to the use of ready horses waiting at night as a vehicle for purveyors of skulduggery. In addition, Ulgu might also be drawing on the idea of 'what hides in the darkness'; in this case, a horsey.
You also attribute fear effects to an emulation of Shyish, but isn't it the other way around? Shyish says 'You are going to die, so be afraid'. Ulgu just says 'be afraid'; it doesn't need to give a reason. Same as how it doesn't need a reason for you to be confused, or bored, or desirous of a sandwich.
Finally, the blade spells make more sense as an extension of Boundaries, rather than emulations of Chamon; a blade is the ultimate expression of partitions, in some senses, and you will note that the effect is focused far more on the cutting than the chemical composition of the pieces.
Also, on an unrelated note, as to whether the pit of shades opens a portal to one's worst nightmares or drags them bodily into the Warp, I think the spell doesn't really know the difference.
Shadowsteed, for example, might be better understood with a focus on what the steed is for, rather than its source; I here refer to the use of ready horses waiting at night as a vehicle for purveyors of skulduggery. In addition, Ulgu might also be drawing on the idea of 'what hides in the darkness'; in this case, a horsey.
You also attribute fear effects to an emulation of Shyish, but isn't it the other way around? Shyish says 'You are going to die, so be afraid'. Ulgu just says 'be afraid'; it doesn't need to give a reason. Same as how it doesn't need a reason for you to be confused, or bored, or desirous of a sandwich.
Finally, the blade spells make more sense as an extension of Boundaries, rather than emulations of Chamon; a blade is the ultimate expression of partitions, in some senses, and you will note that the effect is focused far more on the cutting than the chemical composition of the pieces.
Also, on an unrelated note, as to whether the pit of shades opens a portal to one's worst nightmares or drags them bodily into the Warp, I think the spell doesn't really know the difference.
I'd note that Shadowsteed stands out because well...its a horse. I'd agree if it was some kind of haste in shadow, or mist. Or even straight out doing seven league steps.
But its a horsey.
Came from the spell names mostly. I don't know how they work. Mathilde does.
And how the name suggests they work is that we bring an impression of Death Awaits.
Not that ANY kind of mental effect is out of bounds for Ulgu exactly. It could genuinely belong to both. Aqshy has the Passion and Desire mental effects, but Ulgu can make things seem desirable. Shyish governs Fear through the dread of death, Ghur through the lizard brain, and Ulgu through the Unknown.
You get the picture.
I note it because I saw that the Chamon spells are very similar. Creation of blades to launch. The Ulgu versions share the aesthetics, but the implementation varies greatly.
Which leads to the whole "lets cross-Wind with Ulgu" thing being both supported and debunked, in different aspects.
Ulgu CAN imitate other Winds by manipulating Shadows or Boundaries directly, in order to work with things which LOOK similar to other Wind effects, but function through Ulgu means or to borrow the aspects of natural phenomenon which normally belong to other Winds, but cast a shadow and thus we can borrow and empower that shadow. Because the Shadow is imitation, its just good enough to pull that off.
Imitate, then make the imitation real, then make the imitation surpass the original.
Faker.
Maybe it's a mare, a mare from the night dimension
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
Real conspirators don't do those things to run away very quickly, though. They get on a steed and have the steed book it. Same reason why the shadow knives are knives and not, like, laser beams or something. Horses are how people cross vast distances, not walking.
Yes, also this.Maybe it's a mare, a mare from the night dimension
I'd say it's that everybody's got a bunch of problems they're trying to solve as wizards, and these problems are the same across the winds. How they go about solving these problems changes, but sometimes the solutions themselves seem very similar because they're answering the same needs.
Ulgu isn't emulating the other winds, it's answering the same questions spells from the other wind are trying to answer. They look like they're mirroring because they run parallel for a bit, but what's more significant is where they're going.
SakSak
Unbound
- Location
- The Cold Wastes of the North
You know, thinking about it that's probably why the original
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah that's actually why it needed maintenance. The dhar burned out the victim's bodies and then turned them into weird pseudo zombies. It was discussed around the castle infiltration.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
I wonder how hard it would be to tweak this spell to work along abstract connections instead? Instead of "everyone this close to me", make it "all of my allies in this fight", or "my top X closest allies in this fight". It might be easier to cast, but act a little more unpredictably, depending on how close the target considers themselves to their comrades. You might end up knocking out the nearby group, or only some of them and also a few seemingly-random foes dotted around the battlefield.
As for the "looking spooky" spells, as you noted, Ulgu also crosses over into things people want. Maybe we could make ourselves seem more trustworthy with a spell?
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This was an alternate universal confusion I was thinking about as well, and I definitely want to throw in my own hat for support for the idea.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
Inserted tally
Sole Purpose
Clueless
- Location
- Spread Across Several Miles
That's a lot of spell names...
Maybe we should roll some dice and let Ranald decide...
Maybe we should roll some dice and let Ranald decide...