Nasuverse Fate/Revelation Online - Tales from the Mid-Liners Ideas

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#26
On the crossbows in FRO Canon:

1.) Will it automatically reload after firing a shot with a cool down time period between them? Or are they manually reloaded and the bolts stored in a quiver on the body?

2.) Reinforcing the Crossbow and Bolts? I don't think you can reinforce the bow to fire the projectile faster since the point where it can be pulled back is set into stone by the cocking mechanism, unlike a bow which can be drawn back as far as the arm and body of the bow can handle, but can you reinforce to durability to withstand an attack? As for the projectile, I'm assuming since it is a projectile it has [Durability] to see how much it can endure on impact with an object and [Penetration Power] to determine the damage done, right?
 

daniel_gudman

KING (In Land of Blind)
Staff member
#27
Yeah, okay, let's apply some freshman physics.

A bow or a crossbow are basically springs. You're elastically deflecting a material to store potential energy and then releasing it. When the spring returns to neutral, some of that mechanical potential energy gets converted to kinetic energy in the arrow and you're off to the races.

F = k * x

So you could increase the force by increasing deflection x, or by increasing the spring constant k by making the material stiffer.

(BTW, that all this continuum mechanics is necessary under the hood is why I haven't had anyone just make a bow outside official rules for them: the physics engine isn't comprehensive enough to be keeping track of things like that... although that could have changed because magic as Kayaba keeps patching the game.)

Anyway, you totally could do it just by reinforcing the material strength of the bow-arm (prolly also the string so it doesn't snap and your own strength to have the guts to do it).

And ammo could be harder sharper more explosive etc to improve their performance.
 

Vanigo

Well-Known Member
#28
What if you reinforced the bow's stiffness after it was already drawn? Probably work better with a crossbow, of course. And repeatedly reinforcing and de-reinforcing it would probably be prohibitively prana-intensive. Maybe an early Mystic Code? It'd be a big improvement over normal crossbows, since you could get arbalest power out of a weapon as quick and easy to use as a small hand crossbow.
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#29
I feel like I've been out of school too long reading those and I'm only mid-20s....

Anyway, got it. Reinforce everything since you don't want the materials to snap or break from one being to lop-sided or unbalanced. I can work with that, but since his element is Wood and that affects reinforcement, it might be only really reliable on wood and plant-life.

Also, the next part of Chapter 1 is out.
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#30
Okay, starting to write the next part. I'm thinking of having Sanda be able to interpret Prana with his sense of smell like Shirou does. It's like he can tell Endri smells "Woodsy" when he uses Reinforcement, but its a thin scent. Still haven't decided on what element that Yasumi is...
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#31
Any opinion on the accuracy of Endri's magecraft to the main fanfiction's In-Game Magic System?

“Not me, but…” Sanda looked to the girl in the starting gear and asked, “From what I’ve heard mentioned, Gemcraft-user can use them for long-distance assaults and elemental attacks. Can you?”

“Umm…” She opened her menu and checked her inventory. “I can use Quartzs. I remember being shown how to do it, charging it and then making it explode, but it’ll just do splash damage with the fragments.”

“Toss a handful of them then and make it rain,” Endri said as he grabbed the satchel with his left hand and his crossbow with his right. “We only get one shot at this. When I give the word, you throw.”

With an underhand toss he sent the satchel in a high arch that focused on height over distance. He waited until it reached the peak of its climb before he took aim. Then, while it was in the air, he sent a crossbow bolt into it.

The bag ruptured and showered its contents below. Ash fell like snow, gray flakes falling down and gently peppering a wide area of the grassland between them and the wolves. The trap was set. “Now!”

Yumina lets the system assist guide her hand as she reeled back a handful of the low quality gemstone and let them fly like white comets with thinning tails. The stones streaked forward before there was a rupturing noise as the hard stones broke from the inside and scattered, a spray of shrapnel propelled from the pressure being unleashed into a rain.

The Dark Wolves gave a shrill yelp as they were pelted, instantly turning hostile towards the one who unleashed the attack. Jet-black paws dug into the earth and then lunged for her. Sanda put his fists up in preparation as Yumina backed away, seeing the bestial rage in their eyes.

“Flourish!” Endri, on the other hand, began an incantation. “I plead the goddess of the earth, Macha! The sprouts of grass shall become fetters and bind!”

[Druid Magecraft] was made available after the fourth floor was cleared and [Blood was enabled]. It was taught by a [Wandering Druid NPC] on certain floors. As it was an [Oral Tradition] it was learned via [Conversation] once and recorded to be recited later or passed along.

Having a [Wood Element] made it suit him well, as the ashes were formerly woodchips marked by marked by the Ogham Letter rune ‘Sallie’, which were a system much like the Nordic runes his brother used, and dropped in a small cauldron of blood that stained the letters with prana inside the blood. Absorbing the prana over the course of four days bound the wood chips with the [Alteration] properties of [Flexibility] from the letter.

The ashes kept that property and would pass it onto the flora to create a Pass between them and the original prana-source from the blood. The incantation was the activation, the self-hypnosis, and as it was said prana flowed through the Pass between him and the ashes and influenced the grass’ growth and strength and movement.

Thus ashes that were scattered about the grass became illuminated by a viridian hue. The blades of grass lengthened and strengthened, swaying at the behest of the archer. Like chains they wound around their ankles ad calves, snaring the wolves by their throat and lashing around their snouts.

Bound as they were, they were immobile by the spell known as [Reimbrioch: Fetters of the Green (Grass Trip Rope)].
 

rajvir

Well-Known Member
#32
Seems rather interesting, although I think it would be better for Sanda to sense magecraft through a different sense from smell. Sight might be a more interesting and unique option or perhaps his sense of touch where he would feel a different type of pressure.
 

daniel_gudman

KING (In Land of Blind)
Staff member
#33
Yeah, I don't really have any objections to it. I thought it was a little info-dumpy... but that might be the pot calling the kettle black.

[Quartz] though...
Off hand, Pliny the Elder and other Classical thinkers believed that Quartz was water ice that metamorphosed into a permanently solid rock. So, Quartz is strongly associated with water element...?

Ah, but it was probably the famous "sunstone" of Gaelic / North Sea myth. I read a paper about how you can use a hunk of Quartz to determine the direction light is coming from because of it's prismatic properties; so ancient sailors could hold up a chunk of Quartz and determine where exactly the sun was no matter how cloudy the weather was, so it could be used like a compass.

It's also piezoelectric, so it's incorporated in a lot of oscillator circuits for timekeeping. Considering the electronics boom of the last 100 years, I would hazard to guess that across all human history, there have been more quartz-based clocks than all other clocks combined. So there's that.

Well, the thing is, Quartz is the second most common crystal on (in?) Earth, but I feel like "Quartz" isn't precise enough for a gemcraft user. That's really all I wanted to say.

Also Quartz is a crystal of Silica, SiO2 (is a side chapter, the SAO character Silica said that those two little bon-bons in her hair, were her Oxygens).

...Now that I think about it, having each of them get in an argument over the details of each others' magecraft like that might make for a bit of comedy as they take turns snappishly correcting each other... and also allow you, the author, to sneak some exposition in.

"Why do we only have one shot at this?"

"Because this stuff is a pain in the ass that takes four days to make! Why, how are you for ammo?"

"I've got, like, thirty kilos of agates."

"What!? Why?"

"Because they were on sale!"
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#34
Okay for the next chapter, I'm trying to show that Endri is just short of a meltdown from having to take care of his brother in the game when he didn't even want to play but his parents got him to sign in and how every day and every time he had to tell him to do something it pushed him a little more to the point that he's constantly throwing himself at the froglets to reach the lake he can see in the distance and possibly killing himself because its his responsibility even though he didn't want it and letting his brother die would be worse and since everything he'd done was to keep him safe.

How's this sound for a start?

He burned inside and out. With no one to burden him the green-clad druid dashed through the grassland as fast as his legs could carry while the spell lasted, panting as his lungs tried to suck in enough of the chilled air to keep up with the demands of his body. He was so close that he could feel the moisture now lacing the air, a clear sign there was a source of water nearby.

His brother was nearby.

The thought drove him to push himself as hard as he could before his stamina bar ran out… right when he was nearing another Kobold-type enemy. Of course, why should he be lucky tonight of all nights. He damned the thing and tightened his grip on the blade in his hand as his long sprint petered out to a hard-pressed jog right when he was in the mob’s range.

It swung its weapon. He dodged it sloppily and then righted himself enough so that the <Shield Bash> it tried to do missed. He grabbed its helmet, drew its head back, and plunged the knife into its throat and violently tore it out in a way that would have been fatal to any living thing. It only registered as critical damage, but that wasn’t really his concern. What was his concern was that it now happened to be immobilized.

He’d resorted to keeping the knife on-hand after applying paralysis poison to the blade. What he had was limited, so he had to make every drop count and realistically the DOT poison would be wasted since he couldn’t afford to slow down for long to kill it proper. He pushed the mob down and left it behind while he kept pushing onwards while waiting for the stamina to recharge. The party members he left behind could deal with it if it got back up before they passed. Let them deal with the monsters and chase him.

He staggered as he felt his legs begin to ache, the spell wearing off as the [Reinforcement] once more began to falter. He activated his circuits and pulled deep from the limited reservoir he had to draw from. There were only so many times he could do it since he couldn’t draw in mana and that limit was nearing at a damning rate.

He let the stamina bar fill halfway and then began to move again. Stamina refilled itself, prana didn’t nearly as fast and his spell would only last so long. Any time wasted for stamina to fill up completely could be spent getting him another series of steps closer to his brother. He had to reach him before he didn’t have the strength to drag him out of the mess he got himself into.

Realistically he wouldn’t be able to save the woman who had dragged his brother into this mess. To be honest he couldn’t bring himself to care. It wasn’t his fault if that happened. It was hers for taking his brother along, and his brother’s for running away in the first place, and the drag-along girl’s since they had to carry this way because she didn’t hand the equipment over when he asked.

You’re pushing the blame onto others, a small part of him whispered in the confines of his mind. Never your fault is it?

He stifled the voice with a hard and long yell as he continued to run. Sympathy? Empathy? Those were things he couldn’t spare while they were trapped in this nightmare. That was why he wanted his brother to stay in the damn city, sticking to [Safe Zones] and following routines was what kept them alive until now, survival was what mattered, not the quality of the life they lived, or things like researching new spells, or exploring the world, or all of that.

Like he told that girl before, he didn’t ask to enter the game either. He didn’t ask to be made his brother’s keeper. He was only in the game because his parents had promised him concessions for looking after him for an hour or two as he played the game.

“Spend time with him,” were the words his parents said when they told him to play the game with his brother. “He looks up to his older brother and who knows who he might run into online. In fact we just read an article about that boy who met up with someone online and got mugged….”

He followed his brother into the game and now he was stuck with keeping him alive, which would have been made much easier if he had just stayed in the city.

I figured it would add in moments where we gleam into events until now for him where he did stuff so it would improve his brother's chance of survival, like getting his circuits unlocked, finding the Druid Mage Tutor, how he stuck to a routine and learned to time things down to a second so he didn't risk anything, how he refused to go to higher floors to learn more because it wasn't needed and there higher the floors the bigger the risks and being over-leveled for the first floor.
 

daniel_gudman

KING (In Land of Blind)
Staff member
#35
I think it needs to be punchier. The effect you're going for is his heart hammering so hard the blood is throbbing in his ears, and the audience can feel that because we're riding along in his skull.

So there are a couple sentences that distract from the core mission of piling on stress.

Like let's take that first paragraph:
dat first paragraph said:
He burned inside and out. With no one to burden him the green-clad druid dashed through the grassland as fast as his legs could carry while the spell lasted, panting as his lungs tried to suck in enough of the chilled air to keep up with the demands of his body. He was so close that he could feel the moisture now lacing the air, a clear sign there was a source of water nearby.
You're going in a couple directions here:
1) He "burned inside and out"; you're pretty good on the "inside" bit, but regarding outside, the only you tell us it's getting wetter, which is like the opposite of "burning".
2) It's strange to bounce from telling us he's burning inside, to looking at him from the outside ("green-clad druid"), and then going back inside his head and looking at his thoughts.
3) Giving us an environmental report about what he could feel outside him is the opposite of telling us what's going on inside him. Maybe make it something about tasting it, or that the cool, moist air was easier on his throbbing lungs.


Vs Kobold said:
It swung its weapon. He dodged it sloppily and then righted himself enough so that the <Shield Bash> it tried to do missed. He grabbed its helmet, drew its head back, and plunged the knife into its throat and violently tore it out in a way that would have been fatal to any living thing. It only registered as critical damage, but that wasn’t really his concern. What was his concern was that it now happened to be immobilized.
Since it's paralyzed because he literally stabbed it in the throat, that statement feels weirdly passive; "happen" implies exterior agency, and the complexity means by the time the reader figures out what it says, the impact has worn off. (I think that sentence has a present participle phrase renaming the object of the independent clause, which is simple-past tense with passive voice, but there might be other readings of the logic).

Plus since the whole point is that he wants to kill it ASAP, the question of whether critical damage was instantly fatal or not is 100% his concern. It is his in fact his most immediate concern, right?

Vs Kobold remixed said:
He grabbed its helmet, drew its head back, and plunged the knife into its throat and violently tore it out in a way that would have been fatal to any living thing. Unfortunately, for this virtual avatar, it only registered as critical damage. But he wasn't concerned: now it was immobilized.
Then go on to talk about poison. Also I think rather than calmly dropping it, he should savagely and repeatedly be stabbing it in the throat over and over again while going over his preparations, and then he's a little surprised when it disappears; he'd completely lost track of the HP bar while stabbing. (Maybe: Also he realized he had been screaming. That line might be too much though.)


back-up knife said:
He’d resorted to keeping the knife on-hand after applying paralysis poison to the blade.
You're not quite clear on why it's something he "resorted" to. Is it a back-up for when he can't engage at range? It seems like a digression to imply something about "resorting", like you're signaling I should remember it, because you're going to come back to it.



He staggered as he felt his legs begin to ache, the spell wearing off as the [Reinforcement] once more began to falter.
Shouldn't his legs already be aching? Especially if he's faltering "once more"? Or is it that, suddenly his thighs seized up because the spell ended, and it wasn't suppressing the cramping any more?



internal conflict said:
You’re pushing the blame onto others, a small part of him whispered in the confines of his mind. Never your fault is it?
This is getting too introspective; that is, rather than just getting squeezed by pressure, he starts thinking questions and answers about the situation rather than reacting somewhat blindly. (Also the "confines of his mind" is implicit in "small part of him whispered", so it's over-specific; that can be fine, but you're pounding a drum here, so don't go too long between beats).

My advice: drop the question at the end, and have him lead into a monologue that's only implicitly resentful, while also being him preparing himself mentally to just abandon the other girl (which is in-character for him as a planning-type...).

maybe a tighter approach said:
You’re pushing the blame onto others, a small part of him whispered.

Sympathy? Empathy? Those were things he couldn’t spare while they were trapped in this nightmare. That was why he wanted his brother to stay in the damn city. Sticking to [Safe Zones] and following routines was what kept them alive until now. Survival was what mattered: not the quality of the life they lived, or things like researching new spells, or exploring the world, or any of that.

If that girl died, it would be her fault for endangering herself. He, a stranger, was blameless. Honestly, since it had endangered his brother as well, it wasn't like he was willing to offer her the benefit of the doubt. He wasn't that generous.

Like he told that other girl before, he didn’t ask to enter the game either. He didn’t ask to be made his brother’s keeper. He was only in the game because his parents had promised him concessions for looking after him for an hour or two as he played the game.
Also, I turned one of your compound sentences into multiple sentences, 'cuz that's punchier.
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#36
Okay, revision:
He burned inside and out. Hot blood that ran through his body as his heart pounded in his ribcage hard enough that it seemed as if it wanted to tear itself free. Only the chilled air kept him from burning alive, slaking his lungs as they expanded and contracted faster and faster while the green-clad druid dashed through the grassland as fast as his legs could carry while the spell lasted.

With no one to burden him he had taken off with no reservation and was closing in on the lakes. He was so close that he could feel the shift in the air, moisture lacing it melding with the sweat on his face. His brother was nearby.

The thought drove him to push himself as hard as he could before his stamina bar ran out, but it wouldn’t be long. He could only damn himself that he didn’t learn a spell to reinforce it. And it seemed that he would be forced to stop sooner than later as another kobold-type enemy entered into his sight, dead ahead.

He damned the thing and his luck as worn fingers tightened their grip on the blade in his hand. The long sprint petered out to a hard-pressed jog right when he was in the mob’s range, with him coming to a stop just as it swung its weapon. He dodged it sloppily and then righted himself enough so that the <Shield Bash> it tried to follow up with missed.

It created an opening and he exploited it. He grabbed its helmet, drew its head back, and plunged the knife into its throat and violently tore it out in a way that would have been fatal to any living thing. It only registered as critical damage, but the icon that marked it was paralyzed made up for the damage.

He’d resorted to keeping the knife on-hand and applied paralysis poison to the blade, though he was more than a little miffed about it. In all honesty had hadn’t expected to be doing this tonight, or ever to be truthful, so while he restocked earlier there were only a few vials of the different poisons left in total use. Every drop count and realistically the DOT poison would be wasted since he couldn’t afford to slow down for long to kill it proper.

The steel in his hand gleamed in the moonlight as it savaged the mob’s neck again. The ichor that poured from the wound had a greenish tinges as it stained his blade, hand, and sleeve. It went limp as its bar dropped down and then only broke apart into blue motes after a few second.

He exhaled and wiped the sweat from his face with his good sleeve before using his cloak to clean his hand and dagger while waiting for the stamina bar to fill again. The cloak was already stained in the blood of the various monsters that had crossed his path, although none of them as great in number as the previous dark wolves pack. There was no time to go around them, so he went through them with extreme prejudice.

The aching, throbbing pain that ran through his lower limbs, from his thighs to the tip of his toes made him suck in a sharp breath. He was so tired, and his knees wanted nothing more than to submit to gravity. The [Reinforce Agility] had once more worn out and his legs yearned to rest.

He silenced the pain with activation his circuits and pulled deep from the limited reservoir of Od he had to draw from to reapply the spell. He wasn’t lucky enough to be able to [Gather Mana] he had learned. And the limit of what he could generate meant was nearing at a damning rate, leaving him painfully aware that if he failed to reach his brother soon he wouldn’t have the means to drag him out of the mess he got himself into.

Once the aching in his legs subsided as strength quickly replaced it he started moving again before the stamina bar had filled halfway, not willing to wait any longer since there were only so many times he could do it and any time wasted for stamina to fill up completely could be spent getting him another series of steps closer to his brother.

Endri couldn’t help it a small part of him damned his little brother for making this harder than it had to be. Like he told that other girl before, he didn’t ask to enter the game either. He didn’t ask to be made his brother’s keeper when he could barely stand him in the real world before.

“Spend time with him,” his parents had said. “He looks up to his older brother and who knows who he might run into online. In fact we just read an article about that boy who met up with someone online and got mugged, blah, blah, blah….”

He damned them as well for putting him in this situation. He was only in the game because his parents had promised him concessions for looking after him for an hour or two as he played the game. It was at their behest that now he was stuck with keeping him alive, which would have been made much easier if he had just stayed in the city and listened.

Now his life involved taking care of someone else when he just wanted to go out with his friends or study in his room. He’d become what he never wanted to be. He was promoted to being a parent, managing their income and ensuring that they survived no matter what.
That was why he wanted his brother to stay in the damn city. He could go out and harvest without fear of something like this happening or coming back one day to see that his name was crossed out on the [Monument of Life]. Sticking to [Safe Zones] and following routines was what kept them alive until now, that kept him alive until now.

With that in mind he barely noticed the wind howling in his ears as he sped through the grass and the damp ground slightly shifted under his feet. He had to think. He had to plan.

His assets consisted of only fifteen crossbow bolts, three vials of paralysis poison, two of DOT poison, seven picks, and his dagger. How much of the balm he made remained to be used varied depending on the level of injuries he sustained. The paralysis poison coating the blade remained active for ten minutes before it wore off, so thirty minutes of use remained. It would take anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five minutes more to reach the lake.

The other two members of his party, with only one of them being useful, were far behind him. Maybe fifteen minutes straight of running,
not taking into account the weight burden of carrying the dead weight, i.e. the girl. Extended time would bring the ETA to thirty minutes to an hour if he waited. He wouldn’t slow down that long to wait for them, let them keep chasing him instead.
Without them the rational part of him noted that he most likely would have to sacrifice the woman who had dragged his brother into this mess in the first place. Most likely as a meat shield to throw to the boss while he threw his brother over his shoulders and ran. To be honest he couldn’t bring himself to care since he, a stranger, was blameless.

It wasn’t his fault if that happened. It was hers for taking his brother along, and his brother’s for running away in the first place, and the drag-along girl’s since they had to carry her all this way because she didn’t hand the equipment over when he asked. His hands were clean of that blood and guilt; let it rest on the shoulders of the others as long as his brother was safe.

There was a minor tug in his mind, a memory of a time before all of this. A little girl crying because a flower that she had gotten was stepped on by his brother by accident, the guilt his brother felt afterwards, and how he begged him to take him to the flower shop and replace what was lost with his allowance. The memories reminded him of a time when he could afford to feel something other than resentment for his brother, when he could still feel that helping him was something other than a burden that ruined his life.

But the [Death Game] changed all of that. Sympathy? Empathy? Compassion? Those were things he couldn’t spare while they were trapped in this nightmare.

It stripped away everything that wasn’t necessary. Survival was what mattered: not the quality of the life they lived, or things like researching new spells, or exploring the world, or friends, or any of that. It was the two of them against the world, surviving until the very end.

Pain tore him out of the musings he was so deeply entrenched into until now as he was knocked back and sent sprawling across the ground. Something had struck him in the stomach from far ahead. He sat up in time to see another cannonball of water barreling towards him and rolled out of the way in time as it broke on the surface of the grass and scattered, dampening his cloak.
Ahead of him were numerous red cursors that hovered over puddles. Out of one of them a figure and set of black eyes emerged, revealing the title above its cursor reading [Scavenger Froglet]. Total number of puddles was ten at a glance, positioned awkwardly in some form of a irregular pattern.
 

rajvir

Well-Known Member
#37
Leidolf said:
Wow, that was a massive improvement, I spotted a couple of words that I would change but I don't have the time to type them up but it was definitely a lot better. The fight scene felt a lot more gripping and felt much more realistic even though the result was the change.

Honestly what impresses me the most is just how quickly you improved, I am personally looking into writing myself so I hope I myself improve as quickly as you do when I start. :)
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#38
It's not so much a quick improvement as I took my time. The first draft was meant to get the idea down, which is harder than you'd think since ideas change as quickly as they appear in your head, while this one I took more than an hour to work and make the changes and a second draft. It's not remotely close to finished though.
 

DIT_grue

Well-Known Member
#39
Yeah, even to a casual read that's obviously much better.

Leidolf said:
He silenced the pain with activation his circuits and pulled deep from the limited reservoir of Od he had to draw from to reapply the spell. He wasn’t lucky enough to be able to [Gather Mana] he had learned. And the limit of what he could generate meant was nearing at a damning rate, leaving him painfully aware that if he failed to reach his brother soon he wouldn’t have the means to drag him out of the mess he got himself into.
This paragraph could be made marginally easier to parse, I think. How about, "leaving him painfully aware that unless he reached his brother soon he wouldn’t have the means to drag him out of the mess he got himself into." Though that's still got the pronouns flipping back and forth; but I can't think of a simple way to deal with that, and I don't really think it's an obstacle to comprehension.

Actually, I notice now that the first sentence is a bit of a mess, probably from incomplete editing. "He silenced the pain by activating his circuits" would fix the problem, but I'm not sure it's exactly what you wanted to say here?
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#40
Edit: New Chapter is out.

Also, I was thinking about the gemstone magecraft and alteration. We know that certain stones can endow certain elements by the spirits tainting them, or give them traits like anti-spiritual, but what about acting as a means of using it to say make something harder by using it as a medium? You cast a spell by passing prana through the gemstone and into the obstacle and it passes that attribute on.

See, I was watching Mahouka and like the scene where this one dude cast a spell that was like reinforcement that Shirou does on his cloak to make it hard like stone and turned it into a shield. And, rather than having Yasumi simply lying in wait with Endri I can have those two coming up with a backup plan to escape and they need a shield against the water attacks. That and it looks so cool...
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#41
Currently working on the defining the Druid Magecraft for some reason or other....

Druid Magecraft
What is it?
Druid Magecraft is a form of magecraft that was made available after the fourth floor was cleared and [Blood is enabled]. It uses an ancient Magic Foundation, taught by a [Wandering Druid NPC] on certain floors, that responds to sacrifice and offerings to receive a service from nature spirits, as well as the phantasmal species known as Fairies. However, as the foundation of the fairies cannot be reached through magecraft and they are no longer found, the act of contracting and working with them has been lost. An attempt by modern druids to regain this lost Art involves taking apparitions and binding them to [Fairy-like Shells], enabling them to inherit a small portion of the lost power as they are recognized by Gaia.

As it is an [Oral Tradition] it is learned via [Conversation] once, as druids were expected to have grand memories, and details natural resources uses in a spell, potion or salve, and ritual each, before prompting the player to seek the next teacher. A guild of Druid players are often called up to assist in gathering by hastening plant growth.

Magecraft Focus
[Druid Magecraft] is heavily situated around nature, trees, rituals, and songs, and by using wood or stone with [Letters of the Ogham] carved onto them, they can be used in a variety of ways. The practice of making medicines and poisons in magic cauldrons was also common, and higher-level spells enable [Presence Concealment] in woodlands and spells centered around reading the flow of and tapping Leylines.

Spell Categories:
Spells fall under a number of categories depending on their uses by the druid.

Siulacht: Material Transmutations Spells
• Huidecht: An [Agility-Boosting] spell, similar to [Reinforce Agility]
• Uinde: An [Sight-Alteration] spell that allows one to see prana.
• Faistine: An [Sight-Alteration] spell meant allow one to see spiritual entities
• Gabhlairdeall: A ritual that enables a state similar to [Mental Partition] and allows for two parallel thought processes to be run at once.
• Reimbrioch: Trap spells prepared in advance and are manually triggered by an incantation.
• Fuireachair: Traps spells that are triggered by conditions, such as boundaries being crossed.
• Ortha: A charming method of using prana to [Alter] a potion or object.

Sruth bhua: Flow and Transference of Power Spells
Spells under this category tend to focus on drawing mana from the earth, including from leylines

• Aithriocht: Transference of Consciousness Spell: – A spell to transmit one’s consciousness into another object to acquire information from a different perspective.
• Nealadoireacht: Spying Spell – A spell that, by using mediums commonly found in nature, allows the druid to ‘spy’ on others. Often it is done through the usage of a connection from an organic medium, such as a leaf, to the sensory input with the use of prana.
• Iompóchur: Warding Spell – A spell that works to deflect prana

Mallacht: Curse Spells
Spells meant to inflict a harmful curse upon opposition

• Airbhe: A boundary field that protects those inside through the application of an [Invisibility] spell while also applying a curse effect be crossed, but it inflicts a curse.
• Millteoracht: A spell that brings ruin to organic things, hastening their end.

Éaraid: Mental Interference
Spells that cause some sort of effect on target’s mind.

• Tamhneal: A spell that cause hallucinations in the target.
• Aisling: A spell to put a target to sleep.
• Cumhacht: A spell used to assert power or dominance over a target, similar to the [Command] spell.

And I'll probably change the guild idea a bit, starting with the whole thing where she gives them all tickets to come see a magecraft show (the Water/Blitzball thing) being put on by the Church Aid Society as a charity event and discuss her goals with them. She'll probably take Ken during the days while Endri joins a Druid Guild so he can learn faster, and Sanda will go around for a bit to grow stronger (exploring the fifth floor with the Ronins and then facing off with a Dragon Age-style Harvester for a boss) but all remain in contact with each other, exploring different aspects of the game being touched on.
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#42
I've got an idea for a crystal circle trap from Fate Zero, when Rin was learning to do it to make a crystal grow after tracking down her friend. You have a crystal at the center of a boundary circle and when it trips the boundary field, it supplies the prana to make it instantly into a spike of death or in a circle to form a prison.

And I'm also playing with the idea of having Endri join a Druid guild and meet a Bard-type Player who uses a harp and sound-based magic in addition to druid magic (she uses a sound wave to create a pass between the grass and her and then manipulates it). But I want to do more research into how guilds work before I do that next.
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#43
Man that forum reformatting did a number on the old threads. Good thing I keep back ups, even if I am scrapping a good deal of the old plots/revamping them, but anyway:

I wanted to fly this by, but if one player uses Psychogenesis to create say a pillar of earth, could another cast reinforcement on it strengthen said pillar to withstand, say, a giant amphibian running head first into it. I'm kind of iffy on whether or not having something created out of one person's prana will mesh so well with another person's.
 

daniel_gudman

KING (In Land of Blind)
Staff member
#44
Hmm...

My gut feeling is that it would work, but the Reinforcement would tend to erode the Psychogenesis so that it would dissolve sooner than normal, and maybe it would be "brittle", more likely to completely shatter and disappear if it started to crack.
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#45
Especially since he wouldn't know the inherit limitations of said construct with Structural Analysis. Gonna have to give this some more thought.
 

Leidolf

Well-Known Member
#46
Okay, want to see how these fly for magecraft before I polish it. Is the theory sound?

Pillar of Earth:
Sanda rushed towards them, his bolster speed allowing him to reach them just as the Druid swore from the loss of his crossbow to the damaging mist. When they were all gathered, the rapier-user stabbed her weapon into the ground and used it as a conduit to conjure stone made from her prana—the basics of her Psychogenesis. The ground shook and then rose as a pillar of stone lifted them off the ground and above the mist.

Her eyes widened as she looked ahead and she placed a hand on the stone. It lengthened right as a shot of water from the Event Mob smashed into the section where they had been. Some of the stray droplets fell on them from the splash and their equipment took another hit.


Another shot was fired. This time she caused a portion of their support pillar to crumble as she dispersed the prana making it up, lowering them haphazardly and allowing the shot to pass overhead. “I don’t have enough prana to keep this up and it’ll keep correcting its aim until it eventually hits us.”

Impromptu Ether Gloves:
“No choice then, we have to aggro it away.” The Druid sighed as he poured the contents of a bottle of poison on his dagger. “Sanda, you’re with me. We need to finish this fast, while its health is still low and the others can’t move fast enough.”

“I can’t do any real damage to it,” he admitted. “I can’t break the surface of its skin.”

“Can’t you shape that stuff you used before to be spiked or something?”

“I’ve never tried before.”

“Now’s the time to try.” He tossed the empty bottle over the edge of their platform, leaving it to disappear partway down as he turned to the girl. “Make a slope so I can go down.”

She did and he slid down into the waist-deep gas, barely setting a foot down before he rocketed forward towards the crimson axolotl. Sanda took a moment to breathe deep, close his eyes, and concentrate as he focused on gathering Ether around his fists. Boxing gloves came to mind when it came to a mold, two wedges on the end for penetration. He then formed the mass of Ether and shaped the putty-like substance into the spiked gloves.

He breathed out and opened his eyes to see that the ceramic-like gloves were on now. They felt hard, leaving his fingers unable to move. All the same, he reinforced them to ensure they didn’t break. Then he leapt into the fray, sliding down the slope as the Druid darted in and out as he had been doing before, carving gashes into the monster that tried to crush him beneath its tail.



Wood Element Psychogensis:
“I won’t let anyone die because of me!” he said, even as he trembled. His sword glowed with the light of a Sword Skill as he prepared to launch forward to meet it with a scream… Then boss went still as a wooden pike impaled it from above, his brother landing on it with his cloak and dagger missing.

“So this is what Psychogenesis for the Wood Element makes. Good to know.” He twisted it, sinking it deeper, hurting the boss even more and emptying out its health bar at last.
 
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