Sources of Arcane Power
Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:29 pm
I have lore questions. Kind of. I have been trying to develop a deeper understanding of arcana in part to have the knowledge, but also in part to make better suggestions. Lately I have been perpetually finding that I need more knowledge before I can logic more things out. From my observations, I believe that the glyphs used in arcana are powerful in and of themselves (mostly because studying them causes sanity loss and they're carved up on sturdy metal plates rather than produced more cheaply from clay or wood or just written on paper). To embrace my inner bad scholar, they seem magical. Anomalum chalk is also powerful. I'm trying to figure out what each contributes. As a character, the way I would pursue that is drawing complete occult diagrams (circle, line, activator glyph, effect glyph) with a stick of writing charcoal or plain limestone chalk, carving them in stone or wood, shaping them with clay, or trying to metalcast them. I fully expect that they wouldn't be able to be activated. I also expect that studying them in that way would have potential for danger. I would probably also experiment with drawing non-occult figures with anomalum chalk. With those, I fully expect that nothing would happen, but I'd also try to be cautious enough to not lose an arm. Which activity, drawing occult diagrams with limestone chalk or drawing non-diagrams with anomalum chalk, if either, would result in feeling drained as I would with drawing occult diagrams properly? Is the anomalum chalk a power source, or a catalyst, or something else entirely? What power do the glyphs have, if any, when written or carved using other media? I cannot actually do these experiments in character, but I'd happily accept any consequences for such dabbling if it came with some more knowledge.
I was wondering about these things this morning when I happened across this: "Its bones are surprisingly clean and smooth, many of them etched with tiny glyphs." and I thought, "Is that arcana? Those are bones, not chalk golems." (anomalum chalk golems are a terrifying idea BTW) So, I ask, is this arcana? Is this not arcana?
As a semi-related tangent, I'm curious about whether anomalum chalk is made (is it chalk that is enchanted?) or discovered (are there anomalum chalk mines somewhere with VERY brave miners extracting whole blocks that are carved down to sticks?)? I'm not going to ask to be able to make my own (I understand it's a riln sink), nor would I ask to mine my own. I'm not the only person who is ever going to play this game though, so I also understand if you don't want to touch this question, ten-foot pole or otherwise.
I was wondering about these things this morning when I happened across this: "Its bones are surprisingly clean and smooth, many of them etched with tiny glyphs." and I thought, "Is that arcana? Those are bones, not chalk golems." (anomalum chalk golems are a terrifying idea BTW) So, I ask, is this arcana? Is this not arcana?
As a semi-related tangent, I'm curious about whether anomalum chalk is made (is it chalk that is enchanted?) or discovered (are there anomalum chalk mines somewhere with VERY brave miners extracting whole blocks that are carved down to sticks?)? I'm not going to ask to be able to make my own (I understand it's a riln sink), nor would I ask to mine my own. I'm not the only person who is ever going to play this game though, so I also understand if you don't want to touch this question, ten-foot pole or otherwise.