Arcane Configurations, Arcane Variance, and Arcane Deviations

The usage of arcane glyphs and diagrams to power a wide variety of occult rituals.
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Lexx416
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Arcane Configurations, Arcane Variance, and Arcane Deviations

Post by Lexx416 »

We chatted a bit last VC on Saturday about Arcanists. Rias mentioned he wanted to make Arcanists more specialized, and have a more scholarly "experimentation" feel, possibly through being able to modify how they draw their Circles (beyond different glyphs and separators), so I spent more time than I should have at work today thinking about how that could manifest in Cogg (please don't tell my supervisor)! This is long and a little rambling, and probably a little too complicated to implement - but I hope it at least inspires some cool things, and I'd love to see people's thoughts!

As a note, any "official names" or labels listed below are just suggestions from me - I'm sure there's tons of Deep Lore I'm not privy to that might make my suggested naming scheme not thematic!

The three concepts I want to suggest are: Arcane Variance which would cause arcane circles to behave in varied ways depending on a number of circumstances, Arcane Configurations to help adjust and account for Arcane Variance, and Arcane Deviance wherein Arcanists can purposefully try to elicit strange effects out of circles with incorrect configurations.

The general idea is to reward experimentation for Arcanists, without making glyphs useless for the "common" Arcana user (IE - non-Arcanists).


Arcane Variance

Arcane Variance (or Arcane Drift) is the "natural" phenomenon by which Arcane Circles can be altered by a number of factors that (largely) outside of the explicit control of the Arcanist, and can generally be divined into three categories: Major Variances, Minor Variances, and Internal Variances. Not every glyph is affected equally by each Variance (and not every glyph is affected by each variance).

Ideally, Variances could (at the dev's discretion) could change over time due to Mysterious Eldritch Circumstances (so that Arcanists, long term, can continue to have fun little "puzzles" to solve by way of playing around with Arcane Variances and Configurations).

Major Variances

Major Arcane Variances usually either have the most drastic effect on a Circle, or are typically either permanent or only vary over a long period of time. Major Variances can include (but aren't limited to): if a circle was drawn in an anomalous location (an area where a specific glyph acts erratically), the current state of the constellations, the specific month or even day of the year.

Minor Variances

Minor Arcane Variances generally have a lesser effect than Major Variances, and/or vary over a shorter period of time. Minor Variances can include: the current temperature of the room, the light level of the room, the current time of day, other local weather patterns, whether the circle is drawn indoors or outdoors.

Internal Variances

Internal Arcane Variances usually have the least effect on an Arcane Circle, and are almost (but not always) specific to the person drawing the glyph or responsible for activating the glyph. Internal Variances can include: Current morale, current sanity, amount of riln on one's person, ongoing effects both mundane and occult (buffs and debuffs from abilities, including things like the Distyr Effect, the Druidic Vitality affect, or the sorcerous Shadow cloak could all be examples of Internal Variances that alter the glyph based on the person activating the effect).

Arcane Configurations

These are different methods that can be applied when drawing an Arcane Circle, and is representative of detailed, minute changes made to the smaller "glyph work" that Rias has said is present on all arcane circles and separators (he's described circles and separators as having small, very detailed glyphs/symbols being drawn alongside them, so it's not just a plain circle or [/b]just[/b] a plain line). So this would, in terms of RP, be modifying the very minute glyphwork in small ways.

Each Configuration can be categorized as Major, Minor, or Internal, and can be used both to combat Arcane Variance/Drift and create abnormal effects known as Arcane Deviation. I'd probably name Configurations after the Arcanist who discovered them, or based on the specific Arcane Variance they work best to adjust/account for. For example: the Genovesi Configuration might be an Internal Configuration to account and adjust for Low Morale of either the Arcanist or the Activator, while the Kildr Configuration might be a Major Configuration that accounts for an anomalous location in Kildr Dale that causes Distyr to behave strangely, and the Zenith Configuration might be a Configuration that accounts for Solca refusing to function when activated or drawn during the Zenith (noon, in game).

I would have Arcane Configurations be a toggle (CONFIGURE <argument> to start drawing in a configuration, and either repeat the command or CONFIGURE STOP/BLANK/NONE to revert back to normal), as CONFIGURE seems to be an unused command for PCs!) that increases the RT for each part of a drawn Arcane Circle, with trickier Configurations increasing RT more (IE, an Internal Configuration might increase RT by 2, a minor by 4, and a major by 8). A circle must be entirely drawn (from start to finish) with the same Configuration (and I'd have the code simply prevent an Arcanist, with a return something like "That circle has already been drawn in the <NAME> configuration!").

I'm not 100% if I think Configurations should cost Mental Capacity (MC), but they could be learned through STUDY and displayed with the ARCANA/OCCULT/GLYPH commands in their own categories. I lean towards having them cost 1 MC for Internal, 2 for Minor, and 3 for Major, but also changing the Glyph Retention ability to have an Arcanist specific benefit that grants an extra 1 or 2 Mental Capacity per rank in Glyph retention.

Arcane Deviations

The term for when an Arcanist uses a Configuration "incorrectly" in order to achieve a variant-effect of a Glyph. Arcane Deviance can range from "Distyr being brighter when the Genovesi Configuration is used on someone with High Morale" to "Fathys setting someone on fire if they enter a Circle drawn with the Beldi activator in the Octum Configuration in the month of Junum". Sometimes these effects are harmless and small, sometimes there's no noticeable difference, other times it may be dangerous and completely unpredictable (and ideally, there'd be a small handful of useful ones in there, to tempt hesitant Arcanists into experimentation). This 3rd part was mostly inspired by the old "elemancy mixing" system from Clok - I don't necessarily think we need to have a wild amount of Arcane Deviations, especially not overly complex ones. But having some kind of hard coded Arcane Experimentation sounded too fun not to suggest.



edited to clarify what a "configuration" actually is (I was tired when I finished writing this up last night)
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
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nobody
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Re: Arcane Configurations, Arcane Variance, and Arcane Deviations

Post by nobody »

I LOVE this post and I'm glad you made it. I have some preferences that vary from yours, as outlined below:
- I would love to see arcane configurations split as Styles (thinking of this as trying to draw with thinner or thicker lines, and various stylizations on the curves and symbols, if gylphs are words, style is italics or bold) and Symbols (if a glyph is a word, a symbol is like an apostrophy - a minor but meaningful symbol that can be present or not) with symbols being able to be added at any point after the initial circle and modify the immediately prior component (circle, divider, activator, other glyph, possibly even the previous symbol).
- I'd also prefer syntactically that instead of a configure toggle, that it be something like draw occult <glyph> [style] where the style is an optional input.
- If Rias can figure out how to meaningfully strip out symbols that shouldn't have an effect, it can be made such that there isn't a limit to the number of symbols that can be added and that would potentially extend the research potential quite a bit (and a great riln sink as we draw symbols until our chalk runs out).
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nobody
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Re: Arcane Configurations, Arcane Variance, and Arcane Deviations

Post by nobody »

The hardest part for the proposal above is probably figuring out how to make all the things (or at least a meaingful number of them) do something. To that end, the variables I have been able to observe are as follows:
- roundtime to draw a glyph
- energy consumed to draw a glyph
- energy consumed to activate a glyph
- duration of a non-activated circle
- whether a non-activated circle is visible ( to everyone, to those not present when it was drawn, any arcanist, only the drawing arcanist - mostly valuable for trap glyphs if those are a thing, but also valuable for preparing glyphs for youself or someone else in advance without worry of them being disrupted)
- whether a non-activated circle reveals the aura of its drawer
- whether an activated circle reveals the aura of its activatee
- glyph specific variables:
- distyr: brightness (impacts stealth penalty), duration, color
- solca: range, duration (utterances - currently only the first utterance is vocally enhanced)
- terlu: duration, muffle severity (probability of being muffled and amount of stealth benefit), radius (does it muffle others in the room or only the activatee)
- iquaj: duration, blur severity (stealth benefit and perception penalty)
- uyto: duration, potency (hear conversations in adjacent rooms without eavesdropping, at higher levels hear whispers in adjacent rooms and gain vulnerability to sound based attacks - these might be better variants than variable scaling)
- dorun: duration, visibility, potentcy (defense bonuses), deflection cooldown
- shaol: duration, potency (max weight), energy per weight maintenance cost
- cosir: duration, color, potency (light level), energy maintenance cost
- fathys: duration*, potency (heat level), energy maintenance cost
- krytael: duration (how much damage is absorbed), potency (damage absorption ratio)
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nobody
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Re: Arcane Configurations, Arcane Variance, and Arcane Deviations

Post by nobody »

And last, some variations on existing glyphs:

Glyph variations:
- distyr, diffuse variant: by pushing the aura further out from the user the whole room is filled with aura colored light. Makes stealth more viable, but light may be so diminished as to be insufficient to see by without multiple users in the same room or modification by multiple potency symbols
- distyr, displacement variant: the aura silhouette is near the activatee rather than around them. This is confusing for less intelligent aggressors like animals but may also be useful in darker environments against more intelligent foes.
- distyr, hostile variant: for trap activators, directs light inward focuses on eyes, obscuring vision.
- solca, disguising variant: alters the voice for the solca message (currently the number code, but eventually whatever replaces that)
- solca, delayed variant: skip some number of utterances before activating (skip the next X says and then blast the solca, great for pranks!)
- uyto, hostile variant: subject passively eavesdrops in all directions (for multiple rooms distance?) and has vulnerability to loud noises (ongoing energy damage in high noise areas like smithy, active mines, or waterfalls, solca use in same or nearby room causes heavy energy damage and staggering).
- dorun, hostile variant: the shield is directed inward around the activatee, disrupting their attacks.
- shaol, hostile variant (katamari variant!): object cannot be dismissed AND attracts other small objects until reaching maximum weight, limiting the activatee's energy regeneration
- shaol, hostile variant (heavy foot variant): detects activatee's bearing and actively pulls against them for increased travel time and negative rerolls on all acrobatics, dancing, and swimming skill uses. Upward climbs get negative rerolls, downward climbs get +1 reroll, increased RT, and minorly decreased falling damage.
- cosir, hostile variant: circle flashes brightly when beings enter the room, temporarily lowering perception and occasionally staggering - ILLEGAL in all civilized areas.
- fathys, hostile variant: room occupants take heat (energy) damage over time - ILLEGAL in all civilized areas.
- krytael, linked wielder variant: lower energy to activate and shorter (normal glyph) time-based duration, higher damage absorption ratio, but the object's wielder takes the object wear as energy damage. Great for high-value non-repairable items (bloodglass or obsidian), optimal use would be paying the high up-front energy cost of a normal krytael glyph to diminish the energy damage of subsequently using this variant.
- krytael, hostile link variant: as the linked wielder variant, but the activatee is subject to the energy damage instead. Should be distance limited.

I would also love to see some kind of energy management stuff for arcanists, where I could pay energy up front to store over time and get it back when needed, but that may be stepping on warlock toes as that is more or less one of the warlock talisman uses.
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Marcuson
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Re: Arcane Configurations, Arcane Variance, and Arcane Deviations

Post by Marcuson »

It'd be nice if, instead of a timer ticking down after being activated, solca simply has a limited number of utterances, as Nobody suggests. (You could still dismiss the overall effect.)
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