New Arcanist abilities: Elemancy Edition

[Rias]

NEWS HEADLINE (AGAIN): Qamari Arcanists dust off elemancy glyphs

Lost Lands Arcanists were often known in the past for their utilization of elemancy channeling in matters of combat or self-defense against the region's multitudinous dangers, but an incident several years ago interrupted not only the production of channeling focuses but also the effects of the various elemancy glyphs. Usage tapered off in the following years, but with the restoration of the Library of Qamar's Arcane Etcher to produce focuses, the Scholar Guild has dusted off the old elamancy glyph plates for specialized Arcanists to study once again!

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Arcanists now have access to the following abilities:

- Glyph: iodh (Aeromancy Channeling)
- Glyph: haqir (Geomancy Channeling)
- Glyph: qiod (Hydromancy Channeling)
- Glyph: sulif (Pyromancy Channeling)
- Multi-Element Weaving
- Arcana Quickchannel

These are primarily geared toward combat, providing ranged bolt attacks/disablers, but one or two of the combinations have utility application instead. The ranged disablers have cooldowns to try and prevent perma-disabling gameplay, but it is possible to rotate through the various combinations to rotate in a bunch of disablers one after another, so that might require addressing in the future if it turns out to be too easy to manage a stunlock or perma-knockdown.

For those familiar with elemancy's previous implementation, it is not currently possible to channel any specific element more than once. Meaning you could do pyro hydro, but not pyro pyro. Or you could do pyro aero geo, but not pyro pyro geo. This may become possible in the future, but for the time being we're keeping the amount of combinations limited to only a single instance of each element in a weave.

And with all this channeling going on, it only seemed fair to give Arcanists their own quickchannel abilities for more efficient usage in time-critical situations.

An important piece of information in the ability descriptions to note is that these conjurations will vanish/disperse after coming into contact with other significantly solid matter. This means no conjuring water to drink or swim in, no conjured air bubble underwater, no conjured earthy handholds up a steep cliffside, etc. It's very limited that way on purpose! I don't want arcane conjurations to be regarded as a solution to every situation, so they're deliberately severely limited in scope and application.

To be perfectly clear: As with fortourgy, these channeling abilities/glyphs can only be used by those who themselves have knowledge of the glyph. Drawing an occult diagram with channeling glyphs in it will not allow someone else to channel if they don't already know the glyph for themselves.

Whew! This was a lot of stuff, so there are going to be some bugs in there. Please remember to report them with the BUG command in-game. Mentioning them on chat is likely to be missed by GMs due to the cluttered and ephemeral nature of chat.

[Rias]

P.S. Also take note of the part that says not to experiment in public places! Or even private inn rooms! Some of this stuff is very dangerous and volatile, so keep it well outside of towns and outposts, especially if you're experimenting and not sure what's going to happen. Outposts and factions will very much not appreciate conjured havoc among their structures and people.

[Dennis]

It would be great if we could release one channel at a time, giving us more flexibility in multi-element weaving. Right now, we have to drop all of our channels in order to change what ability we're using.

[Ralnos]

It would be great if we could release one channel at a time, giving us more flexibility in multi-element weaving. Right now, we have to drop all of our channels in order to change what ability we're using.

Agreed, I'd love a targeted "release x" style command.

[Navi]

I have a question on the metaphysics of this. You say it quickly disburses. I'm wondering as to the extent that these elements could impact the world around them.
For example, if I struck a tree with a pyromancy bolt, would it simply leave behind a scorch mark where the wood was burned? Would the wood be warm to the touch after the channel was dropped?

[Rias]

(Preemptive clarification about my below responses: I'm not saying you (Navi) are asking for or expecting anything crazy, you asked good questions. It just got me thinking about my typical struggles with magic in fantasy settings and I thought it'd be a good opportunity to set some expectations. I hope it doesn't come across as getting on your case specifically, as that is not my intent.)

I have a question on the metaphysics of this. You say it quickly disburses. I'm wondering as to the extent that these elements could impact the world around them.

As little as possible while maintaining the ability to do what specific game-designed spells do and nothing more. A big part of the point of this rule is so expectations don't go off the rails as to what other effects people feel they could potentially accomplish with these conjurations, which is a typical issue when actual conjuration of "stuff" becomes available in a setting. People start getting all sorts of ideas and often end up far beyond the design scope.

For example, if I struck a tree with a pyromancy bolt, would it simply leave behind a scorch mark where the wood was burned? Would the wood be warm to the touch after the channel was dropped?

Sure, it'll scorch trees just like it'll harm the flesh of targets in combat like any other fire damage. The conjured firebolt poofing just after contact tones down the potency but doesn't dismiss the natural results of (brief) contact with fire.

I'll go ahead and admit that I'm not a learned scientist and that physics and such are not my forte, so while I try to remain true to some fundamental scientific principles where applicable, we must also remember to account for the following:
A) The COGG world is not a carbon copy of the real world. There are some things that work differently and real-world scientific principles that don't apply, some because I don't have a perfect understanding of the workings of the cosmos and some deliberately because of lore reasons.
B) Arcana, and the occult in general, are by and large not well-understood by the inhabitants of the world (there are some notable exceptions). Sometimes the answer is just "we don't know why it works that way, we just know that it does." I try to have at least a basic understanding of the hows and whys of this world's metaphysics - particularly the occult ones - but that doesn't mean the world's inhabitants have that same understanding.
C) I try to avoid leaning too heavily on "it's just the game design balance" reasoning, but when magic-type stuff is concerned I often do so more than usual to keep things reigned in. I don't enjoy worlds with out-of-control scales of magical capability. I love what occult stuff we have and am excited to have reintroduced elemancy under the Arcana system where it has a much more solid place in the lore and metaphysics, but it's by design that a lot of occult stuff in this setting feels very limited to particular applicability and scope.

[Navi]

Thank you. I didn't get that feeling at all. It has excited a lot of players, me included. I'm just wondering how feasible something like an air balloon powered by pyromantic and aeromantic energies would be. I'm not asking for flight to suddenly become common place, It's kind of one of my character's life works to get up in the sky, so even if it's not possible with the current glyph workings and other limitations, it would still provide an avenue of research and study for years to come for them if something like this was possible under the right conditions. .
Just a brief explanation on how air balloons work. Hot air rises and cold air sinks. If you heat up cool air by around 100 degrees F, it will weigh about 7 grams less. According to https://science.howstuffworks.com/trans ... alloon.htm every cubic foot of heated air can lift about 7 grams. This is why air balloons are so large. To lift 200 pounds would require a balloon that's around 40 feet by 40 feet by 40 feet. Interestingly enough, the basket itself seems to be made from wicker, even modern day versions. If you want to read more about the first recorded air balloon trip, you can find an article about it here.
https://www.space.com/16595-montgolfier ... light.html

[Rias]

I'm just wondering how feasible something like an air balloon powered by pyromantic and aeromantic energies would be.

Occult diagrams don't play well with mobility, which is why people are always drawing them on the floor/ground instead of on a portable mat one can just roll out wherever, or the floor of a wagon, or something like that. Glyphstones would work for opening channels regardless of mobility, but utilizing those is going to be a constant drain on the energy of the channeller and thus not going to be a terribly viable option for occult-fuelled flight. Those pesky arbitrary rules, restricting the scope of occult power and keeping us from seeing the skies above Nuum filled with occult flying machines.

P.S. Yes, we do have a few rooms that are technically mobile that I'm now realizing need to be fixed to support the above.
P.P.S. The above is "as best understood by occult experts" and therefore may not be entirely accurate.

[Dennis]

I think someone mentioned it before, but the addition of an "aid"-like command where we can use our active channels to perform minor prestidigitation through fire, water, and air channels to light campfires, powerwash gross objects or people, or dry soppingly wet targets would be great fun.

I miss access to exploding molten boulders, acid orbs, and other "two or more" of the same element permutations, but I find the rotation of available spells really fun. While elemancy lacks that overwhelming punch it had in previous versions, I find the damage options to be intriguing. I have bugged a few odd interactions with regard to one of the utilities.

I hope to find an enemy weak to sandblasting in the future.