Ability types are types of ability categories, such as healing or enchantments. Not all ability types are listed here, but we have included the ability types which should have special notes or notice upon them when writing lore.

Enchantments/Runes/Alteration

For purposes of clarity;

An “Enchantment” is defined as an item which is magically altered to give different effects.

A “Rune” is defined as something inscribed upon an item or place which gives it different effects.

An “Alteration” is a loose term which defines any other method in which one would permanently alter the properties of an item or place. For permanent or semi-permanent fixtures or changes to areas, see General Criteria: Special Lore Locations/Artifacts.

From here on forth, unless specifically mentioning so, all three of these terms will be referred to as “Enchantment”. Please use best judgment when following the reading and finding out where it may apply to your lore.

To take note, the following should be noted when writing some form of Alteration within your lore.

• Any ability that you intend to be able to be used as an enchantment, must be labeled as such, this is to help showcase to everyone what kind of enchantments we can expect. 
  
  An item must be designated as “Player Signed” or “ST-Signed”. An ST Signature warrants a Story Team member to inspect the item, determine the validity of the roleplay involved in its creation, and to log the item after Signing it with a unique signature confirming its validity.
  
  When it comes time to write the guide, you will be expected to include a section on what an enchanted item looks like if the item is ST-Signed, for both players and ST to utilize.
   
• Recharging an enchantment is now antiquated, and highly discouraged in lore. Passive recharging, such as recharging that happens naturally or without roleplay, is fine. However, recharging which would require Story Intervention or logging, is disallowed within lore.

• One type of enchantment is called a Passive Enchantment. Passive enchantments are enchantments which require no direct activation, and simply by existing, provide some effect. Please consider how this may interact with inspection, common tasks/movements/actions, and counters as to how this interacts with other items or magics. Be light with passive enchantments, as this allows effects to be placed and used freely on a holder without effort involved.

• Another type of enchantment is called an Active enchantment. Active enchantments are enchantments which require a user to consciously activate an item in some manner to trigger an effect subsequently. In these cases, consider if a user has to (And should) spend an emote activating that item without performing other actions. In most cases, activating an enchantment and attacking can be looked at as performing two attack emotes in one, and can provide an unfair advantage for a small item at use. Remember to avoid Dualcasting as such is banned, and is attacking twice in the same emote, which is an unfair advantage. Consider how these may interact with passive enchantments that may be on a character, and with other active enchantments too. Don’t forget, an enchantment which must be activated to provide a passive effect afterward is still an active enchantment.

• Be sure when writing an enchantment, that it is a “Permanent” effect. Enchantments should typically not wear out or have an expiration date, as this can be inconvenient when the item suddenly becomes inert, despite the signature and description leading to the illusion that the item does indeed have an effect. If an item does have limited uses or an expiration, be sure it is clearly denoted as a requirement in the enchantment, and define what that limit is.

• Charges, or otherwise limits of how many times an enchantment can be used (If not a permanent effect on the item), should clearly be listed how they recharge, and when. We typically recommend using “Per Combative Encounter” as a measurement, or 24-IRL Hours. Both of these allow sufficient charges to be used and easily tracked by a player, so that they do not overuse an item. Consider how effective an enchantment is and what benefit it grants, and use that to weigh how many charges should be utilized in an encounter.

• Spellbreaks are things which would cancel an enchantment or otherwise interrupt its effect. Be sure to define, if possible, what can stop the enchantment from activating, or what can break the enchantment entirely. Take into account what items can be enchanted also. While a flame-throwing gauntlet may be interesting, consider someone may attempt to use that as a sword- and while in melee combat, shoot a flamethrower out. This is insanely powerful, and can effectively allow someone to both cast a spell, and attack with a sword, at the same time. Consider how this could be incredibly unfair to someone who has just a sword, or just magic, at their side, and be cautious about where your enchantment can be used and how it can be countered.

• When writing an enchantment, take into consideration how it may interact with other lorepieces, such as Thanhium or Auric Oil. As well, take into account how it may “Bloat” a lore, or otherwise give an incredible advantage to someone. An enchantment should likely have some disadvantage which makes one without the enchanting-magic as strong as the enchanter. Make sure too that an enchantment does not take spells or effects from other lore to the best of your ability, and particularly be cautious that it does not do what other lore may intend to do, but better. If by example, one lorepiece has an enchantment which heals burns and takes four emotes, you should try and avoid making an enchantment which does the same thing, but in three emotes.

• In the case of Runes, consider how the runes may function. Do they need to be on a specific part of the item? Can people take these apart and put them on other items? Can people decipher the meaning of these runes? Once inscribed, can they be taken off, or must the item be destroyed to lose the effect? Consider how other players may interact and ask questions about these items and how you should address that in your lore.

• In the case of Alterations, these can be tricky. Transfiguration has had an ability which allows them to modify the density of items, and while interesting, has caused issues before where players make mundane items that are “finely-tuned” and min-max’d to allow them as much power as possible down to the percentage of alteration. Please be cautious with these, and disallow getting too technical with their usage.

• Take into account that enchantments should be simple to understand and easy to use. When taking an enchantment or enchanted item, a player of any assortment should be able to take that item and immediately understand what it can and cannot do. Avoid being over-complex within your writing, and take into account from a new-player’s eyes how these things may work.

Healing

Healing abilities require more effort the more they are capable of healing. Healing someone from the brink of death should not be done in a handful of emotes like old healing magics allowed for. 

On top of the RP needing to be extensive (or broken into multiple RP sessions that aren’t all crammed into a day), the healing should be interesting and/or interactive for the one being healed. Simply emoting some magic energy fixing the person is neither of those. Healing should have a lasting effect on both characters involved, and should do it’s best to be thematic to the lore, while also not simply “Undoing” whatever roleplay may have occurred to cause that wound to begin with.
 

If you are healing in a combat situation, you should aim to have your ability revolve around stabilizing rather than fully healing someone to the point where they can re-enter a fight. You can read more about the subject under Explanation Topics: Healing.

Empowerment

Empowerment is tricky but can be a very interesting part of lore. Empowerment should be something which can be heavily beneficial, but should likely be in the short term strictly. Empowerment is something which should have either a “Wind Up” or “Wind Down” period in which a character is more vulnerable, weakened, or both, to allow for fair counterplay and to not simply have a temporary steroid which makes a user far too strong. The following are some guidelines for Empowerment in each kind.

Physical

Physical empowerment, such as augmenting your body, is tricky and should often have some drawback such as enhanced exhaustion, less endurance, and less stamina before or afterward. Unique effects are welcome too, for small empowerments or changes, one may have effects that change how a character is roleplayed. Tawkin takes well after this, with some small augments having beneficial roleplay effects, with minor detriments. Maybe a physical empowerment gives one thicker skin to resist cuts, but it often peels and cracks- deforming them and not wearing well with armour.

Physical empowerment of strength can be tricky. Typically, peak of their native descendant race is typically acceptable without drawbacks. The stronger, quicker, or more durable, one can be, the more detriments should be associated either in the short term, long term, or both. 

Mental

Mental empowerment is much more easy to implement. Things like boosting comprehension, intelligence, and so on, are generally acceptable without consequence. However, something such as a “Mental Barrier” is something which should require more drawback. In some lores, a Mental Barrier may prevent one from being susceptible to illusions or mental invasions from other lores. While interesting with certain pieces, it should make sense within the lore, and should absolutely have drawbacks associated with it.

Direct Casting

Magic empowerment in the form of directly boosting your magic’s strength via a spell is very tricky and often difficult to implement. For reference, there is no such thing as “Tier 6” spell. Without going above tiers, empowering spells should include augmenting or increasing the charge of the spell, changing its effects. An example of this could be found in Fire Evocation, where normal spells have normal emotes, but with +1 emote, can be explosive, or burning-blue hot. This increases the charge time and the mana cost, but makes the spell more potent. 

There are interesting ideas, like making certain areas or placing down something like runes on the ground which empower spells if you stand upon them. While interesting, these can be tricky to memorize which blocks are empowering, and it can be emote-inefficient to take a long time to place down an empowerment then to fire an empowered spell. Keep these things in mind when utilizing this concept.

Be sure to define Enchantments being empowered. The ST generally dislike empowering enchantments given that anyone may use them.

Ritual Casting

Magic empowerment in the form of a ritual is something which often does not do well in PVP-combat. The ST do not recommend making ritual-casting for combat. However, for events, ritual casting is granted either hard-written definitions, or even full freeformity, with ET permission. Voidal Circling, by example, allows any number of voidal mages to gather and work together to make a “super spell” of any kind to have special effect within events. This should be ET-Friendly, and should not act as a insta-win, or death spell, and should be interesting and thematic for covens and guilds to work together to make a great show. This should not be something which ruins the fun of an event for others by ending it too quick. 

Object

Object empowerment is effectively a short-term enchantment. This is allowed and often fine, but should be well defined in its capabilities, requirements, and so on. One should define how empowered objects may as well interact with things like Auric Oil or Thanhium, how long an object-empowerment lasts, etc.. Be sure to clarify Object Empowerment is short term, and that it is not an enchanted effect.

Poisons & Disease

Poisons in their entirety are heavily discouraged by The ST to use or write in any lorepiece. Given their nature, they often may be uninteresting or uninteractive for RP. Poisons which are lethal in any capacity are grounds for automatic denial in a lorepiece.

Poisons however which are nonlethal, can be more interesting and are cautious, but allowed. Poisons should always be well defined in a lore, and should require ST or Player signature on an item. Poisons too should be clearly distinguishable, and should not be something completely unnoticeable within an item. 

Diseases and Diseased items are alright too, given the follow the above. A disease or diseased item within a lore should be clearly defined, and entirely non-lethal. A disease inflicted upon a character should be temporary, lasting IRL days at most, while allowing the user to take that further if they OOCly consent to so. While diseased, a player should not be required to constantly ask whoever gave them so how it works. It should be clearly defined and explained within the lore. 

Both poisons and diseases should not last long, and should have an option for a cure. This cure can be mildly difficult to require, but should not be troublesome or annoying to do. Poisons and Disease are aimed at creating interesting or unique roleplay which may temporarily alter a character, but should not in any capacity be something used in bad faith or to make someone dislike how their character is played. 

Portal Creation/Teleportation/Blinking

In a lot of fantasy settings, things such as magical portals and teleportation are possible. In LotC this is the case as well, but there are some restrictions to it. Consider the difficulties of representing these mechanically and placing that within lore.

Portals:

• No portals should be established that lead to other areas of the map. This is considered hard to do, given there is no current method of fast travel for lore/magic useage. “Roleplay” methods of traveling long distances are accepted, but in no instance could you request a /tp or /warp to any area through this method.
• Portals leading to Aengudaemonic related areas should be made with a PK clause understanding if they go in they will immediately be obliterated upon entry. These are generally discouraged within lore. 
• Players should not have some form of mechanical or physical representation for these portals or realms. These can be aesthetic alternatives for Shulkers or Ender chests. In the case of places you visit, you may build this and roleplay in it yourself, but you should avoid writing in your lore usage around these given they aren’t practical for players to roleplay around or move to.

Long Range Teleportation:

• Not allowed outside of soulstones.
  • This includes any kind of long range teleportation around the map, along with teleporting characters or items to you from afar.
  • One may “Thematically” or “Aesthetically” explain how they may teleport long range, as example “I used a Translocation spell to warp from X nation to Y Nation”. This is acceptable. One may under no circumstance mandate /tp, /warp, or a warp sign to be utilized within their lorepiece. 

Short Range Teleportation (Blinking):

• Should be considered how potent these spells are with movement, and if/how a character can interact while casting these spells (Can they swing a sword? Cast another spell? Continue movement?)
• It is disallowed to write a teleport where one cannot reach mechanically without replacing, placing, or destroying blocks.
• Short range teleportation in noncombative instances may be aesthetic re-skins for Lifts. With signs not able to be /lwc lock-ed, one cannot lock a lift sign. 

Sensing/Tracking/Locating

This group of ability types are strongly discouraged as they mostly act as a tool for what is essentially lore approved metagaming when used against other players or their items/builds.

Sensing abilities revolve around being able to detect things, sometimes in a vague fashion and sometimes in a very precise manner. You should not have any ability that is capable of distinguishing special traits about a person, such as being able to tell someone is an undead or practices a certain magic. Vague sensing abilities where you can tell that a person is around in a small radius around you is what is currently allowed. Tracking/Locating abilities where you can hunt a person down from across the map or magically see where someone is through a mirror is not allowed. The same goes for animals doing this, such as bloodhounds.

For small aesthetic, or otherwise flavourful things, this is fine. Small hints or “spider senses” are alright. Modified sensory organs (Such as nightvision, enhanced hearing, etc). Should be clearly defined and with some drawbacks for utilization. These should most often be utilized in events, and when in player combat, should not be an “Automatic Sense” which acts as a guaranteed win or effect onto another player- which would be considered powergaming. 

One should never be able to sense, track, or locate someone of a specific MA, CA, or Feat. Even if one may share the same MA, CA, or Feat, this is very highly discouraged given it can lead to bad faith roleplay.

An ability is a special function that a character is capable of learning/utilizing, depending on the lore piece. For example, magic users are capable of learning spells and creatures might have some special retractable claws. Both of these can be considered abilities. Abilities are, for purposes of this thread, synonymous with the word Spell. 

• A combative/combat ability is an ability that is capable of being used in a conflict encounter, which can be both PVP (Player versus player combat) and PVE (player versus environment, events typically, combat). Combative spells can be used out of combat as well, unless otherwise specified. 
• A non-combative ability is an ability that is incapable of being done in a conflict encounter. It does not matter how it is done, but a non-combative ability can have no impact or change on the initiation of combat or any of it’s characters. 

That said, whether they be magical or not, all abilities written into a magic/feat/creature/race/invention/et cetera have to be balanced. We have laid out a number of sections for you to read and understand what you should be taking into account when designing abilities for your lore. 

Let’s build an ability together. Formatting for an ability is as follows.

(Ability Name & Labels)

[Tier 3] [Combative/Noncombative] - Fireball

In this section, it should be labeled clearly at the top- before any other portion of the spell what tier a spell is, so that people know when it is available to learn and to cast. Afterward,  [Combative] or [Noncombative] is put in brackets. You can put one or the other, or even both. Following this, you’ll want to include the ability name. For the purposes of this, we’ll have a simple fireball spell, but they can be less straightforward. Some abilities which have more complex names are “Wailing”, “The Name That Lives On”, “Living Tether”, and so on. Just be sure it makes sense and can be used in roleplay, since most people will say it’s name in roleplay. 

RP Description

Many fear the wayward mage, for their terrifying flame is as destructive as it is potent. Conjured of their foul voidal magick, they push forth a ball of an unstable inferno which would blast-dead anyone who stood within it’s path.

This is the RP description of the ability and its capabilities. This is mostly flavor text and fluff, particularly of what the ability looks like or does in a more fantasy-way. This description does not include how the spell is used exactly, that is reserved for mechanics. Have fun with this part, and don’t worry about how it will be viewed. Give people ideas on how they can interpret or put variance on the spell, like changing how it is cast or giving different tell emotes to it.

Mechanics

Fireball takes [3] emotes to cast (1 connect, 1 charge, 1 cast). If interrupted, fireball would explode, and harm the caster with first degree burns if unprotected. Fireball, when striking a target, would explode to pieces, affecting anyone within a [3x3x3] range of the hit with second-degree burns and searing pain. Fireball may be cast onto targets up to [20] meters away.

This is the OOC description of the spell that covers things like emote counts and other specifications that you need to be aware of. Make sure you include everything that is talked about in this thread, and consider all the parts that can be used, and the questions that will be asked. Get feedback on these, and take a look at other lores to see how they balanced their spells. Be very careful with your wording, and do your best to remove all fluff and flowery wording. You want to make sure there is no misinterpretation of your lore. Throw in the range too, which is important to your spell. How far it can be cast, and maybe even what happens if it even misses.

Redlines

-This spell may be cast while moving at halved speed.

-This spell may be interrupted with Abjuration, Auric Oil, or Thanhium. 

-This spell is Tier 3, and takes [X] amount of mana from one’s mana pool.

-Fireball is doused easily by water.

-Fireball, once it strikes it’s target and explodes, does not continue to light a target or any nearby on fire. Once it explodes, it dissipates.

-Fireball cannot be used to light buildings or trees on fire.

-If one is wearing armour, the burn effect of Fireball would be lessened to first degree burns. A shield would block the spell fully, unless one was caught within it’s 3x3x3 range.

-Fireball requires line of sight to cast.

Redlines can be tedious and monotonous to think of EVERY quirk your lore may have, but try and write in broad terms to cover these topics. Detail and specify the parts that are needed, and allow for mild interpretation where necessary. If I did not include that abjuration/auric oil/thanhium line, this spell would probably be accepted just fine. Instead of looking to the spell, the player or the ST could look at the lore, and find that “Oh, this magic is mana based, so it could be countered by anti-magic measures like these”. Don’t overthink these, and do your best to think of questions people could ask on how this spell works and what its effects are.

And there we have our spell! This is what it looks like all put together.

[Tier 3] [Combative/Noncombative] - Fireball

Many fear the wayward mage, for their terrifying flame is as destructive as it is potent. Conjured of their foul voidal magick, they push forth a ball of an unstable inferno which would blast-dead anyone who stood within it’s path.

Mechanics

Fireball takes [3] emotes to cast (1 connect, 1 charge, 1 cast). If interrupted, fireball would explode, and harm the caster with first degree burns if unprotected. Fireball, when striking a target, would explode to pieces, affecting anyone within a [3x3x3] range of the hit with second-degree burns and searing pain. Fireball may be cast onto targets up to [20] meters away.

Redlines

-This spell may be cast while moving at halved speed.

-This spell may be interrupted with Abjuration, Auric Oil, or Thanhium. 

-This spell is Tier 3, and takes [X] amount of mana from one’s mana pool.

-Fireball is doused easily by water.

-Fireball, once it strikes it’s target and explodes, does not continue to light a target or any nearby on fire. Once it explodes, it dissipates.

-Fireball cannot be used to light buildings or trees on fire.

-If one is wearing armour, the burn effect of Fireball would be lessened to first degree burns. A shield would block the spell fully, unless one was caught within it’s 3x3x3 range.

-Fireball requires line of sight to cast.

Ability Components

Abilities are made up of a number of components. These need to be properly accounted for to create the ideal ability, which is creative, fun, interesting, and well written.

Labeling Abilities

Abilities are required to be labeled as either “combative” or “non-combative”. You can do both, just note that the combative variety of the spell should be limited in what it can do. We are giving people more freedom in what their abilities do for non-combative spells, under the premise that they recognize it is incapable of being used in combat.

• Non-combative spells are mostly there for aesthetic or flavor. They can provide minor boons which can make non-combative rp easier or more interesting. Be creative with these, as they can have a lot more leeway in freeformity. Not all non-combative spells fall under this, with spells like healing and rituals. Keep respect to narrative themes and power-scaling in relation to the magic, feat, or creature you are writing for.
• Combat spells are often under a bit more scrutiny, just to be certain how far a spell can go when it’s taken to it’s farthest, and how it can interact with others. Combat spells should be well balanced, and should be as well defined as possible. If a combative spell is able to be used in noncombative scenarios, be sure to define (if applicable) what may be different, if anything. 

Timing, or “Emote Count”

Combat spells should have emote counts, such as 3 emotes to utilize the ability. Non-combat spells can have emote counts, time measurements in “Narrative Time”, or may not have emote counts at all. 

How long does it take for the ability to be used? This is primarily for combative abilities, as it’s imperative for the caster to understand how to emote it out. For combat situations, you should always use hard-set emote counts. 4 emotes, 3 emotes, etc… IRL or Narrative time can be difficult to track for combative scenarios, and should not be used. However, if one’s ability is meant to be used for the entire duration of combat, terms such as “Passive”, “Passively” or “Until the end of the combative encounter” may be utilized. If there is some exception, such as a spell that only effects one target, situational timers can be applied. Such as “Effective until target is incapacitated”, or some other status.

Using IRL time as a cooldown after the combat encounter ends is iffy, but works though as the combat has ended. For example, if you write that the above ability can only be used once an hour, you can easily track that once the encounter ends and there’s no potential issue of things getting dragged out. However, given how time can be tricky, particularly when applying from combat-to-combat, we simply endorse the use of long IRL timers (Such as 24h), and not narrative time.

If it is an out of combat ability, an emote count OR length of time can be provided. For example, brewing a complicated alchemical concoction could take longer than a day, so there’s no need for exact emote counts. Most noncombative spells have minimal emote counts or no required emote counts at all, which is fine. Be sure to clarify what it is in your noncombative spell.

Be sure to as well list how long your ability may last. If it is channeled, how long its effects are, and so on. Consider how strong this may be, or how short it may be. You do not want a spell too frustrating to repeat-cast so often, and you do not want a spell which takes minimal effort but has major impacts throughout the encounter. 

Effects

Any effect that an ability causes need to be thoroughly written out. These effects of your ability could be truly anything. A damaging spell? A healing spell? An enchantment? A passive effect? A simple manipulation of elements? Storytelling? It’s entirely up to you. However, it’s effects need to be absolutely clear. While the Description of the spell can be as flavorful and flowery as one may like, its mechanics need to be rock-solid understandable. Below is some criteria to think about. 

What the ability does must be described as detailed as possible, otherwise it becomes hard for the user to convey how people should react. Think of how to describe your spell using three pillars, or “The Three C’s”.

-Ease of understanding (Clarity)

-Lack of frustrative interpretation (Conciseness)

-Use of any and all considerations, and baseline to understand (Completeness)

For Clarity, consider how easy it is to understand a spell. A spell should be easy enough that someone who has not read the lore, with perhaps five or ten minutes of time, could understand how to utilize, know it’s limits, and know when something has gone too far or broken lore. Be as clear as possible with spellwriting, and be sure to consider that while you may know your lore in and out, others may not. 

For Conciseness, consider how concise you are in your explanation. You should not have, after two people reading it, two different varying spells from what is intended. While tells, ways of casting, and so on may change, one thing is for certain- The ability’s effect should never, ever, be different from what is written on the page unless the spell has variance in some matter. Be sure that you are concise in your writing, avoiding flowery wording or overly-descriptive terms. Save your prose for the description and the guide!

For Completeness, consider that you have everything included. The ranges, the effects, the conditions that require casting, the resource cost, the after effects, etc… Be sure to take these things into account. Rather than being over-descriptive, try and be broad. This may sound odd, and counterproductive. What is meant by this, is to try and lay down labels that define your ability, so that it is clearly understandable. As stated before, one does not have to write for every spell of a mana-based magic “Vulnerable to Thanhium”. This is because it is known the magic is a mana-based magic, and thus, Thanhium is vulnerable to so. However, consider how individual spells may interact in certain scenarios. Maybe your one heat or fire ability in your arsenal is vulnerable to being doused by water, or maybe it isn’t! It’s something you should consider. Less is more, in this circumstance- define things in broad terms for your baseline of understanding, and define where this ability deviates from the norm.

When coming up with effects, you also need to account for existing lore and their playerbases. If your ability targets plants, you should account for it going against druids and balance it. Consider how a lore which may use mana is affected by Thanhium. Most of the time, this is not a problem. See Explanation Topics: The Lore Web for more information. In any case, reaching out to these playerbases to discuss the lore is not a bad idea to ensure that both sides are happy with the results and so that you are as informed as possible to write good lore.

For example, a spell that disorients someone should describe how it is doing so. Dizziness, inability to think straight, loss of depth perception, et cetera are all different ways that disorientation could be done, so you should be clear in order for the victim to RP it properly when hit. The severity and length of the effect should also be described. Does it last for a few emotes? A day? Etc.

Consider then everything that not only may change with your character through an ability, but another’s character. How should they respond? What should change about their condition? Your condition? What is different from before? Be as clear, concise, and complete as possible. 

Counters

The best abilities are ones which by some sort, have some form of counterplay where applicable. Typically, counters should be restricted to Lore Locations or Spell-like abilities, perhaps even enchantments. 

Abilities should be fun for the person using them, but also, the person affected by them! To prevent too much bloat in your writing and too much frustration upon your end, consider including baseline counters in your lore rather than counters for each individual ability. Perhaps your CA is vulnerable to gold, or your magic does not work well when it is night time. Take these things in mind, and allow for both active, and passive, counter-play to your magic.  

Any ability that can affect a person or area should have some kind of counter. It does not necessarily need to be a magical counter either. Consider how accessible these counters are, and how to make that both fun and interesting for your ability.

Rather than looking at counters like “How can someone ruin my day”, moreso, “How can my spell excel in certain conditions?” Perhaps rain does not play well with a fire-based magic, or that being nearby Voidal-based casters makes your nature magic shrink and become weak. Think about how there is two types of counterplay- both active, and passive.

Active counterplay is counterplay in which an “Opponent” would actively consider your capabilities, and try and play against that by doing something which is unfavourable to them. Maybe your stone-armor is easily vulnerable to hammers. Perhaps your vines and brambles are vulnerable to fire. A form of “Active” counterplay would have someone bringing hammers for that armour, or flames for those organics. These should be an option in some circumstances where a powerful ability warrants it.

Passive counterplay is counterplay in which is mostly brought on by the person with the ability. Maybe they need concentration for a spell, or to be vulnerable to attack while using an ability. Maybe they need to be within a certain weather or time condition, or perhaps in proximity to others, or even alone. Maybe they need time to setup to be truly effective in combat. Passive counterplay is often factors which a person brings onto themselves, or rather, that can be overcome throughout the progression of combat. 

Make sure to avoid “Shut down” counters. Particularly when writing something built for counters, avoid something which completely shuts down or turns the situation to an automatic-win for the person with the counter. This is not fun, and often used to justify excessively powerful abilities. You want to try and keep counters fun, and with a chance to still win for the person being countered, even though they are certainly disadvantaged.

For example of a counter in action, if you have a spell that is cursing someone with an illness, you could write in the counter to be a type of alchemical/mundane medicine. Counters should not be a niche thing either unless the effect is minor. For example, if your cursing spell can result in someone’s death, the counter for it should not be some obscure herb that only a small handful of people have access to. Or if it’s some magical entity, the only weakness should not be thanhium.

Damage and Lethality

Damaging abilities can be a tricky topic for some. Many look to other lores asking themselves “What did they do right, that I can to?”
Understand that damaging abilities framed individually can look okay, but you should try and take a look more importantly at the bigger picture. 

But, in general, abilities should try and strive for a balance which takes into account all these other factors within this thread. Emote counts are important, ranges, line of sight (or lack thereof), conditional modifiers, and so on. Let’s dive into some details. 

The ability itself should be balanced, especially if it is combative or has negative effects on people/areas. There should always be some degree of fairness, as both sides are meant to think creatively and have fun in combat. Unfortunately given the nature of open lore on the server, there will always be those who pre-plan everything before combat, and make no effort to try and roleplay on their own. You should not write lore in account to “Arms Race” these types of players, as it only reinforces the nature of bad faith roleplay and seeking those out. Be open, and describe exactly what an ability does, and it’s ins-and-outs. A lore should not be left open to interpretation on what an ability does, or even if the ability is there in the first place. 

An example, in the past arms-racing lead to a problem in the past between Paladinism and Shade. The two writers for the lorepieces refused to work amongst one another, and would write in effects that specifically targeted eachothers lore. This lead to a lot of bad roleplay in which moderation and story team were constantly called to watch over each conflict, with each player more focused on disconnecting/PKing other players rather than having any roleplay motivation to do so. The magics aswell were extremely overtuned, as they kept trying to out-do one another with every subsequent rewrite.

Ability targeting: How your ability targets people is very important and something to keep in mind when writing your ability. The target/opponent should have a chance to dodge or react to the ability in some form before being fully utilized. 
 

• Short Range (Quiet (8 blocks/metres) range or less): “Touch” spells are common within this category. With “touch” spells, be sure to have a tell of somekind that indicates something is going on abnormal. Of course, this can be addressed within your connection details and not necessarily with your individual spells, but sometimes the difference is something that’s nice to have. Be sure to indicate how touch is made; skin to skin contact? What about clothing? Armour? Think outside the box and put it to test yourself with some ideas of how it could be utilized.
   
  • Something aswell with these are “Short Range” spells, spells that are very close-range and meant for most likely, melee or disengage-related combat. Try your best to not make your spell too painful to use, if that is not the intent. Consider the distance one may be at with a combatant, and what ideally that maintained distance is; but consider that not every scenario will be there. Think of how you want your Flamethrower spell to be ideally hitting a target between six and eight blocks. Too close, and you may be attacked by them. Too far, and they may run away and simply sit outside the range.
     
  • Healing spells are most common here, and rightfully so- while a ranged healer could be considered, it does somewhat greatly impact the server’s direction in regards to healing. For more info, check out Explanation Topics: Healing, and General Criteria: Ability Types
     
  • (Self) affecting abilities are most commonly here too. Consider how much your ability may deter or affect melee combat, and if that is problematic in making the ability user untouchable in some form.
     
  • Be sure to take into account movement particularly with these these spells, and take absolutely into account interactions with melee combat and melee combatants.
    
     

• Medium Range (Attacks within #rp (20 blocks/metres) distance): Abilities that harm people from afar should give the target a chance to dodge or at least react to the ability in some regard. Projectiles should be visible when being fired at someone. Any ability that involves a tether or connection to their target should also have some method of neutralizing the ability prior to connection, beyond just making the target flee the effect radius.
   
  • Things to consider for Medium Range are most particularly, line of sight, clarity of tells, and your spellpower. Spellpower is very important to consider because a target may be unable to, or take a long time, to reach the ability user. Consider why this ability has this certain level of power, and consider what use it has prepping going into, or coming out of, melee combat. Consider interactions with other ranged combatants, and movement speed while utilizing this ability. With line of sight, consider how it may be broken, if that at all affects the ability.

• Long Range (Attacks greater than #rp (20 blocks/metres) distance): Abilities of this caliber are very, very tricky. Typically these abilities are at greater susceptibility to dodging, but consider how much it may strain the user to use an ability at this range. Consider as well, how much they may be impaired movement wise, and particularly with line of sight. This range doesn’t have to be too hard. Think of how you can utilize someone, or something, approaching from this range. Perhaps you want to use the ability to curse, weaken, impair, or mark your target to otherwise benefit you or others. Consider how being attacked from this range may be considered unfair. And if at any point doubting power, take a look at mundane weaponry. Bows, crossbows, slings, arbalests- consider how this power works, and try and translate that in the best way you can to an interesting ability. Perhaps some damage or weaken over time, perhaps something as simple as a bow re-skin or slight upgrade.

• Emote Economy: Familiar with Dungeons and Dragons? You may have heard of a term called “Action Economy”. In short, it means what actions one can realistically perform in one turn- and how that affects progress on big impact events. How much value you get for spending a certain amount of emotes over another magic, how effective your time spent using your magic/feat/ca is over another. Power-creep is something to consider too- there’s been plenty of lore pieces who have taken abilities from other magics, and given them a simple tune-up or slight adjustment to give them more power. Compound this with more and more lore pieces following this, and we have a much more compact and much more powerful set of lore than we did before- which not only harms lore interactions, and those older lores, but it severely hurts “Mundane” players who don’t utilize much, if any, lore combatively.
  
  Consider how much your spell allows someone to do something. Consider how versatile it may be, and how much they can get done, or rather, avoid, during it. Can someone dodge? Wield a weapon? Block, parry, even attack at the same time? Can they move at full pace? Be fully aware of their surroundings? Can they impair someone, their actions, or any of their ability? Consider these things when weighing in how many emotes it takes to get something done- what options are closed, open, and so on.
   
  • 1 emote ability: These abilities are typically very minor, if combative whatsoever. With these, be careful if your lore has “Connection” of somekind which mandates a prep-emote. Consider if there’s persistent connection (Ability to maintain connection between abilities), and how this may make a one-emote ability rather strong, or overpowered. Try keeping these to a minimum, as cantrips or flavor spells. Things like drawing weapons, minor empowerments to the self, one’s tools, or to others, etc.
     
  • 2 emote ability: Without a connection or prep-emote of some kind, these spells should be spells used either leading into a combo of some kind, or minor spells which give a quick, but ultimately nonfactor advantage. Sand in the eyes, impairing an opponents movement, enhancing your next ability or abilities, or even something like preparing yourself, your tools, or others in a moderate or good form.
    
    With a connection emote adding to [3] total emotes, even with persistent connection keeping it to [2], these are your bread-and-butter abilities. These should have reasonable damage that would impair or wound someone, but maybe not fully take them out. A “Bullet in the shoulder” type wound, something which would stop the unprepared in their tracks, but those truly determined or prepared could be ready for so. These could even be utility abilities, such as ones which move you around quicker or give you some defensive advantage. Given the low emote count, keep it cautious.
     
  • 3 emote ability: Without a connection or prep-emote of some kind, these spells are more powerful and would be moderately wounding. Spells capable of wounding someone, potentially taking the wind out of their sails- but by no means stopping them, killing them (if as a first strike), or so on. These are the heavy-hitters, but not necessarily your most powerful move in your arsenal. With these emotes, you can start to play around with mild AOE effects, or side-effects to your harm- that benefit you, others, or detriment your opponent and their allies. These abilities are a bit greater and should give some advantage to the user. In terms of utility, this is a spell which may not be always applicable, but provides them an advantage if it has taken this long to cast. Something rewarding, greater than one’s capabilities if they were trying to perform an action normally.
    
    With a connection emote adding to [4] total emotes, even with persistent connection keeping it to [3], these are your greater abilities which would reasonably be able to inflict moderate to severe wounds. Concussive force, bloodloss, trauma, second to third degree burns, etc.. These abilities should be mortal wounds of some kind, which would hurt someone greatly and require them to seek medical treatment soon, if not immediately. These abilities in terms of utility can grant a user a significant advantage in their situation, be it in movement, defense, and so on that strengthens them/presses an advantage with how long they have been allowed to cast.
     
  • 4+ emote ability: Without connection, these are your most powerful, or most niche, abilities. Abilities taking this long would sustain a large effect, or an effect which would last a significant (if not indefinite) duration. Abilities this can be ritualistic, which depends on your type of lore on where that exactly goes, or how it works. But consider how with these long emote timers, how one could mortally wound or incapacitate someone, if not severely damaging the unprepared. These abilities  should carry very clear emotes and tells, and should be very taxing energy-wise. These abilities can as well scale into “Niche” purposes. Large AOE abilities not useful for single targets, or useful against specific types of targets. Perhaps these spells are only useful in some scenarios, and worthless in others despite their cost. In terms of utility abilities, these may grant extremely useful abilities to a user. Maybe it is ignoring a subsequent hit or two, or healing/pausing a deeply harmful wound. Maybe they impair the other combatants or allow you to perform things like movement, reactions, or actions to a greater ability than normal.
    
    With a connection emote adding to [5+] total emotes, even with persistent connection keeping it to [4+], these spells should be careful. Often, these can be slow, clunky, and seen as unusable outside of events. Make sure your abilities are appropriately adjusted to their purpose, and carry unique use-cases instead of being your simple “Biggest Attack Move”, which can seem as lame and distasteful. Think of how your can incorporate other effects into your ability which could affect yourself, others, or even the environment around you significantly. In terms of utility, these could be abilities which empower your caster for the rest of the fight, or to an ability severely above normal. Perhaps they teleport a significant range, or ignore pain/wounds, or are rewarded for subsequent spellcasts. The choices really are endless.
    
    Overall, more emotes aren’t necessarily a pass to do more damage or more things, as you still have to be in good faith when writing these abilities.

Energy

Abilities cost energy, just as swinging a sword makes one tire out. Mana systems are a part of near every lore to some extent, unless the purpose of that lore is to have no mana system- suffering in other ways, such as Eidola who have unlimited endurance but are slow and clunky. Energy is not limited to mana-type systems though, and often applies to individual spells themselves. Lets go into detail. 

Some lores do have mana systems unique to them. See Explanation Topics: Power Sources for a bit more detail on this. However, in any case, abilities usually cost some form of mana. In some circumstances, this is up to the roleplayer to determine- such as in Voidal Magic or Housemagery, without defined mana limits. Other lores such as Paladinism or Naztherak, have custom mana systems which limit their users. Whatever type of mana-system and power source your lore use, it should apply to your spells too. Be sure to list in the mechanics, or the redlines, perhaps even both- how much mana an ability costs. While not all abilities should cost mana, be mindful that ones which you want to limit the use of, should have mana costs, or on the other hand, limits- see that below.

Limits are a fairly new type of energy placed within a few lores. Some spells may have both Energy-cost and Limits, while other spells just have one or the other. For spells you particularly want limited in their use or “Spammability”, be sure to apply a Limit. A limit is effectively a “Charge”, of how many times you can use a spell in a certain amount of time. Some lores have spells which can only be used once, than going on a four emote cooldown before being able to be used again. Some lores only have spells eligible to use once per combat. Others, have some form of recharge-system, in which they have to earn their ability to cast again somehow.

In any case of what your limit may be, be sure it is appropriate, and be sure that your spell has an appropriate cost energy wise. Make sure to write how your ability may exhaust the person using it in the guide, and define how tolling that much energy taken away is. 

As well, energy in general should not be tracked by large or arbitrary number systems. Try and keep mana-costs and mana-pools small and in low number. In the days of old, people often had to bring out calculators mid-combat only half as a joke to keep track of how much Mana or Resources they expended. Keep it simple, and keep numbers easy to track and easy to think of. 

Red Lines/Restriction

All abilities should have red lines that dictate the limitations of the spell, outside of their general mechanics. Try to be clarifying with redlines, and restrictive, rather than additive. These limitations are there for you to outline what an ability can or cannot do with more detail. You should not implement redlines that are overly restrictive without a justifiable explanation. In every case of lore exists the clause that “Unless it is written, you cannot do that”. Do not answer a “question” with a redline that asks more questions- try and be definitive. 

Any ability should come with restrictions/red lines that dictates clearly the limitations of the spell outside of their general mechanics. If you leave things vague, it becomes open for people to abuse. As such, all red lines/restrictions should be concise and easy to understand. Bear in mind, the red lines/restrictions is not the end all be all when it comes to the ability limitations. Your mechanics section is just as important.

Make sure to never use hand-wavey wording. Be decisive, and be affirmative. “May lead to” and “Sometimes” or “Perhaps” are all examples of bad word choice. A redline that says “Being burnt with a fireball may leave burns” is much different than “Being burnt with a fireball will leave burns.” Be clear and do not allow for misinterpretation. Account for what limits you may have to put on something- that a spell cannot be held for too long, that one requires line of sight, that one cannot use an ability under certain conditions, etc…

Be clear with your redlines, and be sure to write what it is your spell CANNOT do, and what its LIMITS are. 

This thread covers the stance taken on combat pets/summoned creatures. As always, consult the lore on if it has any specifics which may differ or change from this. This thread serves as a guide for general use for all things related to pets/mounts, mundane and magic. Unless otherwise specified within lore, this applies to all lorepieces and the world of LOTC. 

Combat Pets/Summoning

Combat pets are animals/creatures that exist without summoning, often index entries that have been tamed by a character or “befriended” by something like a druid. Summoned creatures are a variant of combat pet that a magic has summoned, which typically can be done wherever/whenever depending on conditions of the caster. These are generally acceptable with lore, so long as they follow the “Dependent” structure of pet listed below.

Combat Mounts

Combat mounts are either combat pets designed to be a mount or a larger summoned creature with the same intention. In lore submissions, we require these mechanically function the exact same as a horse. As well, depending on size, they may not participate within combat in any form outside of riding/mobility.

Swarms

Swarms are generally ill-advised due to how difficult they may be to represent in lore. Thus, we advise they are generally avoided with lore submissions. However, if it is a must have for a lore piece, we advise swarms be as well defined and clear as possible, with relatively easy counters or little affect outside of annoyance or psychological damage. 

Independent vs Dependent

The primary issue with having combat pets or summoned creatures is when they are independent to the caster. This means that they do not need to be sustained by the character and are able to act without the character’s constant direction. For example, an Independent combat pet/summon would be one which acts on it’s own, while a Dependent combat pet relies on it’s caster to act.

Independent Combat Pets/Summons

Independent pets/summoned creatures are capped at the size of a standard wolf or dog. Anything larger may be tamed and befriended, but cannot under any circumstance be utilized within combat. A character may utilize one independent combat pet per combative encounter, as to prevent people with individual “Wolf Packs” or “Murder of Crows” as we’ve seen negatively used in the past. Pets should be based off of regular IRL animals that make sense to tame or lore creatures which allow taming. Claiming you have found/tamed an IRL variety of creature that is normally rare is entirely disallowed. 

Independent combat summons can be rather strong, and it is best advised that one has a heavy cost to summon or bring so to combat, as to even the playing field to be fair to both parties, while still interesting and having some advantage to having a combative pet at use.

Dependent Combat Pets/Summoned Creatures

Dependent summoned creatures within magics are advised to be no greater in size than an average descendant. Having a dependent summoned creature fight for you should have some kind of negative impact on the character while the creature/animal is still present, whether it be eating their focus so they are unable to fight themselves or draining their energy so they are incapable of doing much besides moving around. 

This thread covers guides, which are created to help players see how playable submissions are meant to be utilized and as a reference for the players using the lore in case they need assistance with emotes. Guides are required for Feats, Creature Submissions (CAs), and Magic Submissions (MAs). On rare occasion, other pieces require guides too, subject by Story Management. Typically, the more widespread or complex a piece, the more required a Guide may be.

Guides are made post-acceptance of a piece, and are solely reviewed and accepted by Story Management.

What is a good guide?

A good guide is a resource that helps a player understand how the lore can be used/changes a character and for the creator of the lore to help point things out that might not have been obvious before/help provide assistance in more than just the lore. For example, let's take frost witches. Their lore would cover how everything functions and give us a good understanding of what people will be utilizing. But the guide isn't meant to just regurgitate the lore info, a good guide would instead have things like tips for how to deal with being hunted or descriptions for how a frost witch would rp in the heat, examples for how a frost witch might rp their mental instability, maybe a few scenarios for how to hunt for “food”, et cetera. A guide should be able to instruct not only the player, but the ST, on exactly the ins-and-outs of the magic and its interpretation, rather than it’s exact wording. Always should guides have Emote Counts, which are detailed guides on what emotes of casting, conjuring, crafting, some form of part of the Magic or CA which are easily understandable. Other things useful to a guide are signed-item examples, build examples, suggested character traits both physical and mental, use-cases for spells or rituals, and so on.

Guide Information

Due to the variety of different types of magic and creatures and ways you can write a guide for them, there is no set in stone format for this. A guide focuses on how to RP the lore piece, so it is not required to cover things such as the piece’s origin or other fluff. Instead, it should focus on providing help on how a player should emote and RP the piece. Generally, following the format of the standard lore piece is acceptable. 

Things to include:

- Minimal “fluff”, there should be little to no fluff within the guide. No flowery wording or thematic flavor, a guide is practically an OOC-only explanation of the lore, and an informational guide.

- A guide should have zero discrepancy between itself in the lore. A guide which has differences from the lore (Such as differing emote counts, spells, etc.) is one which will be denied. 

- Brief summary of the lore (its theme, its direction, etc.), including a link to the lore page. (It is recommended past-posting, you should link the guide to the lore as well.) 

- Description of any physical changes and examples/suggestions of how to RP them, as well as options for unique flair one may interpret, take on, or perform themselves.

- Description of any mental changes and examples/suggestions of how to RP them, as well as options for unique flair one may interpret, take on, or perform themselves.

- Description of any abilities, briefly covering the RP behind it with an in-depth focus on the mechanics and restrictions of it. Describe it like you are explaining the ability to someone, what it does as example.

- Emote examples for the abilities. If there are changes in how the ability works over time (e.g. tier progression), you should include examples of that as well (e.g. providing an emote example of a t1 version of a spell followed by its t3 and t5 version).

- An overview of the piece’s progression system. This is not limited to tier progression, but also things like creature progression. Each stage of the piece’s progression system should be described in detail so a player understands what changes at each stage.

Guides

https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/forum/1228-guides/ 

Suggested Guide Format

https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/218741-guide-submissions/

This thread covers locations that are intertwined with other lore pieces & artifacts/special items that also get written into other lore pieces or independent. 

Special Lore Locations

A special lore location is defined as an area in which a lore alters or otherwise modifies an area. This can be crucial for teaching or connection (Mana Obelisks, Paladin Chanceries, etc.), or simply alter the effects of the world around it (Such as a Voidal Tear). 

Special lore locations are unique to each lore and confer effects to each. When writing a lore location, keep in mind not only theme, but how it actually applies to the world. Often, mechanical implementations such as slowness, blindness, a change in the manner of movement or locks and so on, can be difficult if not outright impossible to put in.

The ST believe in a doctrine that there should be as little staff intervention as possible, and thus, almost all lore locations have minimal display/change outside of a region message. Let this be clear; The ST do not in any way recommend or encourage lore locations which block off, limit access to, or otherwise mechanically effect players within the region. These effects are difficult to enforce and cause much frustration for all parties involved. 

Lore Locations may utilize a local region, or they may not. In most instances, a Lore Location should be logged by an ST through /sreq signage, or otherwise be written in lore that it is not. A lore location can affect how characters may feel in a location, or change what they may perceive. In some instances, they may even take into account how magics or materials are affected within their range.

Take a read of Lore Structures and Environment Warping which gives a good idea of some things to consider. Please avoid having areas which are incurable or that require significant change to an area, as they may be frustrating to players and simply an area which is avoided.

Be cautious when writing Lore Locations, and take into account everything that may go into what goes under one. 

Lore Items/Artifacts

Lore Items/Artifacts are items that are written into lore. Whether they are something like the blight stones/aspect stones or a phylactery, these count as lore items. These are fine so long as they are tracked by MArts, or given the Significant Magical Item tag. They also need to be clearly laid out in the lore, else they will require MArts to ensure that we have the details of the items written down somewhere. These items should have mechanisms or guards in-lore to defend against them being held down by one player, or a small group of players, for a significant amount of time..

Lore items/Artifacts special to your lore do not have to be ultra-powerful or one of a kind. Take into thought something like a Golem Core, or a Naztherak Grimoire. These items are marked with the Significant Magical Item tag. This tag prevents one from placing this item within an Ender Chest. Be sure to include in your lore if an item/artifact is a Significant Magical Item.

An item or type of thing we strongly discourage is phylactery-type items. Often, these conjure minimal roleplay and simply encourage a player to hide it in an impossible space which really goes against the spirit of lore and roleplay. Done before, Shade Gems and Soul Trees were two types of items there were poorly done in the past. Shade Gems were pieces that granted the holder significant power, the ability to connect/disconnect shades, and additional resources to benefit them in and out of combat. Soul Trees as well have been difficult with such high-maintenance requirements from Story Team to keep them updated, allow players to interact with them, and inform players their trees have been broken, which has no affect on roleplay given the ease there is to just make a new phylactery, or to avoid other players late at night and make a new phylactery. Overall, we highly discourage any sort of phylactery mechanic in your lore.

Some items do not require physical representation, and simply exist for worldbuilding. An example is The Black Book from Rh’thorean Necromancy, which exists to grandfather in new necromancers to the magic, as a resource for the ST to use incase Necromancy were to die. These types of Artifacts are perfectly fine to implement, and are good for thematic and flavour of the piece. 

We have made groupings based on a few factors, primarily their accessibility/abilities/purpose. These groups should clarify what types of creatures there are, and what criteria we look for in each. The more abilities/capabilities a creature has, the heavier the required criteria will be. At the end of the day we wish to ensure that people are not grabbing creatures simply for the sake of empowering their character without any change otherwise to their roleplay. 

You do not need to mark your CA as following one of these groupings, but you should take their criteria as gospel, not deviating far from the criteria presented.

Grouping A – Starter Creatures

This grouping serves as the grouping that has the “starter” creatures. Anything in here is capable of being picked up by anyone, so long as they fill out the app. Creatures here should be more focused on theme and aesthetic rather than combat. These creatures can range from, at their most basic, Kharajyr or Hou-Zi, and at their most complex, Ghosts or Epiphytes. The most core part of each starter creature is the fact that it is easy to understand and easy to work with. Write these submissions with new players in mind, and from the perspective of someone who has never had a CA or a Magic before. These may be transformative, but also brand new characters.

There are some things to note however.

“Beastial” CAs have been historically very problematic. In every circumstance, they may play on for a couple weeks, but ultimately always burn out and become inactive. Kharajyr, Hou-Zi, Wonks, Musin, always end up inactive only a couple months after release, with often less than 3 or 4 active players.

Beastial CAs suffer from the idea of being “Cultureless”, or “Playerbase-less”. Beastial CAs are most of the time wanderers and vagrants, and while interesting, often lead to players not integrating with player groups and quitting. These CAs are under extreme scrutiny, and are unlikely to be accepted.

Another thing to be cautious of is how complex a CA is, or how it can be difficult to represent mechanically. An example of this is Ghosts. Often, ghosts are considered a “Trap CA” which often sets roleplayers on the wrong foot with CAs. A CA should have its abilities extremely concise, easy to understand, flavorful, and fun for everyone to interact with. Both someone with and without the CA should have fun with the CA. 

A Starter CA needs thoroughly fleshed out, succinct, plain writing as to maintain a simple composition in order for there to be little to no way of roleplaying such a creature incorrectly. Starter creatures require simple aesthetics, a short list of abilities and traits, and overall straightforward concepts.

Grouping A Appendation - Application/Minor Races

Adjacent to the idea of a Starter Creature is the idea of an Application Race. These are races, often subraces of descendants, that while not bestial or necessarily magical, require a thorough understanding of their foundational lore to play. The primary historical example of this idea is the Mori’Quessir, a subrace of elves who maintained a very distinct culture, and existed under circumstances that separated them from the other primary races, including other elves.

These races may or may not have unique benefits or detriments by comparison to the core races or beast-race CAs, but will never vary such that they possess an extreme advantage such as to be more suited to a more rigorous CA status. By way of our chief example, Mori were uniquely capable of seeing perfectly in darkness, but would be largely blinded by sunlight. 

In short, this grouping is one which should be used for races that are more demanding to accurately represent, and are more subdued mechanically than most true CAs. To use our example once again, a Mori who integrated easily with other descendants or knew much of their culture would have been completely unrealistic when they were released, as would one lacking a clear grasp of their own culture, and thus an application was used to ensure that their own unique place in the setting was understood. 

Grouping B – Constructs/Creation Creatures

This grouping is for creatures that need to be created IRP before a player can play it or a controlled transformative being. Typically these creatures serve their creator in some fashion if they are constructs.

Traditionally these have been reserved for lorepieces such as Animii, Golems, Darkstalkers, Eidola, and Atronachs. Animii and Golems both may be created, and also “Transfer” ones soul from their character to a golem, or Machine Spirit animii. These constructs should have a few things taken to note when writing them in your lorepiece.

A construct should have more depth and substance than being a “Slave” or “Task” creature. While interesting and certainly a core theme, we often see from these creature types that can be uninteresting to play, or feel “Limiting” to do. Of course, not all CAs are for every player. But keep in mind how limiting a CA can feel to play, and how reliant it may be on it’s creator. While it is understanding a created CA should owe some loyalty to it’s creator, manifest that through roleplay, or some other method, rather than trying to force the CA to be at a creator’s full whim.

Take this into account: If a CAs creator goes inactive, what happens to the CA? Give it purpose, give it something to do, and ways to deviate. 

Grouping C – Standard “Standalone” Creatures

This grouping serves as a grouping that has powerful creatures which are not meant to be wide-spread. Most of these are transformative, meaning that your character needs to be made one by someone else and is not capable of being played otherwise. This grouping is meant to be a standalone creature that is most often, but not always, unrelated to another magic. For reference, traditional pieces of this field are Frost Witches, Azdrazi, Siliti, Demi-Djinn, etc.

These pieces transform one another to spread, or can even have a method of “Trial” akin to Heralds of Azdromoth where a player slowly develops and learns the fundamentals of the culture/traditions of the CA, then transforming into that CA themselves.

A creature should have always some standard form of weakness. These should be both magical weaknesses, and mundane weaknesses. While advantaged, a descendant should not automatically-lose and be hopeless to fight a Creature. 

Take into account knowledge-locks on weaknesses too. Typically these have been a nightmare to enforce, and difficult to follow. We do not recommend writing hard knowledge locks on your lore’s weaknesses, and instead, potentially increasing situational usefulness or a weaknesses effect overall. An example of a hard-knowledge lock is saying that your new creature is weak to Aurum, but that nobody knows it and has to find out IRP.

Another thing to take into account is purpose. As with lores in general, CAs too should not be “Replacements” or “Upgrades” to other lorepieces. A piece should not usurp or be a straight upgrade, or even take direct spells from another lore. Generally this can be negatively received, almost as a cheat to skip the progression and learning that goes into progressing through a magic, rather than simply acquiring a CA.

Another thing to concern about is disguises with CAs. Disguises should be tasteful, and have ways to break them, or otherwise detect them. As well, disguises should not have full freeformity. Full free form disguises (Being able to have multiple, or completely body-changing disguises) have been very poorly used in the past and often lead to a lot of confusion for everyone but the CA holder, including the ST. While not disallowed, we highly recommend being tasteful with disguises.

Be cautious too on interactions with your lore. Does your CA change a character’s soul? Does it make them ineligible for certain magics? Can they “drop” the CA and take on another, or revert to their descendant forms? Take these into account when working on your lore. 

Be wary on power boosts, either active or passive. Take into account how a character could change mentally and physically, and what these things do. Be sure to make sure there is purpose behind your creature, and that it adds something unique and interesting to the server. It is recommended as well to look at Explanation: Disconnection to get some further info on what this can do to a magic.

Grouping C Appendation - Advanced Creatures

When working on a standalone creature, consider how it may progress. This can be minor, like knowing certain spells or rituals, or major, like giving them more abilities and changing their effects. We recommend looking at Explanation: Connection & Disconnection regarding this concept too for some thoughts.

Standalone creatures can have advancement, absolutely. They should be modified to become more developed toward their roleplay, and narrow their opportunities for other CAs/Magics/Interactions, but to increase others opportunities. Ritual leaders, cultural figures, arbiters of a culture or spell are all ideas one can go for with Advanced Creatures. Advanced Creatures on Standalone CAs should be something that is a bit difficult to get, and should not have a CA revolve around them. Think about what could make for interesting progression, learning, or goals. In effect, goals are what drives a character and drives roleplay. Give an Advanced Creature a goal to work toward to learn and earn something which makes them feel validated for the roleplay they’ve done, for them and for their group. Involve others, as much as possible, and make sure it’s fun and thematic all along the way. This is the golden rule for roleplay. 

Grouping D – Magic End-Games

This grouping is meant for magics that have a creature “end-game” in their progression. These creatures exist for the sake of enhancing the rp within that magic, and should not be used as gatekeepers of the magic. These creatures should not be significantly more powerful than whatever the regular version is at the end of their progression.

The abilities that these creatures have should be a sort of “all encompassing theme” of this magic, if not, some form of potential offshoot or spin-off which differ from the standard magic. These creatures may not be necessarily the “Highest” part of a magic or feat, but simply a part of it; potentially even moving onto a progressing branch of the original magic.

Traditional magic endgames have been seen in darkmagics like Necromancy, Mystics, and Naztherak. Zar’akal, Liches, and Wights. Even other magics like Druidism have Tree Lords, which are a good example of an optional endgame. You may heard there is some negative connotations around these, or perhaps problems with them in the past- which is certainly a truthful part one should consider in regards to a magical endgame.

In previous times, Mystic Wights suffered from an issue where the magic relied on Wights to make the magic work. Traditionally, in lore and in culture, Wights are absolutely necessary, and are the single person responsible for keeping the mystics active and up to work. This puts an insane amount of stress on the Wight player, who may have just wanted a different avenue for Roleplay rather than trying to lead the entire magic. 

Be cautious with gating too much behind an end-game, and be careful with how much sway they’re given over a magic. It is recommended as well to look at Explanation: Connection & Disconnection to get some further info on what this can do to a magic.

Be careful of making a Endgame stronger, if not outright better, than a standard MA. While empowerment is expected, to “perfect” or otherwise remove or make up for a Magic’s weaknesses can be very unfair to play against. While your character may undergo a long journey for an endgame to be created, this does not justify them having an automatic-win against anyone. While of course, it is expected and encouraged for an endgame to be significantly more powerful than a standard descendant, or to have some form of boon which grants them an advantage otherwise, one should be deeply cautious with how much this may make an endgame invincible, or otherwise, unkillable.

Be cautious and consider Group C’s ruling on Disguises also. As well, consider how much a lack of a disguise can be detriment with your lore. Try and not make the CA unplayable in day-to-day roleplay, but do not make the CA a mary-sue which can blend in or successfully do their day-to-day roleplay without flaw. 

These should serve as a means of creating unique rp for the magic that the creature is apart of. This should be something that they do not necessarily benefit off of directly, as we want to avoid these creatures being only powerboosts. Abilities should focus on synergy between the creature and the magic using counterparts. It should serve to create rp between the two that can then reach out to those outside of the lore in a creative fashion.

Grouping D Appendation - Advanced Creatures

When working on an endgame progression, consider how it may progress. This can be minor, like knowing certain spells or rituals, or major, like giving them more abilities and changing their effects. We recommend looking at Explanation: Connection & Disconnection regarding this concept too for some thoughts.

Endgames creatures can have advancement, absolutely. They should be modified to become more developed toward their roleplay, and narrow their opportunities for other CAs/Magics/Interactions, but to increase others opportunities. Ritual leaders, cultural figures, arbiters of a culture or spell are all ideas one can go for with Endgames- but be wary, for how this effects. This was covered in the paragraph above, how the “All eggs in one basket” mentality can be heavily damaging and detrimental to roleplay and to the CA holder.

Advanced Creatures on Endgame CAs should be something that is a bit difficult to get. Think about what could make for interesting progression, learning, or goals. In effect, goals are what drives a character and drives roleplay. Give an Advanced Creature a goal to work toward to learn and earn something which makes them feel validated for the roleplay they’ve done, for them and for their group. Involve others, as much as possible, and make sure it’s fun and thematic all along the way. This is the golden rule for roleplay, and how to make a beloved timeline and progression that feels rewarding, and interesting. 

This is the default magic progression which covers how fast your character can progress through the tiers of a magic. This applies to all magics, unless the lore states otherwise. Lore writers are free to come up with their own progression time when submitting new lore, but the below is the default magic progression unless otherwise stated.

The list below is not concrete in the way that you'll be tier x after y amount of days as you actively need to receive lessons to progress. Unless otherwise specified within lore, one must learn all spells of an according tier before progressing onto the next. 

- One may not progress tiers without a Teacher unless otherwise specified. 

- A student must learn all spells associated with a tier before moving onto the next tier.

- A student may learn from anyone in the magic with a TA, even if not marked on their app. 

- If a student is dropped, they may continue to progress through their tier, until considered at the highest-time spent at their tier before moving onto the next. (Example: If Tier 3 lasts 5 weeks, and a student is dropped, they may progress until they’re at the border of where they would otherwise progress onto Tier 4. Once they receive lessons, from a new teacher or another with a valid TA, they may immediately progress to the next tier.)

- When writing tiers, consider the mental/physical effects or changes upon a user unique to the lore. These effects should likely scale over time. Whether these increase, or decrease, with tiers is up to you and the theme of the lore. These effects can be both positive, and negative. Naturing is a thought as well, perhaps there is a negative effect in a lore which is detrimental at first, but eases over time as one gets used to it. 

- Keep in mind that magic should be a fleeting thing. When writing long tier timers, consider how it can negatively affect the player’s mindset in regards to preservation of their character. Consider as well, that a player should not spend months and months reaching the maximum tier of a magic. Magic progression is meant to be integral to a character’s roleplay and development, and thus making it too long or too short, can be very detrimental to theme and how interesting a magic can be.