[✗] Voidal Magic: Voidal Erasure

[Demotheus 649]

Voidal Erasure

 

Beginnings

 

Lotha sat in her cold hole-in-the-wall room in the cold hole-in-the-wall city called Ker'Nor and simply meditated. She mediated quite often, as mages often do. She thrust her mind into the void as easily as walking through her front door. The ancient dark elf meditated for a variety of reasons. She had a troubled past and a fractured mind that she needed to attend to regularly. She also was seeking out a voidal horror, as she had heard that meditation in the void is the best way to stumble across one, so to speak. She figured that was just a happy coincidence. Regardless, today was going to be a day to remember.

Her thoughts wandered to her past, as they often did. She lived in a time when the Undead ran rampant and attacks happened more often than not. Her smaller-than-usual stature, even for a dwarf, led her to be ostracized by her peers in sometimes brutal fashion. She had to learn to fight like a tiny person at a tiny age. Back then, she had been a formidable opponent. Perhaps it was due to people often underestimating her. She did appear somewhat childlike in strength and stature, but in a fight strength is not everything and can often be used against someone. Even with all her skill it wasn't enough to save her children. Since those times she opted to drape herself in gold, some pieces of jewelry actually being weapons embedded in her body. Her paranoia gripped her to the core even to this day. Finally, something noticed.

 

First, there were whispers. Then, she felt her mind being torn away from her body violently, as if grasped by a great clawed hand, and pulled deeper into the void. The feeling was indescribable, and wholly unpleasant. Finally what had felt like movement came to a screeching halt and she was simply blind. She floated in silence in an almost blissful state. All was peaceful for a small while. She then realized what had happened the moment she heard the word and felt the memories being pulled out from her mind and being read like a book. If she could have spoken she would have, but whatever had grasped her and dragged her away, either truly in the void or by some annoying mental mage, had prevented her from saying anything out loud somehow. She could only wait and marinate in anxiety.

From the darkness came a voice that was deep and resonated within Lotha's mind like it were a great hall containing the voice of a behemoth.

 

"Lotha."  The voice chuckled darkly, the sound echoing within her mind. "You need something, and I also need something. It is simple. I will teach you how to erase your enemies from existence and you will simply do it. Our goals cross. The only other thing you must do is spread this knowledge. Spread it, reproduce this in others. This is as close to having more children than you'll ever get..."

 

Overview

The power that the voidal horror taught Lotha is simple in concept. It takes the core nature of the void and evokes it into the world. Anything that touches it is vaporized and sent to the void. There are some things it won't affect. The air as it is normally, mystical magics like Shamanism and anything else that is directly related to a spirit or anguedaemon channeling it's power through someone from another plane. It takes it's form by default as a shapeless black void which is often times streaked in it's by the colour of the user's aura. It can be molded to any form for certain purposes. It can take on the shape and a corresponding effect of an element. Usually this would be lightning or fire. The applications for anything else are fairly limited. It does not explode or bang or burn or send any shock waves. It simply erases from this world and dumps whatever it's touched into the void. Someone engulfed by this black fire would not burn by be consumed at roughly the same rate someone that were actually ablaze would be reduced to ashes. Someone who was struck with this black lightning would not be knocked back or electrocuted, but rather the lightning acts as a scalpel wherein as long as it's surging around it's target it will carve paths of flesh away and cast them into the void. In this way not just flesh can be erased but normal matter as well. Stone, iron, dirt, rock. Furthermore, magics can be sent to the void as well so long as they take a physical form. If a fireball is casted at the mage and the mage casts their black fire in return of same size the fires will negate each other. Unlike with a normal exchange between fire evocationists, this would not result in an explosion or burst of fiery flames, but rather it would simply be erased.

 

Essentially what had been taught to Lotha is an alternative version of Voidal Translocation, much like Telekinesis is apart of the Alteration family. The key difference is the volume at which it transports material to the void and the fact that it essentially destroys it, never to be seen again. While voidal translocation and voidal shifting involve passing into the void and at some point coming out of it, Voidal Erasure does not. It breaks things apart and sucks the pieces into the void.

 

Limitations

 

Voidal Erasure can't usually consume entire solid objects and cast them off into the void very easily. It must first break it apart. The extent at which it is able to break something apart is the density of it's form when casted. This often depends on the form the wielder decides to evoke with it.

 

While Voidal Erasure can cast some dark magic products and arcane magic products to the void it cannot do so with the completely immaterial. Holy fire and light, for example, are more of a spectral power from a powerful deity than something truly physical. Included in that spectrum is any sort of spirit or spectral entity that has no physical form. While a wraith made of life force can be harmed, a poltergeist cannot.

While in the same tree of voidal translocation and shifting one cannot bring what is destroyed and cast off to the void back to the living reality. This power encompasses the all consuming nature of the void for what it truly is.

 

Applications

 

It's primarily an offensive tool. The three most logical, common, and easy to use forms it can take on are the shape of electricity, fire, and orbs. These do not share the properties of those things as much as one might initially think.

 

The electrical form is primarily used to inflict a great deal of pain of the flesh. Casting this on a living being will cause the static looking magic to travel across the victim's body and erase, or appear to slice, shallow and thin ribbons of flesh from wherever it can reach. It's similar to receiving paper cuts to every part of the body constantly. If sustained by an middle class caster it can cause significant cumulative bleeding and deepen the wounds. A more utilitarian use is to cut less dense objects, such as leather straps and ropes and things of similar density. This magic can also spread to other targets, leaping from person to person much like chain lightning would.

 

The fire form of erasure is used primarily against dark creatures such as Wraiths, shades, and their magics as well as countering other magics, assuming it's volume is enough versus the incoming magic. It can also be used to subdue fires, ironically. The fire does not produce heat, and isn't fire at all. Rather, it's a fluid form of this magic that can take on any shape and purpose, and cover a wider area as needed. It's slower to move than the electric version as a trade off, but can do more even damage as well as erase magics of similar or lesser density incredibly fast, nearly instantly. It can do the same to more dense magics, but it takes longer to 'burn' away. For example, a shade's tendrils can be severed in a few seconds of focused fire, while a necromantic tether can be destroyed nearly instantly. The fire can be made to 'spread' as well, consuming a large piece of space at a time.

 

The orb or bolt version is the be all end all heavy duty bulldozer of this magic. It's the most powerful, capable of putting holes in armor, doors, constructs, and people alike, while also being as fast as a crossbow bolt if casted by a master. The trade off is that it is the slowest to conjure and is only ever a single target, unless it's been charged for a long time and the targets are lined up conveniently. Other than that, it cannot leap or encompass multiple people. The largest practical size in combat would be about the size of an apple. The larger it is, the more material it can consume. At the size of an apple it could break through armor and the flesh and bone behind it and escape out of the other side and pass into one more person, or put a hole in that person's armor or object behind them.

 

Amalgamation

 

Amalgamation is the act of joining the powers of multiple Erasures at once and creating larger spells. Similar to how a telekinetic can receive aid, or conversely be fought with by another telekinetic, so can Erasures. Their orbs and bolts can be created faster, their fires can be all consuming and their lightning can spread through a crowd rapidly, or focus down a single person. For this reason, it's encouraged that Eraser's more or less stick together in a sort of cult or guild of sorts. However should infighting occur, the clashing of opposing Erasure spells negate each other and react in rather violent implosions and explosions, in that order, depending on the magnitude of the spells. Any explosion powerful enough to cause large area of effect damage would require both mages to have charged up a full attack, however, and so such things are often rare and can't just happen on a whim in combat to suit their purposes. They have to be in direct opposition to each other, within thirty degrees opposites across from each other, to have such an effect.

 

The Hierarchy of Casters

 

The Novices: Novices can cast lightning form. In the beginning they can only use it to cut small threads or strings. In combat they're fairly useless, as they can muster up a single cut at most. However, throughout their learning as they reach the end of their tenure as Novices (1 month) and near their transition to the next level they can cast the lightning form within ten seconds for a medium attack and can sustain this for up to sixty seconds to two minutes on average. The heavier version of their attack, which allows them to do more damage as well as chain the attack to others, takes twenty seconds to charge and can be sustained for a maximum of thirty seconds at this level. For every extra person affected by this spell the time they can sustain the attack is reduced by ten fifteen seconds.

 

This stage takes 1-2 months.

 

The Adepts: Adepts can begin learning the fire form once they master the lightning form. The fire form progresses much the same way as the lightning form did while they were a novice, and their mastery of lightning will only increase over time as their ability to wield this magic continues to grow. As the Adept progresses through their teachings they'll be able to cast fire form liberally and spread their attack over a three meter swath of space and push it in one direction if they're given enough time to charge that attack. By the end of Adept hood their lightning can shred through flesh and softer materials easily. In the span of a few seconds or so they can cover someone in small paper thin cuts and continue to make them deeper and deeper.

 

This stage takes  1-2 months.

 

The Erasures: The Erasure can begin creating bolts and orbs for more potent, final attacks. As they begin they'd only be able to form one or two in their first couple of elven weeks in a given fight or instance. They would be fairly weak and would only chew through a layer of armor without reaching the flesh beneath. They could erase a fair amount of flesh with a bolt, depending on where it's shot. However areas with bone, such as the rib cage, arms and legs, would stop the attack from reaching internal organs or passing straight through. As the Erasure learns to master this over the course of 2 months they reach a position where they could conjure 3-5 of these attacks during a given fight before becoming exhausted, each with the power of a crossbow bolt behind it. They could form just one large bolt, the size of an apple, which could pass straight through someone's armor, flesh, bone, and out the other side again, before becoming exhausted. Throughout this period of time their lightning and fire forms would scale up as well, and would be the preferred choice in most situations of combat.

 

This stage takes at least 2 months.

 

The Master Erasures: At this level the Erasure will continue to expand their abilities and gain one new one. The Amalgamation. This requires two or more Masters to perform, but can be performed to devastating effect. From start to finish, this tier takes at least 2 months to graduate to the final tier.

 

Takes at least 2 months.

 

The Elder Erasure: The Elder is capable of teaching there art to others, and is typically the end goal for every Erasure. It's highly encouraged that this art be taught and spread widely so that the Voidal Horror's will is fulfilled. While there's no immanent threat of any curse or drawback, it's considered important within the hierarchy to pass on their teachings so that more are capable of banding together and strengthening their overall power. This is the peak of power for an Erasure, and it is more of a title of completion than an actual tier of learning.

 

Only an Elder can teach this magic at this time. Self teaching will not be allowed unless this magic and how to practice it becomes widespread enough to be common knowledge - which is the end goal from a role play perspective.

 

The Basic Casting Mechanics

 

To cast any of the forms one must first create the anchor. This is similar to the anchor for voidal shifting but it operates fundamentally different. Through the anchor, either a bolt can be formed which consumes the anchor each time, or fire and lightning forms can be cast from it. In order to cast any spell one must charge it first. This requires some forethought. One can charge their anchor for as long as they can and continue to cast fire and lightning from it for a fairly long time, however in most situations this may not be possible. Generally speaking, one will charge their Anchor for ten seconds at a time on average. Through this, they will cast their fire/lightning forms from the Anchor or propel the Anchor itself as a bolt. As they cast fire and lightning forms the anchor will shrink gradually, or quickly, depending on the output.

 

A top tier caster can charge more power into their anchor in a shorter time than a novice can, since they have learned the most efficient techniques to do so and practiced them relentlessly. A master is capable of charging their anchor to a degree so that they can sustain a heavy attack on one target for sixty seconds in the same time that a novice can charge their medium attack for 60 seconds, about ten seconds. The main difference is that the novice will be exhausted completely after such an effort, while the master still has a fair amount of mana to work with.

 

Strengths and Weaknesses

 

Strengths

- Potent magic when casted that can effectively counter other magics given proper circumstances, especially dark magic.

-Highly effective against non-solid people and magic, such as wraiths and low-density magics

-Versatile in it's capabilities

-Thrives in situations where multiple learned users can cast together

-Effective against targets who exist more in this plane of reality rather than another like the spirit realm.

 

Weaknesses

-Has a long "reload" time. Requires charging a single anchor and using that as the sole source of fuel for the following magics

-Requires plenty of forethought. The more potent spells will drain someone rapidly.

-The Learning structure is particularly rigid for each of the spells

-Cannot affect holy magics, or beings like ghosts which lean more in the spirit realm or some other realm than reality

 

 

Redlines

-Spreading fire form or electrical form is not done effortlessly. The more space that fire form consumes, or the more targets electrical form jumps to is directly related to the rapid degeneration of the amount of time the power can be sustained.

-In order to cast electrical or fire form for a sustained amount of time one must first charge the attack. They cannot keep conjuring more erasure magic like a stream of fire. These spells come from the anchor and how long and how powerful they can last is directly related to how long someone charges that anchor. However, Amalgamation from another Erasure can add to the anchor's mass and thus sustain your spell. This is the only way this can be done.

-You cannot hide the anchor effectively. It makes a distinct humming sound as it struggles to stay in reality. The more power poured into it, the louder and deeper the humming becomes.

-You can never touch your, or any, Erasure's Anchor. The Anchor can and will erase your finger, or anyone's finger. This fact can't easily be used in combat however. You can't run or walk very quickly while your anchor is in existence as that could disrupt it.

-You cannot retrieve things that have been cast / erased to the void like voidal translocation can. You cannot teleport through the anchor in the same way voidal shifting can. Once something is erased it is gone, consumed by the void.

-While this magic can be considered a sister magic to translocation and shifting, translocation and shifting can't be self taught based on knowledge of Erasure. They are based on a similar core concept, however operate in fundamentally different ways. Instead of pulling things into the void for storage or transportation, the void is instead pulled out, in a matter of speaking.

-If someone beneath the Erasure rank attempts casting their Anchor as a bolt it will fizzle out. They simply do not have the ability to do this until they're at least an Erasure.

-No matter your progress in your studies you are unable to create more than one anchor at a time. Once you begin casting a form from that anchor it requires at least a few seconds of focus and ceasefire to change it's form.

-You cannot easily cast an entire object into the void at once. In order to do so requires either Translocation or an absurdly large (depending on the object) bolt. It's more effective to break things instead.

 

 

Just a note. My goal with this magic is to create a more "open" magic, while still encouraging a tightly knit community within the sub magic. The whole voidal horror/behemoth thing I got from the wiki, and I figured this would be as good of a way for magic to jump into reality as any other. Not quite a Deity but still a powerful being who just wants to eventually see the world burn...or be erased, rather. This magic is not meant to be a pocket magic or whatever people call it, just to have my own personal fancy thing. It's meant to be fairly simple  to use, with obvious strengths and drawbacks (which I'm going to add shortly because I forgot) so that it can be easily taught to people and encourage interesting RP. Perhaps cults form and clash between the magics, but the point is that they are still groups dedicated to primarily this magic since it involves team work. It also centralizes it's focus around actively teaching magic to strengthen a group!

 

Edit: 05/05/2017

As a second note, I want to mention something that has been brought up in this thread as well as elsewhere that I can't really seem to understand myself. There's a claim that this is basically "discount translocation" and more recently here, fi magic. While admittedly there are similarities, this magic operates fundamentally different than those magics. It's far more weaponized compared to translocation and can't do the vast majority of what either translo or fi magic does. It serves a different purpose. If anyone has any suggestions or direct comparisons please let me know.

 

For one, I'm aware that the ability to consume certain magic abilities is similar to fi, however it's practically a byproduct. The entire point of this magic is to consume and erase things from the world. It doesn't cut or burn or nullify, it just consumes and never gives back. It's a almost a by product of the magic. It just happens to be able to do that just because of how it operates. however, other magics like illusion, earth evo (in large quantities), stuff with telekinesis, etc can't really be done. It can't consume evocated air, or otherwise, unless there's something that makes it more energetic than just wind. Basically, it needs to be 'visible', but also if it's TOO dense, like metals or large rocks/boulders etc, it can't stop that. If it's mental magic, or soul puppetry, etc it can't consume those either. This is because of how it operates.

 

So to those saying this is discount fi magic and some other comical comment that was left below tell me now after reading this if you still hold the same opinion. If you do, tell me why, please? Thanks!

 

 

[Demotheus 649]

Edit: Added those strengths and weaknesses.

[- Pastry 931]

This strikes me as the unwanted prom-night dumpster baby of Fi'hiiran'tayna and Voidal Translocation.

 

So, really unnecessary and not really anything new.

[Destroyer_Bravo 1052]

discount fi magic that can be combo'd w/ other voidals?

 

eh

[Demotheus 649]

6 minutes ago, Destroyer_Bravo said:

discount fi magic that can be combo'd w/ other voidals?

 

eh

0

 

Combo'd with other voidals? To clarify I mean it can only be combo'd with other Erasure's magic.

The similarities to fi magic stop pretty harshly. Fi magic to my understanding literally just stops magic from happening. This is just a byproduct of erasing pretty much anything it touches. If voidal fire and erasure fire connect instead of exploding into a fireball it drains the real fire away until one or the other gives out.

[Demotheus 649]

Updated the main thread with a response to a common criticism, please read it! :D

[KorusPrime 130]

Okay, so even if it isn't some 'dicount (insert other magic here)' why do we need something that.... erases things from the world? Have you not thought of how people will inevitably powergame that? You may have the best of intentions, which I'm not entirely sure you do, but what about others, who likely would only get this for how... permanently it... fucks things up.  Anyhow, that's just a few points I wanted to present.

Edited May 6, 2017 by KorusPrime

[Demotheus 649]

1 hour ago, KorusPrime said:

Okay, so even if it isn't some 'dicount (insert other magic here)' why do we need something that.... erases things from the world? Have you not thought of how people will inevitably powergame that? You may have the best of intentions, which I'm not entirely sure you do, but what about others, who likely would only get this for how... permanently it... fucks things up.  Anyhow, that's just a few points I wanted to present.

0

 

It's a different kind of magic. As for powergaming, can you give me an example? It's very clear that large objects can't typically be erased unless it's being worked on for a fair while. They can erase things, yes, but that doesn't stop flesh from healing. I see there are points here, but they're a little vague. Could you elaborate a bit more?

[KorusPrime 130]

10 minutes ago, Demotheus said:

It's a different kind of magic. As for powergaming, can you give me an example? It's very clear that large objects can't typically be erased unless it's being worked on for a fair while. They can erase things, yes, but that doesn't stop flesh from healing. I see there are points here, but they're a little vague. Could you elaborate a bit more?

Perhaps I should clarify. Why do we need something that will clearly be powergamed by people who simply read "erases stuff"? There are plenty of people who will not listen to your restrictions, and yes, while blacklists exist, it isn't as easy to monitor emotes as you might think. Secondly, on the matter of flesh erasure, it shouldn't be able to erase flesh. That contradicts other magic. Living material is too complex to alter with Transfig or send to the Void with Translo, or even lift with Telek. There is no reason this should be able to do so either, as it would be a direct work-around to the red line of Translo. The red-line exists in Translo so people won't go around killing other people by sending them into the Void. And yes, "flesh can heal" but one cannot regrow a head if a bolt is fired at, and erases their head.

[Demotheus 649]

2 minutes ago, KorusPrime said:

Perhaps I should clarify. Why do we need something that will clearly be powergamed by people who simply read "erases stuff"? There are plenty of people who will not listen to your restrictions, and yes, while blacklists exist, it isn't as easy to monitor emotes as you might think. Secondly, on the matter of flesh erasure, it shouldn't be able to erase flesh. That contradicts other magic. Living material is too complex to alter with Transfig or send to the Void with Translo, or even lift with Telek. There is no reason this should be able to do so either, as it would be a direct work-around to the red line of Translo. The red-line exists in Translo so people won't go around killing other people by sending them into the Void. And yes, "flesh can heal" but one cannot regrow a head if a bolt is fired at, and erases their head.

0

 

There are dozens of magics that can be powergamed in that manner, though. The main idea behind this magic is that it actually becomes well known. It's not hidden. It's basically advertised. So people IC and OOC are more likely to understand how it works. As far as living matter being too complex for Translo, this isn't exactly translocation. But even that said, last time I read about voidal translocation, you can store flesh in the void as well as teleport yourself via voidal shifting (which is a sub magic specialized for that). So with that in mind, this is similar in that fashion. It's a specialized version of translo, and it was first taught by a voidal horror.  And, if a bolt (which typically is big as an apple) is fired at someone's head, they're just dead. But that sort of thing takes a while to build up. There are a lot of things that can remove a head or put a hole in a head and kill people.

 

While this magic can be powergamed (like any other magic) It's got to be taught, at the moment, and not self taught.

 

So a question I have is, if THIS magic is easy to powergame and that's a main reason it shouldn't be allowed to exist, what about all the other magics? Should they be stopped as well?

 

So all that above is why I firmly believe this magic isn't any 'worse' than other magics, and also how it can relate to translo and be different.

 

One thing I've been contemplating is making it a locked magic, but that somewhat defeats the purpose that the voidal horror set out with teaching someone in the first place. But if it were locked, and somehow connected to the voidal horror (which I'm still trying to get information on regarding how that might work, whether they can 'curse' or whatever) then it could be more 'policeable', but that's a little far off.

 

This is basically conjuring negative space, it consumes things as a result to fill that negative space. I see how it can be powergamed, but I don't think threat of powergaming is a reason to disallow a magic, since every magic has pretty  much a similar threat level in that regards. So I don't know how this magic is special in relation to powergaming.

[JustMeMorgan 1000]

Idk why people Criticize  it, I find it quite a cool thing

[GodEmperorFlam 3447]

Under review, expect a verdict in about a week.

[GodEmperorFlam 3447]

Thank you for your submission, unfortunately this lore is being denied. The team believes that this is fairly unbalanced in its combativeness along with not providing anything new that we don't already have. Topic moved to Denied Lore forum.