[✗] [Magic Lore] Celestialism

[savi 34]

Aelesh lore is usually cool but this is beyond cool. Very thorough +1.

(nice formatting)

[Aelesh 319]

2 hours ago, BrandNewKitten said:

I have read this piece a good dozen times trying to wrap up my thoughts. Here are some conclusions I have come to that aren’t focused on the balancing of abilities.

 

I originally created Celestialism to be an empathetic option to voidal magic and offer deeply emotional story moments for characters that weren’t necessarily tied to ST driving an event. Your piece does a really great job of capturing this idea within the myriad of spells and abilities. The nuance you are giving to being a Celestialist while still laying everything out in blatant terms is something I only ever hoped to achieve. It really inspires me!

 

I am not 100% sure where the ST stand on the overall concept of Celestials but I would love to add my two cents. When I created them I did outline that they are Voidal Horrors but with a few alterations. Instead of a Heart of Horror as a core they have a Celestial Heart. The difference is that Horror Hearts feed off of knowledge & life (i.e. they also eat celestials in their metaphysical forms, driving their motivation to seek the help of Celestialists) whilst Celestial Hearts feed off of knowledge and with the help of Celestialists, fonts of mana (or some equivalent). The other difference I had was as you delve deeper and deeper into the Void they become less common and the closer to draw to the Veil, and the mortal realm, the more common they become. Because of this I tied them directly to the Veil… which leads me to my only actual idea for your lore;

 

Celestial Gardens are antithetical to voidal tears, hearths, and hollows. Where those 3 thrive off of pure chaos a Garden has a purely symbiotic relationship with the mundane world. So upon reaching the upper tiers of Celestial Gardens they should act as countermeasures to Tears, hollows, etc… Making it harder to open them in the vicinity and also acting as a way to stabilize afflicted areas. Have a tear or even a hollow? A Celestialist may come to plant a cosmic seed allowing the area to stabilize and establishing order over a set period of time. Gardens bolster the Veil directly around them, becoming a hard spot in the thin crust that helps reduce/prevent voidal incursions. 
 

Besides that should this come to be accepted I would love to work with you on developing supporting lore around the magic. Where did it go, why is it back? What happened in the time it was gone? Etc…. I think a magic like this benefits from having other pieces to latch onto that aren’t just “cthulu void tentacles bad. Void mage bad.” Thoughts? 

 

Thank you very much for giving this a thorough read!

 

Pinging @LoTC's Next Top Modelbecaaaaause, I can see an answer to an idea they had! You mentioned amongst your other critiques that Sanctify should have some kind of material cost. What I could do, drawing inspiration from what BNK has said here, is to rewrite Sanctify such that you use a Cosmic Seed as a resource? And further, drawing on the mention of "emotional moments", it might be that the Seed is planted, grows into a tree, but inevitably perishes in consuming and destroying the corruption produced by the source of the corruption. I could make the cleansing more unique as well, in that it would be something that occurs over several IRL days, maybe a week or more, and in that time Celestialists have to tend to the tree to make sure it remains alive long enough to properly consume all the energy. There's currently no system that I've expressed for how often Seeds can be made, but I could put something into place that slows down their production further to make them even more valuable. Thoughts?

 

(I love how you guys keep answering each other's questions, you're all awesome.)

Edited February 2, 2023 by Aelesh

[LoTC's Next Top Model 713]

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

2. Remove both Bless and Arcanify from a Celestialists spells. Turn Arcanify (new familiar version) into a spell which is channeled by a familiar. The familiar blesses (x) number of people within [x] blocks of itself, and they have to remain within that range. The familiar can only move a reduced number of blocks per turn when channeling, let's say [2], and can't cast any other forms of magic. This would give every aura a simple weakness; kill the familiar, and the Celestialist or someone on their side would have to drop everything to protect that familiar, or the familiar would have to stop casting and relocate. I think that nicely encapsulates the "familiar as a well of magic" idea.

good change. making the magic more based around the familiar helps to solidify the theming. would an exalted celestialist then be able to channel this blessing around themselves, or do they not gain this spell?

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

Bind [Combat] [T3]  

By weaving their arcana into long strands, the familiar ensnares its targets in a magical rope trap.

 

this one's pretty good. properly devastating for four emotes. i have a particular balancing problem with the enhancements, though.

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

➣ If the familiar’s current aura colour is Green or Brown, the binds crystallise and harden around their targets. This lengthens the duration of the bindings by [1] emote, to [3] emotes.

➣ If the familiar’s current aura colour is Blue or Purple, the binds are endowed with a mystifying veil of energy. When the duration of the binding ends, the target(s) are thrown [2] blocks in a selected direction.

g/b should get a new effect, as it is directly worse than b/p in all circumstances. let's run through a combat simulation;

Magician casts bind on Warrior, using green aura. Warrior moves 2 blocks turn one (total distance, 2.) Warrior moves 2 blocks turn two. (total distance, 4.) Warrior moves 2 blocks turn three. (total distance, 6.) the spell ends and he resumes movement.
Magician casts bind on Warrior, using purple aura. warrior moves 2 blocks turn one. (total distance, 2.) warrior moves 2 blocks turn two, before then being shoved back two blocks before the spell ends. (total distance, 2.) warrior, using normal movement, moves 4 blocks. (total distance, 6.)

on a distance moved graph, they go equal (unless they sprint, in which g/b wins... but theyre also not attacking, so it's moot. youd also just be able to catch them since you have two emotes to set up around them (or kill them)). however, b/p can also throw someone off a precarious cliff, or into a wall, or over a table, or something. i think b/p is fine balancing-wise, though, so g/b should get some type of new affect instead.

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

Shimmer [Combat] [T4]  

By disassembling their arcana into a cloud of glowing particles, the familiar makes a swift dash to a nearby location, harrying those that it passes through.

this one's cute. i might add some type of restriction to it, as familiars remain slightly faster than people, but if they're still tethered to within however many blocks of the celestialist, it's probably fine. both of the imbuements are neat, neither are direct upgrades, playing with mechanics a bit. i approve.

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

1. Reduce familiar wounds to like, 3 - 4 as requested. Effective materials do not deal extra wounds, but they do 1. prevent casting by the familiar for a short time afterwards and 2. disorientate them, reducing their move range so that 3. when they get hit with an effective material, they're more likely to get hit again, thus leading to a death spiral. That makes it so that 1. mundane weapons kill them in a small number of hits and 2. effective materials make those hits come more easily.

this solves a lot of problems with familiars on it's own. a vulnerable nexus that you have powerful spells come from is perfectly viable.

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

Y/O: Hopefully with the new Arcanify, this becomes significantly weaker, since the familiar blessing you is an obvious target. Running forever is no longer a viable strategy. Further, 1. reduce the movement increase through some combination of a) reducing the movement bonus to [1] block and b) only allowing the movement bonus to count every other emote. Remove the current acrobatic effect in favour of a long jump; rather than just generally increasing acrobatics, this blessing can be under to hurl yourself [6 - 8] blocks in a given direction. Still has the event utility of being able to cross large gaps, doesn't have all the utility of turning into Spiderman (everyone's a super hero today).

 

Additionally; might add a specifically out of combat, much weaker acrobatics buff? When outside of combat, the blessed can focus their attention of the energies raging around them. Whilst in this focused state, the blessed is occasionally protected from fumbles whilst climbing, and finds keeping their balance easier in precarious situations. (Redlines: entering combat ends this effect, it cannot be invoked in combat, the effect is only minor, etc.) I just like the idea of the event utility when there's parkour involved, and I think taking it explicitly out of combat and just generally nerfing it into "your balance is really good" would hopefully be enough?

this would /probably/ be fine, but i'd need to see it written to fully gauge. long jump is a cute idea, but compare it to similar translo spells. general minor acrobatics is fine conceptually, but you'd need to redline it to non-combat and give some type of example uses.

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

G/B: Just, do all of your edits really, end the buff outright when it explodes. OR.

etc.

i think it'd be within constraints of balance to shed it for a spell, but it'd mess with theming and overlap. functionally, that wouldn't be too different from barrage, and it also detracts from g/b as slow and defensive. i think it's best just keeping it as a 'reaction' when you're struck.

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

B/P: I can definitely see why this would step on eminents toes. I think the best argument for it is that an eminent has that effect up all the time, where as this is something you get specifically from a buff. An eminent could enjoy that buff, in combination with other buffs. In addition, a Celestialist has to have someone nearby who has a blue or purple aura, which could limit them from getting access to it. The beauty of this all is that no Celestialist is ever going to have access to every one of their buffs at all times, they'll be situationally available. THAT BEING SAID, I'd happily modify this into some other kind of vigour / composure buff. I've struggled trying to think of something that I like, so I'm all ears.

i'd say to lean into emotions. calmness, serenity, etc. what that would actually mechanically do is... i don't know.  but that's the avenue i'd try to explore, if you change it.

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

W/B: HONESTLY THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE THE WORST ONE SO WOO!

in terms of problematicness, it sorta oversteps with what radiance does. but it's also unable to affect 99% of players and is (presently) just something to gank et creatures with, and et are at full discresion to say "actually this voidal horror is special" or smth if it'd be too problematic, much like how radiance does.

 

20 hours ago, Aelesh said:

Happy to take out capstones entirely, wanted to keep them in at least a little since they seemed to be a big part of modern Voidal magic roleplay. Also probably going to move this to [2] upgrading to [3] slots. That way it's kind of [1] slot for familiar based stuff, [1] slot for all the other fun in hand stuff, [1] slot for gardens, rituals, etc. And there's still two slots for other Void magics! That was honestly my biggest concern, Void magic has always been about mix and match and I didn't want to kill mix and match spellbook making right out of the gate. But two other magics is still a lot of choice to be honest!

i think two slots + your 'voidal feat' slot might be fine, with the changes presented. as a whole, two other random compatible magics + scion is almost certainly stronger than celestialism always, so 2+feat feels fine.

>second post

 

19 hours ago, Aelesh said:

Agree with the radius of gardens, will reduce to [10 > 15 > 20]. Modify root distances as well.

evark raises a good point about adding in a requirement of ro permission, but other than that 20 is perfectly fine for a magical nexus point.

 

19 hours ago, Aelesh said:

With regards to artificers, I think the familiars fill different niches. I had at one point wanted to allow people to have familiars without being Celestialists, as was possible back in the day, but I opted against that to let artificers give out familiars to others (which I think is possible but I'm honestly not sure).

they fill different niches, but hold very similar aesthetic and relative purpose. additionally, artificers /can/ create pets for other people via bound items. maybe it just needs a change of name, but that could hurt the concept as much as it might help it. a bad name can kill the vibe... might just be a grin and bear it problem.

 

19 hours ago, Aelesh said:

Rite of Constellations: I'll remove the idea that the communication can be done instantly at night. There is currently a "not in combat" redline in there (at least I think there is please don't tell me I forgot), but I'll make it such that you have to meditate to do this at all times. Maybe at night there's some out of combat bonus (you can communicate vivid image, experiences become more real to the point of being slightly illusiary, something fun and flavourful), rather than it being instant. So: 1. always requires obvious meditation and 2. night gives totally out of combat buff to the quality and complexity of the message. How does that sound?

this is a decent solution imo. shouldn't be too problematic, considering theres those witcher ripoff cell phone things void mages can already use, so there's precedent for such an ability to be allowed within voidalism. however, locking it between two people (at the side effect of being stronger) is a fair tradeoff, and with a limited amount of rituals being able to be performed within a period of time, i see no reason it's not acceptable.

 

6 hours ago, Aelesh said:

Pinging @LoTC's Next Top Modelbecaaaaause, I can see an answer to an idea they had! You mentioned amongst your other critiques that Sanctify should have some kind of material cost. What I could do, drawing inspiration from what BNK has said here, is to rewrite Sanctify such that you use a Cosmic Seed as a resource? And further, drawing on the mention of "emotional moments", it might be that the Seed is planted, grows into a tree, but inevitably perishes in consuming and destroying the corruption produced by the source of the corruption. I could make the cleansing more unique as well, in that it would be something that occurs over several IRL days, maybe a week or more, and in that time Celestialists have to tend to the tree to make sure it remains alive long enough to properly consume all the energy. There's currently no system that I've expressed for how often Seeds can be made, but I could put something into place that slows down their production further to make them even more valuable. Thoughts?

i like this idea a *lot*. very in favour of it, but the timescale is a bit off. a week is a really ******* long time. i'd say scale it to the area affected, but i don't know the aoes i'd suggest. 15x15 in 3 days, up to... i dunno. 30x30 in a week? in preperation for the eventual void vs void gangwars between celestials and horrors.

[Aelesh 319]

Another big update, making changes and clarifications across the lore! My next goal is to write a section on interactions with enchanting, which spells can and cannot be enchanted, and how they work when enchanted.

[BrandNewKitten 2788]

Current version is looking f r e s h +1

Aurora spell is a neat addition!

[Aelesh 319]

A quick notice; I've been continuing my work on this and made a number of changes today. I've tried to streamline some abilities by dropping extra effects, rewrote one blessing to make it fall in line with the others, and added detail to Melding in an attempt to make it a little more intriguing, with enough depth to get the imagination going.

[Songwitch 1436]

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