Old Man Yells At Magic

[StingyParrot 1595]

 

Aesthetic Voidal Magic

 

This is NOT a lore post. One is coming up though. It’s more of a non-angry ‘rant’ about aesthetic variation in magic. I think that Voidal Magic suffers from something of a lack of cool new casting aesthetics, due to the honestly unhelpful but largely freeform posts about Aura and the Voidal Connection piece. I’ve  seen great casting tells, and maybe I’m totally wrong and everyone has their own super special thing, but I nonetheless wanted to encourage it. 

 

Depending on your character’s approach to magic, they may cast differently to another mage. Dance! Sing! Perform martial arts movements or something! I’m going to list a couple of ideas I’ve come up with on the fly, and I sincerely hope I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes with this. 

 

Runic casting, magic circles, probably some yelling in Elvish or Dwarvish - They exist already, so far as I can tell. But what about:

- Material casting? Have your mage bring along a bag of esoteric components to each fight. Ruby dust for Flamethrower, a hawk’s feather for Gust, and so on - I use this personally, paired with a lot of yelling in Christopher Paolini’s Ancient Language, given it’s one of the fictional languages I know built well for magic, and one that contains connecting words.

 

- Focusing on casting implements? Swing a sword, jab with a spear, strum fiery bolts out of a guitar, rip specially prepared pages (covered in arcane script inked in the blood of a mana mouse and made from Voidally-corrupted papyrus) out of your book to cast spikes of ice. 

 

- Tattoos? I’m not talking about having them glow or whatever, or even requiring them to be made of some lore-approved ink. Maybe as your mage learns more spells, they ink the formulae into their skin and an ethereal version of said script manifests while they cast. 

 

- Voidal Feats? Scions may rely more on martial casting implements - Mine will trace symbols in the air to channel magic through using the tip of a weapon - Eminents could have large, fancy displays of power or otherwise display their mastery by weaving spellcasting into an intricate dance. Voidstalkers are fun as well - I’m toying with the idea of having spells appear not just corrupted, but superimposed over the world, so that viewers would see them like they’d been pasted in sloppily, appearing two-dimensional or oversaturated, perhaps, to add to the otherworldly feeling. Artificers could bring all manner of little gadgets with them that all perform a different magical job - perhaps you’d see one slamming together an impromptu machine out of little parts that shoots a fireball before collapsing.

 

Casting techniques like these are relatively outlandish and mostly not outlined in lore, but so long as you adhere to the correct required casting tells for spells and Voidal Magic in general, I think most things will fly so long as they’re not there to intentionally deceive or do anything but flavor casting.

 

I will again reiterate that I’m not particularly annoyed or angry at anyone, or aiming this post at anyone in particular - rather, I wanted to do some work to get mages to think about how they could make their magic look a bit more ‘cool’ (not that it isn’t already) and personal to a character. Voidal Magic suffers a bit from being one of the easier-to-access magics beyond Housemagery and Bardmancy, so it’s understandable that newer mages won’t look very far beyond what is written.

 

- Stingy

[Cheese 8883]

1 hour ago, StingyParrot said:

- Tattoos? I’m not talking about having them glow or whatever, or even requiring them to be made of some lore-approved ink. Maybe as your mage learns more spells, they ink the formulae into their skin and an ethereal version of said script manifests while they cast. 

But how else will people be able to metagame whether or not my tattoos are voidal or infernal!!! :(

For real though, we need more aesthetics in all magics but especially voidal. For being so freeform and meaning to be catering towards the user, we need less to be focused on minmaxing and more on whimsy. if you want to be all powerful badass combatant with no sparkle go become a templar

[Laeonathan 5889]

Voidal Magic was destroyed by poor Lanre copies.

 

Change my mind. (You can't)

[_Black_Drag0n_ 781]

I like combining my tells with other magics (aetherial wings if herald, a skeletal hand if draugar, clockwork ticking around him making things go haywire if artificer, tattoos lighting up like you said etc) and combine that with a shout or chant in a non-common language (blackspeech, dwarven, low draconic, elvish) making it sound like it is spoken through a heavy storm or smth like that as if shouted from the Void.

 

As long as my mage isn't T5 I don't do that, in that case I keep to a colour and other tell like fire-like mana spreading over the mage or around them, the earth rising up, a series of runes needed to be drawn with a wand or smth like that.

 

Overall, I live that Voidal magics is so freeform, but I think that teachers sometimes also can give pointers on their student's aura if they don't have experience with magic yet, making each more unique than the last.

 

Nice post

[LoTC's Next Top Model 1627]

4 hours ago, StingyParrot said:

- Focusing on casting implements? Swing a sword, jab with a spear, strum fiery bolts out of a guitar, rip specially prepared pages (covered in arcane script inked in the blood of a mana mouse and made from Voidally-corrupted papyrus) out of your book to cast spikes of ice. 

 

- Tattoos? I’m not talking about having them glow or whatever, or even requiring them to be made of some lore-approved ink. Maybe as your mage learns more spells, they ink the formulae into their skin and an ethereal version of said script manifests while they cast. 

these literally both exist and you gain slight benefits for using them. it is optimal to use a casting focus lmao.
 

my void mage casted using her hair which she also used as a third arm to carry shit for her. i gave one of my students an infinity gauntlet she casted her spells through. i gave another one a arcanium sword they casted through by just drawing shit in the air like you described.

and as for tattoos, my eminents arcanium focus is just a tattoo made of ink made using a ground up arcanium ingot. i consulted the lore team and it was okayed. i'm also /pretty/ sure there's just lore for magic tattoos somewhere that i couldn't find on short notice.

unrelated but void mages also have telephones.

 

and magic hats.

https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/228506-✓-invention-lore-wizards-hats/#comment-2000182
 

nobody but me uses these, i think because they're in arcane inventions instead of voidal where they probably should be.

 

4 hours ago, StingyParrot said:

Eminents could have large, fancy displays of power or otherwise display their mastery by weaving spellcasting into an intricate dance.

 

Casting techniques like these are relatively outlandish and mostly not outlined in lore, but so long as you adhere to the correct required casting tells for spells and Voidal Magic in general, I think most things will fly so long as they’re not there to intentionally deceive or do anything but flavor casting.

my voidal mage also just did the first thing as an eminent where the longer she was building up her eminent hype meter the more fireworks and magical girl shit was going on because i'm the prettiest princess in the goddamned world. i'd like to see anyone try to say i wasn't making my building casting rhythm obvious enough.

 

the second thing, at least a few voidal magics outline that you can cast however you want as long as you're making it obvious you're casting and it reasonably makes sense.

this is largely a problem of people just not doing it, not a problem of it not being allowed. if i had to get a bit deeper, i blame the way most people teach magic in very basic or bland ways or just go "hey... you're t2 now. you can cast these spells." with no further elaboration.

other than material casting and some of the feat stuff you said, this is just stuff that exists in lore. so do it! use super cool casting implements! c'mon, what're you waiting for? Do it! also make a magnum opus! write your own spell! c'mon!

[StingyParrot 1595]

1 hour ago, LoTC's Next Top Model said:

these literally both exist and you gain slight benefits for using them. it is optimal to use a casting focus lmao.
 

my void mage casted using her hair which she also used as a third arm to carry shit for her. i gave one of my students an infinity gauntlet she casted her spells through. i gave another one a arcanium sword they casted through by just drawing shit in the air like you described.

and as for tattoos, my eminents arcanium focus is just a tattoo made of ink made using a ground up arcanium ingot. i consulted the lore team and it was okayed. i'm also /pretty/ sure there's just lore for magic tattoos somewhere that i couldn't find on short notice.

unrelated but void mages also have telephones.

 

and magic hats.

https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/228506-✓-invention-lore-wizards-hats/#comment-2000182
 

nobody but me uses these, i think because they're in arcane inventions instead of voidal where they probably should be.

 

my voidal mage also just did the first thing as an eminent where the longer she was building up her eminent hype meter the more fireworks and magical girl shit was going on because i'm the prettiest princess in the goddamned world. i'd like to see anyone try to say i wasn't making my building casting rhythm obvious enough.

 

the second thing, at least a few voidal magics outline that you can cast however you want as long as you're making it obvious you're casting and it reasonably makes sense.

this is largely a problem of people just not doing it, not a problem of it not being allowed. if i had to get a bit deeper, i blame the way most people teach magic in very basic or bland ways or just go "hey... you're t2 now. you can cast these spells." with no further elaboration.

other than material casting and some of the feat stuff you said, this is just stuff that exists in lore. so do it! use super cool casting implements! c'mon, what're you waiting for? Do it! also make a magnum opus! write your own spell! c'mon!

Magnum opi are great

And yeah! Stuff is in lore already,  and I do want to draw focus to it, especially things like instrument or beard focuses

 

And yeah voidal magic is built to be freeform, just that it's not really incentivised or overly focused on

[LoTC's Next Top Model 1627]

24 minutes ago, StingyParrot said:

 

And yeah voidal magic is built to be freeform, just that it's not really incentivised or overly focused on

i'd say it's highly focused on. fact of the matter; the many lore pieces i listed.

it's also incentivized. case in point; each of the lore pieces i've listed are practically free power that just make you stronger. a min-maxxed void mage uses a wizard hat and arcane focus.

 

the problem isn't with the lore, it's entirely with the playerbase. that is difficult to solve, especially with void mages so scattered (or just straight up dead as a community. i don't play my void mage anymore, because it's illegal in the only nations with any activity, and the one human nation that accepted void mages got mountain'd lmao.).

 

most people just don't explore the oppurtunities given to them. once again, i blame teaching. people just going "yeah, alright, do three emotes and then you can throw your fireball" or whatever. i read through the cleric rewrite submission up right now, and something they do that i like is including a handful of very different example emotes for each spell, and i think thats just something every magic should do from now on. for void, it would help a lot in giving people new ideas and showing them that there's no bumper guard in this alley.

[Frisket 4538]

5 hours ago, Laeonathan said:

Voidal Magic was destroyed by poor Lanre copies.

 

Change my mind. (You can't)

BASED LAEONATHAN TAKE

[Ardory 2978]

[Luxury 1082]

We just need more Stingyparrots in the world that show interest and care for the lore's development :) Leading by example is the way to go.

 

Some previous posts above unearth an older issue; being so openly spread means the teaching standards are lower. Players are taught how to use the mechanics but are not being taught how to roleplay a mage / interact with the wider network of Voidal Lore meaningfully. Bare minimum if the combative spell mechanics are understood, magic can't be powergamed - and that's all you really need to gain a TA these days.

 

In regards to being flashy or creative with casting; I think this is partially a cultural issue as well. The lore as written enables any variety of expression, but it is the player-side server narrative that tends to condemn Void magic, and veer less towards High Fantasy more broadly. 

 

[Samson Option 9652]

I remember larping as Toph when I had Earth Evocation. Those were good times. . .

[MrMojoMordor 2413]

15 hours ago, StingyParrot said:

- Material casting? Have your mage bring along a bag of esoteric components to each fight. Ruby dust for Flamethrower, a hawk’s feather for Gust, and so on - I use this personally, paired with a lot of yelling in Christopher Paolini’s Ancient Language, given it’s one of the fictional languages I know built well for magic, and one that contains connecting words.

 

- Focusing on casting implements? Swing a sword, jab with a spear, strum fiery bolts out of a guitar, rip specially prepared pages (covered in arcane script inked in the blood of a mana mouse and made from Voidally-corrupted papyrus) out of your book to cast spikes of ice. 

 

- Tattoos? I’m not talking about having them glow or whatever, or even requiring them to be made of some lore-approved ink. Maybe as your mage learns more spells, they ink the formulae into their skin and an ethereal version of said script manifests while they cast. 

Can't believe Stingy is trying to have Voidal magic dress up as Shamanism /j
Honestly I do support this - while snapping fingers to create a fireball is cool & simple for those who want to AURAMAXXX.
It's JANK like having to do something physically be it chanting or drawing magic circles in the air or using some sort of instrument that not only adds to flare but show's your character's progress over time from bumbling shaking novice to 0.2 sec, flawless technique master.