Old-Rattlesnake

Ascended magic does not harm Soul Trees.

"Oh for Aeriel's sake."

Overall I really like the lore and I've personally wanted werewolves in LoTC for years now. However given that this is mentioned as a curse upon the soul, the Lycan would be affected in one way or another by Ascended offensive magic. My personal input is pain when in human form, but they become subject to full damage when transformed. Also someone mentioned that Ascended as well as other groups should be capable of becoming lycans. I can't speak for the others personally, but Ascended host an immunity to soul alteration, meaning this would not be possible for them.

Not usually. It depends upon circumstance quite a bit but if an Ascended is being attacked, they're permitted to fight back. Ascended who go out of their way to initiate violence against an untainted mortal, however, are hunted down and disconnected by other Ascended.

That's not correct. Previously in such cases if an Ascended were to attack an untainted mortal they would have their connection to Aeriel immediately severed, but with Tsuyose' disconnection lore (and a debate with him while he was LT) now specifying that patrons cannot directly disconnect their followers that point is moot. Even before that an Ascended was always capable of fighting back in self-defense. Currently the Ascended are very much capable of defending themselves and fighting against untainted mortals in much the same way anyone else can, and doing so does not effect them or their magic. The organizational structure of the Ascended, The Order of The Mongoose, actively discourages and punishes those Ascended caught harming mortals, however. Ascended magic will never harm an untainted mortal.

You can go ahead and remove this one since Soul Nexus is being scrapped.

An additional slide titled "The Eternal Mission" has been created and Hallowed Ground has been amended slightly to ensure better symmetry between the Ascended and Swgryclan's Abrietas lore.

An Ascended could continuously keep a dark being comatose in the same manner a normal person could continually hit their prisoner with a shovel whenever they wake up. Normal rules apply for prisoners that are being held without roleplay, and they may soulstone out after time has passed. Rapturous Soulfire weakens, but does not sever the connection; I've amended the paragraph on it to specify such. It will not revert a fwitch to a mortal, and this goes for any dark creature. Curses as you mention are similarly dulled when affected, but not destroyed. This is a temporary effect, and their magical skills will not be hampered.

Quoting directly from the Soul Puppetry lore: Puppets, not the soul puppeteer, would still violate the second criteria of Soulfire. Given than if you physically have the puppet in hand anyway you can just destroy it by other means it's not too much of a stretch to say Soulfire could destroy it. Soulfire harming the puppeteer is not possible. That said, I'll happily alter this verdict when I see the voidal changes you've mentioned.

1. Soul Trees are not harmed, refer to the Aspectual Clause on the Soulfire slide. Golem bodies are similarly not harmed, only their (typically shielded) core is. Dreadknights, Paleknights, Soul Puppets, and Frost Witches are all already harmed by Ascended pre-rewrite. There is, again, no broadening of our targets. 2. The Lore Team presented the restriction of armor blocking soulfire, and it has sufficed well enough. Most soul warped beings that can't wear armor are already designed to be fairly flimsy and need to be clever to avoid a golden sword to the gut, Soulfire, or any other holy magic. Similarly, soul-altered beings that cannot defend themselves with armor usually have access to magic which will disable Soulfire.

1. No additional beings are being targeted by Ascended magic with this rewrite, and we've even lost the ability to harm some beings as we focus the theme of our magic to the soul. There has been no broadening of our targets whatsoever. 2. The Ascended are not changing as drastically after this rewrite as some would think. We're already currently immortal (As is technically every other player on this server, regardless of having lore to back it up) and Aengul Fire (Our current main ability) is similarly quenched by dark magic. Enemies of the Ascended have been doing just fine combating us thus far and I won't explicitly state what techniques you should utilize for fighting one, for obvious reasons.

1. Any soulfire must have directly impacted a being to begin affecting it. When we say it 'feverently seeks out any altered souls' we mean it does so after connecting with a being's physical structure, it doesn't home in on people. 2. The length of the coma depends on the strength of the warped creature. More powerful warped souls will take longer to be rendered comatose, and will be left in said coma for a shorter amount of time. That said, the Ascended can still continually apply Rapturous Soulfire to keep them under control. As a baseline, I'd wager ten minutes would acceptable. Curses and such are not affected by Soulfire, but may be absorbed unto the Ascended and gradually destroyed with Soul Mending. (Further elaborate what incurable afflictions you have in mind). 3. Presence of the spell will be sufficient. Life-draining the flame, casting shade magic on the flame, casting Frost Wtich magic on the flame, etc, will all extinguish it. Having a transcended dark form usually correlates with a higher strength dark creature, so they will be harder to ignite in that respect already. Ultimately the soul is still warped regardless of an altered physical form and will burn them the same as someone in a non-transformed state. 4. Ascended have always had a minor relationship with voidal magics. In our current write Silver Sect is the equivalent of the Demi-Ascended in all forms, so there isn't much of a change here besides a name. 5. That is correct for the rewrite and in the current lore. Once Soulfire connects, it feeds off of the altered soul until it is halted by dark magic, it fails to burn them away, or it burns them away. Homunculi are no longer harmed by Ascended magic whatsoever, as they don't possess any iteration of a soul. Azdrazi fall under the same category as a regular soul, as their soul has been 'reformed' into something else entirely rather than been warped.

Currently there are no intentions to have Dark Shamans be affected by Soulfire.

Ascended magic will be capable of disabling an anti-mage's abilities of any variety for up to a day, because Soulfire attacks the subjugated soul rather than the mage's actual soul. This is detailed in the Anti-Mage lore and I'm fine with that interpretation.

Not directly, it's more of something I cobbled together to better understand what Ascended magic could harm. Compound, Warped, Corrupted, Subjugated, and Shadows are all affected by ascended in some way or another. I just thought the graphic was really neat so I added everything I could find at the time, and I'll likely be adding to it later on. Ascended are capable of detecting these listed souls by using Soulfire on them, or when they step inside Hallowed Ground.

Three months ago Mephistophelian gathered the leaders of the holy orders into a chat and offered us all an opportunity to differentiate ourselves because, in all honesty, we did just about the same thing with slight color variations. Now the number of Ascended active in Axios is higher than it has been in actual years, and to welcome in this new activity I, Aelesh, and others set about modernizing our lore into something more interesting. We'll be looking over comments and concerns as they become apparent, but I ask that all responses be constructive. Ascended Rewrite Slideshow (All Slide View) Once all changes have been made this slideshow will be converted to regular forum form for documentation.