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Magic Submissions Magic Submission Types This subsection is going to go over the 3 types of magic submission types there are in regards to the 5 slot system we have. Feats A feat is a magic or ability that is very limited compared to a full magic. These do not take up magic slots and typically have a shorter tier progression/less tiers than a full-blown magic. It typically can only perform one function and does not provide anyone significant advantages when it comes to combat. If you intend on submitting a feat, you should bear in mind that it is meant to be limited. If you want something that has multiple abilities and combat potential, submit a full magic. Slotted Magic Each character has 5 slots eligible to be used for magics. Some magics may take multiple (multi-slot magics) and some may take only one. Slots are a limit aside from the eligibility issues that may come from having multiple magics, and represent a sort of hard-limit on how much knowledge or magical prowess one can store. Submission Guidelines This subsection is going to go over the rules that magic submissions need to follow. Some of these have explanation threads that explain our stance on the guideline, they are not required reading, but might help shed some light on the situation. All abilities must adhere to the Abilities threads found here and here. If your lore has special items or locations that it can create, follow the guidelines on this thread found here and here. Magics/creatures should adhere to Story Team observations on connection and disconnection. More on the subject can be found here. If your piece involves magi-tech, please read our current stance on it, found here. If you wish to write up a “dark” variant of a magic, please read this. If you wish to consider boons and banes for your magic, read this. Format This formatting is meant to be used for proposed Magic lore pieces. Thread Title The thread title should be [Magic Lore] – [Name of the Magic]. For example, Magic Lore – Fire Evocation. Background/Origin This is your fluff/backstory to what the magic is and what its origins are/how it was discovered. You do not need to go in-depth on the abilities yet, but someone should have a general grasp on what the magic is about after reading this. You are free to have this be styled how you want, whether it be shown via journal entries or a small story. Magic Explanation This is the section where you go into more detail on how the magic functions (e.g. what powers it [voidal/deific/et cetera], how a mage can learn it, requirements et cetera) as a whole. Abilities/Spells This is the section where you go into the specifics of each ability. Please use the following to write out your abilities. Name of the spell. Description of the spell. This is the RP description of the spell and its capabilities. Mechanics of the spell. This is the OOC description of the spell that covers things like emote count requirement and other specifications that you need to be aware of. Counters and spell weaknesses should be listed here. You should also state how the ability reacts to other magics/creatures if it interacts with any. This is for those of other magics or those that play creatures to be able to properly emote when encountering this magic. (Example being a magic submission of using spirits. What does a shaman or a mystic feel/experience when encountering this?). Specific Red Lines. This section is put under each ability and covers any restrictions that the ability may have. Red Lines This section should list all of the restrictions that a mage has to follow when they pick this magic up. For instance, if you are incapable of learning a certain type of magic after learning this one, that should be listed here. Tier Progression This section is where you cover the progression rate of a person undertaking the magic, beginning at tier one. Below is an example of the first two, but you will need to add in all of the tiers when you submit (tier 5 is max under the standard system). Example: Repeat (OPTIONAL) If you are writing multiple subtypes in one thread, you should add a new subtitle indicating the new subtype (e.g. Paladinism with Wyrmstalker as a subdivision). “Magic Description” through “Red Lines/Restrictions” should be placed under this subtitle. This is for multi-slot magic submissions only. Purpose (OOC) This section is where you describe what purpose your lore is serving, what it is bringing to the table that other lore pieces aren’t, and why it fits into LotC’s canon. Citation Spoiler You should have a spoiler at the bottom that includes links to any lore pieces that you referenced or based your lore submission off of.

Power Sources This thread covers the explanation of Power Sources, the Story Team’s stance on them, and advice on how they can apply to your lore. For advanced or veteran lore writers working on shelved pieces of lore, Powersources can be a very difficult topic to come by. Power sources are effectively what fuels a piece of lore. Feat, Magic, CA, etc., powersources are what gives a lore it’s lore effects. On the server, we have a good few. You can find them HERE at The Canon Energies. Please reference this post for any information on power sources. Typically, we dislike new powersources. While this can be disheartening, we’ve already got most of the thematic bases covered and more. To think that one could have all these different sources of mana, and a new one, it can be frustrating. Often new powersources do exactly what others do, or try and emulate some combination between them- something which is most of the time, not positive or beneficial to lore. Another powersource we tend to have problems with is Egregore type lore, or lore that is made given the thoughts of a collective. This is often hard to represent, and often is just used as a justification to get something since “NPCs” can believe anything, and there can be any amount of them. It’s downright impossible to make new lorepieces that seem well made through the power of thought. We already have many types of powersources. Instead of trying to make new ones, maybe try sub-dividing ones based on what type of magic you’re using. Deific magics have an easy ticket with this, as they can have their souls deifically blessed or modified to have their mana give a different effect- such as with Azdrazi/Herald Draan, or Paladin Embers. Mundane magics are things which have been tried, and are things best avoided. These are things like your typical D&D Sorcerer or Wizard, or your WoW Mage and Warlock. While concepts from these are nice and often used on the server, given our give-and-take system and drawbacks, this is simply undoable. Many have tried in the past to take the void out of voidal magics, but it often leaves it flavourless and just a straight upgrade in comparison. While voidal weakness and the infinite-horror aesthetic has been largely made optional, we do get the occasional submission to try and write it out. The beautiful thing about lore is that lore itself points you into a direction of how it should be roleplayed. Unfortunately, many take that route and simply stick to it with no plan to deviate. This can lead to a very same-y feeling between roleplayers. A good lore, if not most lore, allows players to take aesthetic variance and do things without the writing of additional lore. Some lorepieces have additions or variants which allow for wildly different lore-enforced variants between types of magics. An example, being The Voidal Feats and voidmagic. While voidmagic itself allows a roleplayer to take a thousand and one personal aesthetics with the basis of following the lore’s redlines, voidal feats take them into a direction where they can experience massive flavor, aesthetic, and mechanical difference in counterpart to one another. Think of this when you’re both using, and writing, lore. Allow some aesthetic variance and interpretation that doesn’t change how the lore affects others. Overall, stick to the basics. Keep your power sources used between magics, and try and focus on subdivisions of current power sources rather than re-inventing the wheel for just a single, new, piece of lore.

Bad Lore This thread covers the explanation on what “Bad Lore” is, it’s concepts, and why certain archetypes or submissions are closed off entirely. Bad Lore is a harsh term, particularly when describing older lores of the server which people put a lot of effort into, some 10+ years ago. However, people evolve and things age, and often, some concepts do so poorly over time. Not only this, but their utilization or place on the server is questionable. They can offer nothing, and just exist as a piece of lore to read. While not a bad idea, this gets into bad territory somewhat quickly. Let’s explain. There’s a lot of different types of bad lore, but it mostly boils down to why it’s bad rather than the specifics itself. Some lores can never work, no matter how much finagling, spite, or effort one puts in because fundamentally their concept doesn’t mesh well with the server in some aspect. Some lores aren’t even open for submission, which is questionable given they have been in the past. An example of fundamentally-flawed concepts of the server could be Telekinesis. While formerly a very important magic to mali’aheral, Telekinesis is a concept which has dulled greatly and seen over a dozen writes, each lacking in some aspect no matter how many times patches get applied to correct the last mistakes. Fundamentally, size, scale, and weight are impossible to work with in minecraft. Practically, any magic which tries to utilize some form of hard-measurement other than temperature or distance is going to run into this problem. Minecraft is not a good representation for size. It’s an extremely poor representation for weight. Even then, most roleplayers are extremely unfamiliar with both of these things, given it’s hard to picture yourself in armour. With swords, with shields, how that feels and how you can move. People can speculate and watch all their youtube videos on people performing incredible movement in armour or with weaponry, but it often delves into people arguing over semantics and specifics. Even if you wrote some form of equation, equality, or measurement, you are forcing people who have never read, nor maybe even want to read, your lore to get an idea of what has been arbitrarily decided for them. It’s written-in powergaming. Relativity is the best measurement here, and relativity is extremely poor for minecraft and magics; hence why it’s used sparingly. Another fundamentally flawed concept has been Mentalism. While formerly a very well-kept magic and somewhat niche, it explored a lot of issues regarding metagaming and good-taste roleplay. These issues often revolved around death roleplay and how to get around memory blocks, metagaming names, places, people, and taking control of other people’s characters in a manner which can be abused incredibly easily. Simply put, writing in clauses or redlines that state “Don’t do this, or you’ll be in trouble” are extremely poor. A lore should not enable or allow those behaviors within their writing, and should not rely on Story Team to constantly validate roleplay and handhold people through utilizing their day to day magic. Another fundamentally flawed concept is Bladedancing. While never really having a formal magic submission, this is the idea of using a form of telekinesis which allows the user to manipulate floating blades around them, or weapons of some other kind. While again, a super cool and thematic idea, all the submissions we’ve ever received for so have been shot down for time and time again the same issues which exist on a conceptual basis. A person with a lore like this will always be fundamentally stronger than someone without it. While that seems a no-brainer that someone with a magic should be stronger than one without, it becomes unfair when every situation is an unwinnable one against a lore like this. What stops the user from not only manipulating blades, but having one of their own? Can they move just fine? Are they still strong? What cost is there to their lore? How long can they keep it up? What stops them from just stabbing people in the back with undodgeable strikes constantly? And lastly, going over just two more of a similar archetype, Izkuuthi and Contract Magic. An issue with both of these is often players just felt at the mercy of both these types of magics and that they couldn’t do anything. That an Izkuuthi was impossible to kill, could constantly use illusion or manipulate the senses to borderline powergaming, that the Izkuuthi was practically an unskippable cutscene when interacting with them. Contract was similar, where it pinned players and made them feel trapped, and almost lore-enforced to be entirely at the mercy of a contract mage. People used them for anything, to be able to rip apart somebodies character if they didn’t do what they say. Both of these make players feel like a passenger of their own character rather than players master of their own destiny. Being trapped in these types of unskippable cutscene interactions may be fun for the lore, but it’s just wasted time and frustration for those interacting with it. That isn’t fun, good faith, or roleplay- it’s power tripping. Overall, the list of conceptually flawed lorepieces goes something like this. -Telekinesis -Mentalism -”Blade Dancing” -Ruibrium -Shade -Arcanism -Electric Evocation -Izkuuthi -Contract Magic -Soul Puppetry -Cognatism -Non-voidal Voidal Magic (Taking away Voidal Weakness) -Fi’hiraan’tanya/Direct antimagic (A magic/ability which completely shuts down another magic) While some of these lore submissions aren’t wholly auto-denied, they just can’t be written without changing the core concept of the lorepiece. When rewrites were submitted for many of these pieces, the lore was so wholly disconnected from the original that it was just it’s own idea, with the same name. Even then, they shared the same conceptual issues which ended up having them denied. While spite is a great fuel and naivety is a blessing, we strongly, strongly suggest not writing these pieces else you wish for a swift denial. Plagiarism Another thing to consider is plagiarism. While this server is built as a hobby and is defined by artistic expression in a shared narrative, we do value keeping a core integrity to our lore. While many concepts on the server and in future submissions may be heavily inspired by other sources, the ST will accept nothing short of a piece which values it’s place on the server, more than another piece of lore coming in just as a port-over from the original source material. No matter what you’re writing, please keep in mind you should adapt your ideas to the LOTC universe, and stray from taking concepts and ideas from other sources. Invent and adapt those ideas further, but please refrain from copying other sources of lore and worldbuilding. The other hand of bad lore is in submissions. With this final rewrite of Lore Criteria, we’re throwing in some submissions which are on an auto-denial list of nonacceptance. We’ll go into the reasons for that below. Open Race Submissions are no longer being accepted. Given this was never used, we want to move to a direction where CAs can be more of a direction for open races, given our lore is practically hard-coded to only have our core five and their subraces. Additional subraces, simply, don’t really have the legitimacy or playerbase to warrant becoming an open race, given none have ever sustained themselves for any degree of time outside of a couple months. With this update, Open Race Submissions are no longer accepted. If you wish to write something like a subrace or something along the lines of an open race, consider writing a Group-A Creature Submission more revolving around your subrace or open race. See General Criteria: CA Race Groupings for more details. Aengudaemonic/Patron Submissions are no longer being accepted. In the past, accepted deities have always been really awkward and serve mostly as “OCs” which don’t fit in with the rest of the deities. This is lore written for people just to look at, and never quite interact with. While the ST over the years has been shifting towards having Aengudaemons and Pantheon being far more interactive and represented, these submissions dump someone’s writing and ideas for them to use. This makes it awkward, and in the past, just includes deities which are disconnected entirely from the pantheon and don’t quite fit in with the rest of the world. The final submission type we’re removing is Non-Aengudaemonic Deity-Class Submissions. These are a mixed bag, and to be frank, were written by a previous admin with no real clue on what they would service or what they would do. Given we want to remove any mention of something like Primordials (another bad lore), and keep our lore simple at face and complex at back with Aengudaemons at the top of the chain. While Voidal Behemoths have their purpose, these are always used in large events in which they never show; since a voidal behemoth is effectively so powerful it’s outside of any ST’s perspective to play rightly outside of very distance proxy. With so, this submission type will close.

Healing This short thread covers the Story Team’s stance on healing and how it should be handled within lore. Healing, by our definition, covers healing of other players in or outside of combat. While the two do have very different nuances and feelings, they do share some similarities. We’ll go into both, and describe why the Story Team holds some caution into what types of healing are being utilized. In general, we found that theres pros and cons to each different archetype of healing. Free Healing Free healing is healing which is described as healing which often costs mild resources, if any. Energy (Mana, stamina), emotes, IRL time, reagents, faith of some kind, etc. These are your most traditional fantasy healers, like Dungeons and Dragons Clerics, or Priests in WoW. This isn’t limited to just magic, but can be alchemical or mundane means of healing too. Free healing, being the most traditional in fantasy, is often that which is coveted in lore. There’s nothing quite wrong with that, however, there comes the issue where this can easily eliminate impactful moments or character development, or stifle consequence and conflict. While it may take multiple emotes, perhaps even hours of combat, to wound someone or be in the process of wounding someone, a healer may have an ability prepared in that time which lessens, prevents, or undoes that damage quickly and without issue. This can be really detrimental, because it can completely skew a fight in the healers favour. Typically, free healing is reserved for very minor or small wounds, at a real cost which prevents a caster from using offensive capability. While fun for the healer, it can be incredibly unfun for the offending party. Not only this, but the target of healing can lack fun as well. A common issue players have is that they find themselves overwhelmed during medical RP, the healer often emote-dumping how quickly, efficiently, or effectively they can completely null wounds and effects and stabilize a wounded person. Free healing suffers from this as well, with the wounded party often simply sitting there while a free healer just cures them. This can be incredibly unengaging, and lead to nothing changing in plot, character development, consequence, and more. For in combat healing, consider how powerful an ability/potion may be in undoing a wound which is an outcome in give-and-take CRP, as a healing ability/potion that doesn’t have to. You don’t have to work with another (or yourself) narratively to heal them, only fixing what another has done to them, and what the wounded accepted as part of that give-and-take trade. Keep this type of healing costly, temporary, and unlike just fixing a wound completely. For out of combat healing, consider the fact that in honesty, things do not have cost. In the term of a day, a mana cost is minimal as most often someone will get it back tomorrow. In the term of material components, most can be spawned out of thin air without difficulty, or without roleplay attached to gathering them. These are things that can’t really be changed. For out of combat free healing, consider that your resources are effectively unlimited, while in comparison, a wound is finite. Be fair, and allow narrative to develop further and characters to progress from something like this. Ultimately, the resources used in free healing are inconsequential, and thus the efforts of any party involved in the conflict are made inconsequential as well. When writing your lore, or utilizing healing, please express caution into how much you feeling effective is trading others making narrative. Trade Healing Trade healing is healing which follows a sort of “eye for an eye” doctrine. Trade healing is healing in which one trades wounds, their severity, their emotion, their blood, their energy, all in some effort to lessen or remove the wound or affliction of the afflicted. This can be put upon other targets unwillingly, or taken on by the healer or allies willingly. Trade healing can be significantly more interesting than free healing, and can offer a more interactive roleplay experience. However, one thing players may run into is the fact their RP is notably gray. In this sense, they do not always feel like the good guy, they feel there is too much work, too much cost, etc. - While potentially true depending on the lore, this is a personal issue, although this type of healing does enable it. This is generally the safest bet for healing, and the one granted the most leeway. This allows for good character development, roleplay, and decisionmaking. This can lead to deciding where one’s power is best spent, if wounds are worth healing, and if there are alternative routes to be taken. Rather than a one-ability-cure-all, trade healing allows for more options and interactions to be utilized to encourage an actual recovery process within healing, having lasting consequence and effect on the wounded party. Time-based Healing Time-based healing is healing which is very similar to free healing, but it may take multiple sessions or extended emote times for the therapeutic effect to take place on the healed target. Time-based healing often can involve more severe or traumatic wounds or wounding, such as psychological or even limb/organ damage. While this mostly works for extended, chronic effects a character has had like a lost limb or a long-time sickness, it can get really complex when one factors in short term wounding. Time-based healing, given it’s similarities to free healing, can very much suffer from the same issues. Traditionally, this type of healing suffers from the issue where it can lead to the same emote dumping and unengaging roleplay that comes with free healing roleplay. Given the power often lended to this type healing, with the ability to undo great things, these abilities should be very rare, and heavily scrutinized. Consider how time-based healing can be constraining with multiple sessions, days, or people, and consider how much the effects should have on a user and how they should scale accordingly. Overall, consider carefully healing and it’s effects on the healer, healed, and the attacking party. Consider what limitations you want to implement and what type of healing is best for your lore, if applicable. Do not be afraid of making your healing too weak! The Story Team will always tell you and help to make sure your magic is as fun to use and balanced. Try to err on the side of underpowered, rather than overpowered, and The Story Team will scale accordingly in feedback.

The Techlock & Magi-Tech This thread explains the Story Team stance on the techlock and magi-tech. Techlock “Techlock” is a term which fundamentally defines what technology we have on the server. Given we are a fantasy medium with the best interests in mind, we have created a Techlock https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/192604-the-techlock-hub-page/ which supplements how we limit and define what we have on the server. Often, people will justify some sort of time period excuse. Such as, “We have cannons, and the chinese civilizations had made guns back in 800, so why can’t we have guns?” Simply put, in all terms and arguments, no. Although we have some suspended disbelief on the server, there are bad actors out there. We do not allow obscure or extremely dated technologies which seek to loophole or break techlock. We have a strictly defined techlock which limits things such as Gunpowder and its applicability, and what real world elements are on the server. Please, do not overthink things. Do not try to “science” too hard on what we have, we are a fantasy medium with constraints on realism. The Techlock in general is meant to provide a reasonable, sustainable boundary for which we can maintain a unique fantasy setting without ebbing too close to reality. Furthering on “science”-ing too hard, this server is a wonderful foundation for creativity and artistic expression. While some may love the detail you might go into regarding some very in-depth smithing roleplay, keep in mind much of the server has little interest or knowledge in so. Following that, writing anything involved with inventions or techlock should be kept simple and understandable, easily digestible so that anyone on the server could read it comprehensively. When making inventions, keep the techlock in mind and try to make unique items which don't exist simply to break the techlock, but introduce an interesting contraption on the server. Think outside the box, think like an inventor. Magi-Tech Magi-Tech is essentially magical technology, which can bypass the techlock in some cases (dependent on what the magi-tech is emulating). However, this does not mean that the server should dive into science fiction territory or go too advanced. Things like AI have been on the server, which was rather out of place and has since been culled. New inventions with magic aiding in the process is fine, so long as it is creative and not just imitating real life technology. In the past this has meant computers, particle accelerators (seriously), sno-cone machines, etc. Try and keep it tasteful, and unique. You have an entire fantasy world where you can do and make whatever you want, to just copy real-life inventions is so dull. Try to put some pizazz into it, some fantasy, put some thought and creativity with the lore we have in our universe. You’re granted that leeway, that magic simply makes things work- take that and run with it. Don’t try and over-science something with magic, as that’s against the nature of magic itself. Alchemy is perfect for these types of things, and works, with things like Smoggers and Animii acting as slightly techlock breaking, but highly fascinating and well crafted lorepieces. When writing magi-tech, consider what would happen if someone unfamiliar with the lore involved got their hands on it. An arcane cannon, are these just better than regular cannons? Do they require a mage to use, so that they don’t powercreep cannons? Think of how you would use enchantments, and think of how you could make your magi-tech useable, or unusable, to the majority. Avoid ‘gatekeeping’, for things that reasonably anyone could use, and define exactly what it is someone can’t use certain magi-tech. Keep it flavorful, keep it fun, and stick to a theme rather than an effect you are simply trying to justify writing a lore to make happen.

Lore Variants This thread covers the stance Story Team has taken on Lore Variants. Lore Variants are defined as “Antithesis” magics, “Alt” magics, or “Variant” magics. These are lore pieces which take after another piece, offering a sort of subsect or branch of that original lore which has spun off into it’s own direction. Think of Dark Shamanism, as example. Over the years a number of lore proposals have popped up that were “dark” variants of existing magics. “Dark” druidism, “dark” paladins, “dark” shamanism, et cetera. Conceptually, these dark alternatives are meant to be another route to take for the magic that is “dark” or “evil” and/or are meant to act as the antagonist towards the already existing version of the magic, such as dark shamanism’s relationship with shamanism. However, a common issue with these pieces is that they don’t really offer anything that the other magic doesn’t and tend to just be aesthetically different variants of the existing piece made so that a person doesn’t have to deal with the current powersource or group. Another is that they ignore that a lot of these magics are morally ambiguous. Druidism is fully capable of being “dark” if the character using it wants it to be that way, there’s no reason to have a new lorepiece to justify just having evil druids. For magics that are not morally ambiguous, such as holy magics, an argument can be made to have a “dark” alternative for those that wish to RP as rogues or a darker variant of the magic. Currently if you attempt to do that, you essentially get targeted over by groups disconnecting your character. However keep in mind, that is creating good conflict roleplay, so creating an entirely new magic simply for that purpose is iffy. If you are attempting to create said “dark” variant, you should also make sure that it is providing some kind of roleplay for the other group that isn’t purely antagonistic, and goes into it’s own direction that allows the two groups to work together to make an interesting narrative and story between them. These submissions can also be more subtle, going into directions of subtle additions, amendments, or simple variants which offer something else to the aesthetic of the lore. An example is how Azdrazi could become corrupted, granting them different mechanics, abilities, and so on; far from an “Upgrade”, it’s a vastly different direction in the lore’s way, and aims to accomplish something very different from originally intended. Submissions going into this variant direction are favourable, and often aim to provide something different from the original group, both functionally, aesthetically, and mechanically. While different, they certainly are not their own magic. When working on a Lore Variant, consider deeply. “Is this something I can accomplish already?” If you can say yes, then it’s likely a poor lore variant. Further, answering “Yes, but it could be better if I had these tools” - it becomes tricky. However, most likely, it is probably a frowned upon lore variant. This is because this is additive, and not transactional. You are not trading parts of your lore, but instead just giving yourself more tools to go into this different avenue of roleplay. This effectively leaves the original piece unfinished without this “DLC” variant piece. However, if you can say no, then there may be some idea there. A variant should be a similar piece, certainly, you’re not writing a different lore! You’re trying to write a lore that may go into a different direction, or accomplish a different goal. Another example of a good lore variant is the Voidal Feats (Voidstalking, Arcane Scions, Voidal Artificery, Voidal Eminence). The voidal feats do not fundamentally change how one performs their magic mechanically, but each guides them to developing their characters and how they perform them. Adding flair and individuality to every user, encouraging them to do different types of roleplay with some new spells and abilities which focus specifically on their niche. While not significant, or even enough for their own magics, they are small pieces of lore that encourage players to develop their roleplay and define their characters with certain aesthetics and abilities without affecting, detrimenting, or downgrading from regular voidal mages. Overall, think of how this may affect the original group, and how this may affect this lore’s roleplay and impact on the server. Ideally, a lore variant should go into a different direction, co-existing with the prior. While there may be some conflict between the two, it should not be the primary purpose of the lore variant. The lore variant should have goals elsewise which allow the two to, on a meta scale, coexist and be looked upon as similar, yet distinctly different.

The Lore Web This thread discusses the concept of “The Lore Web” and how we can do our best to maintain it. The Lore Web is a concept coined rather recently, but one which has been in effect for years. The Lore Web is the idea that all lore is like a web- it interacts with one another in an exchange. There are two states of the lore web that we can really be in. Out of the lore web, and in the lore web. To be in the lore web means you are tangled and lost- most lore does not add up to one another or it often contradicts, and reading one piece often leads to reading multiple others. To be out of the lore web means that you do not have to run in circles to find lore interactions, and that these actions are often presented to you easily. Oftentimes, writing broad statements such as the grounds for an effect to occur, rather than specific examples, gives one relief that they don’t have to bounce around from piece to piece. Here’s an example of the two. In The Lore Web In the Druidism lorepiece, it states that Druids cannot learn Necromancy, Naztherak, and Mysticism. This sounds a lot like Druids can’t learn dark magics, or magics which alter the soul, but it doesn’t say that directly. But now there is a hypothetical new rewrite for a new soul-altering darkmagic. Druidism doesn’t say it isn’t compatible with this, even though it is trying to in the original lore. This leads to a discrepancy where it doesn’t make sense for druidism to be able to learn this new soul altering magic, when they now arbitrarily can’t learn those others. Out of The Lore Web In the druidism lorepiece, it states Druids cannot learn soul altering magics. In a new submission for a soul altering magic, it does not need to specify it is incompatible with Druidism specifically. It could even counter and say that it is incompatible with deific magics, and still be fine- just that the magic is soul altering. This way, lore is effectively future-proofed, allowing for less headache when both reading and writing new lore. “...Unless otherwise stated” All lore and lore rules operate under a “...Unless otherwise stated” clause, in which that specific thing applies, until it doesn’t. An example, Aurum is capable of inflicting great pain upon any CA creature. However, some creatures may have reasons to not be weak to Aurum. In their lore, it should specify they are not weak to aurum. If it were not written, the “Unless otherwise stated” clause would kick in, and Aurum would be an effective weakness. Another potential lore interaction is “Magic Stacking”. A very old term but one with a lot of weight to it. Magic Stacking is a scenario in which a player gathers as many lores as possible (MAs, FAs, CAs) to increase their playerpower. Not quite minmaxing, but along those same lines of bad faith. Magic stacking is a potential when lores are under-costed in slots, or when compatibilities aren’t quite written in. When working on your lore, make sure to include compatibilities or incompatibilities with other lores. It is best if you remain specific on the reasons why, rather than the specifics themselves. For example, you shouldn’t say “My dark magic is incompatible with paladins, druids, shamans, etc etc…” but rather “My dark magic is incompatible with any deific magic EXCEPT xyz because it gives a tainted soul.”. This allows the piece to be future proofed, where say if a new deific magic comes out which allows for tainted souls to connect, you don’t need to write an amendment specifying compatibility. There’s a lot to account for, which makes it best that you focus on power sources and slotting, rather than trying to figure out how to tangle and untangle webs of compatibilities which can be fringe and niche. Overall, make sure your lore is appropriately slotted and with a good compatibilities list to assure a prevention of magic stacking. Magic Targeting is another potential lore interaction. Magic Targeting is when one lore piece may target another lore, either written as a weakness in one piece or as a strength in another. An example of this could be is how Paladinism’s magic is highly effective against dark creatures, which include Azdrazi. While this magics thematic sense and the purpose of that magic, be careful with how you do so. Magic targeting can seem unfair when one group seems to have a massive advantage over another- and while advantages are okay, things should not be entirely one-sided. Rather than shutting down your opponent, focus on exploiting a weakness and a vulnerability to take them down with a fighting chance. We also advise speaking to members of that targeted lore, to make sure that you are fully aware of how to write that target to develop your lore and theirs in good faith and in the interest of good spirited roleplay. An example of magic targeting, put very shortly, can be something like this. Paladinism has Xannic Mists which are incredibly effective against certain creatures, Azdrazi being one of them. How do you state in both lores the same thing, perhaps written or even amended at different times, while still maintaining accuracy and being outside the web? Here is how our lore currently tackles this issue. In the Azdrazi lorepiece, it states Azdrazi are susceptible to Xannic mists, causing extreme pain and fear when wounded, and in touch anxiety and discomfort. This gets to the point, and directly describes what is important for the Azdrazi to know. Chiefly, how their character is affected and how they should roleplay it. In the Paladinism lorepiece, the lore may not even state Azdrazi directly, outside of mentioning they are one of the creatures affected. It includes information pertinent for the Paladin to know, such as casting, emotes, limitations on their own spell or casting, etc… Only telling them how they apply the effect, and what it should do.

Boons and Banes This thread covers the stance currently taken on the leeway given with lore on it’s more passive “boons and banes”, which are benefits or detriments that your lore may have. Boons There is an unlimited plethora of benefits you can grant to your lore. Whether it be a CA that increases your strength, or a material which is stronger than steel. Genuinely, this feedback cannot cover every single facet of what you can do- but the ST can give as much good advice as possible. More in tune with CAs or MAs, some bonuses are things which give a character passive benefits. This can be things like increases in strength, mental fortitude, natural armour, etc. When writing your bonuses, be sure to try and avoid mary-sue perfectionism with your writing. Such as perfect disguises for CAs, or orc (maybe even greater) strength on an otherwise unchanged character. These can make for rather uninteresting bonuses which only serve as an OOC convenience. Either to avoid any form of intrigue, or to try and have an auto-win in any form of battle. Generally, the ST will allow limited increase, change, or benefit in these circumstances. Limited polymorphs, minor (at best) passive strength increases, mental shielding only if it makes sense. Anything greater, should come as an ability, or with some active cost. When writing passive boons, always put priority to if something makes sense, then adding the boon afterward. Never make a boon and write the lore to justify it existing. Passive bonuses should avoid gimmicks. Gimmicky things can be like rolling benefits, interference with mechanics (such as seeing through blocks, invisibility, breathing underwater, etc…). While something like enhanced perception or nightvision is okay, something that justifies borderline metagaming would not be. Such as ‘detecting’ magics, cas, etc. on another person, or being able to detect some sort of attack, casting, or so on within a certain radius can be distasteful as well. Consider as well the limitation of minecraft mechanics. Currently, there is no way to mechanically represent underwater breathing, lack of food, invisibility, and so on. Please do not rely on this or try to incorporate this into your lore. Some boons like ‘immortality’ can be thrown out willy-nilly, or even certain levels of strength. While yes, your ability could be justified because you can potentially perform it mundanely, it doesn’t justify doing it for someone who can’t. As an example of what that means precisely, just because someone is a CA, doesn’t entitle them to orc strength. While one could be an orc, and with the CA, that doesn’t mean the CA should have orc strength inherently. Often this excuse is piled onto lore, justifying abilities by saying “But what if I was under these certain conditions, then I could do it and my lore couldn’t?”. An example of this could be you have a spell which blocks an arrow for free. One could justify that spell as saying, oh, it’s the same thing as having a shield. The fact of the matter is, it’s not. Because you don’t have to make/acquire a shield, equip one, or be hindered by one in any manner. There’s no setup- it devalues those who actually incorporate that as part of their roleplay. As before, the same goes for immortality. Yes, you can turn off aging with Midpoint Theorum. Yes, you can simply ignore aging as an elf or as a human, and be entirely unaffected. That doesn’t mean these things are worthless. For those who go that extra mile and do care about their roleplay, these are big, implicative things which can be major motivations for characters. Don’t take or use them lightly. Overall, take into account as well with boons what other lorepieces may take to accomplish them. Carbarum is harder than steel, and is exceedingly rare and difficult to refine- is your stronger-than-steel metal justified in some way that it doesn't invalidate carbarum? Does your lore grant a free easy-access immortality that those of Frost Witches or Azdrazi have to earn with great difficulty? Does your lore just do what another lore does, but better? With less cost? We want to avoid powercreep and making sure that each lore is nuanced and interesting. This does not mean some lorepieces simply hold certain boons hostage as the only lore that can use them, it just means to take things in your own unique direction with lore rather than trying to improve upon others. Banes Banes with lore are things which scale back a lore’s power, or utility. While you’re practically unlimited with what drawbacks you can give to your lore, there are a lot of things to consider. Direct Drawbacks Direct drawbacks are things which directly make a lore less favourable. Maybe your CA-submission is weak to a certain material, or that they are vulnerable to command and manipulation. Those two are very different things- things which can vastly change how a lorepiece functions, or where it’s real power comes from. When writing direct drawbacks, make sure to consider a few things. Make sure to consider that your drawbacks will try to be negated, meaning they can be prevented. Like with a sound sensitivity, just having a user wearing earmuffs. Or with a ‘too hot to touch’, just wearing gloves. You want to make sure that your drawback is not available to be fully ignored, or in some circumstances, ignored at all. Make sure that people understand your lore has a definitive, non-negotiable drawback which balances its power out and keeps the game of give and take fair. When writing direct drawbacks, while you can include as many as you like, make sure to include at least some form of mundane counterplay. Not all players utilize lore to the same extent as one another, and should have some, at least mild, fairness when in combat with one another. Reward those who plan, prepare, and execute, and give something token to those who don’t. Indirect Drawbacks Indirect Drawbacks are things which indirectly make a lore less favourable. An indirect drawback can be as example, a CA without a disguise. Or a magic which takes away more slots than usual, or makes people ineligible for certain other lores- even feeding mechanics where a lorepiece requires to feed on other players in some sense. More on a meta scale of events, an indirect drawback is something which can be alright if done correctly, and very bad if done poorly. Often indirect drawbacks go through a route which inhibits roleplay, and shuts off an entire avenue from some types of roleplay in whole. This leads to the “Sleeper Rally” effect we see from some lorepieces, where a CA or Magic is entirely unfavourable to be or utilize unless in combat. Thus, they only come around for combat. This in practicality, kills a character and any use they might have outside of combative or potentially-combative scenarios. This is what often leads to the infamous “spook CT rp” where dark mages who had no way to blend into society or rp with others would meet in Cloud Temple, because it was the only place they could. While there is argument for evil-guys staying in their evil-lair, these people are condemned to roleplaying with strictly their own coven, and worse, only being able to kidnap, kill, and hunt people for their roleplay. This locks a lorepiece into a horrible corner where it becomes less interesting to play, and dull to use. Trade Drawbacks Trade drawbacks are things which can be both a boon, and a bane. They’re a toss up of something negative in some circumstances, positive in others. These can be extremely interesting to utilize in your lore if done correctly. Perhaps it gears your lore to use some form of ability or passive in combat, and makes them less favourable out of combat. Maybe the inverse, where an ability has very potent use in something like say, forging, but is a drawback otherwise and unfavourable to use in combat outside of very niche circumstances. These can be interesting, just be wary of the power you imbue into these types of banes.

The Glass Cannon Mentality This thread explains the Story Team’s stance taken on glass cannons and the mentality it creates. A glass cannon is a term used in MMOs and other game settings such as tabletops where someone has a character created that is very strong when it comes to dealing damage, but the downside is that they can’t take much damage themselves. “Glass cannon” as glass shatters easily while cannons have incredible damage potential. When it comes to LotC, we are not playing against NPCs like in most games nor do we have a well crafted game at our disposal meant for highly intensive text-based combat and it’s balance. Even in events, there is a balance to be achieved. PvE or PvP, CRP is a game of give and take. That does not necessarily mean you give and take before the fight has already begun. What this means precisely, is you should not stack on a bunch of weaknesses to justify an extremely strong ability or creature. An achilles heel is fine in lore, but given that, that does not justify the fact one can have incredibly powerful or versatile spells to compensate. These types of abilities are ones which utilize combinations of very short emote counts, very high damage outputs, large areas of effect, and multi-actioning (Performing two things in the same action, such as two separate attacks from abilities or mundane weaponry alongside abilities). Thus, we disallow and forbid entirely abilities and lores which justify their immense strength given they have a weakness. Do not have it mistaken - weaknesses are expected in your lore. Absurdly powerful spells are not justified by these weaknesses.

Lore Structures & Environment Warping This thread covers the advice and ST’s thoughts on Lore Structures & Environment Warping abilities, spells, rituals, lore areas, and so on. Environment Warping is a big set of words to describe a somewhat basic function. Some lore has the ability to, or does, “warp”, or otherwise change, environments from what they are. This can be small and localized, to large and gamechanging. An example of this could be Voidal Tears, which can be made of theoretically infinite size, and can later explode to cover an area three-times it’s own. Paladins have chanceries, druids have fae rings, mystics have menhirs and their deadbreath, etc. Lore Structures are defined as the specific structure created by a lore, such as a voidal tear, chancery, menhir stone, and more. Environment Warping is defined as the effects of that structure, either during or after it’s creation and-or destruction. When making lore structures and environment warping, consider a couple of things. Be sure to be mindful of region permissions, and how that may affect your lore structure. While you can place signs globally, you cannot place blocks globally. Consider how that may limit your lore, or interact. The ST operates on a policy that while we may sign a structure, we will not build or create it for you. This is up to you, and requires you to have some form of permissions on the tile from the lair/settlement/nation owner, or for you to own that area yourself. While there exists some exceptions with this, this is our standard. Be mindful also of how others may interact with the area. We will not tolerate lore structures which are deliberately unreachable or hidden to a point where it indicates bad faith In the past we saw this in the form of Soul Trees far underground with block-perfect sunlight exposure, menhirs hidden at bedrock, and chanceries behind dozens of locked doors and switches. While you shouldn’t write your lore around the possibility this may happen, as the ST are diligent in their upkeep, you should be mindful of how your lore structure could be abused in this manner. Environment Warping is another thing to consider. You will always want to create roleplay, flavor, and intrigue with environments, rather than non-mechanical forced mechanics. Such as trying to lock players out of a region, or block their magic entirely, or to weaken and incapacitate players in the region. A region message is a region message, and tracking how ‘long’ someone is in there is difficult. You should avoid banning other lores from interacting with your warped environment unless it makes complete unavoidable sense to, as with Voidal Hollows and Thanhium. Instead of banning magics or incapacitating people in your area, try lowering tiers or mana pools, or instead inflict symptoms like dizziness, fatigue, weakness, and so on which are more freeform and suggestful rather than forced. While there is the frustrating truth that OOC curiosity will always best roleplay reasoning, and that characters will always be “fearless” in a scary zone, and that characters will “power through” the pain or symptoms they may acquire, you should simply flow with it and encourage things elsewise to best suit both parties. With lore structures and environments, consider how they can be removed, or broken. Can they be purged by holy magics? Cleansed with druidic or spiritual magics? Obliterated with mundane things like flame or tools? Consider these and always make sure the average player can by some means interact with your environment without ST guidance to do so. Make sure the lore is clear, concise, and friendly to people who may be unfamiliar to it. A suggestion or alternative one might take to both warping or cleansing land is incorporating a cost of some kind. More than mana or a couple of emotes, maybe think about incorporating material reagents, or more users, in your lore when warping or cleansing land. This gives the warp/cleanse a little more value, and makes it feel more impactful and friendly to roleplay than something that may simply appear, then disappear. Another thing to consider is what lore structures and environments do for those who benefit from it. It is mostly fine to give your lore buffs and boons while within their region, but be sure that it is not too “gamey” to where players feel required to be within their zone, or that they are unstoppable within their zone. Make sure lore structures and environment warps are first and foremost, flavorful and interesting. They should be fun and unique, and not just an excuse to have stronger casting or greater stamina. Think outside the box on what you can do here, what opportunities are present that you can allow for creative roleplay, crafting, character changes, ability changes, that can make for something unique.

Connection & Disconnection This thread covers the full story team stance on Connection & Disconnection, and advice on how to fit it best within your lorepiece. Connection and Disconnection are two topics which have, in the past, been heavily controversial to both players and the ST. Thus, over the years we’ve been testing out different stances and systems, and ultimately, have come up with some interesting conclusions which now shape out standards and criteria. This thread will primarily focus on the nature of connection and disconnection, rather than the exact methods. If you came here concerned about how you are connected or your power source, please check Explanation: Power Sources for more details. Connection Connection is something which introduces you to a magic or ability. Something which spawns your journey with that lore, or even advances it. Sometimes, connection is something that is taught and not inherent. Many CAs take after this, and a couple of MAs as well. While it is nice to have a sort of ‘quality control’ when it comes to introducing new players into a lore, there is also the issues that come with it. In the past there have been issues with gatekeeping and locking magics by having the connection be tightly guarded, or kept in a sort of council. This nature of the server has mostly been stopped and has been broken by Lore Injections (see Story Information: ST Oversight), and is no longer something you should quite worry about with your lore. Gated connections are no problem and are mostly at a player’s free will to write however they wish. Take into note how one can involve other people, with or without the lore, into inducting new members of a lore with their connection. Make connection a special thing, rather than a mandatory part of roleplay. Make it fun, and interesting, for a character to go through. Disconnection Disconnection is a much more wary topic for The ST. Disconnection advocated by one’s self, meaning that one can disconnect at their own whim, is mostly fine. “Mostly?” you may ask, and yes, there is some small caveats. With disconnection of something more severe or tangible, such as a soul, mind, or body altering lore, try to include some form of downside with disconnection. Something temporary, and maybe even permanent effects from so- always allow for players to carry that weight of disconnection as long as they would like to. While some may only like to have an enforced week of weakness, some may live with that effect for a very long time. It can mean a lot for a player, and disconnection should always. In the case of something like a transformative magic, CA, feat, etc. where a character is severely altered physically, disconnection should be a very difficult thing to do, if not outright impossible. One should recognize the weight of decision with lore that changes a character, and keeping to that choice in perpetuity - being able to take a piece of lore which completely changes a character, and simply take it off and turn back to normal, or even in a slightly hindered state of normal, is something that kills a lot of narrative value and character development at an OOC whim. Choices made have no weight to them. Disconnection can as well in some magics be brought on by other players. One player may forcefully disconnect another player from a CA, Magic, or Feat. Often times with CAs, this is paired with a Permanent Kill (PK) of a character. Be cautious in how you may use disconnection in lores. “Disconnection by Tenets” Used to be a common way. Tenets are “Rules” or strictures set out by your lore (Typically, a deity setting their ground rules) which dictate if one can be disconnected or not. This lead to both “Automatic” and “Greenlight” disconnection. Automatic disconnection is disconnection in which breaking a tenet would instantly disconnect you from the magic- the issue being, this is impossible to track and is on an honor system for players to follow. Greenlight disconnection is disconnection in which one can do anything they wish and cannot be disconnected until they explicitly break tenets. “Chaos Disconnection” Is the last form of common disconnection, in which anyone for any reason could disconnect someone else. An issue with this disconnection is that obviously, one may have done nothing wrong- this often spawns a sort of mutually assured destruction when two opposing groups of the same lore have the ability to disconnect, and can cause a lot of tension both in and out of roleplay. We highly recommend of all these chaos disconnection. Tenets, no matter how well worded, always lead to the Story Team having to validate if a disconnection was valid or not, and if the roleplay associated was valid. In every recorded instance of tenet based disconnection was the ST somehow called in, and is often still to this day contested and controversial. Automatic disconnection is impossible to enforce without constant upkeep and check of the lore, and thus, Chaos typically lends itself to be the best choice. Disconnection can be knowledge locked, meaning one has to be taught it in roleplay, or available to all. Disconnection which is forced can lead to consequences where it makes sense, such as a PK or other detrimental effects. Don’t be afraid to pull punches and be honest with how disconnection can effect a character temporarily or permanently. Just be cautious of how it is implemented and how easily it can get out of hand. When writing disconnection, try and prevent ways in which a single rogue actor can go out and disconnect people, unless that is within the wants of your lore’s nature. Try and make it ritual based, have a reversible period, require multiple individuals, have that person there in person, etc… If you believe you have a different system for connection and/or disconnection in your lore you want to try, feel free to write it in. Above are just the most common examples and in the past what has been performed. The ST recommend you consider scenarios in which the lore is strictly not within your hands- consider yourself out of the picture. Can the lore survive? Is there a reason for people to stick together? Whats stopping one bad actor from destroying all we worked for? Be honest with yourself, and consider what you should do with your lorepiece.

Ability Types 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.

Abilities 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.

Combat/Summoned Pets & Combat Mounts 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.

Guides 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/

Special Lore Locations/Artifacts 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.

CA Race Groupings 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.

Default Magic Progression 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.

Story Team Resources The Story Team Discord The Story Team Discord is a discord which serve as a open communication between Story Team and players in everyday interactions. These can be simple lore questions, thoughts, debate, and talking to other players about server lore, or even your own submissions. This as well includes the announcements the ST makes, the Story Team Audit Log which covers our changes and hotfixes to lore, and the Loremag Results which publishes which pieces were accepted, denied, or put to pending. It’s a fantastic resource, and if you’re only interested in those few channels, they are announcement channels you can save to your own discord. Lore Additions/Amendments Addition - A new thing added to a lorepiece, be it a spell, ability, redline, and so on. Amendment - A fix or change to a current lorepiece, either removing something or changing how a part of that lore functions or works. When writing or reading lore, you’ll always notice flaws or inconsistencies. It’s our nature as people that we aren’t perfect, and that certainly reflects in our writing. If it’s something small or critical to understanding, like a spelling mistake, missing redlines between guide and lore, or even missing mechanics, contact the Story Team immediately. You do not need to make a submission for this and it will be applied immediately. When wanting to make a creative change or addition to your lore, you should write a submission. This should follow the format of highlighting or showing what has exactly been changed, added, or removed to your lore so that the Story Team can see the differences and make sure things are clearly put. Try and match the formatting of the original lore, so we (or yourself) can insert it into the lore cleanly and effortlessly. Once your lore has been accepted and implemented, it will be marked as “Implemented” on the lorepiece then put into the shelved section to mark it has been applied and to prevent redundancy. Small additions and amendments are reviewed by Story Management, while larger pieces are reviewed by the Lore Sect of Story Team as usual. Rewrite Wipes & Grandfathering When writing a lore, or new lore to the server, people are grandfathered in at maximum tier and with a TA to be able to spread the magic, CA, or feat, to give it the best starting chance. In specific circumstances, this can be any time (Check General Information: Story Team Oversight). This will most often be 2-3 people, with five slots for taking on students. When rewriting a lore, you may want to submit to Story Management a request to wipe the lore. Wiping the lore means effectively denying and removing all former applications revolving around the lore. This is not always accepted. The Story Team only truly considers wiping when absolutely necessary to a piece. Such as a bad prior community, lack of presence or spreading, large-scale change in the lore which warrants new or removed applications, and so on. For any reason, can Story Management veto a request to wipe a lorepiece. Loremag Process & Admin Approval The Loremag Process is one somewhat plain and simple. To make it short, a loremag is 4-6 lorepieces submitted to ST to review over a 9 day period typically. This includes 7 days of review where ST can leave their feedback on the piece. On the 8th day, a Lore Manager looks over the feedback and cross-references it with the lore to make sure everything checks out and adds up, and removes redundant feedback that multiple ST may have caught up on and summarizes what they had said. The lore is compiled and sent back to ST so they can see in totality what their feedback was, and make any final comments if they would like. On the 9th day, the lore is sent back to the write and posted in the loremag-results in the Story Discord. Before this process, the piece will sit in Lore Criteria & Submissions, waiting semi-chronologically until it is picked to go into mag. Always check the “Accepted-Stuff” google-sheet to see which pieces are in review, in compiling, on hold or even in queue. Queue is semi-chronological in the sense that we do not review things always in order of submission date. Given that this can lead to people submitting clusters of long or short lore submissions, we generally want to make sure voting isn’t a drag for the ST and to keep variety so that people can focus on voting on things which they are familiar with, and letting others make up for their less familiar areas. When writing or submitting lore, please do not contact ST for feedback or to read their lore. Providing feedback, working on, or reviewing lore before loremag review disallows an ST from voting on that piece. Admin Approval is a policy implemented in early 2020 which acts as a check-and-balance to the Story Team and player submissions. Admin Approval is reserved for things new to the server like new magics and creatures alongside shelving processes (See General Information: Story Team Oversight), while ignoring things like event creatures, potions, herbs, and rewrites. This assures that not only Story Team and The Story Team Admin are held accountable, but Administration as a whole.

Story Team Oversight How We Upkeep Lore - Lore Surgery (“Injections”) Lore Surgery is a concept made in 2020, but codified in May 2021 on a full descriptor of when, how, why, and what lore surgery is. Lore Surgery is a codex upkept by upper and middle management of story team to keep tabs on lore and to ensure it remains well spread, ungatekept, and active. While the exact details of lore surgery will remain in management's hands, we can detail that it covers the process of shelving, spreading lore, and story team enforced amendments. This allows us to keep lore roleplay friendly while it changes, and to prevent any players from locking down a magic and ruining it for others. This process has been successful on all but one mark, which was eventually fixed via the same lore surgery process. “Injections” - Teaching or granting a magic, feat, ca, or other form of knowledge to players who otherwise wouldn’t have access to so. Past Example: Arcane Displacement had a lack of new students not being taught by players with the magic. Thus, a few short eventlines were performed which taught a couple of players Arcane Displacement. Amendments - Fixes to the lore which change the piece, often in a way that removes a harmful part of that piece. Past Example: Golemancy had an issue where it required Thanhium to make all types of golem. This made it extremely difficult to make Golems and hindered the feat’s roleplay. Thus, the requirement for Thanhium was greatly relaxed, later removed. Shelving - Removing a lorepiece from the server, and dismissing it through roleplay means after repeated failures by players to ensure the lore was spread, or the lore had an active part in harming player retention and enjoyment of the server. Past Example: Striga was a lorepiece which frequently made users quit after taking it. After months of inactivity, despite injections and warnings, the piece was shelved without issue, and all characters were given resolution to how this would make sense in roleplay. Activity Trials, Checks, and Shelving Activity trials sound scary, like a looming threat that you have to run a magic, feat, or creature the same way you run a nation. Simply put, it is not like that at all. An activity trial is a 3-6 month period in which Story Management keeps notes on how active a new lorepiece is and how well spread it is. How diverse it’s players are in background, how many players actively use it. Our activity trial is simple, with the expectation that within months of release, that a magic or creature produces a second generation capable of producing a third. This ensures that lore is continuously cycling and going through players and groups, and that it does not stay stagnant and dry. When activity trials are not met, the lore isn’t just shelved or apps are removed- but the lore is given injections via Lore Surgery to ensure it continues to spread and people continue to pick up and push forward the burden of the last generation’s failure. Activity Checks are what occur past those six months. These are significantly more lax, and don’t hold any numerical value since attribution to so would be overall negative to the experience. Activity checks are just ensuring people are still actively utilizing and roleplaying with a lorepiece, and that it continues to spread to new people and makes its rounds through the server and its various playerbases fairly and evenly. Shelving is a long process which goes through multiple checks and balanced. Summarized, the upper and middle management of Story Team, alongside the designated admin, elect unanimously to put up a vote to the entire story team on whether a piece should be shelved or not. This vote stays up until at least 66% of the Story Team vote on it, with all arguments to keep or shelf the magic, and how it would be done in proposal. If votes to shelf pass with an 80/100% margin, then the poll returns to upper and middle management to unanimously agree on shelving the piece. Afterwards, this goes to Administration, who also have to unanimously agree on shelving a piece. It isn’t an easy process, and certainly can take longer than two weeks to do, but it is to ensure that we are looking at the piece objectively, and fairly. “Lore Holder” and The ST A “Lore Holder” is an archaic term for someone who wrote a current piece of accepted lore. While this has been policy for nearly half a decade, it is written here for transparency. A lore holder holds no sway or control of their lore, who uses it, and how it is utilized anywhere unless in roleplay, and with roleplay reasoning for so. A lore holder may not request their own piece shelved. They may request changes in amendment or addition, but a Loreholder is ultimately a credit given to the writer with no power over a piece or how it is used. As soon as the lore is passed, the lore holder no longer has control or say over that lorepiece. The Amendment Project The Amendment Project is where volunteer Story Team members may change, adjust, and hotfix lores as necessary and as critically needed. Like when guides and lores say different things, mechanics are unclear or vague, redlines contradict the lore, etc. The Amendment Project is the team which gets it done and solves those issues in an extremely quick and efficient manner. All amendment project changes are submitted to the ST-Audit-Log in The Story Team Discord. If you find any critical issues in a piece related to this, contact The Story Team or send a message in The Story Team Discord immediately. ST Enforcement, Infractions, Revocations, and Blacklists Story Team Enforcement is a group of opt-in and vetted ST who may omni (Search) roleplay and investigate for issues related to lore such as powergaming, metagaming, and so on. These ST will receive a report or make one of their own in suspected-issues, where they will post all involved players, relevancy, screenshots, and the issues. To prevent bias, ST Enforcers are disallowed from participating in any issues they are related to in any shape or form. While they may contribute to discussion, they have no sway over verdict nor may they collect evidence unless being involved in the report directly. Enforcement Team will ultimately decide on a verdict. Always is a lore infraction given. An infraction is just a warning and to service that an issue has been had. These are the ‘warnings’, which are simply marked for consistency and to assure we do not let too many warnings slide past repeatedly problematic players to see if more advanced interaction is needed. In specific circumstances is a revocation or blacklist given to a player. These always relate to the issue at hand, and are almost always temporary. These can be blocks from certain magics, CAs, enchantments and nodes, or even those concepts as a whole. Revocations and blacklists are only given when severe negligence, ignorance, and continued abuse of lore warrant so, and require an ST Trainer, Manager, or Admin to both decide on and administer. In cases of metagaming or other rule abuse, Moderation is involved and will administer punishment on their own accord.

Original: N/A Update: Category: Lore & Magic Section: Lore and Magic Usage Rule Added: 7.1 Rule 7.1: Characters under sixteen may not learn any feat/magic or become a creature, unless explicitly specified in the relevant lore. Rationale: This is something that's been enforced longer than I've been on the server and it isn't written anywhere. A character is not anywhere near physically/mentally developed to learn magic before this age. While this does not change how one can learn of or about a magic/feat/ca/etc., it simply means they may not apply for it, just as before.

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Application completed. You will be contacted by Staff on the application's status and next steps.

Application completed. You will be contacted by Staff on the application's status and next steps.