1. I can see an argument that follows from this that applications needn't be made for a character, but rather, for a player. You don't apply for a TA for your necromancer, you yourself, the player, apply to be interviewed about whether or not you know enough about necromancy to guide people through learning it, yourself or otherwise.

2. Definitely needs checks and balances in the form of limitations. When you start a new character, you can choose [1] magic, or, you can only choose so many slots of magic to have them self-taught. Maybe you're required to make some kind of roleplay application that details how your character learnt the magic, who they are, some ideas of what they plan to do with it.

3. In furtherance to the previous point, I could see an initiative to create roleplay means by which you could justify learning these magics. More altars on the server itself for events, magic books, sure, but also starting locations and wandering event characters or organisations that can be used as justification. Maybe there's a school of wizards somewhere on the map which is run partly by players, but also partly by ET played mages who can pass magics on. This might lead toward a world in which player and staff run stories are brought together into single organisations which make magic stuff happen, not sure.

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

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

2 hours ago, BrandNewKitten said:

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

Thank you very much for giving this a thorough read!

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

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

@LoTC's Next Top Model@Luxury@E__V__O

I have rewritten. A lot. Many things, all of the things. Thank you all for your input.

I haven't touched Sanctify yet, but I mean to!

I am now going to stand up, and not look at the PC for a bit. That was the fastest I have written, I think. Ever. Thank you all, again!

EDIT: I have since noticed that I have hecked some things up in my document fumbling, if you notice I've double pasted whole paragraphs or anything else, do let me know!

1 hour ago, E__V__O said:

Preface: This was written prior to your comment of new spells/abilities, I will comment when available to the new ideas on my thoughts and opinions.

 

 

Hey there Aelesh, i’ve taken a look over this lore and past iterations of celestialism and wanted to post some of my feedback and concerns on the piece you’ve written here. Before I start I wanted to express that this rewrite thematic is great and has potential to be a new voidal magic that expresses the neutrality of the void. 

 

I will go in a linear direction, starting from the top and below which will come with concerns, feedback and questions to the overall piece of lore.

 

I wanted to first bring up a big thing of the magic, being Aura’s as your celestialism post heavily relies on it. Specifically I have two lore references, one from Voidal Connection and the other The Aura of Mana. I have references the two posts with their name. I wanted to specifically bring this up due to it stating that a person can pick between multitudes of colours, up to three. Specifically from “The Aura of Mana” 

 

“- Auras can showcase up to a limit of 3 different colors. Meaning, a mage's aura could shift between colors such as red, yellow and orange, or white gold and blue. Shifting between multiple shades of the same color [like pinks & reds, or dark forest green & mint] is generally considered 1 color.”

 

I wanted to know how Celestialism acts in regards to this, in your teaching ritual you specify your aura needs to be listed on your student application. Would Celestials have three available aura colours to them in this case?

 

✦ Celestialism draws its practises from the Celestials, a unique strain of Voidal Horror.

 

With the void eventline on the current map, creatures of shuul and celestials where listed as the same ‘krill’ type creature by the ET and even Zarsies himself, referring as I quote.
 

“Celestials are like shrimp / krill if the Void were an ocean, just little puny guppies similar to zevn/imps for inferi. They are what is referenced in Celestialism albeit no player content lore exists for that currently so they're just ET creatures.”

Reference

 

It is mentioned however in the same quote, there is no current player lore for it except for now, which you created. I wanted to point this out due to you mentioning them as a different strain of voidal horror when as the quote suggests lesser/greater horrors are in a completely different league compared to the ‘krill’. At the end of the day its thematics of wording, so there isn’t any criticism here, just some thought. You mention in the notes section just three paragraphs down there is no difference as well when the above quote differs.

 

✦ Incompatibilities

 

Looking at the list of incompatibilities you list several voidal feats due to the demerits that the magic offers but haven’t given reasoning to some. Might I ask why an Arcane Scion or Voidal Artificer cannot achieve the rite of exaltation? With the above redline of a Celestialist cannot have selfish desires, an Voidal Artificer has none and rather gives to people and considers everyone a friend. I also wanted to address the other voidal feat Veil Watcher, it bares no mention here so I can assume it is compatible with Celestialism despite the destructive behaviours and mental debilitations?

 

On the added line, you have listed that machine spirits are compatible, is there a reasoning behind this? Would those which have been revived via Tawkin revival also be compatible?

 

I am all for the incompatible list of the other magics.

 

✦ Radiance [Combat] [Passive] 

Celestialists find that their magic is bolstered by the Celestial Arcana from which they now draw their spells. This bolstering makes their aura gleam brighter, and causes their spells to cause additional damage to Voidal Horrors.

 

As this ability is mostly ET ran, I have no issues with the overall description given. I would only change one line mentioning ‘voidal horrors’ to ‘void creatures’. As there are many which dwell in the void. As shown example, Shuul, Celestials, Lesser/greater horrors, behemoths, ext. If it is changed, you might have to specify if it harms creatures which came directly from the void or mutated by it.

 

✦ Melding [Combat] [T1]

The Celestialist breaks down their aura and melds it with a target. Without the barrier of refuse mana that would normally prevent two souls from touching, telepathic and empathic communication becomes possible. This is due to the participants' souls quite literally touching one another, their essences entwining themselves together.

 

My first criticism on this would be the same, it shares similarity to a Voidal Scion ability, 

“[Spell [Combat]] - Melding Adept and experienced in combative and generally impromptu magics, melding is a trademark capability of Arcane Scions, serving as a useful tool in battle as a crossover of transmutation and ancient arcanism.” 

Reference.

 

Might be best to reword the ability in this post to prevent confusion.

 

To the actual feedback of the ability, melding is an ability which I assume is a channelled spell and taking a constant mana drain to do so. You specify the mana drain is significantly reduced at Tier-3 however nothing else relating to mana past this point.

 

The version of telepathy here is simple enough of exchange of information within line of sight, I would ask if clarification can be made if the spell can be imbued onto two items, having them linked and communicating between within the radius, via enchanting if you wanted to make this possible.

 

The last line: 

➣ A Celestialist may choose to cause their aura colour to become that of their targets.

 

As aura specifically is a big thing in Celestialism this one line is a pretty big change as it changes certain effects of the spells in question as you detailed below. If you utilize this ability on a celestial for example who naturally has a Pink aura to your own of Blue, then the ‘Aura Effects’ spells do change. Is this combination intended?

 

What would happen if the meld ends while Arcanify/Aura effects are active? In the same example as above, the Blue aura on them would turn back to their natural red. How does this play into the magic? Does the Arcanify/Aura effect of the spells break?

 

✦ Arcanify [Combat] [T2]

A Celestialist can empower their aura with arcana, causing it to bless them with magical effects.

 

Is this indefinite? As long as you're connected with no drain of mana?

 

If you utilise any of the aura effects to ‘end the blessing, does arcanify end? In turn any target under ‘bless’ also lose the effect if the caster has?

 

The concept of this spell is generally fine, my only criticism of this spell would be apparitions. In regards to bardmancy specifically the spell “Visual Trick” is essentially this non-combative gimmick which I believe should be kept to the Bardmancy magic as it gives them flavour and doesn’t overshadow the spell with your one line description. If you wished to delve further into this spell, similarly to how other evocations have done, dedicating multiple paragraphs to explain the limitations. Here it has none except ‘out of combat’ and able to create sounds?

 

✦ Bless [Combat] [T2] 

By channelling their Arcanified aura, a Celestialist can extend the powers they are blessed with to other nearby targets.

 

The Bless spell is interesting, the supportive premise of the spell is something I quite like and opens the door to many interesting ideas and effects to give to someone. My concern is some lines in it however, specifically you mention it lasts indefinitely, meaning the cast of the spell either costs no mana and or channelling the spell doesn’t syphon mana. Especially if cast on multiple targets.

 

My second point, is this item enchantable to transfer the magical aura imbued on the trinket to the person, blessing them?

 

✦ Aura Effects

 

For starters, I understand the mean to add combative effects to blessing though some of the effects below are overtuned. I would urge you to reconsider a majority of them and keep it to more of a ‘celestialism’ vibe and not straight CRP buffs. Consider for example, more void-inclined buffs/boons.

 

I will list below the Aura Combative Effects,

 

➣ Red and Pink Auras [Combat]

• Range abilities +3 blocks increase, projectiles slightly faster and Truer? Than normal.

• Spend 1 emote to have hyper-perception.

• End the effect to perform any action swiftly, reacting to danger or perform precise actions for 1 emote.

 

Although the first point doesn’t really have a big impact on anything, I am confused what you mean by the ‘truer than normal’ part of the text, are you insinuating that projectiles have a ‘lock on’ ability?

 

The hyper perception is something which isn’t inherently bad, though curious how it fits with the celestialism thematic?

 

This last point might be something up for contention, for example from the “Boons and Banes” Explanation Topic. It suggests this quote below:

“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.”

 

I am using the quote above to read further into the third point of performing feats of swift action specifically, which can be taken as you giving someone the ability to make a dodge, attack or movement in a aggressive or defensive way. Which is quoted ‘can be distasteful’. Looking at the overall blessing ability you can give this to at most three people, four including yourself.

 

➣ Yellow and Orange Auras [Combat]

• +2 Movement.

• End the effect to perform a feat of supernatural agility for 1 feat, within 3 emotes.

• Hyper-balance, greater than an acrobat.

• Body becomes Lighter.

 

I don’t exactly see an issue with the increase in movement speed, especially at the low movement increase. The concern was brought up with the above commenter stating how one cannot escape if someone is under the effects of this boon.

 

Performing a supernatural feat of agility would need some clarification on what it exactly does. Does it bypass minecraft current limitations? This especially would need some redlines to specify what it can do. Backflips?

 

Hyper-balance seems like an interesting choice but surpassing that of a master acrobat? I don’t believe a passive boon ability should have this effect, similar but not surpassing would be better. As you’ve described it one can just walk/dance/juggle/handstand over a tightrope.

 

Body becoming lighter, I understand you don’t mean this as in ‘armour becomes lighter’ but in turn, if your own body becomes lighter wouldn’t it mean you’re more capable at wearing heavier armours? Take into consideration, you weigh 100kg, if this spell makes you 50% lighter, you now weigh 50kg, meaning you can make-up the equivalent of your previous weight-wearing armour. I know this isn’t as you intended but perhaps needs some clarifications.

 

➣ Blue and Purple Auras [Combat]

• You get the Voidal Scion buff of concentration, unable to disconnect unless stabbed, ext.

• Mental buffs, less likely to be discouraged by emotions striking them.

 

You’re giving a passive Voidal Scion boon of concentration up-to four people. You’re taking up a whole idea of a feat and putting it into a passive boon. This needs to be reworked.

 

Mental buffs, are RP flavour, so there isn’t really an issue to this one.

 

➣ Green and Brown Auras [Combat]

• Get mage-armor, half plate.

• When struck, shatter the ‘veil’ around them, knocking people back and stunning them.

 

A passive ability gives you mage-armour, if cast over someone with armour already. Does this double the ability strength? I’m sure you can see the potential issue of this ability alone.

 

The knockback 3 blocks and one round stun with the shatter ability is something confusing. Does it break the aura ability surrounding the blessed, removing the mage-armour? It specifies [6] emotes to recharge, which I assume is just the shatter ability.

 

This is a passive effect on up-to four targets. It is enough to straight up discourage any melee user from attacking, add in a clause that auric oil/null arcana rips through without triggering the ability?

 

 

I will also quote voidal connection:

"On Armaments

Mages who practice magic for one or more OOC months cannot wear full plate effectively, and at best are limited to half-plate or some light gambeson. Anything more than this would render the mage unable to cast and incredibly exhausted after just a short time of wearing it. Though a mage could wear full plate prior to this point, their ability to do so would slowly degrade, exhausting more over time. Once a mage has reached about three OOC months of casting would find themselves unable to cast in anything heavier than gambeson, struggling to connect and maintain their breath in heavy plate."

Reference

 

I am quoting this specific piece since a mage after three OOC months would only be able to wear gambeson, except again if you're a scion.

 

➣ White and Black Auras [Combat]

• Any/all attacks are magical and void based. Causing disorientation when struck.

• Mana cost of void spells cost one tier less, T4 spells become T3.

 

Attacks on hit causing magical void based damage is a pretty neat idea, although you specify ‘all of their attacks’, I assume this means ranged attacks as well? Would this also mean other magical abilities, are now also void-attacks?

 

The second point of all void spells costing one less being a passive ability is a bit extreme / over the top considering something like this already exists, being in Blood Magic.

“Augmentation - Combative” in example: “Tier 3: The spell is cast with +1 to its tier. The blood mage may extract genus from blood within 1 foot of themself and may empower others via touch.”

 

With your ability being a passive and not requiring a resource or sacrifice, it is much more ‘powerful’ and you should reconsider this ability to not cross-over other similar ability types of other magics.

 

✦ Familiars

 

My overall opinion on familiars is the niche has already been accomplished by Voidal Artificery and if you wanted to create your own brand of familiars it needed to stem from that magic. In turn, using a familiar from the Voidal Artificer Lore and imbuing it with magic to conjure a body for the Celestial familiars. To give the lore some interaction with other voidal abilities which have similar things.

 

Especially since they have the same/similar appearance, except one being physical and the other ethereal. “They will always appear to be the colour of their bound Celestialist’s current aura, and will effervesce with raw Arcana.”

 

I will not give comparison to Voidal Artificer Familiars apart from the above statement.

 

With my general concerns about the cross-over of familiars, I will ask is your familiar independent or does it need to be manually handled? 

For example, can it move without being instructed? 

When it casts magic, can it do so out of its free-will or do you need to activate it? 

When the familiar casts magic, are you also able to cast magic?

 

➣ When out of combat, the familiar may range as far as it wishes from it’s Celestialist.

 

If I am reading this correctly with the following redline of:

 

➣ Whilst a familiar can be used to peak round corners, the presence of the familiar should be clearly emoted.

 

Are you able to send the familiar off to ‘spy’ on areas and locations to then report back to you with the telepath melding ability? 

 

➣ Celestial Familiars are able to sustain [10] wounds before dying.

 

This ability is extremely tanky, I would say [3] wounds would be enough. You want to protect the creature, not utilize it as a wall between you and an attacker.

 

✦ Barrage [Combat] [T3] 

A familiar is able to create a dense packet of arcana which it flings at a nearby target; this packet of energy explodes ferociously, knocking back those hit by the blast. This missile can be further augmented with particular colours of aura.

 

I believe this ability alone outscales most of other void evocations for the reason of the emote count required, for example from the four evocations:

 

➣ Fire Evocation: Flame Projectile [C]

Flame Projectile make contact with any person or object, they will give them second degree burns upon touch.

 

➣ Earth Evocation: Earthen Offence [C] Rocks

Rocks may be conjured, able to bruise flesh and fracture bone upon direct contact with unarmoured individuals, though only able to lightly dent plate and cause light bruising at most in the case of an armored opponent.

 

➣ Water Evocation: Water Blast [C]

By conjuring forth a congregation of water, a water evocationist can send forth a jet or projectile of water to blast opponents backward. While not very physically damaging, it’s force is moderately strong possessing enough force to send one toppling backwards, though holding no more force than a descendant’s push, likely causing them to stumble back around [3] blocks if unprepared, or even cause them to fall over.

 

➣ Air Evocation: Gust [C]

Depending on the tier, the object or person will either be pushed backwards or stumble downwards. Aiming for one’s feet is the best means of achieving a trip, while aiming for the center or chest region can cause stumbling backwards.

 

The abilities I detailed all taking three emotes to utilise which I wanted to express power-strength, your ability can bruise targets (not specified if it does if they’re in armour), pushing the target(s) within one block of its impact back 3-5 blocks and stunning them for one round.

 

Reading the other abilities of evocations, one of these effects are fine but you’re adding in multiple, fire evocation causes burns, earth creates bruises, water holds people back and air pushes others away. I believe this ability is too over the top and should be reconsidered or rewritten to balance it correctly as it essentially does all of the things here except for ‘fire/burning’.

 

The Barrage ability also comes from the celestial, which isn’t a bad thing, I would urge you to specify that if it channelling the magic the celestialist is unable to cast magic themselves.

 

✦ Shelter [Combat] [T4] 

A familiar is able to create a shield from their arcana; this shield gains unique effects based on the familiar’s current aura colour.

 

I believe this ability is fine with a few tweaks, the familiar casting the spell should be listed as manual casting from the celestialist through the familiar. The auras on the spell are an interesting quirk of the magic which I do like, although one should reconsider how effective they are in combat, for example a barrier that when broken knocks back and stuns? Is a bit over the top and then the shield for all aura should be limited to only a few people in the radius.

 

I understand with the last two spells, barrage and shelter comes from the celestial familiar and having it independent to cast free from the celestialist concentration. A mage should decide when to cast a spell and not be able to have multiple active at once. Pick to bless, barrage or shelter someone. Not have two active at once. It offers more gameplay opportunity and makes you question what is the best spell to have active at the current time rather than always having bless up.

 

✦ The Rite of Synastry [Non-Combat] [T5]

 

Basic teaching ritual and have no comments, the flavour is there which is nice.

 

Exalted

 

✦ Beacon [Non-Combat] [T3] [Passive]

An Exalted Celestialist is blessed with further power that draws tiny Celestials to them, who become constant companions in life. This power also allows an Exalted Celestialist to cast new spells, and some spells which were previously only available to their familiar.

 

The overall flavour of this ability is nice, on initial look at and read, although delving further through it comes with some issues starting at the quote below.

 

➣ Whilst out of combat and connected to the Void, a host of tiny, curious and inquisitive Celestials surround the Celestialist. These Celestials may perform simple tasks for the Celestialist, such as bringing small objects to them, fishing things out of their pockets, helping them to cook a meal, and so on.

 

Although the ability is fine in question, it kind’ve steps on grounds of a few things on the server currently, if you study Atronach Forging for example, Atronach drones can do the same purpose. Which already fills the niche of a void-based “do this” type of thing. 

Reference

 

➣ A Celestialist, should they be familiar with the creator, might be able to determine who brought an enchantment into existence.

 

The ability here seems like a ability associated with some of the voidal feats being: [Passive] [Noncombat] - Aura Sensory.

Reference, Reference & Reference 

 

The ability you mentioned here has aspects of the Aura Sensory which although only works on the void, your ability works on all enchantments. I understand you have a clause requiring OOC permission and it doesn’t state anything but ‘If you’re familiar with the creator you would know who made it”. How familiar does one have to be? To know the aura of the user, can they see the aura on the item a voidal eminence ability?

 

✦ Greater Melding [Combat][T3]

A deeper and more advanced form of Melding, Greater Melding allows a Celestialist to meld with a great many targets at once. When outside of combat, the Celestials which flock to an Exalted Celestialist can help with the meld to improve its range.

 

The spell here is mostly fine, I just have the same questions I expressed in original melding here. I only have one thing to point out which is,

 

➣ This spell cannot be followed up with Bless, unlike regular Melding.

 

You don’t specify in regular Melding or the spell Bless any interaction.

 

✦ Sanctify [Combat] [T3]

The Celestialist uses their Celestial Arcana to purge Voidal corruption from an area around them.

 

➣ When targeting an area, the Celestialist may cleanse corruption from trees, plants, and animals, but not from descendants. This is because these targets have less complex souls.

 

Personally when I and Fadedquartz attempted something similar to this with a structure/gems except for a spell it was met with criticism that voidal corruption was minimal unless you got rid of the source. For example, A mana obelisk doesn’t produce much ‘corruption’. If the motive was to clear up tears/hollows it was told that the area would be so much bombarded with mana the corruption would come back as quick as it was disposed. Furthermore, the quote:

“It doesnt make sense for voidmages to have a way to clean it up, even then, only an aspect stone can clear a hollow and thats a deific artefact, shamans/druids cant unless its very minor stuff.” - Squak.

Reference

 

Continuing with the idea of purging corruption from creatures, in itself aren’t you creating that corruption with the celestial gardens?

I quote, from a spell below, 

“Creatures with weaker souls gradually and randomly lose their anima, their inner workings replaced with arcane pseudo-souls of the same kind as those which lie at the heart of a Celestial. Creatures that undergo this process are transfigured into otherworldly things; new limbs, organs, ethereal patterns that pulse across fur or feather, branches that droop with crystalline fruits, all these things and infinitely more are possible. Within the confines of this garden, life has been liberated from itself.”

 

How is this different to corrupted creatures from the void if the gardens do the same?

 

✦ Expel [Combat] [T4]

 

ET based spell, so I don’t really have a say in what can be done.

 

✦ Grace [Non-Combat] [T5]

This spell is the greatest expression of an Exalted Celestialist’s capacity for symbiotic magic. By calling a great many Celestials to their aid, the Celestialist crafts false flesh or bone for a target, which melds with their mundane body and helps the target to function as normal throughout the healing process.

 

A healing spell, generally the void isn’t attributed to having this kind’ve magic and the only thing similar to this would be Life Evocation (conjuration) Jing healing.

Reference

 

✦ Constellation Casting [Non-Combat] [T4]

 

I don’t have a comment on this as it opens the avenues of ritual casting.

 

✦ A Cosmic Seed | Celestial Garden

 

The flavour here is wonderful, just some critiques.

 

➣ a garden extends [20] blocks from its centre

 

The garden expanse is very large, and doesn’t require RO consent. I suggest decreasing the size considerably. Does the garden halt at walls when it grows or bypasses it?

 

For reference if reading correctly, this is the allocated size at T1.

Reference

 

➣ Celestialists within the garden may behave as if they are constantly casting Greater Melding. They remain able to move, walk, talk and cast spells as normal, unlike a regular cast of the spell. Additionally, the range of the spell is increased to include all those beings within line of sight.

 

Is this available for combat?

 

➣ Celestialists can cause these apparitions to begin at will.

 

Unsure what you mean by this statement. Begin at will?

 

➣ A Celestialist gains access to [3] portions of Celestial Arcana. This Arcana may be spent to cast Sanctify or Grace. It does not regenerate, and must be replenished by going to a Celestial Garden.

 

You specified this in the Exalted Celestialism Beacon ability but didn’t reference it in the Garden Post. Would need some clarity on how they refill.

 

✦ Celestialism Rituals

 

➣ The Rite of Growth [T1]

 

A nice flavour spell in general, although three months is a decently long time to provide a memory, could you lower it to a week? You have to also be careful that you cannot force someone to put memories into the tree/branch, you have OOC consent listed but not RP consent. From my experience the ST are finicky about this stuff.

 

➣ The Rite of Stillness [T2]

 

A pretty innocent ritual with nice flavour.

 

➣ The Rite of Constellations [T2]

 

Permanent metagame. I suggest reworking the spell to only work while within the same distance as regular melding [7] blocks. Though an item should be handed to either player ST signed to signal / mark the individual of communication. The person should also be labled to not be able to be melded to other people from the person they’re currently bound too unless, unbound first.

 

➣ The Rite of Transcendence [T3]

 

Although the spell is mostly harmless, it has some aspect of blood magic in it in the last line of evocations becoming permanent, as it is a spell within that lore. I don’t think however this clashes so much to outright get removed or criticised much. Overall good ritual.

 

➣ The Rite of Exaltation [Non-combat] [T5]

 

Basic ritual to bind two slots of the magic.

 

Overall, the concept of celestialism here in my opinion needs work and opportunity, in prior iterations of Celestialism it was mostly non-combat based whereas here it seems you’re directly putting yourself in harms way. It is an interesting interpretation, although I feel that with the current classification of magic on the server it doesn’t really have a purpose the way you outlined it here currently as other magics either have the spells listed or fill the niche. 

I'm not going to respond to everything here, but thank you for writing everything out!

The capstone feats are not available since each of them has some effect on one's mental state which would be negative for a Celestialist. I'm not going to elaborate on this in the lore, but I will if this gets accepted when I write up the guide.

I have completely rewritten all of the auras + Arcanify / Bless. I'll put these edits in shortly, so I'm not going to address most of your concerns regarding the 1st slot.

I will say that yes, the intention is to use Melding to switch aura colours in combat. With regards to auras being able to have multiple aura colours, I'll make it clear in the lore that a Celestialist should always have a "dominant" aura colour. Their aura might be blue, with some blue-green, but they would have to declare that their aura is predominantly and in terms of blessing, only blue.

Melding cannot be enchanted, I will clarify this.

The issues you have with Sanctify are somewhat intended. As much as the Celestials are cleansing sources of Voidal corruption that are not their own, they are actively interested in spreading their own corruption. This spell is really a means for Celestials to control their "eventual" control of Creation; that's the plan anwyay. They're just taking a different approach to conquering the descendants' world, slowly but surely infiltrating here and there, stemming inflows from the Void which they cannot control in favour of those inflows which they can.

I think the concerns you have with regards to the thematics of both Sanctify and Grace are solved by the presence of the Celestials. The Celestials are higher Voidal beings who can make possible feats of symbiotic magic (that is, magic that works together with living things) that a Void mage could never accomplish alone. I see what you're saying with regards to conjuration and Jing, but I think that the Celestials may well provide enough of a source to justify the healing. I want to hear back from the ST themselves on this once voting has happened. If it's thought that Grace doesn't fit, it can come out in favour of something else.

EDIT: Having a think about Grace specifically, I could certainly edit it into a kind of "Voidal Feeling but for living things". Since a Celestialist can meld, they use this melding to break through a target's aura and inspect the inner workings of their body. Perhaps they can see some of the damage caused to organs, and their touch plays with the energy inside a targets body and numbs pain. This requires that the Celestialist or someone else go on and do medical roleplay, or cast a spell from another school of magic that actually heals, but it would give the Celestialist the ability to help with medical roleplay without trespassing on the traditionally deific and occasionally dark magic aligned flesh and bone healing spells.

7 hours ago, LoTC's Next Top Model said:

long and critical post incoming. apparently that's all i write anymore...

i think most of these spells need to get cut down by like 2/3rds. a lot of this also takes away from the voidal feats, just doing what several of them do, but outright better, and combined.
 

anti-horrors, cool. no comment.

edit: an additional thought after posting.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

➣ This aura will always be modified by the presence of the Celestial Host. A Celestialists aura will always appear “cosmic”, “star-speckled”, or in some other way “heavenly”. The night sky and her stars are core to the Celestial experience of this realm which fascinates them so, and so those ideas filter down into their energy which we call upon for magic.

having space-like casting is fairly common in void mages, since you can kinda do it however you want. some part of me is worried that these folk would be discriminated against or otherwise told "yeah you can't do that anymore". not really something within your control, but a thought i had nonetheless.

 

unlike other applications of melding i'll get into later, i have no significant problem with this one. suitably weak for what it does.

 

arcanify is fine, though i'd change the wording of this line;

 

i'd change this to specify that the blessing requires actually casting a blessing, and is not initially given to them upon casting arcanify alone, as this phrasing implies merely casting arcanify grants you these blessings.

(i'm writing this out of order so that's why familiars are next)

 

while out of combat they can be as far away as possible, i'd specify that if combat begins and the familiar isn't reasonably close to the celestialist, they need to resummon it.

familiars are just straight up better conjuration, while taking from the defining ability of voidal artificers.

i think this should be removed outright, and they should be largely defenseless in combat to prioritize protecting them. unfortunately, they don't particularly need to be protected, as;

this is insanely tanky. a group of five dudes gangstabbing a celestial familiar would take two turns to kill it. they're tankier than people, and you have no reason /not/ to have them be able to fly. could just have them perch on a low roof and be functionally immortal, unless you decide to leave it afk there for six combat turns while these five guys pull bow bows and shoot it twice each. it is, in basically all situations, significantly easier to kill the celestialist than their familiar. i'd lower this health down to like... three? or keep it at ten and make thanhium/other anti-void things do like five damage, so there's at least /some/ counter, but these materials are still relatively rare so it's doubtful it'd ever actually happen.

i appreciate this, though. i had a similar redline in conjuration, but the lt at the time of writing made me remove it.

 

 

while out of combat they can be as far away as possible, i'd specify that if combat begins and the familiar isn't reasonably close to the celestialist, they need to resummon it.

 

 

blessing is just insane. if it were added, it'd be the strongest spell on the server, bar none. most of the individual blessings are ******* crazy in different ways, which i shall now elaborate;
 

this... is honestly fine. i'd suggest adding a redline clarifying the interaction between this and arcane foci, though. (namely, is it +3 then x2, x2 then +3, or does the focus take priority?) the other parts of red, though...

this would be a nightmare to work around during any non-combat event, and i'd hate to be the et stuck running it with someone going *channels ((okay what's going on here, what's the next clue)) every third emote. i think this is borderline unsalvagable as well, and will likely contribute to legal metagaming and other bad faith and uninspired rp. i'd heavily redline this to just be flavour, if not remove it outright.

i think this design is also pretty cringe, tbh. "i become superman for one emote because i casted a blessing thirty minutes ago" would be super ******* annoying to fight against, and it has basically no cost whatsoever. it would also lead to people trying to do matrix style arrow dodges and shit like that.

an aside that fits heres but applies to blessing as a whole; the indefinite duration is problematic. i get that you can't cast anything else while doing it... but a void mage can still use a bow. a bow is still a deadly weapon. or, you could just enchant like four sticks with fire evo spells and one with a translo spell, and then have a super strong blessing that makes you stronger than a normal person while teleporting around and casting spells anyway. and if something bad happens and you need to use your get out of jail free superhuman reflexes card... you can now start casting your /actual/ spells. you're not any weaker now, just stronger differently. and this is only when casting it on yourself... but you can cast it on two other people. who do not have the no casting drawback, and can do all the crazy shit they want, while keeping these superpowers. this is very strong, and i cannot overstate it enough. if any individual blessing were added to any other magic, it'd be a contender for the strongest spell... and this has /five/ of them, each very strong. red isn't even the strongest, it's like... third. anyone, onto the next colour.

 

this is actually ******* mental. like, it's insane how ******* crazy this is. this needs to be completely and outright removed. this is outright complete /immunity/ to melee, if you play correctly. if you minmax as hard as possible, this will always be part of it. and you can cast it on /three/ total people, keep in mind. you don't even need a real weapon! just throw rocks at people! since melee is the only thing that requires no buildup to do, you end up just winning most fights off of this alone. break their concentration when they try to cast a spell since they can't catch you! or just... run up and stab them! ******* crazy. ******* insane. this one cannot be salvaged. an entirely different buff needs to go here. just bless someone with kani, or an arcane scion (if you can, scions can't /become/ celestials, but i don't see that they can't be blessed).

(as an aside, i'd add a redline to blessings specifying that only people capable of being a celestial can receive a blessing, but then that would be used as a metagaming tool, so :shrug:. maybe people can only bless people who they know don't violate the code and therefore can't knowingly bless voidstalkers, scions, dark mages, azdrazi, etc.)
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 ✦ The target can choose to end the buff early to perform [1] feat of supernatural agility. This feat of supernatural agility is improved in the following ways;

➣ The target's body is supported by a great blast of arcane energy which allows them to keep their balance even in precarious situations, surpassing what even a master acrobat might be capable of.

➣ The target finds that their body feels lighter than usual, as their strength is supported by these blustering energies which lift, push and otherwise manipulate their body into their desired position. This might make it significantly easier for the target to pull themselves over a ledge, for example.

(i wasnt able to quote this part for some reason so i made do)

this is problematic for all the reasons i'd listed regarding superhuman in the red aura section, except it's both a stronger effect and tied to a stronger passive. i also think this should be either removed or heavily nerfed. i appreciate the redline indicating it can't be used to dodge, but people will find a way to be cringe with it.

 

this is basically the only passive upside of being an eminent, now available in an aoe : ). overall i think this piece steps on eminents a *lot*, but i admittedly may be biased as an eminent user. as a whole, this is probably fine balance wise, but it does raise the question of "why would you become an eminent when this exists", but to be fair eminent is easily and by far the weakest voidal feat.

 

this one's also fine, but everything i said above also applies to it.

 

doing two at once here because these two passives are much more closely tied than the other. i believe this is the strongest blessing, other than possibly yellow. unlike yellow, i think this one is very easily salvagable. regenerating repulsing weightless half-plate is obviously highly overpowered. my solution would be to add some form of restriction to movement while wearing it (nothing severe, just no acrobatics). additionally, if you choose to explode, it ends the blessing instead of regenerating the armour. these changes would still leave it as very strong, but make it not borderline impossible to fight one on one. also basically makes you a fromsoft boss; knight that sheds armour to become a caster.

 

no problems here. this one does exactly what it should. i'd add a redline specifying that since their attacks count as enchanted weapons, they suffer the same drawbacks as enchanted weapons, i.e. being blocked by wards and such. other than that, no comments.

for blessings as a whole... i don't think they should be indefinite, but that's a personal point. additionally, while these may technically all be subspells of the greater blessing main spell, and functionally exist as five different spells. for the magic as a whole, this may necessitate requiring additional slots. while the magic as a whole functionally occupies your 'voidal capstone' slot (the mutually exclusive voidstalker, eminent, artificer, and scion, which are each unobtainable while holding this magic) may count as an additional cost, the vast similarities and overlapping powers contained (largely in respect to eminence and artificery) somewhat negates this point. additionally, i believe scion and artificer should both be moved from "barring exaltism" to "barring celestialism as a whole". why give a partial gift to someone unworthy? scion in particular also exacerbates several balancing issues, as i previously discussed, while artificers have severe ability overlap, namely in the form of a different system of familiars. the magic would be better off restricting these combinations, imo. it adds either unnessecary balancing complications or excessive clutter to keep them combined.

onto other spells. i'll try to say less, since my major complaints have now all been issued, and now it's just down to identifying problems.
 

this one's fine. this is a perfectly balanced blaster ability. however, i would add that this counts as the caster casting, even though it's coming out of the familiar, so people arn't casting one spell as a magician and a second spell as their familiar at the same time. if this is the intended interpretation as what should be allowed, it really shouldnt be.

 

these two i'm on the fence about. they should be fine, but they trigger a balance alarm in me. i'd keep an eye on em.

 

this one starts to bridge on problematic. it's a direct upgrade to transfiguration wards in every regard, aoe, things it blocks, health, all for the same cast time. /however/, this i would classify as a problem regarding how transfig desperately needs an amendment and abjuration is functionally useless if youre not trying to ohko an atronach (or, ironically, using it to kill spells from this magic, but celestial on celestial violence should rarely happen on paper, if i'm reading the theming right), and i think this shelter spell at the baseline is fine.

 

this one is outright problematic, though. this is an insane level of power, with little real counterplay. "i cast a shield, and if you break it i just kill you while you're stunned!". it completely halts combat and slows the pace of everything, and just isn't very fun to be against. i'd remove the stun, bare minimum.

 

this one's cute. i like this one.

 

overall i think shelter is fine (short of green mode), and the magic it overlaps with is just outright underpowered, but it's something worth considering nonetheless.

 

standard attunement ritual, no problems there.

now, we move onto exalted. as a whole, i think exalted is basically fine, actually. since there's less combat spells, there's less for me to criticize from a balance perspective, and most of the flavour is interesting or the applications unique.
 

overall i have no problem with this, although i'm biased towards resource management. most of this is fluff and all well and good.

 

the requirement of ooc consent is very, very important here, and i just want to shout out actually adding it.

 

i am on the fence with this one. in theory it's a cool flavour ability which lets people communicate stuff. in reality i can see it as a tool for metagaming used wrong and not understood by the players or lt presiding over it. i would add some form of visual connection to compensate, like an ethereal tether connecting all those involved to the celestialist, and while everyone can send a message to the celestial, the celestial can only send out one message at a time.

 

so sanctify mechanically is fine, but i believe the actual cleansing should have some form of cost. a required material focus that is consumed, or some long-term-but-not-permanant debuff applied to the celestial after cleaning the corruption. otherwise it'd fall into the same problem a lot of the other corrupt/cure dichotomies do, where corruption means nothing because it can be instantly cleansed with little effort by the right people. as a cleansing spell, though, it's perfectly servicable.

 

perfectly fine spell, though niche. no comments.

 

as a spell, i don't mind it. as the conj writer it bothers me /slightly/ in a likely irrational way. "void magic cannot heal" has been a long-time thing, the void simply isn't meant to do it, that's for other magic types. that's why conjurations healing exists in such a limited capacity. this healing being so overall /good/ bothers me, though the long term to heal and such make it reasonably well balanced. i am irritated by this for petty reasons.

the one change i'd suggest is that one can only be under the effects of one instance of grace at a time. something-something the strain is too great on the body something-something. so if someone is completely mangled, they still need alternative care in addition to grace.

 

as a whole, i like this. i /might/ suggest fleshing out how different emotions influence the outcome, or ritual failure scenarios, or so on, but that may detract from the freeform nature of it. conceptually, though, i dig it.

 

i have a nitpick and a balance suggestion.

 

i'd suggest changing this to 'An arcanium trinket' rather than an ingot.  from arcanium lore;
  -One cannot make “Arcanium Ingots”. The item is either forged or pre-made before being Arcanium Enchanted.

while there's nothing stopping you from making an ingot of gold and then turning it into an ingot, it's kinda goofy. this is the nitpick.

 

so, a radius of 40 is just ******* huge. like, ridiculously huge. that's an area of over 5k blocks (in a circle). its like a third of a nation capital tile. for visualization, heres some screenshots i took measuring this radius in celianor.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

the celia'nor tavern.

forty blocks away from the celia'nor tavern.
since this is a radius, that forty blocks extends in every direction, including left, right, and behind, for a total area of (again) over 5k blocks.

i suggest cutting the radius in half at all levels, which would make the distance portrayed in the spoilered photos the total range, which is still a decently large area. then reduce the required distance between roots (and any other distance based metrics involved in gardens) by the same factor.

 

in terms of the actual abilities and functions of the celestial garden, i think it's pretty neat.

 

very cool. the redlines seem solid at a glance, and it doesn't seem abusable. i approve.

 

this one's iffy for me, specifically the no required emotes to telepath at an infinite distance at night. there should be some type of tell both ways when telepathy is going on (no matter time of day), and not requiring any buildup at night is just asking for some "draw out the roleplay until it's mechanically night and then send a telepathic message to my bff to bring a full metasquad to where i am" type abuse in it's current incarnation.

other than this clear abuse case, i have no strong opinions on this ritual.

 

i like this one a lot. like, a /lot/ a lot. i'd just add a redline/mechanic specifying that the celestialist and their familiar split after they take their avatar action, which i believe is intended, and that they're not permanantly in this avatar mode.
 

another teaching ritual, i have little to comment on. it is a teaching ritual.

 

and that's everything...

while i may have been largely critical, i'm actually quite fond of this. some months ago, i began writing a draft for an update of celestialism (shoutout to our mutual friend @Zarsiesfor consulting with me on that, even if i never ended up finishing it), and it's interesting to see where our interpretations of modern celestialism differed and alligned. mine was themed around void knights, while you've gone with white witches. the main focus of my concept was celestial-bound items with powers, where you took a greater focus in emotions and connections. both of our takes were obligatorily good, had a combat focus around displacing and moving people rather than hurting them, as well as a focus on rituals, and as a sort of toolbox magic set against voidstalkers and horrors as a whole. completely irrelevant, but it was interesting to see where our thought patterns aligned. other than the balance concerns i have, i'm fairly excited to see something like this return to the server, even if I as a dirty eminent wouldn't be able to use it. excited to see where this goes.

Can't keep away! This is all scrambled up, apologies. More thoughts:

*psst, give me your discord! if you want. cool if not.*

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

I haven't specified within greater melding specifically, but certainly within melding the idea is that there should be a VERY obvious tell, since everyone's aura colour becomes the same once they're melding, and the Celestialist would be glowing like a lightbulb. Everyone will be very obviously glowy when this is being cast, it wouldn't be subtle at all. I shall make this clear in the spell description. I'll also go on to clarify that if I'm understanding what you're saying, the "sending one message at a time thing" is already the case now, I just haven't properly expressed how communication works. I've been thinking of it like "speaking, but only the people in the telephone call can hear you". I'll clarify that this means that the Celestialist has to think in real time and emote what they're saying in say, or quiet, or some other open channel. Only in a one on one meld should the Celestialist be emoting in /msg to keep things hidden.

I'm not sure how I feel about making the familiar unable to do the simple melee, I really just wanted it in there for a little last stand protection. That being said, we're moving in the direction of making the familiar need more protection, so perhaps I'll take it out. I can see the reasons why you would want to, I'll give it a think. I'll be interested to know what you think in terms of the spells I've posted above to replace what they have at the second.

With regards to artificers, I think the familiars fill different niches. I had at one point wanted to allow people to have familiars without being Celestialists, as was possible back in the day, but I opted against that to let artificers give out familiars to others (which I think is possible but I'm honestly not sure). Additionally, Celestial Familiars cannot be used as Casting Implements, where familiars from Artificery can. I think this puts them in different niches again, as a Celestial Familiar (particularly with the changes I made in my post above) is now a buffer, rather than simply another spell caster, where an Artificery familiar is very much a tool for casting your regular spells. I think there's a divide there between a companion who does their own thing, and a tool which improves your own casting. But yeah, I've been aware of Artificery since the start and I don't think I can do anything to mitigate the overlap there. The only thing I could do, and have done in previous write ups, was to remove the familiar entirely and just have Celestials as patrons. That I didn't end up liking since the familiar was so integral to the Celestialists identity, so they're back in now. I totally see that there's a potential problem there, but I hope that everything has enough of a niche not to really make anything redundant.

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

13 hours ago, LoTC's Next Top Model said:

long and critical post incoming. apparently that's all i write anymore...

i think most of these spells need to get cut down by like 2/3rds. a lot of this also takes away from the voidal feats, just doing what several of them do, but outright better, and combined.
 

anti-horrors, cool. no comment.

edit: an additional thought after posting.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

➣ This aura will always be modified by the presence of the Celestial Host. A Celestialists aura will always appear “cosmic”, “star-speckled”, or in some other way “heavenly”. The night sky and her stars are core to the Celestial experience of this realm which fascinates them so, and so those ideas filter down into their energy which we call upon for magic.

having space-like casting is fairly common in void mages, since you can kinda do it however you want. some part of me is worried that these folk would be discriminated against or otherwise told "yeah you can't do that anymore". not really something within your control, but a thought i had nonetheless.

 

unlike other applications of melding i'll get into later, i have no significant problem with this one. suitably weak for what it does.

 

arcanify is fine, though i'd change the wording of this line;

 

i'd change this to specify that the blessing requires actually casting a blessing, and is not initially given to them upon casting arcanify alone, as this phrasing implies merely casting arcanify grants you these blessings.

(i'm writing this out of order so that's why familiars are next)

 

while out of combat they can be as far away as possible, i'd specify that if combat begins and the familiar isn't reasonably close to the celestialist, they need to resummon it.

familiars are just straight up better conjuration, while taking from the defining ability of voidal artificers.

i think this should be removed outright, and they should be largely defenseless in combat to prioritize protecting them. unfortunately, they don't particularly need to be protected, as;

this is insanely tanky. a group of five dudes gangstabbing a celestial familiar would take two turns to kill it. they're tankier than people, and you have no reason /not/ to have them be able to fly. could just have them perch on a low roof and be functionally immortal, unless you decide to leave it afk there for six combat turns while these five guys pull bow bows and shoot it twice each. it is, in basically all situations, significantly easier to kill the celestialist than their familiar. i'd lower this health down to like... three? or keep it at ten and make thanhium/other anti-void things do like five damage, so there's at least /some/ counter, but these materials are still relatively rare so it's doubtful it'd ever actually happen.

i appreciate this, though. i had a similar redline in conjuration, but the lt at the time of writing made me remove it.

 

 

while out of combat they can be as far away as possible, i'd specify that if combat begins and the familiar isn't reasonably close to the celestialist, they need to resummon it.

 

 

blessing is just insane. if it were added, it'd be the strongest spell on the server, bar none. most of the individual blessings are ******* crazy in different ways, which i shall now elaborate;
 

this... is honestly fine. i'd suggest adding a redline clarifying the interaction between this and arcane foci, though. (namely, is it +3 then x2, x2 then +3, or does the focus take priority?) the other parts of red, though...

this would be a nightmare to work around during any non-combat event, and i'd hate to be the et stuck running it with someone going *channels ((okay what's going on here, what's the next clue)) every third emote. i think this is borderline unsalvagable as well, and will likely contribute to legal metagaming and other bad faith and uninspired rp. i'd heavily redline this to just be flavour, if not remove it outright.

i think this design is also pretty cringe, tbh. "i become superman for one emote because i casted a blessing thirty minutes ago" would be super ******* annoying to fight against, and it has basically no cost whatsoever. it would also lead to people trying to do matrix style arrow dodges and shit like that.

an aside that fits heres but applies to blessing as a whole; the indefinite duration is problematic. i get that you can't cast anything else while doing it... but a void mage can still use a bow. a bow is still a deadly weapon. or, you could just enchant like four sticks with fire evo spells and one with a translo spell, and then have a super strong blessing that makes you stronger than a normal person while teleporting around and casting spells anyway. and if something bad happens and you need to use your get out of jail free superhuman reflexes card... you can now start casting your /actual/ spells. you're not any weaker now, just stronger differently. and this is only when casting it on yourself... but you can cast it on two other people. who do not have the no casting drawback, and can do all the crazy shit they want, while keeping these superpowers. this is very strong, and i cannot overstate it enough. if any individual blessing were added to any other magic, it'd be a contender for the strongest spell... and this has /five/ of them, each very strong. red isn't even the strongest, it's like... third. anyone, onto the next colour.

 

this is actually ******* mental. like, it's insane how ******* crazy this is. this needs to be completely and outright removed. this is outright complete /immunity/ to melee, if you play correctly. if you minmax as hard as possible, this will always be part of it. and you can cast it on /three/ total people, keep in mind. you don't even need a real weapon! just throw rocks at people! since melee is the only thing that requires no buildup to do, you end up just winning most fights off of this alone. break their concentration when they try to cast a spell since they can't catch you! or just... run up and stab them! ******* crazy. ******* insane. this one cannot be salvaged. an entirely different buff needs to go here. just bless someone with kani, or an arcane scion (if you can, scions can't /become/ celestials, but i don't see that they can't be blessed).

(as an aside, i'd add a redline to blessings specifying that only people capable of being a celestial can receive a blessing, but then that would be used as a metagaming tool, so :shrug:. maybe people can only bless people who they know don't violate the code and therefore can't knowingly bless voidstalkers, scions, dark mages, azdrazi, etc.)
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 ✦ The target can choose to end the buff early to perform [1] feat of supernatural agility. This feat of supernatural agility is improved in the following ways;

➣ The target's body is supported by a great blast of arcane energy which allows them to keep their balance even in precarious situations, surpassing what even a master acrobat might be capable of.

➣ The target finds that their body feels lighter than usual, as their strength is supported by these blustering energies which lift, push and otherwise manipulate their body into their desired position. This might make it significantly easier for the target to pull themselves over a ledge, for example.

(i wasnt able to quote this part for some reason so i made do)

this is problematic for all the reasons i'd listed regarding superhuman in the red aura section, except it's both a stronger effect and tied to a stronger passive. i also think this should be either removed or heavily nerfed. i appreciate the redline indicating it can't be used to dodge, but people will find a way to be cringe with it.

 

this is basically the only passive upside of being an eminent, now available in an aoe : ). overall i think this piece steps on eminents a *lot*, but i admittedly may be biased as an eminent user. as a whole, this is probably fine balance wise, but it does raise the question of "why would you become an eminent when this exists", but to be fair eminent is easily and by far the weakest voidal feat.

 

this one's also fine, but everything i said above also applies to it.

 

doing two at once here because these two passives are much more closely tied than the other. i believe this is the strongest blessing, other than possibly yellow. unlike yellow, i think this one is very easily salvagable. regenerating repulsing weightless half-plate is obviously highly overpowered. my solution would be to add some form of restriction to movement while wearing it (nothing severe, just no acrobatics). additionally, if you choose to explode, it ends the blessing instead of regenerating the armour. these changes would still leave it as very strong, but make it not borderline impossible to fight one on one. also basically makes you a fromsoft boss; knight that sheds armour to become a caster.

 

no problems here. this one does exactly what it should. i'd add a redline specifying that since their attacks count as enchanted weapons, they suffer the same drawbacks as enchanted weapons, i.e. being blocked by wards and such. other than that, no comments.

for blessings as a whole... i don't think they should be indefinite, but that's a personal point. additionally, while these may technically all be subspells of the greater blessing main spell, and functionally exist as five different spells. for the magic as a whole, this may necessitate requiring additional slots. while the magic as a whole functionally occupies your 'voidal capstone' slot (the mutually exclusive voidstalker, eminent, artificer, and scion, which are each unobtainable while holding this magic) may count as an additional cost, the vast similarities and overlapping powers contained (largely in respect to eminence and artificery) somewhat negates this point. additionally, i believe scion and artificer should both be moved from "barring exaltism" to "barring celestialism as a whole". why give a partial gift to someone unworthy? scion in particular also exacerbates several balancing issues, as i previously discussed, while artificers have severe ability overlap, namely in the form of a different system of familiars. the magic would be better off restricting these combinations, imo. it adds either unnessecary balancing complications or excessive clutter to keep them combined.

onto other spells. i'll try to say less, since my major complaints have now all been issued, and now it's just down to identifying problems.
 

this one's fine. this is a perfectly balanced blaster ability. however, i would add that this counts as the caster casting, even though it's coming out of the familiar, so people arn't casting one spell as a magician and a second spell as their familiar at the same time. if this is the intended interpretation as what should be allowed, it really shouldnt be.

 

these two i'm on the fence about. they should be fine, but they trigger a balance alarm in me. i'd keep an eye on em.

 

this one starts to bridge on problematic. it's a direct upgrade to transfiguration wards in every regard, aoe, things it blocks, health, all for the same cast time. /however/, this i would classify as a problem regarding how transfig desperately needs an amendment and abjuration is functionally useless if youre not trying to ohko an atronach (or, ironically, using it to kill spells from this magic, but celestial on celestial violence should rarely happen on paper, if i'm reading the theming right), and i think this shelter spell at the baseline is fine.

 

this one is outright problematic, though. this is an insane level of power, with little real counterplay. "i cast a shield, and if you break it i just kill you while you're stunned!". it completely halts combat and slows the pace of everything, and just isn't very fun to be against. i'd remove the stun, bare minimum.

 

this one's cute. i like this one.

 

overall i think shelter is fine (short of green mode), and the magic it overlaps with is just outright underpowered, but it's something worth considering nonetheless.

 

standard attunement ritual, no problems there.

now, we move onto exalted. as a whole, i think exalted is basically fine, actually. since there's less combat spells, there's less for me to criticize from a balance perspective, and most of the flavour is interesting or the applications unique.
 

overall i have no problem with this, although i'm biased towards resource management. most of this is fluff and all well and good.

 

the requirement of ooc consent is very, very important here, and i just want to shout out actually adding it.

 

i am on the fence with this one. in theory it's a cool flavour ability which lets people communicate stuff. in reality i can see it as a tool for metagaming used wrong and not understood by the players or lt presiding over it. i would add some form of visual connection to compensate, like an ethereal tether connecting all those involved to the celestialist, and while everyone can send a message to the celestial, the celestial can only send out one message at a time.

 

so sanctify mechanically is fine, but i believe the actual cleansing should have some form of cost. a required material focus that is consumed, or some long-term-but-not-permanant debuff applied to the celestial after cleaning the corruption. otherwise it'd fall into the same problem a lot of the other corrupt/cure dichotomies do, where corruption means nothing because it can be instantly cleansed with little effort by the right people. as a cleansing spell, though, it's perfectly servicable.

 

perfectly fine spell, though niche. no comments.

 

as a spell, i don't mind it. as the conj writer it bothers me /slightly/ in a likely irrational way. "void magic cannot heal" has been a long-time thing, the void simply isn't meant to do it, that's for other magic types. that's why conjurations healing exists in such a limited capacity. this healing being so overall /good/ bothers me, though the long term to heal and such make it reasonably well balanced. i am irritated by this for petty reasons.

the one change i'd suggest is that one can only be under the effects of one instance of grace at a time. something-something the strain is too great on the body something-something. so if someone is completely mangled, they still need alternative care in addition to grace.

 

as a whole, i like this. i /might/ suggest fleshing out how different emotions influence the outcome, or ritual failure scenarios, or so on, but that may detract from the freeform nature of it. conceptually, though, i dig it.

 

i have a nitpick and a balance suggestion.

 

i'd suggest changing this to 'An arcanium trinket' rather than an ingot.  from arcanium lore;
  -One cannot make “Arcanium Ingots”. The item is either forged or pre-made before being Arcanium Enchanted.

while there's nothing stopping you from making an ingot of gold and then turning it into an ingot, it's kinda goofy. this is the nitpick.

 

so, a radius of 40 is just ******* huge. like, ridiculously huge. that's an area of over 5k blocks (in a circle). its like a third of a nation capital tile. for visualization, heres some screenshots i took measuring this radius in celianor.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

the celia'nor tavern.

forty blocks away from the celia'nor tavern.
since this is a radius, that forty blocks extends in every direction, including left, right, and behind, for a total area of (again) over 5k blocks.

i suggest cutting the radius in half at all levels, which would make the distance portrayed in the spoilered photos the total range, which is still a decently large area. then reduce the required distance between roots (and any other distance based metrics involved in gardens) by the same factor.

 

in terms of the actual abilities and functions of the celestial garden, i think it's pretty neat.

 

very cool. the redlines seem solid at a glance, and it doesn't seem abusable. i approve.

 

this one's iffy for me, specifically the no required emotes to telepath at an infinite distance at night. there should be some type of tell both ways when telepathy is going on (no matter time of day), and not requiring any buildup at night is just asking for some "draw out the roleplay until it's mechanically night and then send a telepathic message to my bff to bring a full metasquad to where i am" type abuse in it's current incarnation.

other than this clear abuse case, i have no strong opinions on this ritual.

 

i like this one a lot. like, a /lot/ a lot. i'd just add a redline/mechanic specifying that the celestialist and their familiar split after they take their avatar action, which i believe is intended, and that they're not permanantly in this avatar mode.
 

another teaching ritual, i have little to comment on. it is a teaching ritual.

 

and that's everything...

while i may have been largely critical, i'm actually quite fond of this. some months ago, i began writing a draft for an update of celestialism (shoutout to our mutual friend @Zarsiesfor consulting with me on that, even if i never ended up finishing it), and it's interesting to see where our interpretations of modern celestialism differed and alligned. mine was themed around void knights, while you've gone with white witches. the main focus of my concept was celestial-bound items with powers, where you took a greater focus in emotions and connections. both of our takes were obligatorily good, had a combat focus around displacing and moving people rather than hurting them, as well as a focus on rituals, and as a sort of toolbox magic set against voidstalkers and horrors as a whole. completely irrelevant, but it was interesting to see where our thought patterns aligned. other than the balance concerns i have, i'm fairly excited to see something like this return to the server, even if I as a dirty eminent wouldn't be able to use it. excited to see where this goes.

10 hours ago, Luxury said:

 

Was chatting with some folks about this earlier actually. This post sparked alot of healthy discussion in my magic community!

 

More or less I developed the sentiment that if anything - the Celestialist should be taking hits for the Celestial, considering they are offering them quarter and protection from Horrors in the Material. To then turn around and have them do direct battle with Mortals seems to conflict with the Celestialist ideals.

 

I would make Celestials more fragile in constitution but perhaps you could offset this with a spell and a healthy amount of emotes. I think shifting some more attention to healing, defending, and tending the the actual well being of the Celestial itself is something that may serve well here.

I was honestly hoping I'd get one of your super long critical posts, it's an honour! I quote you both because, I think one person's thought solves the other person's problem, at least a little.

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

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

I'm not going to address your concerns with the familiar spells for now because! NEW FAMILIAR SPELLS WOO! I'm surprised I made them this fast. Honestly, those spells were just generally a bit good and didn't hinge on the familiars location all that much, but THESE definitely do.

These require the Celestial to be a lot more vulnerable. I probably won't keep both in combination with new familiar Arcanify, it'll be one or other of them. Or, I dunno, it could be all three actually. Celestialists themselves are losing both Bless and Arcanify, so giving an extra spell to the Celestial would work. I think that just getting rid of Shelter should make the familiar a lot more vulnerable as well, as well as just, focusing all the spells on the Celestial being in close proximity to multiple enemies.

Auras

R/P: Remove superman dodge (I can see the Matrix slowmo now!), put a limit on how often the detail noticing effect can be invoked. I then worry that this isn't all that useful outside of combat, so I'll have a think for other sight based passive things that would be less metagamey. It could be something like, you focus on an item... but then we get into trouble with outdoing Transfiguration at examining objects, and as much as this is a toolbox, I don't want to outdo the other toolbox! I shall scour the stars for new R/P effects, just try and redo this one.

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

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

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

So the idea of shedding your mage armour like a Dark Souls boss was cool! What if rather than it simply shattering, the energy was infused into some other attack? That way, 1. you could launch it as a spell, or on an arrow, BUT, 2. you HAVE to launch it on an attack. It can't be used as a get out of jail free card, since you have to spend some of the action that you're using to activate it on attacking, which prevents you from sprinting, makes it a non-free action, etc. Kind of a buff, in that you can shoot it into the backlines, kind of a nerf, in that you have to aim (it can miss!), spend time charging a spell, or just take an attack, which prevents you from doing just anything you want.

So it would read something like: The blessed can condense the veil of energy protecting them into a dense cloud of energy. This is infused into [1] attack, be that a spell, ranged attack or a melee attack. That attack explodes upon landing... Redlines: does not regenerate, cannot hold onto the explosive effect, etc.

It also occurs to me to redline this with regards to kani, preventing you from inciting resonance through it. The energy is as dense as metal, therefore, an oscillit cannot incite resonance through it, etc.

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

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

Random other stuff:

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

I've run out of a steam so enjoy my thought pile, thank you so much for all your criticisms, it really does help, and I appreciate the time you've taken to write this all out. As I've said before, I want to hear from people. Having so many engage is what will help me to balance things out and make this as enjoyable as it can be for everyone.

Familiar spell nerfs!

@Luxury@sam33497 What do we think with regards to making familiars a little more vulnerable?

@Moribundity I'm hoping that these are obviously very different from past forms of arcanism. I realise that the previous two were, a magic missile and a shield, the two spells which typified arcanism.

23 hours ago, Moribundity said:

I was under the impression arcanism and similar magics were never returning. Looks cool in theory but I’m not sure how it’ll turn out in practice

I'd recommend giving the lore a thorough read; aside from Shelter and Barrage which do hearken back to the arcanism of old, this is a very different style of magic. It doesn't have any of the issues arcanism did in invalidating a lot of other evocationists by doing what they did, but better. This is now really focused on a supportive, utility based role that has a place in combat, but is really at it's best when it's solving problems away from the battlefield.

I feel it's in a completely different niche now to where Celestial Arcanism was before, and I hope that other people can see how much this write up differs from the original.

EDIT: I've now swapped both Barrage and Shelter out for two new spells, which I think have less to do with old arcanism! That should help with making them obviously distinct.

5 minutes ago, sam33497 said:

oh my god.. what a great post- I find a lot of the lores for voidal magic lacking in general in terms of flavor and roleplay, but this is amazing. There might be some balance concerns when comparing this to other voidal feats, but it is slotted, so it's hard to compare them. Some of the aura effects and the celestial familiar, in particular, seem very, very strong, though of course I am perfectly fine with magics that reward good roleplay.. in my opinion, it might just warrant making this a 2-3 slot magic rather than a 1-2 slot.

 

(i'm not an experienced voidal player, take my words with a grain of salt)

It doesn't matter whether or not you're experienced, thank you for engaging! I want to hear from everyone regardless of how long they've been around.

The intent was definitely to make the auras and familiar useful to make up for just how much of a detriment summoning your familiar is. I've refrained from reducing the number of wounds a familiar has below 10, since I want to avoid things quickly becoming very under powered, but I could definitely look into that. I could probably also think of some other circumstances in which it takes 2 wounds a hit, other than the listed materials.

I've wanted to turn choosing to use Void magic in combat into this really engaging choice for a Celestialist. Summoning their familiar makes them immediately vulnerable, and not just for that particular encounter. There's real character development and damage that can come about through permanently losing this cherished partner.

That being said, I can definitely see that a combination of reducing their wounds, making them slightly more vulnerable and/or nerfing the spells they can cast might be what's called for.

15 minutes ago, Luxury said:

This Lore contains all of the essentials I’ve long felt that Void Magic deserved, but have not had the writing skills to bring to light. This is a commendable write Aelesh.

 

Let this be the standard of love and care by which our communities lore is held to. It deserves it.

 

Praise aside, it is definitely heavy ability wise even for a two slot magic and probably could use a touch more clarity in the abilities. Id also love to see some more interactions with Void Stalkers arise from this. Ive a headcanon that the neutrality of Void Magic is still divided into a further philosophical spectrum. <Celestialists - Artificers - Watchers - Void Mage - Scions - Emminents - Voidstalkers>
 

Note that the two are polar opposites.

Thank you very much, that means a lot!

I definitely think it could lose some bits here and there without the overall usability of the lore taking a hit. I've been concerned that a lot of the really interesting stuff can be found through the rituals, which aren't the kind of thing someone is going to be doing every day.

For that reason, I've just kind of kept everything that stuck to the wall in here so that people can read and vote on "yes, that one's good, but no, this one is a bit out there". For instance, I think I could probably drop Bestilled items, but I've kept them in here for now since my preliminary feedback was that they were very, very cool. I might drop melding Celestials with enchanted items in the final rite, the Rite of Transcendence as well, and in terms of in hand spells, I think Expel could probably be lost without too much of an effect. It's really an event spell anyway, for fighting back the nasty tentacle-y things.

And that isn't even an exhaustive list, I could probably go through and find more things to trim. But here it all is for people to comment on, I'm looking forward to hearing things along the lines of "TOP 10 CELESTIALISM SPELLS - pssst, drop the bottom 3".

47 minutes ago, TreeSmoothie said:

I love this!! Will give a full read later. however, not allowing certain dark magics such as necro and Mysticism, seems like a weird choice - no other void magic does it, even voidstalking, and I personally think void should remain completely neutral, though I do get the intention!

Yeah, I can totally see why it'd be strange for a traditionally neutral form of magic to take a stance on this kind of thing.

Celestialism hinges on a very particular mindset that allows its practitioners to break down their aura and meld it with other souls' auras. I just don't see this mindset being possible for someone who is afflicted with all the pain and suffering that comes with being a dark mage. These practices include some really horrific stuff.

More than that, a lot of dark magics are concerned with "mortal affairs", quite often in escaping from that mortality to become immortal. For a Celestialist, there's a need to distance oneself from mortal life and sufferings to come into a deeper understanding of the Celestials; that "walking away from the world" is what allows them to see life with renewed perspective, and welcome everyone and everything they meet back into it. If they were seeking power, immortality, or other earthly needs, that would really contradict this need to find a new perspective.

There's a lot of deeper philosophical stuff like that which I haven't included here for brevity (this got looooooong), but I mean to bring all of it up in the guide if/when I get to it.

22 hours ago, Gemini said:

It still excludes a whole feat from partaking in this magic! 

Currently, only Voidal Scions and Artificers are able to become Celestial Arcanists, also excluding Voidal Eminence. Furthermore, Exalted Celestialism (the 2 slot version) precludes all capstone feats, including Scions and Artificers.

Voidstalking has not been singled out. I felt that Celestial Gardens were almost a feat unto themselves, and I wanted to prevent any issues surrounding being capable of doing too much. I'm very unsure on the slotting of things and want to hear back from people; your thoughts are welcome!

If people's feedback leans in the direction that having access to some of the feats is still reasonable and wouldn't be too much, I'd be open to changing what's currently written and opening some of the feats up.

EDIT: in response to some feedback, this has been made to include all capstone feats, whether or not a Celestialist is an Exalted Celestialist or not.

2 minutes ago, Gemini said:

I don't like this part. Voidstalking is a feat and this is a whole damn magic and 100% more powerful than stalkers haha. Calling them cousins idk 

"Cousins" simply refers to the way in which all Void mages are related to each other. Fire Evocationists are "cousins" of Sensory Illusionists, for example. Every Void mage is a "cousin" of every other Void mage, related distantly.

Calling them cousins draws no comparison in terms of their relative complexity.

This isn't really a comment on the lore itself, just that I think it'd be more interesting to create your own system for your chakra rather than copy-pasting IRL esotericism into the lore. I'd be much more intrigued if the chakra were say, placed in the hands, the feet and the heart, and each had different meanings from the IRL system. It's not really a critique, just a thought.

There's a lot of lore on LOTC you could pull from to justify your own, unique system.

Maybe it's believed that this point is "where lifeforce pours into and out of your body", and this one "is where your soul is anchored to your body", and this one is "where a connection is made through to other realms" (and maybe there's a connection to leaving the body whilst dreaming there).

Somewhere, in a grove most unlike a grove, a wily forest creature hails gods older than time.

.~.

3 minutes ago, Sybbyl0127 said:

 

 

You guys make good points, I'll look over the States of Mana page and see if I need to make any clarifications or changes : )
If the two pages are really that connected, I might just do a clarification rewrite on the states of mana page too.

 

Rewrites don't have to actually change things, its only happening here because these pages are so old their writers are no longer here. If for instance the writer of the pages were around, I'd probably just ask them if we can chat and have them edit in the clarifications x3

 

But thank you for bringing this stuff up o/ I only kept the Expanding on Auras page up while I wrote this, I'll side by side them here in a bit to see if I can make it work out better ^_^

It might be easier to work out what clarifications you'd like to make, if any, run them by the ST, and then just reply to the original post with those clarifications (which I believe you can do as an ST). I remember some posts having clarifications edited in after they were posted, by ST responding with those clarifications in the thread.

2 minutes ago, Sybbyl0127 said:

 

I only intended for the time being to rewrite the page "Expanding Auras"

But I could merge the two and write out the states of mana as well, in theory.

I just think the States of Mana page has aged rather well all considering and it's quite easy to understand, so it doesnt super need one really.

 

The page on Auras was quite alright for the time it was written, matched with other stuff at that time, but now its rather vague in comparison to the amount of information we usually get on these things. As an ST I got a loooot of questions about auras, now that housemagery is very popular and thats the aura housemages use. So I wrote this page up to make a bunch of clarifications and expanding on some of the explanations, without actually changing how the Auras work

I agree that the "States of Mana" page has aged well, yet, you have rewritten the section in it on auras. I think you may have missed the section on auras in the "States of Mana" page. Between the aura expansion and the original description in "States of Mana", everything you have written in your post is covered and accepted.

How does this rewrite expand upon what has already been accepted? So far as I can tell, all this does is fail to mention the time-worn "aura is mana-smoke" analogy, only talking about an "aura of mana" which is much less clear than the section in "States of Mana".