Enchantment

Enchantment

New system:

Enchantments are spells of great inherent power that are tied to an object or person. Enchantments are created by designing a certain category of spell, known as an Enchantment, that is very complicated. For each Enchantment, there must be defined a trigger, an effect, and a control. The trigger defines under what terms the effect occurs, and can be simply defined as "always" if needed. An effect is similar to other spells in that it generates a magical effect. A control is used to direct the effect, 'cast' the effect, and cut off the effect if the effect is continuous until stopped.

Once the Enchantment has been designed, the spell and a vast amount of mana are impressed upon the object or person.

If it is impressed upon an object, the spell is inlaid on the object. Often, this act causes the inherent mana within the object to feedback against the mana being impressed, and this factor must be taken into account when Enchanting any item. As is the nature of spells, the mana of the spell continues to dissipate off due to its chaotic nature. However, if the process of Enchanting works, the impressed spell and remaining mana will eventually attune to the item, and become a part of its inherent mana. The new Enchantment then uses the inherent mana of the item itself (unless designed instead to use mana without) to generate an effect when triggered and to maintain the control. Often, the control is designed such that the Enchantment can never use enough of the inherent mana to destroy the Enchantment, though this is certainly not always the case.

Once an object is Enchanted, it must be un-Enchanted before it can be re-Enchanted. This is due to the inherent mana and structure of the spell of the already Enchanted item reacting with any new spell or impressed mana. This almost always results in the destruction of the object and the creation of a magical anomaly or two due to the amount of sudden feedback. An object can be un-Enchanted, however, by the continual drain of the inherent mana until there is little to none and the current Enchantment's spell disassociates. Then, a new Enchantment is impressed on the item, and an even greater amount of mana is required to overcome the continually recycling inherent mana of the object. Because the cost is so great, re-Enchantments are usually of far less quality and are very inefficient in their construction. Re-Enchantment is mostly researched and rarely practiced.

Enchanted items are often judged based on what it does, how much it does, and how often it can do it. Highly regarded Enchanted items are created with a very large initial mana pool in order to allow more effects to happen more frequently. The number of effects are especially important, as an item that is already enchanted cannot easily (if at all) be Enchanted over. Therefore, the initial work per additional effect increases greatly.

If the target of the Enchantment is instead a living being, then the process becomes far more complicated. Living Enchantments have been researched privately (as in, not common knowledge to anyone but the researchers) by the Conclave and few guilds with little result. What is known for living Enchantments is that the impressed Enchantment must overcome the inherent mana of the target and be permitted by the target to occur. The ratio of impressed mana to inherent mana of the target is usually observed to be in the teens, reflecting how difficult the prospect is. Even then, the traditional type of Enchantments are not really applicable due to the complex structure of the target. Where one might swing a sword to throw a fireball from its tip, a very convoluted Enchantment is necessary to allow an Enchanted person to cast one from their fingertips, especially when casting regular magic in the first place is a far easier prospect.

Successful living Enchantments are one of the only ways for mortals to create new races. Such Enchantments are designed to influence anatomy or physiology as opposed to traditional macro-scale effects.


Elemental Enchantments are also possible. For an elemental Enchantment to work, the object must have access to elemental power. This can be done by the Enchantment gathering it from the surroundings (if it is designed to do so. This method most often uses wind), having elemental power stored in it (either manually or being crafted from a reagent), or otherwise (such as granted by an elemental).



Summary:

Enchantments are spells coupled with a mana pool that are impressed upon a target. The impressed mana feedbacks with the present inherent mana of the target initially and continues to do so over time as it recycles. After a duration of time is spent (a week plus, dependent upon complexity), the impressed spell and remaining mana become attuned to the target and become a part of its inherent mana, giving it a sense of permanence. Once an enchantment is activated, the spell uses mana (usually part of the inherent pool) and produces an effect. If inherent mana was used, it will linger for some time uncontrolled until it recycles and refills the inherent pool of mana the target has.

The process of enchanting makes the process of re-enchanting very difficult due to the initial feedback involved.

It is possible to enchant living beings, though very difficult and little successful research has been done.

Elemental enchantments are possible with some source of elemental power.




Note: This system uses the inherent mana system (everything is composed of mana, which is also attuned to specific objects, and if used will attempt to return to whatever it is attuned to. Using inherent mana of an object produces low margins of feedback).






Previous System:

Enchantments are spells of great inherent power that are tied to an object or person. An enchantment must overcome the inherent mana or life force of the target, a very difficult feat that becomes many times easier if the target itself is either willing or comfortable in the caster’s presence. Enchantments vary in power, and many are not permanent. Permanent enchantments require great sacrifice, usually a life or lives, in order for the spell’s mana to stay structured long enough to become an inherent part of the object or person. Permanent enchantments are VERY rare due to the cost that must be paid. Temporary enchantments are far more common and are a large export for the Conclave and guilds. These enchantments usually last for perhaps only a year or two before weakening to a state that the spell unravels, forcing re-enchantment or new enchantments and continued business.

So a staff or a wand might be enchanted to make using mana easier?

Now would the cost of a permanent enchantment be less if say...more mages participated in it...

Like a circle of sort all bent towards one goal...

Just for clarity's sake...

@Crom: Uhh... No, I can't imagine that that'd be the case, at least in those terms. Maybe it can cast a spell, or it can cast part of a spell that the mage can then manipulate, or something like that.

@MN: Absolutely, and I'd imagine that if there were a huge amount that could all organize themselves and align to the task at hand that there probably wouldn't be too much cost. The difficulty of doing that, though, especially in the case of getting everyone to mentally be in sync, gets exponentially more difficult.

Makes sense. Sounds good.

EDIT: This sort of destroys the need for the lore behind Tuv's miner village though.

How so Crom?

I think he means something along the lines of: "All that lore was put there to justify them being able to do that, but with this here, they could just use cheap and inexpensive magic."

Though IIRC that entire thing was thrown out the last time we discussed how elementals worked, and their relations with magic. The idea was to be able to perform enchantment requiring no magic whatsoever. Just elementals wanting to spread their influence through a neutral medium that they could all access if given the opportunity.

This resulted is "pseudo-magical" things like flaming swords, armor that leaks fluids, or just something being unusually strong (Metal), that manages to be nearly entirely permanant, as opposed to enchantment. This also has the effect of only one person needing to be at risk in the creation, as opposed to a giant ring of spellcasters just asking for a squirrel to distract one, and enact horrific mana based mind-rape/twisted smouldering husks of previous mages, because of the massive discharge that would be involved in something like that happening.

Exactly what I was thinking. But then again Tuv your stuff is permanent isn't it? I think there would still be people willing to pay for permanent "enchantment".

It does wear out, but is definately more permanant than magical means to accomplish the same thing, and it costs a pretty penny because of it. Harder to do, more work involved, requires a material only found in one place, and very hard to get exactly what you want, but also less chance of going catastrophically bad, less danger in general, and more long lasting.

A town manages to live off selling this stuff, at about a full-suit's worth of completed product per 6 months or so.

Revamped.

Alright. I believe I understand what the first paragraph meant for elemental magic of inanimate but for clarities sake would you compound that to a few sentencesin laymans terms?

This part I am very interested in because it has a warrant in there for what another large part of the lore. Firstly, I'm uncomfortable with using the language "only way" for creating other races. Primarily because it is an extremely limiting term. Secondly, I'd like to clarify to what extent enchanment needs to be done to change physiology and how that would be done considering Kelly's character is very human and yet enchanted extensively. Thirdy, if we accept this part it will mean rectonning of both the Orhal and the Mortii which were accepted previously.

So you also want a quick summary for a tl;dr version? I wrote all of that so it would be more transparent. I also included a lot of "usually"s and "often"s to be less limiting.

The thing about creating other races makes sense. I was pretty sure that both the Orhal and Mortii were enchanted to begin with. The Kailzim certainly are. The enchantments didn't have to be permanent, just warp them enough and long enough to cause future generations to be affected. How else would humanity be able to create other races? Bioengineering isn't exactly a practiced field. Influence from Gods, especially the Life/Death and Elder Gods, is still able to create new races. It's just impossible for mortals to do it unless they magically alter a species already in existence. Or, do you mean that other methods of magic, not just enchantment, would be able to do it?

Kelly's character uses Runic Tattoos. They are similar to enchantments, but are not really enchantments.

Enchantments can cause physiological change by having a spell that makes small magical effects that just... change how things work in a living being. It makes sense if you think about it, sort of like an archaic form of bioengineering, except it's done over the lifespan rather than at/before birth.

If an enchantment is not designed to influence anatomy and/or physiology, then it won't.

Admin wrote:So you also want a quick summary for a tl;dr version? I wrote all of that so it would be more transparent. I also included a lot of "usually"s and "often"s to be less limiting.

The thing about creating other races makes sense. I was pretty sure that both the Orhal and Mortii were enchanted to begin with. The Kailzim certainly are. The enchantments didn't have to be permanent, just warp them enough and long enough to cause future generations to be affected. How else would humanity be able to create other races? Bioengineering isn't exactly a practiced field. Influence from Gods, especially the Life/Death and Elder Gods, is still able to create new races. It's just impossible for mortals to do it unless they magically alter a species already in existence. Or, do you mean that other methods of magic, not just enchantment, would be able to do it?

Kelly's character uses Runic Tattoos. They are similar to enchantments, but are not really enchantments.

Enchantments can cause physiological change by having a spell that makes small magical effects that just... change how things work in a living being. It makes sense if you think about it, sort of like an archaic form of bioengineering, except it's done over the lifespan rather than at/before birth.

If an enchantment is not designed to influence anatomy and/or physiology, then it won't.

Yes. I appreciate the long descriptions but I also like layman talk at the end to ensure I got all the highlights.

What differentiates putting runes on something and enchanting something?

The Orhal were created using alchemy. Mortii are basically AIDS in the form of a parasite.

Okay, I'll make a tl;dr at some point.

Putting runes on something is similar having something that is already enchanted (the rune) and putting it on the target. The runes don't work with just themselves, they work with whatever they are applied to. Enchantments instead directly affect whatever they are applied to.

I guess I haven't really thought about it (we need one of the dubbed 'rune fetish brothers' here), but that description seems to sum runes up anyway. Perhaps the systems are pretty much the same. The only notable difference I can think of is that you can put runes on anything (including humans), but enchanting a human directly is more difficult.
Guess it's like a way to get past all of the loopholes of directly enchanting anything. However, it's a lot more expensive (in addition to enchanting, you have to worry about materials and application and whatnot), and when considering the trade goods that guilds and the Conclave put out, enchanting is still widely practiced, probably more so than rune application.

Yeah, those make sense. I'll just change the wording to say "one of the only ways".

Perhaps enchanting should be made more unique and operate stricly biological while runes could apply to both? We put so much thought into the science behind these magics that I want to ensure that the results of each type of magic is unique.

Making it operate strictly biologically would pretty much eliminate it from practice, though. This current system for Enchantments would simply become the rules for Runic Magic with slight edits and then must be completely rewritten.

I don't think anything is wrong with saying that runes are an extension of enchantment with trade-offs.