Re: Galatea
Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 5:29 pm
Spells
Spells are sequences of symbols that have been made magical by an arcanist (or, as before, metamancer). The magic is more a property of the mage than of anything external, unlike artefacts, but that's not the whole of it.
Like with artefacts, the mage has to come up with a sufficiently precise definition of what the spell is supposed to do, but arcanists have more leeway with precision than enchanters do. When specifying the spell effect, the mage must define what a valid target for the spell is (themself, inanimate objects, other people, an area, etc), a duration, and an effect. A flight spell could be described as becoming, for a certain length of time, unaffected by the planet's gravity and being able to accelerate in any direction up to a given acceleration value through an act of will.
Then the mage must come up with a sequence of symbols that will activate the spell - this is called the spell's incantation. Symbols include gestures, poses, sounds, spoken words, written words, the use of various implements, drawings, and possibly other things I haven't thought of. A possible example is saying a sentence out loud while dancing the macarena. Once they've done that, they must mentally associate the two things in a way that is not very intuitive and very ineffable, and the spell will click and they will know how much mana it costs to cast. Thenceforth, whenever they perform the relevant actions and there is a valid target within their awareness and they have enough mana it will be cast. Thinking about the target while doing it will ensure it will be targeted, otherwise the spell will affect a random valid target.
There are two kinds of effects spells can create: instantaneous effects and extended effects. An instantaneous effect is something that happens as soon as the spell is cast and doesn't have lasting magical effects, but may have lasting nonmagical ones; for example, sending someone a telepathic message or switching one's biological sex are instantaneous effects. An extended effect is something that lasts for a given amount of time; an example is extended flight or telekinesis.
There are a number of things that affect how much a spell costs. There is always an intrinsic fundamental cost to a spell that depends on what its effect actually is - and, incidentally, when a spell mimics the effect of an elementalist blessing that cost is always superior to the blessing's. Longer extended effects cost more, flexibility in effect and/or targets costs more (spells that only target oneself are in general cheaper), shorter incantations cost more, incantations that are unrelated to the spell's effect make it cost more. The cheapest spells are ones that target the caster, are instantaneous or short length, and their incantations are full-length descriptions of their effects, possibly with embellishments and gestures.
A spell's cost is determined for an arcanist upon spell creation, and thenceforth fixed. Given the way symbols work, they take stuff like how common and/or commonly understood symbols are (this is the part that's "not the whole of it" as mentioned). Arbitrary strings of letters don't mean anything until they are used for communication. But given the tradeoffs between spell cost, incantation length, and incantation meaning, arcanists as a group have long ago developed a conlang that they use to write books, teach magic, and sometimes talk in. Every noun and verb has two versions in this language, and the syntax and grammar are very expressive, with some truly staggeringly complex concepts sometimes being reduced to a couple of words. Arcanists often bind their spells to words in that language, and from then on only use the alternative to it when speaking in that language. There is a concerted effort to keep the language alive and not allow fashions to run some words out of common use, for the good of arcanists everywhere.
In addition to all of the above, arcanists can also create scrolls - written records of their spells. The arcanist describes the actions needed to perform their spell in written form and dumps mana into the scroll. Then, other people - even nonmages - can read the scroll and perform the steps as explained, which causes the scroll to be consumed by a cool blue fire effect, and the spell is then cast. Sticking spells to scroll form costs significantly more mana than just casting them - somewhere between 1.5 and 2x their original cost - but is a fairly lucrative business, with temperature control spells, telekinesis spells, and flight spells being particularly common.
Metamancers can detach an arcanist's spell from a string of symbols, freeing it up for upgrades or things like that. They can also help arcanists actually attach spells and incantations more easily, and let incantations be upgraded by holding them still while the arcanist dumps more spell concepts into them - similarly to what they can do to help enchanters.
Spells are sequences of symbols that have been made magical by an arcanist (or, as before, metamancer). The magic is more a property of the mage than of anything external, unlike artefacts, but that's not the whole of it.
Like with artefacts, the mage has to come up with a sufficiently precise definition of what the spell is supposed to do, but arcanists have more leeway with precision than enchanters do. When specifying the spell effect, the mage must define what a valid target for the spell is (themself, inanimate objects, other people, an area, etc), a duration, and an effect. A flight spell could be described as becoming, for a certain length of time, unaffected by the planet's gravity and being able to accelerate in any direction up to a given acceleration value through an act of will.
Then the mage must come up with a sequence of symbols that will activate the spell - this is called the spell's incantation. Symbols include gestures, poses, sounds, spoken words, written words, the use of various implements, drawings, and possibly other things I haven't thought of. A possible example is saying a sentence out loud while dancing the macarena. Once they've done that, they must mentally associate the two things in a way that is not very intuitive and very ineffable, and the spell will click and they will know how much mana it costs to cast. Thenceforth, whenever they perform the relevant actions and there is a valid target within their awareness and they have enough mana it will be cast. Thinking about the target while doing it will ensure it will be targeted, otherwise the spell will affect a random valid target.
There are two kinds of effects spells can create: instantaneous effects and extended effects. An instantaneous effect is something that happens as soon as the spell is cast and doesn't have lasting magical effects, but may have lasting nonmagical ones; for example, sending someone a telepathic message or switching one's biological sex are instantaneous effects. An extended effect is something that lasts for a given amount of time; an example is extended flight or telekinesis.
There are a number of things that affect how much a spell costs. There is always an intrinsic fundamental cost to a spell that depends on what its effect actually is - and, incidentally, when a spell mimics the effect of an elementalist blessing that cost is always superior to the blessing's. Longer extended effects cost more, flexibility in effect and/or targets costs more (spells that only target oneself are in general cheaper), shorter incantations cost more, incantations that are unrelated to the spell's effect make it cost more. The cheapest spells are ones that target the caster, are instantaneous or short length, and their incantations are full-length descriptions of their effects, possibly with embellishments and gestures.
A spell's cost is determined for an arcanist upon spell creation, and thenceforth fixed. Given the way symbols work, they take stuff like how common and/or commonly understood symbols are (this is the part that's "not the whole of it" as mentioned). Arbitrary strings of letters don't mean anything until they are used for communication. But given the tradeoffs between spell cost, incantation length, and incantation meaning, arcanists as a group have long ago developed a conlang that they use to write books, teach magic, and sometimes talk in. Every noun and verb has two versions in this language, and the syntax and grammar are very expressive, with some truly staggeringly complex concepts sometimes being reduced to a couple of words. Arcanists often bind their spells to words in that language, and from then on only use the alternative to it when speaking in that language. There is a concerted effort to keep the language alive and not allow fashions to run some words out of common use, for the good of arcanists everywhere.
In addition to all of the above, arcanists can also create scrolls - written records of their spells. The arcanist describes the actions needed to perform their spell in written form and dumps mana into the scroll. Then, other people - even nonmages - can read the scroll and perform the steps as explained, which causes the scroll to be consumed by a cool blue fire effect, and the spell is then cast. Sticking spells to scroll form costs significantly more mana than just casting them - somewhere between 1.5 and 2x their original cost - but is a fairly lucrative business, with temperature control spells, telekinesis spells, and flight spells being particularly common.
Metamancers can detach an arcanist's spell from a string of symbols, freeing it up for upgrades or things like that. They can also help arcanists actually attach spells and incantations more easily, and let incantations be upgraded by holding them still while the arcanist dumps more spell concepts into them - similarly to what they can do to help enchanters.