I played around with the idea of a new skillset while sitting in my manse, playing with my goto alias (pretty much instant travel to any room, GOTO ) that Sierus made me, when I thought, "What if we took this further?"

Thus, I created the Lusternian Idea Development, a group of elite people who's goal was to develop complete skillsets, new races, etc, and submit them to the gods. So many partial (and bad, sometimes) ideas come across these forums that I wanted a place to get away from that.

The LID forums was a flop, sadly, and my goal of submitting an entire skillset to Estarra has not been completed. At this point, I thought I would just throw out the ideas to all of you, because I haven't really been frequenting my own forum lately.

This skillset is Aethercrafting. Some of you think that it is unnessecary, and it really is, but it adds a nice extra flavour to the game. It means more money for IRE, more fun for us, and extra possibilities. Some of these ideas you may consider good or bad, and if you do, please list why, and perhaps an alternative. Truly, I would like the Divine to consider something like this, but right now, I suppose it's just my idea I've been throwing around for a while.

The skillsets are not in order, and I didn't get to make it all shiny (I was going to make it look like a real AB and AB file), and I was in the middle of some ideas, but you'll all get the general idea.

Here it is:




***AETHERCRAFT***

EJECTION
Syntax: MANSE EJECT
AB message: Remove those pesky people from your manse.
This skill forcefully removes someone from your manse. They have to be one of your enemies, and it has a three second countdown when you use it. If the target has not left the room after that time, they are removed to the aetherplex on the peak.
Note: I've always wanted something like this, it kicks out the nasty buggers. Manses aren't really supposed to be combat zones anyway, so this removes the offending party, but it's not really harmful to them.

FAITH
Syntax: ERECT SHRINE(if you have the order skill)
AB message: Your skill will allow you to erect a shrine... if your faith is strong.
Your faith with your god and skill in aethercrafting have grown strong, and you are now able to erect a shrine to your god. However, you will only be able to offer, and normal order privs will not work here.
Note: Shrines in manses, pretty simple. Note that you yourself must erect the shrine, as no one else has enough of a connection with your manse to do so. Pretty much, this is limited to looking neat and being able to offer. Also, it was suggested it be called an altar to distinguish between it and a normal shrine.

FULCRUX
Syntax: MANSE GOTO FULCRUX
AB message: Instantly travel to your fulcrux
Instantly moves you to your fulcrux, must possess balance and equilibrium.
Note: This may sound overpowered, but you can already do this, for 200 gold, by creating an exit, moving through it, and closing it.

TRANSPORT
Syntax: MANSE GOTO
AB message: Instantly travel to any manse room
Instantly moves you to your fulcrux, must possess balance and equilibrium.
Note: This may sound overpowered, but you can already do this, for 200 gold, by creating an exit, moving through it, and closing it. Also, this skill would be higher than FULCRUX.

EXITCOST
AB message: Cutting costs on manse production.
Cuts the cost of creating and destroying exits in half.
Note: Simply cuts the cost of exits.

ROOMNUMBERS
AB message: View room numbers at the end of a title.
When you're in a room and look or ql, you, and only you, will see the room's actual name on the end of it. How useful!
Note: While you can do MANSE ROOM LIST , it'd be nice to see which room you're currently in, without checking it. Especially if you have 80 rooms...

ITEMLIST
Syntax: MANSE ITEMLIST STATUES/PAINTINGS/FURNITURE/EMBEDDED
AB message: Shows a list of statues, paintings, furniture or embedded items in your manse.
Lets you see a list of each statue, painting, piece of furniture, or embedded item in your manse, and how many months are left.
Note: This is an incredibly useful skill, because who runs around and checks decay dates on -everything-, especially if you've added things at different dates.

MONOLITH
Syntax: MANSE CREATE MONOLITH
AB message: Create a stationary item able to hold magic runes.
Power: 3
You are now able to create a magic monolith, capable of holding runes. You may attune this to or against people or organizations, just like totems and statues.
Note: Passive manse defence is good. Monoliths, unlike statues, cannot be deconstructed, so no having your manse (and your hard work) broken down while you're offline.
Monolith description: An onyx monolith is here, glowing with a gentle golden hue.

CRASH
Syntax: MANSE CRASH into /MANSE DISCONNECT
AB message: Crash a manse bubble into another!
Power: 10
This skill allows you to make a room exit into someone else's manse. That person must be standing in the room you two wish to connect, and they must AGREE to it.
Note: Essentially this is just creating a normal exit, but it's to someone else's manse. Manses are aether bubbles, and can be linked up like a normal bubble. Costs 2000 mana. Fulcrux permissions that you have will apply when someone enters into your manse, and their permissions apply when you enter their manse. You may link as many times as you want (this isn't advised, but nor is making room exits willy-nilly anyway, so it's -possible-). The first link to a manse will show a game emote of, "A thunderous crash resounds throughout the planes, and then quickly subsides." Everyone standing inside either manse will be thrown to the ground and made prone with a message of, "The manse suddenly shudders, as if something massive has struck the aether bubble." You can disconnect the exit for no power, but the 2000 mana cost still applies, you also do not need another person to do this.

ROOMCOST
AB message: Cutting costs on room titles and descriptions.
Cuts the cost of making room descriptions and titles in half.
Note: Pretty self-explanatory, 2000gp every time you want to edit a room kind of irritates me.

EDIT
Syntax: MANSE
AB message: Lets you aethercraft in an allied manse.
You are now able to edit an allied manse. Though you cannot move rooms around, you are able to chance room descriptions and titles, and your EXITCOST and ROOMCOST discounts apply.
Note: This skill is great for people that want to use someone else's discount, or if they're just not good at making room descriptions, they can have someone else do them. A new command would have to be added in the normal MANSE commands, which would be MANSE ALLY or MANSE UNALLY . Essentially, it would just give them editing permissions for rooms if they had the skill.

SAMPLES
Syntax: SAMPLE
AB message: Sample an area for use in your manse.
Using an empty vial, you can take a sample of:
Water, from any water location
Earth, from the earth plane
Forest, from any natural forest location
Wyrd, from any wyrden forest location
Fire, from any volcanic location
Wind, from any "flying" location
Note: This lets you use the skills following this one. It should be gained at the same level as the first manse environment skill. The places where you get the samples might need to be changed a bit, and if there are no current volcanic areas (I'm not aware of any), we might need to add a room or two near Gaudiguch so that one may sample from it.

WATER
Syntax: MANSE CREATE WATER
Ab message: Add water to a room.
Power: 5
Using your powers of aether manipulation, you can change the contents of the room to include water. This will not actually change the terrain type, but it will function as if you were in a water environment. You must have one water sample. You may MANSE REMOVE TERRAIN at any time to remove this effect.
Note: This solves the problem of terrains in aetherspace, they would function somewhat like a demesne, with the effects affecting things like racial regeneration (i.e. Dracnari in volcanic) but the terrain would stay aether.
Room message: The area has been filled with sparkling clear water.

EARTH
Syntax: MANSE CREATE EARTH
Ab message: Add tainted earth to a room.
Power: 5
Using your powers of aether manipulation, you can change the contents of the room to include tainted earth. This will not actually change the terrain type, but it will function as if you were in a tainted earth environment. You must have one earth sample. You may MANSE REMOVE TERRAIN at any time to remove this effect.
Note: Same notes as water.
Message: The ground here is covered in blackened soil.

FOREST
Syntax: MANSE CREATE FOREST
Ab message: Add forest to a room.
Power: 5
Using your powers of aether manipulation, you can change the contents of the room to include a forest. This will not actually change the terrain type, but it will function as if you were in a natural forest environment. You must have one forest sample. You may MANSE REMOVE TERRAIN at any time to remove this effect.
Note: Same notes as water.
Message: A lush green forest has been planted here within the aetherspace.

WYRD
Syntax: MANSE CREATE WYRD
Ab message: Add wyrded forest to a room.
Power: 5
Using your powers of aether manipulation, you can change the contents of the room to include a wyrded forest. This will not actually change the terrain type, but it will function as if you were in a wyrded forest environment. You must have one wyrded forest sample. You may MANSE REMOVE TERRAIN at any time to remove this effect.
Note: Same notes as water.
Message: A wyrden forest stands here, tall and ominous.

FIRE
Syntax: MANSE CREATE FIRE
Ab message: Add fire and ash to a room.
Power: 5
Using your powers of aether manipulation, you can change the contents of the room to be volcanic. This will not actually change the terrain type, but it will function as if you were in a volcanic environment. You must have one volcanic sample. You may MANSE REMOVE TERRAIN at any time to remove this effect.
Note: Same notes as water.
Message: Fire and ash cloud the area.

WIND
Syntax: MANSE CREATE WIND
Ab message: Add strong wind to a room.
Power: 5
Using your powers of aether manipulation, you can change the contents of the room to be extra windy. This will not actually change the terrain type, but it will function as if you were in a windy environment. You must have one wind sample. You may MANSE REMOVE TERRAIN at any time to remove this effect.
Note: Same notes as water.
Message: It is unnaturally windy here.

EMBED
Syntax: MANSE EMBED /MANSE REMOVE /MANSE EMBEDDED
AB message: Shift aetherspace to store items.
With this skill, you can warp aetherspace around an item to store it. You can remove the item at any time with MANSE REMOVE, and you can view items in a room with MANSE EMBEDDED.
Note: I always thought this was neat, as I RP pulling things out of aetherspace. Items that are embedded would count as dropped, so you can actually have sigils there and hidden.

MANSESIGHT
AB message: Percieve what is hidden at an aetherplex.
You can now see manses that would normally be hidden from you at that atherplex, though you still cannot enter them. These manses are highlighted in red. Alternatively, you can MANSE MANSESIGHT to see which portal rooms it is connected to.
Note: First part is a passive skill, let's you see every manse connected to the atherplex you're standing in. You can't enter, but it's still usefull. Second part just lets you know what's connected to what.

***OTHER***

AMBIENCE
Allows you to add ambient area emotes to a manse.
Note: This request must be mailed to artifacts@lusternia.com (like pet reactions). Cost is 25cr per ambience, as they would have to approve each one. We would need this information added to HELP MANSE, and new basic manse commands would need to be added, the first of which is MANSE AMBIENCE LIST. This command would show you all possible approved ambiences in your manse. After that, you'd either do MANSE AMBIENCE ALL to add all ambiences to your manse on a random basis (good for people with small amounts of rooms/ambiences). You could also do MANSE AMBIENCE NONE to clear all choices for all rooms. If you wanted specific ones in specific rooms, you'd check the list, and do MANSE AMBIENCE <# of minutes that it cycles>. One additional command would be needed, MANSE AMBIENCE SHOW , since it would likely be cut off on the list. You must be standing in the room you want to add ambience to in order to use the command.

Example:

MANSE AMBIENCE LIST
# Ambience
* ****************************************
1 The voices of merchants loudly down the street.
2 An owl hoots gently in the night.
3 You hear the sound of flapping wings overhead, an

MANSE AMBIENCE SHOW 3
You hear the sound of flapping wings over head, and briefly, several pairs of dark wings are visible.

Note: It was suggested ambiences have an automated system, instead of having to be a mailed customization. I have not yet put thought into such a system.




So there's my ideas. Love 'em, hate 'em, comment on 'em.

That would be cool, really want the kick and the environment ones.
Edit: Or an ability, or a setting, that allows you to enemy people to the manse and they cant enter at all. If they try, or follow, they get pushed back to the Aetherplex for example.

I just use my manse clan for the enemy thing, though not everyone can drop another 500k. *shrug*

While it would be nice to have all these additions to manses, I'm not sure it would make sense to have it as a skill. Not unless manses are changed to be more interactive with the rest of the world rather than essentially what they are supposed to be - homes.

I'd love to be able to change environments (but it won't happen we're told), and get tuneable statues/totems (again, something that has long been denied), I just don't think it is worth coding a skillset for it that will probably only be fully used by about ten players.

Good ideas, just probably not going to be cost-effective. I like the concept though.

The environments have never made sense until now, really, and there's never really been a good way to suggest how to create a manse environment.

I believe my idea is the solution (from a non-coder, non-staff member viewpoint).

Perhaps, but I feel it is probably unlikely that a dearth of good RP excuses are the only reason the idea has been resisted until now.

Estarra can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think IRE ever accepts skillsets crafted by mortals as a decree from corporate. At least, that's what they always told me on Achaea for legal reasons, no idea if that holds true but just a heads up for those of you doing so.

Really cool idea, and I love every last bit of it. But it's not very high priority; if we had an unlimited supply of programmer labour I'd be asking to see this soon, but since we don't, I think it shouldn't take time away from projects that'll affect everyone, and not just the small minority that buys manses: New orgs, new guilds, new skillsets, new quests and areas.

EDIT: The Manse Eject thing should be implemented as a command, though.

I guess to clarify (and it looks like some people might ninja me here), the terrain in my idea is still aether, but the effects work as a normal environment. Previously, the administration (I think) had been against changing the actual terrain.

Psh, if you guys want any part of any idea I come up with, I'll sign something that waives my rights to use it as my own, or whatever mumbo jumbo it is.

So I'm guessing no one really liked the idea. I hoped I'd at least get page two, with all the thought I put into it...

Well, a lot of us responded to it on LID.

I still think it's silly to have as a skillset and it should just be an Orb of Aethercrafting or something, like a pseudo-orb of creation.

Hajamin... used to tell us to send him full skill sets and such, and that he'd look at them. So if this is true, it's a bit of a surprise. As you can tell from the jawdrops. (I don't think that any of the ideas were accepted as a full skillset, but some of the skills were absorbed into other skillsets)

Theres a help file which says you can submit them... I'll find it.

Is it HELP GUILDDESIGN?

I was actually going to submit this to hajamin before I showed anyone else.

This tickles the floating bits of blackness in my soul for personal reasons. Thanks for sharing.