One relevant possibility might involve the chakras, though, being unfamiliar with the other Iron Realms MUDs, I'm unsure whether this has already been incorporated into a skillset, in one form or another. As the theme dictates, abilities would be based around the manipulation of the seven energy centres to either constructive or destructive effect, the afflictions and/or cures provided dependent on the governance of each chakra - for example, it would make logical sense for the Crown Chakra to inflict stupidity on the target. That said, this is less a new idea as something which dovetails with Shamarah's earlier suggestions.

Low magic IS chakra magic.

More ideas for aetheric barbs!

Here are some effects the barbs could cause on various locations:
A barb in the leg could cause slowed movement (a la crippled limbs).
A barb in both legs could cause slowed movement and a chance to trip when moving, losing balance and falling prone.
A barb in the head could cause amnesia occasionally at a slower rate than concussion.
A barb in the chest could cause slower smoke balance.
Toxins could be delivered through a barb in the gut. (You turn the toxin into an aetheric representation of itself and siphon it through the strand of aether?)

Ripping a barb from the head could cause concussion.
Ripping a barb from the arms could cause severed nerves? Not sure, probably something better...
Ripping a barb from the legs could cause a severing of tendons!
Ripping a barb from the gut could cause heavy bleeding. Also, surging the barb in the gut several times before ripping would make the rip do even more bleeding.
Ripping a barb from the chest could expose an eighth location to barb: the soul! You yank a small piece of it out of the chest and it floats in the air for, oh, 10-20 seconds? and you could barb it and have powerful effects like aeon and some other things that I have no ideas for at the moment, or maybe you could attack it to do increased damage (like uncurable sensitivity) to the target?

If there is a barb in both legs, tugging on them would irresistably summon the target to you if they're in the next room.

Making the barb burrow could cause it to wrap around the bone, making it more difficult to take out.

If you got barbs in all four limbs (and I actually mean limbs this time), you could have them constrict around the unlucky person and cause large %-based damage to their health every few seconds.

Combo rips/surges! You could rip/surge multiple parts at once for an increased power cost or maybe at a longer eq time. Using this on multiple parts at once would have different effects:
Head/chest could cause a stroke... not sure what that would do. Periodic unconsciousness until cured with regeneration, maybe? Or maybe it could disable telepathy because there's not enough blood getting to the brain to control mental powers, or something?
Head/arms could cause the arm(s) to start twitching uncontrollably and make them unable to attack with that arm for a few seconds...
Chest/gut could rip open the ribcage!

I also like the idea of being able to strangle or choke someone with a piece of aether but I'm not sure how that would fit in.

(Also, when I re-read my post I automatically went "C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!" when I saw the "Combo rips/surges" part.)

Ok, here is my idea for gematria.

The basic concept of gematria is to find connections between things that otherwise do not have connections, basicly making two things equal. I'm going to use hebrew letters for my example, but it would probably be
better to use the letters of the divine language.

Ideally this skillset would be able to use the actual names of players to affect things. So far example, it could track the values of each player's name, or maybe just the number of letters in each player's name.

hmm, thinking about these I actually see a lot of options, many different ways to do it.

One way is to use the "methods" of gematira as skills for example:

AtBash - reversal - Back is forward, and forward is back Switch places with people on your ally list.

Reductive - Reduce things to their simplest number - Reduce the powercost of your feats to 1 power at the cost of 80% reserves.

Additive - combine the numbers of names to bring things together - a syngergy skill that makes two other things stronger.

Subtrative - find the differences between names and do that much damage to the target. Basic bashing skill, its strength dependant on the lenght of your name vs the lenght of the mob's name.

Another way is to take the meaning of the hebrew letters, like the second letter Beit also means "house" and having that do some protective skill, or Lamed means learning, and that can boost your skills until the next midnight.

Personally I didn't like the way aetolia did the number thing so I think that should be avoided.

Voodoo! Now that's a cool sounding idea. First skill would be like...crafting some small bag with some bones in it, then, around expert you get an additional thing, maybe something you can wear like an armband, and transcendent skill would be a big mask, maybe being able to write it's description yourself when creating it. Hmm, and you'd utilize the items with the skills. Like, you'd get some sort of scrying ability which you could use with the bag, maybe telling you which area someone is in, or what direction or something, flavour, prolly. Then, you would probably get the ability to speak with undead, maybe with the mask. Then, they'd be able to inflict minor curses like pacify, stupidity and crippled limbs with the armband. Add in a few skills that deal with nature, like being able to curse the target with a minor version of the nature curse, so, he getting damage every few seconds if he is in a forest. Some sort of controlling the undead ability?
Just ideas, really. I could research in real, but the Voodoo of my imagination is probably much cooler.

No Vodun plz.

Ok...could Shammy's idea please be for commune Bards/Wiccan and city Guardian's?

Well, that shows my general level of self-awareness! I've never had chance to play around with much beyond Highmagic, really. Still, Gematria sounds interesting.

Sympathetic magic - A generalisation on vodoo, gematria and a lot of different magic systems. The idea is that you craft a link between two things, and by acting on one thing, you affect the other thing (Or, make it so that by affecting one thing, other people will be in fact affecting the other, or simply give one thing the properties of another). Possible (lame) examples include linking a box to a door so you can open and close it remotely, linking yourself to a suit of armour or a stone to become more resilient, linking your enemy to a variety of objects to cause different effects.

like, bonding with the spirit of Rock to be harder to move, or with the spirit of trout t o be able to swim?

This would actually be really cool except it seems like it'd be more of a utility skillset, so maybe as a second option for another skillset that's not vital to a class's offense (illusions for mages, maybe? I've always thought they should get a choice besides illusions)

Divination

Divination allows a user to divine the forces of Fate. One can't divine for themselves, but rather divine for others. The ritual of Divination will allow a the universe to accurately predict what fate will bring.

When Divining, there is some risk. Divination can bring bonuses or penalties, since there is a random chance applied to it, with the most extreme benefits or penalties rarer occurrences. If the divined has a karma score, there is more likelihood of positive success.

For example, here's an example of a few powers:

Predict Mana: This allows you to predict if the user's personal mana will experience a surge or a lapse.

Critical Success: Total mana is tripled for 12 hours game time.
Major Success: Total mana is doubled for 4 hours game time.
Success: Total mana is increased +50% for 2 hours.
Minor Success: Total mana is increased +25% for 2 hours.
Minor Failure: Total mana is decrease -25% for 2 hours.
Failure: Total mana is decreased -50% for 2 hours.
Major Failure: Total mana is decreased -75% for 4 hours.
Critical Failure: Mana is decreased -90% for 12 hours.

Predict Combat Luck against specific opponent: Determine how lucky one will be in the upcoming battles. Adds a bonus or combat against a targeted opponent, with failure having the effect on the intended opponent. Lasts until the next combat with that victim, you can only have one of these at a time.

Critical Success: +50% probability to hit, +15% chance for critical
Major Success: +35% probability to hit, +10% chance for critical
Success: +25% probability to hit, +5% chance for critical
Minor Success: +10% prob to hit, no critical
Minor Failure: Opponent +10% prob to hit, no critical
Failure: Opponent +25% probability to hit, +5% chance for critical
Major Failure: Opponent +35% probability to hit, +10% chance for critical
Critical Failure: Opponent +50% probability to hit, +15% chance for critical

Predict Pattern of the Weave: See if the fates like or hate you for the next 2 hours of play time.

Critical Success: An instant resurrection, stacks with all other bonuses (So if you have Lich and Vitae, this counts before them), Protective Fate Aura instantly negates the next 5 afflictions, subtracts 35% of all damage
Major Success: Protective Fate Aura instantly negates the next 3 afflictions, subtracts 25% of all damage.
Success: Protective Fate Aura instantly negates the next 3 afflictions
Minor Success: Protective Fate Aura instantly negates the next affliction.
Minor Failure: Negative fate aura causes next defense to fail when it would otherwise normally negate an attack. (So if you had a rebound aura up and someone attacked, the rebound aura would automatically fail.
Failure: Negative fate aura causes next 3 defenses to fail when it would otherwise normally negate an attack.
Major Failure: Negative fate aura causes next 3 defenses to fail when it would otherwise normally negate an attack, all opponents attacks do 25% more damage.
Critical Failure: Gain a Random Karma Curse that can't be negated, Negative fate aura causes next 5 defenses to fail when it would otherwise normally negate an attack, all opponents attacks do 25% more damage.

Predict Personal Strength: Determine if you get a burst of speed or weakness for the next few hours of playing time:

Critical Success: +6 to STR
Major Success: +3 to STR
Success: +2 to STR
Minor Success: +1 to STR
Minor Failure: -1 to STR
Failure: -2 to STR
Major Failure: -3 to STR
Critical Failure: -6 to STR


The Probability Curve could be the following:

Critical Success: 5%
Major Success: 10%
Success: 15%
Minor Success: 20%
Minor Failure: 20%
Failure: 15%
Major Failure: 10%
Critical Failure: 5%

And then, Add the following to the score: +(((Karma / 10) - 5) x 2)%

Thus at 50%, no bonus.
At 100% Karma, 10% bonus to the roll.
At 0%, Karma -10% penalty to the roll
At 35 Karma, -3%
At 80 Karma, +6%

RL Voodoo is insanely awesome. I like Ash's idea, but make the trans skill "Zombification." It's the instakill, and when it hits, the person dies and becomes a zombie, which the voodoo user could control. You could have an unlimited number of zombies, but they disintegrate after X minutes (this isn't 100% real voodoo, because real voodoo zombies are made by having the victim drink a potion, and the victim "dies." It's supposed to be reserved as a punishment).

Also, I *love* the idea of voodoo dolls, but I do *not* want the implementation of Achaea. Basically, dolls shouldn't be the basis of the skill, but rather they could be like the hound of Tracking, Angel/Demon of Guardians, etc. It would work in the same general way, but it wouldn't take 50 fashions to do something. Take 1 for most minor afflictions, two for the heavier. No instakills, and have the fashions wear off after X minutes. Also, wearing a mask/helm would obscure them from getting the correct fashion, which could make their doll affect a random person for hilarity (abusable, but it'd be freaking hilarious). Voodoo users could have some kind of def that lets them see through the helm for 2 or 3 fashions: enough to do a heavy and a light affliction.

Voodoo is an immensely awesome skill that, if implemented correctly, would utterly propel Lusternia into the top spots, or so I think.

New view on beastmasters.

Basically a mix between fae and Hexes, however i think the functional differences are enough to be interesting.

You can summon beasts to yourside, and on your command (i.e. its active not passive affects) the beast can go out and do thier attack. Each attack has its own "completion" time, and during that phase, attacks to the person hit the animal instead. So for example, I send out my hawk to knock you off balance plus damage, and while the attack is happening, if you swing at me, the hawk deflects some of the damage, or if you throw a stupidity hex at me, it hits the hawk instead. Each animal has a balance time to go again, and the period in which they "protect" you is shorter than your balance recovery. so perhaps, it takes .7 seconds for the hawk attack to happen, and then 1.5 seconds to gain recovery from it. During the first .7 seconds, attacks comming at you are deflected, but between the .7 seconds of the attack, and the 1.5 seconds of balance recovery you are completely open.

Yeah, alone for Voodoo, Ash would prolly switch. And I purposely avoided the puppet stuff, since a few other games have it already.
Okay, so, basically, as I see it, Voodoousers would decide not to serve the Totemanimals by "loaning" out their bodies to them, but by giving them some sort of physical link into the World, so...basically, I thought something like this.
Basically, I think this skill would be more fit for the druids, so..they would not get their specrace nor their additional demesneeffects in Druidry, at least not at first. Some of the skills also have different effects, depending on the type of power used.

Inept:
Bonebag or somesuch Well, 1 power, some corpse. Might be decorated differently for each commune.
Some skills for bonebag, like scry, maybe timeslip, some utilityskills


Gifted:
Armband - 5 power, lasts for 30 months, could have different looks, like Crowwings in Glom, two antlers entvined in Seren.
Armbandskills, like, some sort of armbandstrike that makes a part of the armband transform into a part of an animal, for example, for Glom, it becomes a snake and lashes forward, causing dizzy, thinblood and weakness, while in Seren, it will let a wolfhowl loose, doing stupidity, confusion and amnesia
Some other cool armband skills

Zombify - Mythical 50% or something, with an alembic, you can brew a potion that, if you pour it over the corpse of someone, transforms the corpse into a zombie, maybe following your orders for a while, not able to leave the area or follow you.

Transcendent
Totemmask - Either Mask of Stag or Crow, provides the user with some Damageresistance and acts as if the Druid selected Crow or Stag after totems, so it would give them their specrace and additional skills, and would last for like...30 months, costing 10 power or somesuch.


Well, that's basically what I would like to see.

I've thought about the mask thing before, so heres what I came up with back in the day:

Masks would have two basic components - a character, or face, and an expression. The user would fashion a mask of a specific character away from battle (it would take some time to do so). Putting on and binding (needed for skills) with the mask would be instantanious, but removing a bound mask would take a deal of time as well (maybe theres a skill that allows you to quickly change masks). However, with each mask can be molded, via magic, into any of... say, 5 expressions.

I'm not sure how they would work, but I'm thinking that the face generally would be passive effects, and the expression active. The benefits of each expression change depending on the character. Characters would be based on famous people, from the histories (although not explicitly named) - for instance, the "Old Man" (what'sface from the tour) and the "Fallen King" (ladantine). Expressions would be something along the lines of: Angry (Enraged), Sad (Mournful), Happy etc. Lastly, you would be able to have a blank expression, to remove the effects of your expression.

The concept I was thinking of is that it would be a trade off. In order to receive benefits from the mask, you would have to accept drawbacks. Expressions, or the faces themselves might cause/prevent afflictions.

As a basic example, perhaps the "Fallen King" grants regeneration on tainted ground, while taking damage in non-tainted water, and some change to stats (maybe, somewhat similar to lich, while smaller scale). When the Fallen King has an angry expression, he becomes reckless, but receives a bonus to strength, damage, and can SNARL and BITE (to some decent effect).

Lastly, you would be able to craft masks of other people (most likely not taking any personality), which you could wear just for fun.

EDIT: Whee, 10 posts between when I started writing this up and when I actually posted. In addition, I like Shamarah's thing with the bad name, Clockwork/Explosives, Daganevs skill (with some work), and voodoo.

Don't forget (which I did at first), you would basically trade your skill with the most utility in for this new skill, so Wiccans would lose Totems and Moon, Guardians would lose Sacraments, Mages would lose Illusions, so they can be appropriately overpowered. (Damn, I need the ninjasmilie again)

Hmm, I do like the idea for a Barbarian secondary skillset for Warriors, but I'd also like a speed/dodgy version for them.

That way, in the end, it'd go something like....speed warrior -> normal regular warrior -> barbarian/strong warrior.

I was thinking the numerous abilities in Acrobatics would be great, but it'd be kinda lame to just give warriors the choice to pick Acrobatics, so, I'll try and think about neat abilities in addition to that.

Edit: Acrobatics, not Athletics, damn you.

Looks good to me! whats wrong with that?

Obviously there would be caps and minimums. 2,000 max, 400 minimum. And then resistances would play into affect as well.