Acupuncture is based on the theory that there are energy meridians running through the body which can be blocked; we aren't the first to think that deliberately blocking them would make for an interesting offense. The whole idea of Dim Mak is based on touching pressure points to cause blockages leading to paralysis, internal injury, and death, and the idea of a pressure point strike runs through a great many depictions of martial arts. It isn't necessarily realistic, but that isn't necessarily a problem.

As a matter of style, the blockage would more likely be caused by precise strikes - jabs, fingerstrikes, or darts, and the like. Some buffs might be given by inserting needles into a willing and prone patient, I suppose.



The Ae language, as I understand the proposal isn't about sound. It is the proposition that some words do not merely reflect reality, they are reality. Written, spoken, thought - however used, what is described in Ae is inherently true. What we perceive as reality adjusts to suit. This absolutely could include golems, whether by inscribing the words on the forehead or placing a scroll within them. Write "truth", or "live", or "Dynara" on a golem's forehead, and watch it come to life - erase a letter, and it never lived. Say "I am on fire", and you are, and should sip frost. It isn't about whether the target hears the words - it is about how the target is redefined by the words.

I would be glad to hear from Bards on this, but my present understanding is that the Songs of Creation are about resonance - if you know the right frequencies, a very little energy can produce a remarkable effect, and each stanza or effect is a matter of evoking the right sequence of sounds to bring parts of the target's mind, body, and surrounding aether to a point of simultaneous excitation along the several desired frequencies so that the combination produces the desired effect. It would at least explain why most skills require the target to not be deaf (one cannot make the mind resonate to what it does not hear) while some (blanknote) merely require physical presence. Similarly, the selective interference of captivation might be explained by the fact that a given object may have several resonant frequencies, which may interfere destructively with each other or may not. Then again, who knows? Ask one of the Voices, I suppose.

Fixed your typo.

I would love this for druids/mages, for example you could have an embed/infuse type skill where you use words on sections of your meld. If Golems were a part of this you could have different ones living trees/ice/stone for flavour.

It would have to be mages or guardians only, as it is very much a highmagic idea.

Then boo Mages already have a secondary skillset unique to them.

Bards can take HighMagic as well.

Though I disagree with my tiny bit of evidence

Saplings
You press your hand upon the forest floor and sing a small word of creation. Slowly, a birch sapling pushes upwards out of the soil and sways gently towards you.


though that might not be the same thing as Ae technically

@Saran - The lowmagic ideas up right now are some combination of Shamarah's aetheric barbs, poppetry, loa-calling, and hostile acupressure.

The sapling flavor may or may not be Ae. Ample room to clarily that it involves a word of creation (as distinct from a Word of Creation), but ample room to incorporate it, too.

Also, if you write the word "Dylara" on the head of a golem, you may be on the road to committing alienation of affection by proxy and are in any case inviting the wrath of Dylara and Gelo.

@Daganev The Gematria would be available to Commune Bards and... pretty much anyone in a city, if the only requirement is highmagic. Wouldn't it be open to Commune Warriors, too? The help files have lowmagic as a requirement for nature, but not for totems.

@Arel Will no one think of the Bards? For obvious reasons?

Hmm perhaps use some of the existing totem spirits and/or introduce some new ones.
Met tet would be really awesome if it revolved around the race of the character using it. A historical character (new or no) or perhaps our met tet could be Ellindel/Glinshari/etc?


Maybe something focusing on things like:
-The creation of a small hounfour or altar and poteau-mitan. (can be destroyed)
-Learning of the totem spirits, the knowledge doesn't give anything unless combined with different skills.
-The creation of a Veve at the players hounfour. Could be "scuffed" to destroy it.
-the collection of things to enhance a sympathetic bond with a target.
-A ritual to summon spirits inside the hounfour, the spirit could be beseeched for a favour. For example someone might beseech the great spirit of the cat to increase the bleeding they cause.
-An ability to beseech these spirits to curse their enemies. These would require objects for a sympathetic bond on the target. The curse would result in an object that could be destroyed with some simple action hinted at in the description. Not too sure but perhaps the curse would last until the object was destroyed and the object would last for a few hours. Curses probably wouldn't be able to stack though.
-Retribution. if you or a person in the room have been cursed by someone you can beseech a spirit to avenge you/them cursing the person until the object of the curse is destroyed (So they can either maintain it and suffer or end it)
-Mojo bags. The creation of mojo bags, offering lesser versions of the favours mentioned above

So you learn how to create the veve for various spirits, then you summon them inside the hounfour. Perhaps with a cap on how many curses/mojo bags/favours you can have at any one time, if you have too many the spirits start striking out at you. Your hounfour is dedicated to your met tet, so a Hartstone would dedicate it to Glinshari where as a blacktalon would take Grutina. It definately needs ironing out but how does it look so far?

In addition to what Vaerhon said, we won't be carefully inserting those aetheric needles. We'll be viciously jabbing them in, perhaps twisting them for good measure.


I doubt that it can be written, as there seems to be very subtle nuances to it's pronounciation that affects the meaning of the word.

From "Ae for the intellectually impaired":
Consider if you will, the word 'quillifur' from the sacrosanct language
of Ae. Just on its own, without context this word already has a large
multitude of meanings depending on both its gross pronunciation and
minute intricacies I am not sure the mortal ear is capable of noticing.
For example, pronouncing the word as 'k-why-lie-fuhr' would bestow upon
it the meaning 'paradox' however, pronouncing it as 'k-why-lee-fuhr'
would bestow upon it the meaning 'contradiction'. While this is
undoubtedly difficult to comprehend, let us look instead at the
pronunciation 'kee-ill-lee-for' which would bestow upon the word the
meaning of 'one who would exert oneself to the point of exhaustion for
power'. When these words are placed within the context of a sentence the
other words stated in said sentence would alter the meaning of the word
not only depending on the word they are changing but also on how they
are pronounced themselves which is altered largely by the order in which
the words are presented.

And Ae is difinately much more different than the Songs of Creation. In Ae, the words, pronounciation, order of words and context all matter greatly, whereas for the Songs, it does not matter what you sing, so long as that stanza is imbued, it has that effect.

Bolanism

Restrict
Restrict (limb) (person) with (bolo)
- loss of the use of (limb) until the target writhes free of the ropes.
Whip your bolo out to tie up an enemies arm or leg

Throttle
Throttle (person) with (bolo)
-small, continous, damage until writhed free.
Slipping the cord around thier neck you can choke your enemies with your bolo.

Trip
Watch (person)
-chance of knocking a person down as they try to leave the room.
Slinging your bolo cord out, snag your enemies as they try to run.

Flick
Flick (bolo) at (person)
- slight blunt damage, to head. Stunning.
Flicking the bolo gracefully into the air, you can hit your enemies
in the head with a wooden orb.



Oh, and a Trans-like skill just for fun

Guillotine
Guillotine (person) with (bolo)
- Must be under 1/3 health, and restricted
- High, continous damage until writhe. Causes bleeding.
Slipping the rope of your bolo around your target's neck
you can pull it tight to try and break the spine.




~Bolotastic!

If they are at 1/3rd health.. high continuous damage isnt even as needed.. plus 1/3rd is a rather low number.. by 40-50% sparkle and healing scrolls should kick on or they would go for the defense.

Hey its a suggestion that took 10 mintues to write, (entire thing) if it needs a few tweaks... well, people can help me work them out!

#Edit#

Adding in a few more afflictionish ones...

Chainball
Sweep (bolo) at (person)
-Can cause : Dizziness, Clumsiness, or Stupidity
A swift smack to the back of the head, can can some mental problems

Rolling
Roll (bolo)
- hits all enemied people, knocks down.
Rolling the ball quickly along the ground, the atttached chain trips people
up by hitting them hard in the shins.

Spin
Spin (bolo)
- Adds 5% damage to flick for every second. Full body 10% parrying.
Spinning the bolo quickly in your hands, you can built up enough momentum to
block even the swing of a sword

Firstly, it's a bolas, not a bolo. Secondly, there is no such thing as bolanism. Thirdly, the abilities could use some tweaking to it. Fourthly, I'm not quite sure that warriors need another specialisation. Fifthly (is there even such a word?), I like the concept.

Some extra stuff-

Ti bon- This reminds me of souls and dreambodies, moreso the later. Perhaps some abilities to hinder, harm, aid or bind them.

Druids tangent - Druids could perform a ritual at their hounfour that would allow them to call a spirit to walk within their meld granting it's bonuses to the Druids allies and lashing out at their enemies.

So many of these ideas seem like primary skillsets that would have a guild associated with them. So much offense in them. Offense in the secondary skillsets we have now is very limited: a few things in Riding, Lowmagic, Highmagic, and Combat, maybe six or seven skills total. Mostly it's defense, healing, and utility. A new skillset open to everyone that has more than a little generally-applicable offense seems like a bad idea to me, in terms of balance at very least.

The thing about loa spirits is that they're supposed to be intermediaries to a distant god. Estarra is rather distant to the Basin, so she fits the bill rather nicely. However, why would Estarra listen to these Ancient Spirits or Dark Druids as compared to other beings? What would make her decide to give boons or benefits to only specific shards?

Disclaimer: My source of information about loa spirits is Wikipedia.

However in Lusternia these spirits could just be powerful people from the past that we call on for aid rather than being an intermediary *shrug*. Though I'm not quite sure if the loa spirits are just intermediaries or have some power of their own.

If you did take the totem spirits route you probably wouldn't summon say... Mother Moon, but you might call on some lesser reflection which seems to be similar to the loa and the distant god. (sidenote: If the White Hart, Raven, Moon and Night were able to be called it would be so cool if they lashed out at you for being an enemy to their respective *spirit.)

Not for warriors, people in general... It was the first idea I came up with.
And Bolanism was just random, too.

lets see... more afflicty-defensive things...

ChainParry
Parry (bodypart)(amount)
-Parrying
Parry blows with your bola. (thanks for correcting me on that)

Censer
Censer (bola)
-Regenerate mana and willpower at the cost of endurance.
Releasing medative incense from your bola, sharpens your mind.

Drag
Drag (person) with (bola)
-Forced following
Wrapping your bola around an extremity, pull people
out of the room with you.

I like the bola idea. specially for bards. Persoally, I like it better than Daggers. (though in the future I can forsee warriors using Daggers, with a bola secondary skill as well, and a replacement to athletics)

Aye, Ae based Gematria would be for anybody with highmagic. So, Mages, Guardians, Warriors, and Bards.

Gemaetria, should also have a strong connection to the bookbinding skillset, giving fusion skills such as.

Dictionary: Turn your magical tome into a Ae lexicon, giving the tome cool new utility abilities.