Would you like us to rename the spheres? Would you like to give us suggestions?

Saran has the right idea. I'm just throwing random ideas out to see what people come up with, but it'd be nice if Harmonics was a little bit deeper than 'bloodstones cause bleeding because they're called bloodstones'.

I really like this idea, but I don't know how you'd come up with different effects for each method of spinning all ten crystals.



I agree; I still think it needs a little bit of help, but it's definitely not anywhere close to as bad as, for instance, release Aeromancy.

To clarify: I thought that since all of the Institute's scientific RP comes from Aeonics, I thought that we'd get some philosophical flavor from Harmonics. As is, Harmonics and Continuum bear absolutely no relation whatsoever to the Institute. You could literally delete Continuum, let us charge our own gems, and nobody would care.

The Institute is less of a "priesthood" than other guardian guilds, so they don't have that sort of philosophy per se. I strongly disagree, however, that there is "no relation" insofar that they ARE still a guardian guild and thus are tied to the plane of the Continuum. In any event, the Institute can certainly develop their own RP and philosophy based upon vibrations and structure and the Continuum of space and time and dimension. The world's your oyster!

We're not really asking for logic priests. We'd just like it if the relation between Continuum and the Institute was a little bit deeper mechanically, so we'd have something to work with. Really, the same sort of problem has cropped up with Aeonics (at least, that's the opinion I seem to get from certain Sentinels). In terms of flavour, it's awesome, but there's no mechanical support behind it, so it becomes bankrupt. Maybe if temporal rifts constantly sprung up and only Aeonics users could close them, the Sentinels would have a niche that actually works, instead of just being warriors that spam aeon.

Kind of a tangent, I guess.

Temporal rifts opening would be pretty nifty.

Oh, and maybe there could be an Honors quest where you can actually go back in time and screw with something and it changes some stuff in the present.

Quest that lets you counter-invade the Dominators.

Arithmetician?

destroy gaudiguch from across the basin, yay!

Trying to think about it. There's probably a thesaurus I could go through after sleeping post four day. I'm feeling... vaguer than usual but right now the spheres are set up (in the same order that they appear on the skill list) as stages from flux through definition and then into being.

It would have been a seriously cool thing to see, but if it's not going to be expanded on then it mainly serves to confuse and alienate. Though I would probably be waiting for a while to see wether the current titles can be salvaged because it is really interesting. (But I really don't want to talk about what I'm thinking here)



This is another reason for the confusion, why do we care?

It is one thing to say that we are a guardian guild but I really only think of continuum as a farm right now. Go up, farm gems for abilities, farm spire for power, that's it.

Again, my issue really is that I don't really seem to feel a connection that I normally feel when playing the relevant archetypes in other orgs. While the skills might be cool, it's just not the same feeling as when you are a Moondancer calling fae to you and wielding the power of the moon.

Again, for me it is not so much about the mechanical part of the skill it's just it doesn't fit as nicely to me... of course part of that could be the basic mechanic behind it though...


Would it be majorly upsetting if we retained the majority of the skill as is but replace the *gem and *stone abilities in the skill with a few longer lasting tools that we could craft. They could still be active use abilities just played through gadgets.

I would actually have to disagree.

I see Paradigmatics as being far sexier RP-wise, and game mechanics wise.

Then again, Paradigmatics is in the vein of what I've been studying for quite some time (and is a big part of some groups I'm a member of), so I'm biased.

Saran, I get the feeling that only you understand what I'm going on about. Otherwise, I'd be certain I was crazy.

Okay, maybe some changes like the following, completely thematic.

Diamond Sphere of Axiomatic Supremacy.
Diamond creates shields.
Axiomatic Supremacy literally means the primacy of logical axioms above all.
Subtext that needs to be expanded upon: impenetrable logic that is PHYSICALLY impenetrable.

If that relationship was more explicit, you've already made improvements.

Why is a resource not something worth caring/fighting over? It is in real life. People go to war over oil, over fresh water, over arable farmland... why shouldn't the Institute folks feel a need to fight to protect their crystals? Why shouldn't their enemies fight to try to deny them the power they have using those crystals?

Seems to me that this sort of thing is much more realistic for a logical, scientific people to care about than some mystical connection.

Which isn't to say that a philosophy can't be created for the spheres. But, why does it need to be mechanically driven? Why can't the players generate their own mystical/philosophical interpretation of the meaning of the spheres? Why do mechanics need to be involved at all?

Because the Institute hasn't had anything happen to it in order to make it care about Continuum. The first time the Spheres go wonky and start messing up, or they are slain and half the Harmonics skills stop working, the Institute may care. Or, they may be too busy writing papers on the physiological aspects of temporal advancement on the metadermal vibrations of crystallinne structures with the flux introductions during simultaneous transfers of fluidic masses.

How did you guess what I was going to write about?

Not really asking for mechanical changes, is the thing. If it adds flavour, it's good. This could be as simple as, for example, adding slightly more elaborate cast/attack messages, or perhaps making the ABs for Harmonics a little more descriptive.

Compare Nil:
Five distinct areas, thematically tied to five completely different beings, thematically tied primarily to the Nihilism skillset (and to a small extent, the Necromancy skillset, though the crucifix is all that really counts). Totally cohesive. If you ask: 'hmm, why can Nihilist demons shackle people', the answer is 'Nifilhema grants that power, because she lives in a torture dungeon and is obsessed with pain'. Everything is tied together.

Compare to Vortex:
Twelve smaller, less distinct areas than you'd find on Nil or Celestia. Fleshpots are all different, representing different stages of development, and reside in different Chambers. The Fleshpot, the chamber and the related skill in Transmology all tie together thematically. Lovashi is just a bubbling pool, it is the first transmogrification you get, and is in the Chamber of the Unformed. Uurulu (or however it's spelt) is the most developed fleshpot, it's in the Chamber of Unseen, and the transmogrification you get is both the last one in Transmology and relates to the chamber name (an aura, unseen).

Compare to Continuum:
Areas are organized by type of gem. Spheres are all identical except they're either beryl or turquoise or whatever, and that's the only difference in terms of everything (including, for the most part, examined desc). Spheres have titles, but nobody seems to know what the hell they mean or how they relate to anything, beyond weird speculation. Bloodstone makes you bleed because it's called a 'blood'stone. Diamonds give you a shield because they're inherently hard. There's nothing tying the sphere, the name and the gem effect together.

See the difference?

Edit: also forgot to mention, regarding Continuum. Random polyhedrons float about the plane. Nobody knows why the hell they're polyhedrons or why they're there. Same with Institute guards. They're a person with a polyhedron floating over their head. Harmonics has nothing to do with geometry at all. This is totally random and even more alienating and disconnecting for anyone who wants to find a reason to care about Continuum.

I totally disagree. Because we are mechanically limited to what we can do with our skills, and let's be honest, all but one of those skills are combat skills, as far as RP goes, Aeonics has nothing going for it. We can't actually go back/forward in time, so we (talking about Sentinels here) are actually pretty much one of the more limited guilds out there, when it comes to RP. All we have going for us is some stupid vow.

Has anyone ever thought that perhaps you're putting too much thought into the sphere names, and maybe ElostaEvenKaliNocht just picked random names when they designed them?

It's actually interesting, cause we don't know whether gems would stop working. If they remain active then our stocks could mean that we may not even feel it even if we don't really bring them back up immediately. It could be a concern but it's something we will need to see about.



It has been said, but there could be a roughly linear progression from one to the other based solely off names if this is just random it is amazing.

At the same time if they are changed they really need to be linked, this is the freaking science guild. They are always going to question what is done. I can't remember if we know why the spheres are there or any particular purpose, but that question is probably going to be asked. I could write up a theory around the current spheres titles, but if the spheres are changed so that their titles reflect their ability in harmonics that is gone as well as something that kind of ties them all together.