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glon-morski · 4 years ago

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On Noctis’ Injury And Its Effects On His Magic

A̷ ̷f̷i̷l̷l̷ ̷f̷o̷r̷ ̷t̷h̷i̷s̷ ̷k̷i̷n̷k̷m̷e̷m̷e̷,̷ ̷I̷ ̷g̷u̷e̷s̷s̷.̷.̷.̷?̷

Anyone who has played FFXV knows that as a child, Noctis suffered from an injury that rendered him unable to walk for a while – the reason for his visit to Tenebrae as a kid, and thus his first meeting with Luna shortly before Tenebrae fell. The Brotherhood anime and Kingsglaive movie expand on it a little bit, giving more information on the extent of the injury, as well as what caused it: a daemon called the Marilith. As a reminder, I mean this thing:

The injury was severe enough that Noctis remained in a coma for an unspecified amount of time (though most likely at least a couple weeks, if not a couple months) and even once he woke and recovered a bit, he was unable to walk, his legs being paralyzed (or he was literally paraplegic, meaning paralyzed from the waist down; that’s a valid possibility as well, and an even more likely one all things considered). Furthermore, it is a widely assumed headcanon (and rather heavily implied, though never actually stated in the game) that he was infected by the Starscourge through this injury. For these reasons, he was taken to Tenebrae so the Oracle may heal him, though this led to Niflheim attacking and conquering Tenebrae as a result.

Well, fine, he was healed. That’s that then. Except it’s not, according to Noctis’ character sheet in the game’s archives.

“An injury incurred as a young boy deprived him access to the full potential of his innate power”, huh?

Unless there was another ‘childhood injury’ that we don’t know about, which is unlikely, this references the Marilith. And that injury, though healed by the Oracle, apparently left marks deep enough that it affected Noctis’ ability to use his magic. But that begs the question: how exactly was he affected? No part of the game or the anime or ANYTHING gives us any real indication on that. So all we can do is speculate. That said, here are some thoughts I had on the matter.

1 – Warping

Noctis can warp. That’s obvious to anyone who played the first five seconds of the game’s gameplay or watched the first minute of the brotherhood anime. It’s one of the basic abilities he should have as a royal, of course he learned how to warp.

Here’s the thing, though: just because he can doesn’t mean it was (or still is) easy. In fact, Noctis had experienced uncommon difficulty in mastering this skill, as stated in the book/script ‘Prologue: Parting Ways’. Ignis outright says there that Noctis actually only mastered warping recently and goes as far as to speculate that his difficulty in learning might be connected to his childhood injury, which is as much of an indication that it’s the case as we can get since the characters visibly aren’t supposed to know for sure. Furthermore, if we consider Gameplay-Story-Integration – something FFXV does in spades, far more than I think I’ve ever seen any other game do – at the very beginning of the game, warping (and warp strikes in particular) is very costly in MP. In fact, unless you’re on a New Game+ (which doesn’t count), overusing warp strikes is the best way to end up in Stasis in only a few attacks, along with aerial combat which, surprise surprise, also makes Noctis warp and phase a lot to not fall down prematurely.

The effect lessens as Noct gains levels and thus more MP, but even late game you can sometimes end up in Stasis against stronger, aerial opponents if you’re not careful. That said, while the gameplay mechanic of gaining more MP as you level up is nothing new, here it could be explained in-story as well: as Noctis grows stronger because he’s fighting nearly every day and is thus forced to practice both his combat skills and his warping, he perfects the skill he had so he doesn’t need to use as much magic for it. He may have ‘mastered’ it before leaving Insomnia in the sense that he never fails to warp when he wants to, but for most of his journey he’s perfecting it so he can do it with more ease and using less of his reserves of Magic, and thus not fall into Stasis so easily.

Speaking of which…

2 – Stasis

Stasis is something akin to a ‘status ailment’, yet different. It’s what the state of having 0 MP is called. When in Stasis, Noctis can’t attack because he can’t summon his weapons and can’t avoid attacks well because he can’t phase, much less warp. He can’t use the magic flasks, either. The only thing he can do is run around but that, interestingly, only makes the Stasis last longer. In order to recover MP and thus get OUT of Stasis, he needs to stop moving entirely (and preferably hunker down behind a rock or something of that nature). Stasis only ends when he recovers all of his MP.

There’s a few things interesting about Stasis. The first, as I already mentioned above, is how to get out of it. You need to stop and cease moving entirely – which, if you’re in the middle of combat, is of course nothing short of idiotic. But then, since you can’t do anything anyway, Stasis is something you usually need to get out of ASAP if you’ve already failed to not fall into it in the first place. Finding a hiding spot and hunkering down helps as Noctis’ magic recovers faster that way. While there’s no indication how Stasis may feel to Noctis, however, there’s a widely-accepted headcanon that it is not pleasant. The fact that you have to stop and that crouching makes Noct recover faster lead to believing he might feel dizzy and maybe even nauseous or otherwise sick, that he as a character feels the need to sit or lie down when he ends up in Stasis. Which would make sense considering that, as far as we know, his Magic is and always has been a part of him, so having it deplete to zero is likely to not feel nice. It might be similar to when you’re anemic for the exact same reason: you need a certain amount blood and hemoglobin for your body to function properly. It’s not too much of a stretch to assume that it’s the same for Noctis and his magic power.

Noctis, however, is not the only character who may have to deal with Stasis if he’s not careful about his magic use. The others are the members of the Kingsglaive, as shown in the Comrades DLC. However, even at the very beginning of DLC, you have to try really hard to get the Kingsglaive character into Stasis. Like, fighting an aerial enemy and constantly warp striking it even though you have shuriken you can throw from a distance kind of try. In fact, in all the time I played Comrades, I only managed to get into Stasis ONCE and my reaction to it was ‘wait what? Stasis? HOW?!’ that’s how surprised I was that it actually happened, even though I theoretically knew it could. Furthermore, at no point in the Kingsglaive movie was Stasis ever so much as mentioned as far as I recall. So in this case, it is safe to assume that it’s either a case of Gameplay-Story-Segregation, or in case it’s not, that most Glaives only know vaguely that Stasis can happen, but rarely-to-never actually experience it. By comparison, early-game Noctis falls into Stasis nearly all the time (or he did the first time I played the game and before I learned to watch my MP and periodically point-warp, a tactic I largely dropped late-game and barely use in Comrades).

There’s one thing, though: magic is not a native ability of the Glaives. They get the ability to use magic by borrowing said magic from the king. Their bodies are not as adapted to it as Regis’ and Noctis’ would be by virtue of magic being an energy they don’t usually have access to. This is further reinforced by the fact that they have varying affinity for magic. So since the energy wasn’t theirs and their bodies were not meant to be able to use it, but do so anyway due to their connection to the king, it would make sense if there was a limit of how much magic they could borrow before something blocked them – either because the ‘sharing’ works by them having a certain stock which runs dry or because their bodies refuse to accept more magic from the king past a certain threshold, thus inducing Stasis. The same cannot be said for Noctis. He’s of royal blood. He was born with his ability to use magic. It’s part of him. It’s his magic, not someone else’s that he’s borrowing.

Furthermore, there is King Regis, who we know is weakening due to sustaining the Wall. He’s been weakened to the point that already at the time of Brotherhood, he lost access to his Arminger – not the entire arsenal, he can still summon regular weapons, but the Royal Arms no longer appear to him because he’s too weak. Yet even this weakened monarch withered by years of using the Ring of the Lucii is never so much as implied to experience Stasis, or to ever have experienced it. Even now, when he can hardly use magic in general, there’s nothing that may imply he’s close to or dealing with Stasis. His magic is there, he just cannot use it. But if Noctis’ father never experienced Stasis in all his life, then it would mean it’s weird that Noctis does, especially as easily as he does in early-game.

Unless, of course, his childhood injury and the Starscourge play a role in it. Hence why I believe they do.

3 – Elemental Magic

Another direct ability connected to his magic that Noctis has is his Elemancy and general spell-casting. And here’s where things get really interesting in my opinion. I’ll be breaking this into two separate parts, one about the obvious Elemancy from the game (i.e. making the magic flasks) and one less obvious aspect. Let’s start with the less obvious one.

3.1 – Elemental Deposits

In order to use elemental magic in the form of flasks, Noctis has to first store the energy from elemental deposits. These are strewn about all over Eos, most notably with one of each element (fire, ice, lightning) around every haven blessed by an Oracle. However, they’re also found in different locations to varying amounts. Mt. Ravatogh is littered with fire deposits and maybe a lighting here and there, but you won’t find any ice, which makes sense considering it’s a volcano. The cave behind the waterfall, aptly named Glacial Grotto, is littered with ice deposits and you’ll be hard pressed to find anything else (though there is exactly one fire and one lightning deposit). This implies that elemental magic is part of the very earth itself, which is important when you consider another thing:

Noctis is the only character who requires these depositis. Everyone else can cast spells ‘just like that’ as far as we know. The Kingsglaive? Both in the movie and in the Comrades expansion, they just do it. There’s not even so much as a mention of the deposits. Ignis, who’s implied to be the most magically adept of Noctis’ companions? His entire fighting style when you play him relies on elemental magic, and when you don’t play as him, he has elemental techniques to use via the tech bar like Sage Fire. He can do both whether or not Noct has stored any elemental energy himself, so it’s not connected to that.

Where, then, do these characters draw the magic from?

At first, one may think that they draw from the royal family. It’s how the Kingslaive’s abilities are explained in-game, after all. They can use magic because of their connection to the king, because the king gives them access to his own magic. The same goes for the Crownsguard, though to a lesser degree, as they don’t seem able to do much more than just conjure and dismiss weapons from the arsenal. Cor doesn’t warp once the few times he’s a guest member in your party and, unless I’m misremembering, none of the Crowsguard were able to warp in the Kingsglaive movie, either. Same for the Crownsguard enemies in Episode Ardyn. Outside the royal family, only the Glaives could do that.

So they draw their magic from their sovereign – King Regis in most cases, Noctis in the case of Ignis, Gladio and Prompto. Except we just talked about how Ignis’ fighting style, particularly when he’s the player character, relies heavily on elemental magic and he can use it whether or not Noctis has any elemental magic from deposits stored. This leads me to believe that using elemental spells is actually a two-fold job. Because the magic of the royal family is bound to the Crystal. But the elemental deposits can be found literally anywhere (even in cities in odd containers) and the kinds of deposits you find in certain terrain depends on that terrain, meaning the elemental energy is something that can be found in the earth… and by extension likely the sea and the air, too, it would only make sense.

So the royal family doesn’t actually have direct use of elemental magic, but their Crystal magic gives them a way to manipulate these elemental energies to form spells. This is further reinforced by the fact that when Noctis absorbs elemental energy, it is portrayed as colorful, smoke-like wisps or something. There’s no small flame or ice particles or sparks of electricity in the energy he absorbs (though they are there on the deposit before he starts siphoning it). That only comes when actual spells are cast. Which would mean it’s possible that whoever gets access to the Crystal’s magic via connection to the royal family gains an ability to manipulate those energies as well, and is thus capable of using elemental magic. Which would also explain why some people have more of an affinity for it than others because let’s be honest, that sounds like complicated, hard work.

As I said before, though: Noctis is the only character to actually use the energy deposits. So where do other characters grasp the elemental energy to manipulate it with the Crystal’s magic to create spells? The answer is simple: everything around them. The earth. The water. The very air. They can draw that energy from those places and manipulate it to form spells. And Noctis should be able to do the same. Yet he seems to require the deposits instead.

Could it be due to the fact that, for some reason, he lacks some aspect of his Crystal magic, be it fine-tuned control or something as simple as the instinct for it, that would allow him to weave these energies from the very air around him? Could it be that in order to grasp those energies and manipulate them, he requires a higher concentration of that energy? It seems to be the case. And by that logic, unless we assume he simply doesn’t have the affinity for magic, the only other possible explanation is his childhood injury.

But wait. One thing doesn’t add up. Noctis can use elemental spells in his parries, after all. Against certain enemies, when you block at the right moment and then press the attack button when prompted, an animation will start where Noctis counters, usually with magic. For instance, he can jump onto the flat side of a Red Giant’s sword, run up to it, up its chest, jump away and throw a fire spell at it. A similar counter is possible with one of the Niflheim machine enemies of the X generation (X-Angel or something along those lines, I think). And those counters, much like Ignis’ fighting style, can be executed whether or not Noctis happens to have elemental energies for Elemancy stored.

And that’s true. But there’s a few details to consider here. First, these counters are available against specific, late-game enemies. Besides which, no matter what the enemy’s weakness or resistances might be, Noctis will only ever use a fire spell in those parries, and not an overly powerful one, either. So going by Gameplay-Story-Integration again, this can be explained thus: by virtue of fighting and using magic far more often than he ever had to in Insomnia, Noctis eventually learned to draw the elemental energy from the air as well, but still not in what can be considered an effective manner. Especially since I’d consider fire to be the easiest spell to cast of the three (even if blizzard, by virtue of being connected to water, may be the one for which the energy is easiest to draw from the air in particular). Because lightning would be difficult to conjure from the air in general and blizzard, while probably having an amplitude of water energy that can be used, needs far more manipulation because you need to freeze it and stuff. By contrast, with fire, you just have to manipulate it enough that there’s a first spark and the rest is a chain reaction because the flames use the air (or rather the oxygen in the air) as fuel to burn. Furthermore, compared to blizzard and lightning spells, fire spells have far less of an area of effect. They’re more concentrated and thus safer to use for a counter without endangering one’s comrades, but that’s another matter entirely.

There’s another aspect of the deposits, too, namely that they’re the one thing in the game that Noctis’ companions never point out. If you pass a shop, they’ll talk about shopping or getting curatives. If you pass a haven, Gladio will often ask if you want to make camp. If you’re near a fishing spot, either Noctis or one of the others may comment on the opportunity to fish. But elemental deposits are never commented on by anyone. Almost as if they’re not seen. (Much like mineral deposits and places where you can pick up food, but admittedly, those really can be overseen. The same can’t really be said for elemental deposits, considering their glow and stuff.)

Which… actually would make sense if you think about it. Episode Gladio and Prompto were both in locations that should have been rich in deposits – Gladio’s by virtue of being a generally magical location and Prompto’s because it’s still relatively near to Shiva’s resting place, which should make him stumble upon ice deposits all over, especially considering that there were several of them in abandoned containers on the railway where the train Noctis, Gladio and Ignis were using was forced to stop (you know, that spot right to Shiva’s corpse’s head?). Yet in neither location is even one deposit to be found. Not even in a ‘yeah, there is one here, but obviously you can’t make use of it’ kind of way. Similarly, there were a couple deposits in containers in Altissia, but when you play Episode Ignis, there is not a single one. Finally, there were even deposit containers in the ruined Insomnia. I find it hard to believe those would have been brought there by Niflheim, so they had to have been there before Insomia’s fall and might even have been lying around for years. And yet you also don’t see a single one when you play Episode Ardyn. Ardyn who, being a Lucis Caelum, has access to the Crystal’s magic as well as far as we know. Admittedly, he never uses the elemental aspect, though. Actually, all he does use is warping and the Royal Arms during his final fight with Noct. Nothing else. Almost as if… as if he’s lost access to it. Maybe because of all the Starscourge he’s absorbed.

Much like Noctis, who had been infected with it to a lesser degree as a child and who thus has issues with using it as well.

But back to the deposits. One more interesting thing to note in the case of Insomnia is that these deposits lie literally in random spots among the rubble. With the addition of the Glaive Encampment and stuff in the Royal Edition, you would think there wouldn’t be deposits at least around the encampment, right? The Glaives might not need them, but still, why would they just leave them lying around in random spots like this? Especially if it was known Noctis makes use of them. Then it would have been even more logical to gather them in a safe place for him, if only to make sure they’re preserved for him to use whenever he comes back. So why wouldn’t they do that? Why just leave them? Why won’t Noctis’ comrades ever comment on them, even when you have nothing stored and they would usually remind you to maybe stock up like they do with everything else?

Simple: no one but Noctis can actually see/sense them.

As I said before, one of the possibilities of how elemental magic is weaved into spells from the Crystal’s magic and natural elemental energy is that it’s done instinctively. It’s not that the characters can SENSE the elemental energies and decide to use them. They just go ‘I need this spell’ and instinctively reach for the energies they need for it. As the energies they need are literally everywhere around them, there’s no NEED for them to be able to sense them.

But Noctis is different in that the energies flowing all around him are not enough for him to actually grasp and weave into spells. He needs spots where those energies are concentrated. Spots which he needs to FIND. And so he may have developed a sort of sixth sense, a way to sense elemental energies when they’re concentrated enough (and possibly the Crystal magic, too, because the two likely aren’t that different; the Crystal magic could even be a sort of fourth element). A way that no one else has, because no one else NEEDS to find these places. Hence why they’re only actually there in the main game, which is from Noctis’ PoV. No other character could make use of them and because they don’t even need them, no other character can even sense/see them.

3.2 – Magic Flasks

As extensively discussed above, Noctis cannot easily cast spells, not the way the Glaives or Ignis do (and his father as well before he’s been weakened by the Ring of the Lucii, at least according to ‘A King’s Tale’). He can’t draw the energy from just anywhere, it needs to be concentrated enough. Furthermore, considering you can’t draw from elemental deposits even when you happen to be right next to one in a fight (and you can do a lot of things in the middle of combat via even the main menu in FFXV) and that it’s an ability that you can ‘level up’ via Ascension, it would be safe to assume even that is not easy for him. It takes time and he needs to concentrate. Because of this, it’s very possible that the difficulty of just drawing the energy makes the simultaneous manipulation of it into a spell nearly impossible for him (the exception being the aforementioned, tiny fire spell in counters). As a result, instead of drawing energy, manipulating it and then releasing the crafted spell simultaneously like the Glaives (as well as his father) do, Noctis needs to separate the steps.

Step one has been discussed extensively above. He draws the energy from places particularly rich in elemental energy – the deposits.

Step two, an intermediate step necessary due to the apparent difficulty in drawing elemental energies, is storage. As Noctis cannot manipulate the energy at the same time as he draws it, he needs to do something with it so he can do so later. The only logical thing to do is to store it, which he does likely in his own body (as he can do it since the beginning of the game and there’s no item or anything that’s in any way required for it).

Step three: he forges the spells. Now this one is interesting, because it doesn’t seem like Noctis has much issue with this particular step. Once he has the elemental energy necessary, spell-crafting seems to be simple, at least if one looks at it once again through Gameplay-Story-Integration glasses. As stated earlier, you can’t draw elemental energy from deposits while in combat. You can, however, craft spells mid-combat via the use of the main menu. So, going by the same rules as we did for the drawing of energy, this means that crafting spells is quick, easy and doesn’t require much concentration on Noctis’ part.

Why then does he always store them in flasks? If crafting the spells is so easy, why not cast them directly from his own energy storage?

Well, another widely accepted headcanon (to my knowledge) is that Noctis can’t control the spells that well. Not in terms of crafting them, but in terms of their power and where they land. Thus, he uses the flasks to both have better control in terms of aim, as well as actual power. This idea is supported by two things.

The first is how crafting spells works. You can decide how much of each elemental energy you want to infuse into a flask and you see what the end result will be before you actually craft the spell. This is, of course, an obvious game mechanic to avoid frustration for the players so they don’t craft blindly. But it would also make sense if this was another bit of Gameplay-Story-Integration, because Noctis himself likely doesn’t craft the spells blindly hoping he’ll get the right one, either. He can either ‘sense’ what spell will come out, or he’s practices crafting spells long enough to just know from experience.

The second thing is the difference in spells between Noctis and the Glaives. Whether you look at the Comrades DLC or the Kingsglaive movie, the magic of the Glaives is far more controlled than Noctis’. It’s more focused while being just as destructive and there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much risk of getting your comrades caught up in the cross-fire, and considering I only ever played Comrades offline (meaning with AI), trust me that the difference wasn’t between actual people knowing to get out of the way. Especially since it’s not like Comrades actually has a chatting system or anything, so it’s not like you can warn anyone ‘magic incoming!’ or anything. And yet unlike the main game, your party members are never actually caught in the crossfire.

Of course, there’s one big difference between throwing a flask (which is basically a magic bomb) and casting a spell yourself, and that’s the amount of control you have over the spell at any given moment. You need to control it to cast it, control where it lands by aiming and likely control it at the very moment of casting, so when the magic is released and possibly what it considers a target, as well. Flasks remove one-and-a-half of those. Noctis still needs to control the spells when he crafts them so they don’t blow up in his face or something before he stuffs them into flasks. But he doesn’t need to keep controlling it when he aims and he literally can’t control it at the moment of casting, because that happens on its own when the flask breaks. So while the Glaives can be assumed to control even the release of the spell (exactly when it goes off, how far it reaches etc.) this is out of Noctis’ hands. Once a flask breaks, that’s it, the energy inside literally explodes outward in a big, destructive mess. And that’s exactly how Noctis’ flasks work: a big explosion of magic that decimates everything in its path.

But then we return to the question: why bother? Why not just cast from his ‘internal storage’ where he keeps the elemental energy before he puts them in flasks?

I believe that is due to the fact that casting normally would be too difficult and demand too much concentration, much like drawing the energy from elemental deposits in the first place. As I said before, putting the magic into flasks removes two steps of casting where tight control of the magic is needed: to aim and to release (and potentially to designate the targets versus the people who are not to be harmed). And that is the EASY step, as Noctis can even do it mid-combat. It’s the aiming and release that likely pose issues, which would make sense. When it’s merely in ‘wisp-form’, the energy may be more or less difficult to manipulate, but is likely easy to contain. Once it’s crafted into the spell and becomes magic, however, the actual power/strength of it likely amplifies, since you’re combining various energies together. It’s like a chemical reaction. As soon as you start mixing stuff, a kind of reaction happens and energy is released. This is likely the same. And containing that energy, that pure power that’s created when a spell is crafted, may be beyond Noctis’ grasp on his magic. Which would mean that he does not have that tight or fine-tuned a control over it. He can manipulate it to craft spells, but anything other than that is either difficult and demands a lot of concentration, or is outright beyond his capabilities.

(Again, there’s this one little spell he does in counter-attacks, but that might be about all he can safely manage.)

4 – Healing Magic

There’s one more aspect of Noctis’ magic in terms of spell-casting: healing, otherwise known as the Cure-line of spells (Cure, Cura and Curaga, as well as potentially Raise and Arise, though the latter two don’t seem to be a thing in FFXV in general). It’s the one type of magic that’s nearly entirely unavailable to Noctis.

He can’t cast healing spells. The Glaives can and do.

On the other hand, Glaives don’t use potions. I don’t think a potion, or any other kind of curative, has even been mentionned in the Kingsglaive movie (though it’s been a while since I’ve seen it so I may be wrong), and they definitely aren’t in Comrades. Curatives are something only Noctis and his companions have access to, and the description of each points out that they only work ‘by way of Noctis’ power’. So he’s the one that makes them.

The idea here is similar and yet different to magic flasks. For magic flasks, Noctis needs to gather elemental energy first. He doesn’t seem to have any need for it to create curatives. On the other hand, he can’t just stuff healing magic into a flask. He requires a medium of sorts, apparently preferably in liquid form considering he always uses various types of energy drinks. Interestingly, the potency of the curative doesn’t seem to be how much magic Noctis’ stuffs into it, otherwise they could probably buy Hi-Elixirs for the price of a mere potion, but rather what kind of medium (so energy drink) he uses. Almost like the magic he infuses it with directly interacts with the chemical contents of the medium to determine the curative’s potency. Which is, at the very least, plausible.

Here we have another wonderful bit of Gameplay-Story-Integration in that you can buy curatives of any sort nearly anywhere, up to and including Gralea. Which makes sense if Noctis himself is the one who creates them. Surely even the empire would have energy drinks for their human citizens, right? And furthermore, with the exception of one (1) cutscene in Episode Prompto where Aranea uses a curative (which, considering she’s met Noctis and the others in Tenebrae before, she might have gotten from them; even if they didn’t have enough stock themselves, Noctis could have turned all energy drinks she had into curatives to further enable her relief efforts; and let’s be honest, it’s totally something Noctis would do) no one else but Noctis and his crew ever uses curatives, or even seems to know they exist. I mean, all those hunters you rescue in random side-quests? You’d think they’d have their own potions and antidotes and stuff on them if it was something that could be bought anywhere. Except all they can buy is an energy drink. Only Noctis can actually make it into a curative.

As for actually casting a healing spell in any form, Noctis cannot do that at all. The only thing he can do is mix a curative or some food into his elemental spells to create healcast spells. (Which, by the way, is another example of magic actually interacting with matter on a chemical level or something of that nature – though it’s likely more abstract than that - to determine an additional effect. If you use other items, you get stopcast, venomcast, failcast etc.)

5 – Sharing Magic With Others

The final point in which Noctis’ injury may have affected how well he can use his magic is actually sharing it with others, the same way Regis does with the Crownsguard and the Kingsglaive. However, at first glance, in this one point, it doesn’t seem like Noctis has any difficulty compared to his father. He shares his magic with Ignis, Gladio and Prompto easily enough and they can do everything a Crownsguard is supposed to.

As stated before, the Crownsguard doesn’t seem to have that much access to elemental magic, at least going by what little we see of them in the movie and the fact that in-game, Cor isn’t very magically inclined in terms of elemancy, either. However, they can materialize weapons from the arsenal. But they can’t warp. Cor never does and neither do the Crownguard operatives in Episode Ardyn.

The Glaives (and the Royal Guard they’re derived from) can use elemental magic and they can warp (though some are better than it than others). They can also manifest their weapons, as prove in both Episode Ardyn and Comrades.

I don’t remember if it was said in the Kingsglaive movie itself or if I read about it elsewhere, but I’m pretty certain it was stated somewhere that these differences were due to how powerful the ‘sharing link’ between King and subject is. The Crownsguard, being a ‘defense and reaction only’ kind of force and derived of what used to be the Lucian army to boot, only have the most basics of links to allow them access to the arminger arsenal. The Kingsglaive, on the other hand, was meant to basically be the new Lucian army (and yet, ironically, they’re based on the former Royal Guard). They were meant not to be a defense force, but an attack force. And since most of the magic the king can make available is more attack-oriented anyway, he bestowed those powers to them.

There’s also the fact that this more powerful link is more draining, too, which was likely another reason the Crownsguard only got the bare minimum of magic access.

Thing is, Ignis, Gladio and Prompto are all part of the Crownsguard, so they should also only have this ‘basics only’ connection. And yet Ignis can use elemental magic like no other Crownsguard member. Which leads me to believe that Noctis, being young and not yet burdened by the Ring, gave the strongest connection he could to his friends, allowing them access to every aspect of his magic.

But wait. If that’s the case, why don’t the other three warp? Ever?

Well, in Prompto’s case, that’s simple. He’s only been trained for a couple of months and while he was accepted into the Crownsguard, it’s downright said at the beginning of the game that his training was more meant for self-defense than to actually protect Noctis. Ignis and Gladio, however, don’t have that excuse. Gladio in particular has been trained in combat all his life. You’d expect him of all people to know how to warp, right?

Here’s the thing though: if you look at the Brotherhood anime, then outside of the few scenes actually set after the beginning of the game, neither Ignis nor Gladio are shown to be able to use magic. Even in the scene in episode 3 (I think?) where Gladio and Noctis trained with wooden weapons, they didn’t call for them or dismiss them with magic. In Noctis’ case, he might not have wanted to or he might still have been struggling to, since he was still a teenager then. In Gladio’s case, it’s safe to assume he hasn’t had access to it at that point. Especially since neither Ignis nor Gladio wear a Crownsguard uniform in the anime.

So that would mean their link to Noctis, and thus his magic, is relatively recent. Two, three years at most. And warping isn’t something that’s easily learned. Noctis might have additional trouble with it because of his injury, but even among the Glaives there are those who warp better (Nyx) than others (Libertus, who complains it makes him nauseous and that he needs to practice more). And these are highly skilled combatants with lots of experience and decent-to-exceptional magical affinity who have likely been training for years before being sent into the field (a lot can be said about Regis, but definitely not that he would send poorly-trained soldiers into a war). So learning to warp, whether you have aptitude for magic or not, takes time. Thus it is very likely that Ignis and Gladio could learn to warp if given the time and opportunity to do so. It’s just that once they leave Insomnia, they never do.

There’s one more thing, too: Ignis has a tendency to throw his daggers in combat and Gladio often throws his sword at Noctis during training. Both ultimately end up summoning the blades back to them in the end, but there’s always a second or so of delay before they do, as if they were originally trying to do something else. Like warping after the weapon. It’s thus very possible that shortly before leaving Insomnia, they have both begun warp training, it’s just that they haven’t had the time to finish it and actually learn to warp. And then once they leave Insomnia and then Insomnia falls, they don’t get much opportunity to train. Even during the ten years Noctis is in the Crystal, or rather especially during that time. Because daemons are springing up all over, the nights are getting longer and it’s basically the apocalypse. You don’t really get the chance to learn a new skill when something like that happens, you focus on the skills you already have to better them in a way that can make it possible for you to survive. So in the end, they never really learned. And after the Dawn, they didn’t really have the opportunity to anymore.

However, looking at everything else, it’s safe to assume Noctis allows them free, full access to his magic. His ability to do so is not hindered by his childhood injury.

In conclusion:

Noctis’ injury, sustained by the Marilith and likely made worse by a Starscourge infection, affected his magic on nearly every level. It made warping (and possibly conjuring weapons and other items) more difficult for him to learn. It immensely impacted his ability to cast spells, both of the elemental and the healing variety. It made him susceptible to falling into Stasis. Almost every aspect of his magic that we know of has been affected in some way. The only part of it that still seems perfectly fine (or at least there’s no reason to believe it’s been affected in any way) is his ability to create a ‘sharing link’ to give someone else access to magical abilities.

#FFXV #Glon's meta wordvomit #meta analysis #Magic #Noctis' backstory #Marilith #injury effects on usage of magic #FFXV kikmeme fill of sorts

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niuttuc · 4 years ago

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Alright, a new card for Vaalin, but this time I want to do something different with it, we’ll see if I stick to it. Design notes! I’ll walk you through the process that led from the card being “I want to make a new Vaalin” to the final version.

Now, Vaalin is a time mage in WUR, which is already a crowded space, with Teferi even being a canonical planeswalker focused on this. However, Vaalin’s magic is much more specific and less powerful than Teferi’s, and the addition of red to his color palette helps having access to different flavors of the same kind of effects. It had been a while since I made him a card, and I solidified him as one of my core character, so I wanted to give him another.

Recently in his story, Vaalin learned a new form of time magic: to slip in between moments into fully stopped time, and then slide back either when he left or to the equivalent time he spent in there in the future. It isn’t the most offensive magic since he can’t really affect much while in stopped time and can’t take much or other people with him, but card mechanics can sometimes bend the flavor a smidge for better execution. It is however a great defensive tool, you can’t be hurt if you’ve traveled to the future after the attack ended. This new ability of his translates very neatly into a known mechanic: flickering, putting things out of reach from your opponent. I liked the idea, so I set to include some flicker elements into his design.

Now, flickering planeswalkers isn’t a new concept. Venser and Aminatou have both played with it, but most of all, Kaya, Ghost Assassin was already a self-flickering planeswalker, as a way to bring back up her loyalty from her multiple negative abilities, in exchange of life. But I was confident I could take it in a different direction. Now, planeswalkers can have passive, and that would allow me to both have Vaalin defend himself via flickering and keep activating his other abilities.

I quickly reached the idea of a trigger flickering him out of reach of combat from there, and then hammered out the exact logistics on how it worked. The easiest way to get rid of a planeswalker is to attack them, and with this flicker, Vaalin would essentially be immune to combat damage altogether should its controller wish it. It is already powerful protection, so I don’t want it to also protect him from sorcery-speed removal, which means either leaving during beginning of combat, or coming back at the end of combat. To leave more agency to the opponent to remove him after knowing Vaalin’s controller’s decisions, I chose the second option. Also it saved precious word to make the ability actually fit in the planeswalker text box.

Since every flicker would reset Vaalin’s loyalty, Vaalin would only have access to loyalty abilities he can pay for with his starting loyalty. Obviously, with already protection integrated into his passive, his abilities also would have to not help protect him further, or remove threats by itself. Since he’d be able to use a regular negative ability every turn if he had one he could activate from his starting loyalty (unless it killed him, which doesn’t feel great), I opted to not have one of those, and to streamline his abilities to a +, and an ult. It also creates an interesting dynamic. If you want to get to the ult, you’ll have to let Vaalin be vulnerable to combat! It does make him pretty linear to play, but the flickering adds another layer of decision there, so I felt like that wasn’t too much of an issue.

Now, I had the rough idea that the + wouldn’t be protecting him, and the ult would be an ult, which means a typically game-winning level of effect. At that point, I decided on the mana cost to aim for. I wanted him to be all three of his colors, and the passive made it hard enough to remove that 3 mana was out of the question. Four and five were, as usual, the most fitting, and I went with four, but kept my mind open to five in case the abilities needed it.

For the ult, I already had something in mind. Lighthouse Chronologist has a very unique and very powerful effect, flavored and functioning as time magic, extending the time you have, something that works really well for Vaalin. Just have to slap that on an emblem, and we’ll figure out the details later.

For the +, there’s a limited number of abilities that would fit him. Tokens, card advantage/selection, buffs, lifegain, slight mana generation, direct damage are the usual suspects for that kind of effects in those colors. Tokens and direct damage to creatures were out to avoid more self-protection. Buffs I’ve used a lot in previous Vaalin cards, and this one didn’t focus on this aspect of his abilities. Which leaves us with card advantage or selection, lifegain, or mana generation. With Vaalin being a scholar, I focused on the first option.

With aiming for 4 mana, I knew any card advantage on a + would have to be slightly below “draw a card”. “Draw a card” on a + on a planeswalkers is one of those things that happens at 4.5 mana. Undercosted at 4, gets a bit of upside at 5. So I explored a few options. From something like looting (one or two cards), with a bit of lifegain or a ping here and there, to scrying to represent him scouting between moments,... But I wanted more red to the card, since flickering is White and Blue and the extra turns from the Ult are blue already. And damage wasn’t cutting it. Straight impulse draw wasn’t cutting it enough, didn’t feel like him. Rummaging would be awkward with blue in there. But what about impulse-looting? Which is how I reached the current version.

This + solves a few problems. It is very easy for most decks to use it as straight card draw on a four-mana planeswalker, they just have to cast a spell during their turn. But most decks that would abuse a jeskai planeswalker that draws cards on a + are control decks, that actively don’t want to cast spells during their turn to leave up interaction. Control decks are why four-mana planeswalkers don’t get to draw cards. For those, they’ll have to decide between just looting and leaving up protection, or drawing and casting something during their turn. It functions almost opposite to Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, getting you to tap mana when Teferi allows you to leave more open. If you’re tapping mana to cast a spell during your turn, you’re also less likely to leave counterspells to counter the opponent’s removal, which would be your opponent’s out if you choose to flicker Vaalin to protect him from combat. It’s also a pretty unique effect, and I’m glad I put it here. For all the control discussion above, I set him to only allow to cast spells and not play lands.

With that out of the way, I only had to set the loyalty range. I wanted him to be pretty squishy, easily removeable by combat if not flickered, which put him at a very average 3. The + would obviously be a +1. As for the ult, it is very powerful probably game-winning, but building up to it is also quite the challenge. Vaalin can’t both protect himself and build up to the ultimate. Three turns without flickering him seemed like forever already, if you can keep the board clear and him clear of removal for three turns, you’re probably already in an advantageous enough position that the ult will just help things finish anyway. So 3, +1, -6.

And... That’s it! I ended up writing way more than I thought, mostly because this process is usually very internal, and my mind leaps through a lot of this stuff as known informations. Hope that insight can be informative, and potentially helpful!

#Vaalin #fanwalker #mtg #custom magic card #card design process #planeswalker #jeskai

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spectralstars · 4 years ago

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FAQ/Stuff to Know

This post will contain answers to questions I get often or expect to get often, and define some of the terms I use. It will be updated over time.

Disclaimer: The information I post to this blog is UPG, based on my own experiences. If I state something as fact on this blog regarding magic, that is because I treat it as fact within my practice, but I do not claim it as objective truth.

Magic

What is magic?

1) The art of utilizing all components of the Soul/being to effect change. 2) A sense of simultaneous power and wonder.

What kinds of magic do you do?

I do a lot of energy work: feeling and affecting my own energy, and reaching out to the energy of other people/places/things to do the same. When a need arises, or when I’m just feeling that magical itch, I create a working for that situation, or draw on a working I’ve created before. These workings can involves making and enchanting talismans, sigils, or chants; music or dance magic; full-blown rituals; just more focused energy work; etc. Divination, meditation, and shadow work are all also important facets of my practice.

How long have you been practicing?

My practice first started to resemble what it is today about 2 or 3 years ago.

Do you do witchcraft/chaos magic/[insert established term here]?

No. I take inspiration and information from many established open paths, but my practice is my own.

Energy Work

What is energy? What are energetic signatures?

Energy is a non-physical, qualityless substance. Just as physical reality is made up of physical matter (I’m ignoring dark matter here because that’s outside of my wheelhouse), parallel to it at all points exists an energetic reality. Unless I specify with terms like “physical/kinetic/potential energy,” assume that I’m speaking about non-physical energy and not energy in the physics sense. These two usages of the word “energy” are not interchangeable.

(Granted, the physical/non-physical distinction can be a bit reductive. Physical, mental, emotional, energetic, whatever other distinctions you make, etc, these things can absolutely effect each other, and debatably aren’t all that separate to begin with. That’s an integral part of the whole mechanism for magic.)

Energetic signatures are the sums of the different qualities that a given quantity of energy can have. Essentially, the vibe. This can include color, sound, emotion, texture, force, temperature, smell and taste, movement, etc. The details of a signature can vary from person to person in a “my red is your green” way—or more accurately “this feeling makes me think red, and makes you think green.”

Energetic signatures don’t behave physically the way energy often does, because they’re purely information. If I take energy from something, it now lacks that energy, but if I take its energetic signature, nothing has changed in that original something.

And yes, confusingly enough, energy can have an “energetic” or “sluggish” signature. There’s a difference between having lots of energy (again, in the magical sense) and having “high energy” (which would mean having lots of energy in the mundane sense).

What is the Fundamental?

The Fundamental is a layer of reality comprised of energy. In the Fundamental, physical distance is more fluid and all things are connected in some capacity. By moving one’s center of awareness, one can perceive and interact with the Fundamental.

What is embodiment/emulation?

Embodiment is one of my go-to energetic practices, one that I utilize and will probably mention often enough to warrant its own entry here. Embodiment means adapting an energetic signature other than my baseline, in such a way that it changes not only my energetic state, but my emotional, mental, and physical posture as a result. In some ways, it’s an “internalized glamour”; I’m affecting how others perceive by not only by energetic means, but by acting differently myself. I use this for everything from performing in front of audiences to calling in certain forces and archetypes to quick pick-me-ups throughout the day.

How do you read energy?

Honestly, it’s as simple as asking what the energy is like and taking what comes to you. Once you’re used to the process, you don’t have to ask anything consciously, you just kinda focus and observe. Getting information is the easy part; the harder part is getting accurate information and interpreting it well. That takes some familiarity with energy and your own intuition, and lots of practice.

Workings

What is a working?

I call spells workings out of a personal preference. If it’s magic and I set aside time for it, it’s a working.

How do you create a working?

I either start with the issue I’m doing the working for, and start thinking of ways I could achieve that symbolically, or I start with that itch to do a certain kind of magic, and start thinking of places in my life where I could apply it. Either way, the process involves a lot of looking around my place for things I could use (if I want to use objects in the first place), thinking about how to tie all those things and ideas together, and just following my head/heart/gut.

What is resonance?

Resonance is what makes a working work. It’s the quality of a successful magical endeavor, one that has a genuine impact. In my observations, it has three components: accordance, effort, and state. Accordance means you’re acting in line with your intention via correspondence, symbolism, and/or magical sympathy. Effort means what it sounds like, that you’re putting some genuine effort into your working. State means you’re mentally focused, energetically in tune, and overall just really feeling the magic, the power and the wonder, as you do the working. The most important part to each of these components is that you do them sincerely; there are no cop-outs or workarounds to what your gut says you gotta do.

Thoughts on curses?

I’m not anti-curse, but I’m grateful to have never felt a need to curse someone in my own life. The closest I’ll ordinarily get to cursing someone is “cursing” then with a positive quality that would completely derail their current plans and help them become better. But I acknowledge that that may not always be the right solution.

Divination

What kinds of divination do you use?

I mainly use different forms of cartomancy: tarot, Normal Tarot (not the same lol), Lenormand, playing cards, and a system of my own creation. I also use several non-Nordic “rune”/symbol sets, two of which I created and two of which I adapted from the work of Silvia Hartmann (whom, let it be known, I do have issues with). I plan to create a tool for using the Glide Oracle beyond just the mobile app. I do sometimes use tarot and Lenormand shufflemancy playlists, and I’ve started working with a system I made for a d100 spinner ring, but I prefer more hands-on systems over purely random ones, for reasons I go into below.

How does divination work/how do you do divination?

Divinatory instruments are an aid for the intuition, a jumping-off point and a guide for facilitating understanding when the mind needs something to go off of. The fact that I use magical means to make sure those jumping-off points are as accurate as possible doesn’t change the fact that that’s what they’re doing.

When I do a reading, the first thing I do is get in tune. With any entity I might want to communicate with, with whoever I’m doing the reading for, with my divination tool, with the matter at hand, etc. Mentally and energetically, I focus on and connect to each of these things. I then trust that my intuition can take all that information, and let me know when to stop shuffling/when to pull a rune so that I get the most helpful answer.

(Being able to move through the Fundamental and find different energies comes in handy in distance readings for that reason, by the way.)

Do you use divination to tell the future?

When I’m getting in tune with everything, it’s necessarily with how things are at the present. To the extent that the present determines the future, I can do readings for the future. But I always keep in mind that the trajectory for the future can change, and I absolutely believe in free will.

Spiritual Pragmatism and UPG

What is spiritual pragmatism?

So this is where that disclaimer comes in. I’m a spiritual pragmatist, which means when it comes to things that aren’t objectively provable, I base my beliefs on what’s most useful to me. That applies to my beliefs surrounding divinity, energy, etc. but also just general philosophical stances, like my belief in free will. This is not to imply that I don’t genuinely believe these things, because I do, only that I don’t care to try and prove the concrete “truthfulness” of them beyond that they make sense to me and have helped me in some way. It’s somewhat similar to chaos magick’s stance on belief, except 1) I’m not looking to change my beliefs at the drop of a hat or anything, and 2) usefulness isn’t limited to what makes the magic work. It could mean what makes me a more fulfilled or happier person, what helps me to feel like I belong and matter in the world, etc.

What about magic?

So magic is a grey area, since it’s so often based in these more unprovable things, but it’s also something I can, and generally try to, test. Still, I’ve gotten results in magic using my own understanding and systems, and other people have gotten results in magic with their own understandings and systems. So I acknowledge my magical framework for what it is: UPG, unverified personal gnosis. Things I know to be true in my own experience, but can’t necessarily vouch for outside of that.

By all means, try out what I have to say and see if it works for you. Gain experience with magic and then trust that experience, above what anyone else says about how magic is supposed to work.

Grab Bag

What’s your name?

Arri. For all intents and purposes.

Pronouns?

She/they.

Sun/Moon/Rising?

Taurus/Pisces/Aquarius.

MBTI? Enneagram?

I know I’m a 4w3 (either 479 or 471), and the tests online always say I’m an INFP, but I know enough about cognitive functions to know that those tests aren’t accurate to how MBTI works, and not enough to know what my actual type is.

Edit: This answer has changed; I now know myself to be a 1w9 (tritype 147, subtype probably sp/so).

What does “spectralstars” mean?

It’s a reference to my understanding of energetic signatures, which is similar to audio spectral analysis, where you don’t measure the frequency and amplitude as a single sound wave, you measure the amplitudes of the many sine waves of different frequencies that make up the sound. That warrants its own post. The stars bit is a reference to a Discord I’m in and also I just really like stars.

#faq #witchblr #witch #witchcraft #magic #practitioner

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drkungfus-customs · 6 years ago

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Mtg Custom Card Competition Round 1: Rabiah

Hello everyone and welcome to the first custom card competition for mtg cards that I have judged. For this round, submissions were gathered from a discord server and the results have been judged by myself and my partner in crime Alyssa. The theme this week was Rabiah. Participants were asked to design a card that could have been printed if the set Arabian Nights was designed in 2019 with modern design sensibilities.

Alyssa says:

Flavourwise, it’s real fun! Trade as a method of getting white card advantage is really nice, and the art, name and flavour text all flow together. It’s not really that exciting, though. There’s nothing particularly mystical about the capitalism of antiquity!

Remember to capitalise Human and Treasure. Is it meant to scale to every Human everyone else plays too? If so, that’s a little too strong. Keep it to Humans you create.

The draw effect being “free” mana-wise isn’t that much of a problem. I’d add a tap to the ability so you can’t abuse it so freely. If this were blue, and cost 3 mana, then that effect would maybe fly, but white doesn’t get that.

Michael says:

So this card seemed a slam dunk at first, it has excellent flavour, very pretty art, and an appropriate white effect as we have seen the colour move into treasure generation a lot more in recent sets to compensate for its core weakness of mana ramp. This was until I got to the last line. Card draw in white is something that must be carefully monitored as it is one of the fundamental aspects of colour balance in magic. A good litmus test for this kind of effect is mentor of the meek, if a card can draw better or draw easier than mentor it probably crosses the line from a bend to a break in white.

Because the card itself produces treasure at a considerable rate, on a good body (thankfully still within bolt/push range), there is no real opportunity cost to the drawing as the treasure tokens also come incidentally by doing things a mono white deck wants to do. If this was a tap ability or had some kind of limiter the card would probably be acceptable but as it stands it represents a potent draw engine in any creature heavy deck, and god forbid what would happen in a Selesnya token strategy or an EDH deck running smothering tithe.

While the human type rider does help to limit this card, it is the most common creature type and so more often or not this card will provide good value even in decks not built around the card. Overall I really dig the treasure creation as a reward for building to a theme but the card draw is far too powerful and generic to be considered acceptable in mono white.

Possible improvements:

o Currently this card is a break in white, either adding blue or limiting the rate of card draw would bring it into line with whites modern design philosophy.

o It shouldn’t activate from your opponents Humans, symmetrical tribal effects have been retired due to poor gameplay.

o It feels a shame to tie it to Humans, which are such a supported type. Making it rewarding to a more obscure tribe such as Advisors could be interesting.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 2/5 (would be a 4/5 with the drawing ability fixed or removed)

Flavour – 4/5

Alyssa says:

The formatting here has several notable issues:

o As-written, the cast from hand effect gives temporary unblockability but the combat damage Treasure-making effect is permanent because you haven’t given it a duration.

o Every time you define a token on a card, unless you’re writing a modifier for how many of the same type of token are produced by the same effect under different conditions (like Increasing Devotion, Gather the Townsfolk or Saproling Migration) you need to define those tokens again, so you’ll need to write out the Treasure text for the second effect. Make space on the card by omitting the reminder text on Flashback.

o Magic uses numerals to refer to life, damage, stats and costs, but everywhere else they write out the numbers, so you create five Treasures rather than 5.

o The destroy effect on casting it from the graveyard should just be sacrifice. You don’t need to make it a targeted destroy just because the original effect destroys, because you can use the cast-from-graveyard replacement effect to override its targeting, just like how Overload makes a targeting spell into a non-targeting one.

It’s fine as a card, but it feels kind of weak and the two effects don’t feel connected. The first cast feels like a good effect with good flavour ties, but I’m not sure how the second effect ties into it. The first incentivises high creature quality (giving a big beater evasion) while the second incentivises low creature quality (sacrificing a worthless token to get advantage) and while the environment for those two interacting can exist (read: Rise of the Eldrazi) it’s rare.

Triple black feels far too colour-intensive in an effect we’ve seen at 2B and 1B before. I am also not entirely sure what is happening from a flavour perspective when the creature gets destroyed. If it’s being closed off in the Cave of Wonders, how the hell do you get the treasures out?

Michael says:

The flavour on this card is very apparent, showing off an iconic scene with using the alternate flashback effect to progress the story of this card. I very much enjoy how well the flavour and mechanics have been integrated on this card especially in a way that is in-colour for Dimir. However the templating very much needs work, the effect can be unclear on a first read. Something as simple as a paragraph break between the regular and flashback effects would do wonders to the overall card.

In addition when designing black costs, sacrifice is usually a preferred choice both flavourfully and mechanically as the flashback just becomes a seething song when you possess an indestructible creature. I think this card has very strong flavour and story but has a few formatting concerns that take away from its impact. While the card can go mana positive I think the card is balanced well enough to not create any dangerous situations. Solid workhorse uncommons are just as important as flashy mythic rares and this card could help to signal a more aggressive or saboteur based blue black deck in the limited environment, although the card is a little disjointed in effect possibly due to it being created to match the flavour rather than the other way around.

Possible improvements:

o Formatting changes as Alyssa has acknowledged.

o Changing the effect so that it doesn’t split the card’s focus. If you want to get increasing Treasure value, perhaps just make it mono-blue, the flashback cost 2U and make the damage dealing effect create three Treasures instead.

o Perhaps a small pump of +1/+0 to help solidify its role in limited decks.

Grades:

o Formatting 3/5

o Function 2/5

o Flavour 3/5

Alyssa says:

Flavourwise it’s fine, but not particularly imaginative. Genie wishes have been done before a lot and this doesn’t really do anything new with the effect except some ridiculous efficiency. (I’ll get into that later.) Formatting wise, it’s mostly fine. “It gains suspend” should be its own sentence. You missed “on it” for the land card drop.

Are the extra cards put on the bottom of your deck? I feel like you’re trying to make the “cost” of the effect be that it mills you slightly, which isn’t really that dangerous for reasons I’m going to get into, because the card is ridiculously strong.

It’s not hard to just casually spin this in your opponent’s end step with basic tutors or Brainstorm-like effects to find your best card, put it on top of your library, exile it with suspend and one time counter on it and just drop it like it’s hot. Five mana Emrakul, the Promised End with its cast effect? Anything that isn’t a land obtainable for free as long as you wait till your upkeep for it?

The second effect really doesn’t need to be there and is still really strong. Even though you can whiff, it can still effectively mean colourless 0 mana ramp every turn even if you lose the lands eventually. But it’s not like you’ll really want an effect like this when you’re doing top-deck manipulation to drop your biggest and best cards for free. It’s just overkill at that point.

Michael says:

This card feels intended to be fun but I believe has accidentally became far scarier than intended. I believe this card is firstly a lot more complex than it needs to be. The second ability that searches for lands adds a lot of extra complexity for this card and doesn't really add much to the overall playability. I believe it could be cut without losing the core effect of the card.

I would express serious concerns over power level however. Its nature as a colourless artifact means any deck can include it, miracle shells and cards such as sensei's divining top and scroll rack allow for significant levels of top deck manipulation which would make its random nature a lot more controlled especially in older formats and EDH. Being able to activate this card in your opponents end step for almost no cost also takes away any kind of risk to playing this card as even played fairly this allows for serious cheating on mana costs with a bit of luck.

There is also the slight problem that there is no rider to return the exiled cards to the bottom of the deck which would be standard for this kind of effect. While I assume this was accidental, it means that as submitted this card can mill your entire deck for a jace/lab man kill. There is clear potential in this card as a fun semi-random value piece but as it stands right now it has too few safety valves, and there is a clear risk of variance where one game you mill twenty cards to get to a one drop and the next where you rip Ulamog off the top on turn four. If anyone tried to play this card unfairly, as competitive players will certainly try to, this card will fundamentally break the mana system. Adding a mana cost to the effect and possibly increasing the casting cost is going to be the easiest way to preserve this card's intended purpose without being used as a combo piece, or just tying the suspend cost to cmc as opposed to how many cards milled. Also don’t forget the artist credits, that’s always important to have on custom cards.

Possible improvements:

o Remove the second ability entirely. It’s superfluous at the best of times.

o Jack a hefty mana cost on that ability. To keep the artifact at 4 mana, I want to make the ability cost 5 or 6. Alternatively, make you shuffle your library as part of the effect to make it a bit less spooky. Compare to Temporal Aperture or Mind’s Desire, which have a similar effect but deliberately shuffle your library beforehand. One thing you could do is make it a static suspend value, maybe 3, rather than however many cards you flip, because if you have to shuffle your library for that you might get stuff exiled with suspend 7 or whatever.

Grades:

o Formatting – 4/5

o Function – 1/5

o Flavour – 2/5

Alyssa says:

Beautiful flavour. This card looks gorgeous and makes me very happy to read. Your formatting is flawless as well. The flavour clearly stems from his portrayal in the original arabian nights stories so I appreciate the top down design here.

Unfortunately, this card kind of pays for itself with what might amount to an upside in a bad spot by making additional chump blockers/sac fodder, like a bargain bin Bitterblossom. Additionally the downside is also relatively small, as is the payoff. I wouldn’t have a problem with leaving him tapped for a few turns which I feel isn’t good for a sexy black 4 mana 6/6: those stats and that colour want to have a stronger downside for a stronger payoff. Think Phyrexian Obliterator or Death’s Shadow: Black’s big creatures go hard on the pro and harder on the con. I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything if he doesn’t make a big splashy impact on the board.

Michael says:

This card I quite like. While it’s unusual to see humans as powerful as a 6/6, that is about the maximum I would realistically expect to see for the tribe so that isn't too much of an issue. The flavour of a mono black king who uses his subjects is absolutely on point though and feels very in fitting for the feel of arabian nights so good job on that front. My foremost concern with this card is that there is no real downside to this card, while the king requires a sacrifice in your upkeep he has a built in method to mitigate this in his automatic ability to create soldiers. However there is a really easy fix to this, just include a cost to his ability to create tokens. Replacing this with a repeatable activated ability for an amount of mana feels too white so instead I would propose adding a cost to his end of turn trigger, possibly discarding a card to ensure that there is a price to splashing the king. Although given humans are the most popular tribe and many cards are incidentally human, I imagine that there will be plenty of sacrifice fodder in both constructed and limited. Overall good work on this one, a strong design that just needs a few tweaks to be good to go and really screams arabian nights flavour (in a good way).

Possible improvements:

o Include a cost for the human token production. Perhaps “At the beginning of your end step, you may discard a card. If you do, create a 1/1 white Human creature token.” The card disadvantage is a real downer, but you have an option not to if you can’t.

o Go a bit harder on his power level. Something on the level of a keyword ability such as menace for example wouldn’t hurt.

o Make the damage life loss. Possibly amp it up to 3.

Grades:

o Formatting – 5/5

o Function – 3/5

o Flavour – 4/5

Alyssa says:

The flavour is nice, perfectly evocative of what Aladdin is. Perhaps it’s a bit too safe? This is what I’d expect Aladdin to do: maybe I was hoping for a little more. The formatting is mostly good, but as of now the steal effect is permanent and not tied to Aladdin staying in play. Was this intentional? Permanent steal effects are Blue’s wheelhouse, not Red’s, making it a colour bend. (Red does get to steal stuff, especially artifacts, but it very rarely gets to keep it.) I wouldn’t be averse to seeing this effect on an Izzet Aladdin for example.

It’s a simple, clean effect that has the potential for sick card advantage. I like it! It feels like something you could open in an artifacts matter set. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar card when we return to Kaladesh.

Michael says:

This card is interesting. As a four cmc legendary creature that fixes a core problem with mono red in an in-colour way, this card is clearly very good in EDH. However this card also is a significant tempo play and value generator in an environment that is heavy on artifacts which would probably give it legs in standard, albeit constrained thanks to the legendary supertype. My main concern with this card is that there is no condition or limitation to the steal effect. Indefinite stealing of cards is a very blue effect, while playing with artifacts is red, so I would like to make this an izzet card, but the flavour clearly does not support blue. Therefore to make this card more in line with the colour pie I would add either an end of turn clause to the steal, a limit on the cmc of the artifact, or at the very least have stolen artifacts return when this card leaves the battlefield. Return on leaving the battlefield seems the most appropriate option to me to help avoid flicker abuse in commander while still preserving the flavour of the card. Other than that good job, this is an excellent effort to provide a balanced and flavourful red card that I believe would excite people to play with.

Possible improvements:

o Address the colour pie bend, or otherwise tie the stealing effect to Aladdin’s survival.

Grades

o Formatting 5/5

o Function 4/5

o Flavour 4/5

So congratulations to Shanobi and her submission of Aladdin, Prince of Thieves as the winner for this week. It was a close race between Aladdin and King Shahrayah but where we could point to a few areas of improvement for the King, Aladdin felt perfect with just a minor tweak to bring his effect more into red’s area of the colour pie.

It has been a fun week to judge and hopefully we should see these competitions continue if there is renewed interest in our judging. If any of you have any feedback or improvements to our judging style, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Thank you all for your hard work and submissions!

As a bonus Alyssa and I worked briefly on what our theoretical submission could have been to this contest which we based off a monster from Iranian folklore and posted for fun here in Zahak, Hunger-Cursed.

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babblingbat · 8 years ago

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Magic in a World Called Rorrim Elbuod

In R. E. there are five major kinds of magic users: Witches, Magicians, Tricksters, Fire-Hands, and Pairs. Each casts magic differently and has different limitations, but they have a camaraderie for the most part and try to help each other. Recently, the Half-hunters have been recruiting magicians and witches, although there’s a bit of a stigma against witches because they are born with magic and don’t obtain it with years of study.

Witches, also called, warlocks, sorcerers, or sorceresses, are as much a part of the world as much as the rain or a tree is. They are swimming in magic and normally cast it instinctively for at least until they are in their early childhood, at which point they begin to learn spells of a more refined nature. They are anomalies, however, and are only born every few years, and often to non-magical parents. There appears to be no method to anticipating where a new one will be born. Some are more powerful than others, and witches and warlocks as a whole are generally more powerful than magicians who spend years becoming adept enough at concentrating and connecting to the life of the world. Some witches have other abilities as well, such as the ability to speak to wild animals or sense where people are by touching the ground. It is though that they are similar to the Pairs, and they match each other in terms of power, although if a pair is separated, a Witch may be able to defeat them. As a matter of fact, although not well known fact, witches have a more potent soul than normal people, similar to the Pairs.

Magicians are people who were not born with magic and spent years, sometimes decades, to gain the ability to do so. They consider the witches lazy, and choose to spend more time with non-magical people. For them to cast spells requires perfect concentration unless they have trained to cast under stressful situations specifically. This is because they are born without magic and they struggle with it because it isn’t readily compatible with them. It’s like trying to fit a puzzle piece into a slot that doesn't fit it and just jamming it in repeatedly until it stays. And just as the puzzle rips a bit when you shove it together, they can get hurt by casting magic but they stay alive and relatively unharmed with its use. If the magic is torn from them, they can die.

Tricksters are people who are relatively connected to the world but not to the extent that witches are. They are also called mediums. They typically develop magic at a reasonably young age (3-14, usually) and their magic fits their personality. These children are normally not very powerful, as witches are their more powerful counterparts. They also get marked by their magic because it isn’t seamlessly integrated into them as it is the witches. Shapes and lines appear on their hands or faces, and it puts some people off a bit. They glow when they use their ‘trick.’ Tricksters have familiars, which are spirits that take the shape of an animal to help them. They are fluid in their form as long as it conforms to a certain type of animal. For instance, a dog familiar could grow into a wolf in times of need, or even just for convenience.

Fire-Hands are people, all of which are born from the dead family of Eneit, who have what many call the ‘fire of a thousand years’ in them. In reality, they have fire elemental ancestors, and this has carried through many generations. They are obvious with their emotions, not by any fault of their inability to keep themselves in check but because their bodies physically react. When angry or emotional, they start to glow, and ‘cracks’ form, making them resemble lava floes. If they are in cold places, the fire in them may start to go out. They will die in the more severe cold and live close to the equator. A true elemental would not suffer this, but they are a great deal more human than their ancestors and have developed these weaknesses. By virtue of their lineage, they are prestigious and have a fair amount of wealth. Given that live in such close proximity to one another, they have a bond of fellowship and hold each other to an oath that dictates that they will always help each other and all transactions, monetary or otherwise, must be run past the council first. They are all very careful, and whenever a young fire-hand decides they want to leave, they must gain the council’s blessing or forfeit their benefits.

The Pairs are twins (or, in some rare occasions, triplets) who are permanently psychically linked and are also very in tune with the world’s life. At first glance, they can be mistaken for Tricksters; they have a one particular skill and can’t often learn anymore magic. However, the twins share a soul and are, quite literally, two halves of a whole, split in two. Some say they are a curse, others say that they are the children of the gods. They usually balance each other out with one being more aggressive and one passive, one with more physical power and the other more mentally inclined. Although no one knows it, having the souls split is a safety mechanism. The shared soul is a very, very powerful one, and dividing it is the only safe way for it to exist. However, when one half dies, their half of the soul rejoins the other. This makes the surviving member unbelievably powerful but also drives them mad.

The magical folk sometimes come into conflict with the non-magical people, but their mutual fear of each other usually resolves things quickly, as in it all gets shoved under the ridiculously lumpy rug. Tensions are beginning to mount, and a scapegoat has already been chosen for everything that follows. If a full on war occurs, every magical faction will have to pick a side, and some may side with those who would exterminate them.

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droneseco · 6 years ago

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Prynt Pocket: This Magical Phone Case is Actually a Printer

Our verdict of the Prynt Pocket: Beautifully designed and feature rich, the Prynt Pocket has a lot going for it. Print quality and price might be your only deterrents. 810

There are a plethora of mobile phone cases and attachments from telephoto lenses to multi toolkits. Prynt hopes to make their mark by bringing instant printing, along with the 2018 way of spelling their company name, to your mobile phone. Did the world need this? Let’s find out–and at the end of this review, we’ve got one to give away to one lucky reader.

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Prynt Pocket Specifications

Colors: Mint green / Cool grey / Graphite / Lavender

Interface: Lightning connector

Media Capacity: 10 Sheets

Media Type: ZINK photo paper

Charging Port: microUSB

Supported OS: iOS

Phone Required: iPhone 5 or newer

Device Price: $150

Paper Price: $15 – 20 Pack / $40 – 40 Pack / $30 – 60 Pack / $35 per month – Unlimited

Print Size: 2″ x 3″

Prynt Pocket, Instant Photo Printer for iPhone - Graphite (PW310001-DG) Prynt Pocket, Instant Photo Printer for iPhone - Graphite (PW310001-DG) Buy Now At Amazon $139.00

The Device

Beautifully packaged in the box, you’ll find the Prynt Pocket, the magazine which holds the included ten sheets of paper, and a micro USB cable to charge the device. The Prynt Pocket itself makes for a fantastic camera grip. It feels really well built and has a grippy rubber texture which makes it a pleasure to hold. The shutter button on the top is clickey and tactile, and the sliding mechanism feels sturdy. On the top, you will also find the LED charging indicator and magazine slot.

Thankfully the lightning connector is flexible which means it isn’t prone to breaking and if you have a regular phone case, you won’t have to remove it to connect your phone to the Prynt Pocket. On the bottom of the device is the micro USB charging port and the slot where the prints are produced.

While the device is lightweight, it is a little on the hefty side. It’s not going to be something you’re going to be able to carry around in your pockets unless you’re wearing an overcoat.

Getting Started

Head over to the App Store and pick up the Prynt App. The first thing it will require you to do is to create an account and grant the app access to your camera, library, and microphone. Granted, there will be some objections here, but hopefully, the social media integration and in-app photography bring some added value to your new printing workflow.

Now the device will require some assembly. First, you’d need to charge the device which takes around three hours. Now put the ten sheets of paper into the magazine, and insert the magazine into the Prynt. While this may sound a little easy, getting the orientation right is a bit confusing. Fortunately, the app provides an excellent video tutorial to help put everything together. Awesome!

Now the astute amongst you may have realized that Prynt hasn’t any included any ink. That’s because the Prynt actually utilizes zero ink or Zink technology. Zink is a printing technology that doesn’t require any cartridges and can print full-color pictures in a single pass.

The paper has several layers including all the colors. The paper used in the Prynt is also marketed as being fade and tear resistant. It’s also adhesive backed which means you will be able to stick your prints in something like a custom photo book if you enjoy scrapbooking.

The App

The app is equally well designed and has everything you need to print the perfect picture. The flow is similar to other social media services with the difference being the option to print at the end before sharing.

You simply select a picture and add some embellishments in the form of a frame or other filters. You can also make some basic adjustments like fixing exposure, contrast, and cropping. Adding a frame with some handwritten styled text to the bottom of a picture transported me back to the Poloraid heyday.

Once your picture is perfectly edited and cropped you’re now ready to do some printing. Hit the print button, and in about 30 seconds you can revel in the glory that is instant printing. Because your print is adhesive backed, you can now stick it pretty much anywhere. The prints are also fortunately small enough to keep in your wallet.

The Prynt’s Party Trick

At this point, the Prynt has accomplished what its forefathers had done many years ago bar the ephemeral nature of the printed pictures. There is, however, one significant difference to what the Prynt Pocket offers. Bringing your photographs to life, with sound!

Augmented reality has been something that Apple has been pushing forth with since the launch of the iPhone X. Prynt’s implementation of this is fantastic. In the app, you have the option of printing a video or live photo. There is also an option to add a video to a static photo in the form of a story. Once the print comes out, it looks no different to a regular print. But viewing the print from within the scan tab of the app reveals the pictures hidden secret.

If you’re a Harry Potter fan, this is reminiscent of the moving pictures in the newspapers. You’re able to play up to four pictures, which sounds kind of weird, simultaneously. Prynt actually links the Prynt you’ve taken and stores the video in the cloud. What this means is that you could hand this photo to anyone and as long as they have the Prynt app, they will be able to view the embedded video.

The last bit of functionality comes in the form of recording your augmented reality experience and sharing it on social media. Heading over to the discover section within the app demonstrates how creative some other Prynt owners are.

The Print Quality

Unfortunately, this is the chink in the Prynt’s armor. Looking at the prints produced by the printer you’d notice a stark difference between what you see on your mobile phone screen. Images are washed out, the added text is somewhat blurred, and you can’t help but feel that it could be better.

Searching on the internet, you will find that other printers that use Zink technology also seem to have similar results. If the print quality is indeed down to the paper and not the Prynt Pocket itself, this might be a good thing. Hopefully, in the future, they release an updated paper that will increase the overall quality.

Speaking of the paper, the pricing can be seen as a little on the extravagant side. That being said, Prynt is the only company (that I’ve come across) that offers an unlimited paper option. This is done through a subscription-based model in their store, and they will top up your paper once it reaches a certain threshold. If you’re a serial printer, this will be more cost-effective in the long run. If you’re more akin to ad-hoc printing, it may be worth exploring some other options on the market.

The Verdict

Prynt Pocket, Instant Photo Printer for iPhone - Graphite (PW310001-DG) Prynt Pocket, Instant Photo Printer for iPhone - Graphite (PW310001-DG) Buy Now At Amazon $139.00

The Prynt Pocket is not going to be for everyone, but there is definitely an audience that is going to love the device. Younger people and people who enjoy scrapbooking are going to love this device. There’s still something special about holding a physical print in your hand and having it come to life makes it even more magical. The prints are small enough to keep in your wallet and are sure to impress people once they see the magic of the live pictures.

The beautiful, easy to use app and its functionality paired with the well built Prynt Pocket make it an excellent product for the target audience. It’s not the smallest device around, but it is nonetheless portable which adds to its value. Pulling out a print from your wallet and bringing it to life is sure to astound!

Enter the Competition!

Prynt Pocket Giveaway

Read the full article: Prynt Pocket: This Magical Phone Case is Actually a Printer

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foursproutwealth-blog · 7 years ago

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Developing an App or a Game? Take a (Retro) Lesson From 'PAC-MAN.'

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/developing-an-app-or-a-game-take-a-retro-lesson-from-pac-man/

Developing an App or a Game? Take a (Retro) Lesson From 'PAC-MAN.'

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Yes, believe it: Retro games are making a big comeback.

The Commodore 64 gamer computer, a smash in the 1980s, will soon be providing players with a second round, via the upcoming release of the $70 C64 Mini — a system complete with 64 games, a joystick and easy connectivity to a TV or other peripherals. Nintendo, meanwhile — which is at the heart of this resurgence — is selling out retailers’ stock with its SNES Classic.

Related: 4 Ways Games Can Help Your Company Innovate

Not only are these old titles nostalgic, but their simpler game-play requirements, and innocent themes and graphics, are resurrecting the good ol’ days of gaming, when elegance and predictability predated the frenetic pace of today’s high-tech apps and hyper-realistic games.

The implication here — also evidenced by the return of vinyl records and high-quality turntables — is of a kind of back-to-basics approach and even an emotional pining for the technology of yesteryear.

The message for entrepreneurs? Those looking to build or expand their software products and businesses might want to take note.

The retro boom and today’s apps aren’t so far apart

A marvel of the modern mobile age is rapid, handheld multitasking. But so many small tasks swarming around people can be overwhelming. They can feel they’ve fallen “behind” — unless they’re rewarded there, in the moment, by being able to check a task off their list.

Retro games bake this process into their approach. As the world becomes more complicated, small, satisfactory moments become a welcome reprieve, and retro games’ straightforward game mechanics and easy-to-complete functions are fundamental to that satisfaction.

Remember? When you play, using the old-style approach, you jump into a block with a question mark on it and get a mushroom, accompanied by a pleasant and memorable sound effect. Drop down a hole, and you access a subterranean level.

Even the “practice makes perfect” mantra seems more integral to retro games. Although any game, however complex, can be mastered through practice, it’s cathartic to hone your skills at the simple yet compelling tasks of old video games. Take Victor Sandberg, for example.

In 2013, according to The Verge, Sandberg, a marathon gamer, put in more than 56 hours to beat a 30-year-old high-score record in the 1980 arcade game Missile Command. This created a legacy of return that enabled him to further interact with that game.

What’s of note here is that, whether you’re talking computer games or task managers, modern software can mimic retro games by giving people a quick way to complete something and feel accomplished. Certainly, some of today’s apps already have that simplicity and “practice makes perfect” quality; players can swipe left on a task to make that task disappear .

The point is that entrepreneurs, too, can get in on this trend, and capitalize on the same qualities that make retro games so beloved. Here are the steps they should follow.

Related: How ‘App-preneurs‘ Turn Ideas into Business

1. Keep it simple.

Whether it’s a game or a social media application, complicated software can deter users. Even those who tough it out to learn the software’s functionality slog forward without that magic ingredient of satisfaction; frustration isn’t fun for anyone.

A good way to keep your app simple is to avoid scope creep — a problem that results when a project evolves beyond its initial concept, with destabilizing results. The military seems particularly vulnerable to this problem, illustrated, for example, when $6 billion was wasted on a failed radio project, as described by Ars Technica.

Scope creep, then, can actually derail your app or other project, bogging it down in unmanageable complexity so that the the app’s original mission or vision gets lost.

Instead, keep your project on the right track by always focusing on user happiness. Ensuring that your game or application stays in tune with its users by conducting frequent user tests is key. Such tests assess a user’s level of satisfaction or frustration and produce insights that can guide project decisions.

In short, you get to work on perfecting what you already have rather than letting a project merely drift toward new features.

2. Make it engaging.

Simplicity isn’t everything, though. Users also demand engagement. Beauty, taste, a sense of whimsy and a mechanism for reward all go a long way toward helping you promote user engagement.

Starbucks gets this engagement right in the look and feel of its app. The app’s color and font match the brand’s, and the app also provides a slick user experience. By the end of 2015, in fact, Business Insider reported, the Starbucks app was responsible for 21 percent of ithe company’s U.S. transactions.

Along with aesthetics and function, an app’s gamification features foster engagement. While this term often gets associated with badges or points, it’s more about breaking down tasks into small moments of satisfaction — both auditory andrvisual. Such moments build a user’s affinity for the software and drive adoption, which is how some of the most famous retro games became so successful in the first place..

Remember PAC-MAN and that unforgettable sound effect when it ate a ghost?

Related: How Gamification Is Engaging Customers and Employees Alike

3. Never stop striving.

Even after you’ve created a simple and engaging app, never let past success stall progression or lead you to assume that what’s worked before will continue to engage users again.

Although this point might seem to contradict the notion of keeping things simple, it’s not. Evolution doesn’t equate with complexity; and achieving elegant and growth-oriented simplicity requires commitment. You must remove the dross and clutter to present a pure and clean user experience that “just works.” Along with scope creep, this notion is essential to app development.

Example? When L’Oréal launched its successful Makeup Genius in 2014, it provided face-mapping technology that turned the smartphone into a mirror and allowed users to try out its products in a virtual setting. Having already logged 20 million claimed users — including millions in China — the company didn’t have to release this app. But it did so because it wanted to provide a simple, efficient experience for customers — particularly younger ones — that could be utilized outside of its technological wheelhouse.

Such a creative, forward-thinking move is likely to boost the company’s sales, growing a brand that is already an industry giant. It also serves as a blueprint for entrepreneurs wanting to examine their own market space, to find new opportunities for customer engagement.

In sum, this retro game fad doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs should be thinking retroactively or that simplicity equates with ease. Even David Crane, whose simple but compelling game, Pitfall, spent 64 weeks at No. 1 on the video games bestsellers list, had to overcome technical challenges along the way. While old may be new again, entrepreneurs need to realize that they should learn more from the experience than the product.

Considering that today’s consumers are being bombarded by 24-hour sound bites, software updates, text messages and many other data inputs, it’s possible that they sometimes seek solace. Maybe they can find it with Mario and Luigi, or maybe with one of your own elegant, responsive apps designed to make people’s lives better.

The effort to simplify apps, delight users and push forward can be its own reward, and you may be surprised by how rewarding, in terms of adoption and revenue, this approach can be.

#Wealth

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