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 Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:55 pm
Craft:
Everything You've Asked, and Everything We've Obscurely Answered
Now in its own Thread! blaugh Well, we were hoping that we could avoid turning the Database into a Big Ol’ File Cabinet O’ Doom… but it looks like the Odds ‘n’ Ends section just couldn’t hold all the glorious information about Crafts. So now it gets its own spot! mrgreen C’mon, you know you’re excited too. At any rate, I get the feeling this thread is going to explode in a hurry, so I’ve done my best to arrange it all nice and neat. There’s even a table of contents!
Please scan below if you have any questions about Crafts, and if for some reason your question isn’t answered at the end of this magical mystery tour, feel free to PM either myself or Alicia and pump us for more information. We liked being pumped. It makes us feel like you care. 3nodding Ye Olde Table of Contents One – Pleasant Introduction to the Thread <- you are here
Two – Mini-FPQs
Three – Forms of Craft: Offensive, defensive, healing, support, & non-combat
Four – Parade of Crafts: Pleasant Introduction Part II
Five – Begin List of Crafts (please go to Four for the full list)
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Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:00 am
Mini-FPQs: This Ain't Yo' Grandma's Magic
Innate Vs. Learned Craft: What’s the Diff? – If you’re read the Odds ‘n’ Ends section then you know the basic difference between the two, but you’re also probably confused as hell by that extremely vague description. Innate is pretty straight-forward – you were born with a natural affinity to something (though it doesn’t always manifest itself right away), it’s attracted to you and you to it, and manipulating it comes fairly easily to you. Yes, it will take practice to get really good at controlling it and doing fancy spells with it, but even without honing your abilities you’ll probably still have a couple little tricks at your disposal.
Now… Learned Crafts are a little tricky. Like it says in the Odds 'n' Ends Thread, "no one can use [Learned Craft] without some sort of medium or charm. Examples of this would be things like using dolls for illusion magic, or Craft circles (think 'Fullmetal Alchemist') to invoke the powers of the earth. And so on." This, of course, is way too simple of a description. sweatdrop But, what it basically means is, you can't just do the Craft spell by thinking "I want this to happen!" and then it happens. Here are some examples to help this make sense... and keep in mind that there are exceptions to the following rules if the person making the character can give me a convincing argument, this is just sort of rule-of-thumb for when Alicia and I are approving profiles:
Example One: Future Sight. Innate future sight would be getting sudden visions, and having an instinctive feel for the "flow of the universe," if you will. Learned craft would be not really having either of those abilities, but studying your a** off to sort of learn how to feel for it. However, you'd never get visions - you'd always have to use something like Tarot cards or the I Ching to read the future... and your predictions would rarely be as good as the ones from someone with the Innate ability. (It's also important to note that innates can use mediums as well. It helps to focus their abilities, and can also aid in conserving energy. They just don't have to, is all.
Example Two: Water Craft. An innate water craft user would have a natural affinity with water, and would therefore (more than likely) be able to conjure water wherever a speck of moisture is available, and manipulate it in a variety of ways, entirely with their will. Now of course it would still take practice to get really good at it, but it would come fairly easily to you. On the other side, a learned water craft user would have no natural affinity with water (the water wouldn't automatically "like" them, if that makes sense), so they couldn't just conjure it from nowhere. They'd need a body of water nearby to manipulate. Furthermore, they'd need some sort of medium to work it with. It gets a little trickier with Elemental Crafts, but one example would be (odd as it sounds) a bowl, preferably made by a Craft-user. You could then scoop the water up into this and draw it out from the bowl, manipulating it from there (into darts to throw at your enemies, or just to purify for the kids in your village, or etc.).
Hopefully that made sense. If you have any other questions about this that you’re pondering, please let me know and I’ll do my best to clarify.
Are there any Crafts that can’t be Learned? Yes, actually, though there aren’t that many. Pretty much it’s just the stuff that you really couldn’t learn how to do, or harness through a medium – things like empathy, telepathy, and shamanism. If you aren’t born with the ability to sense emotions, or see spirits, or hear others’ thoughts, then there’s really no way to develop that ability.
The HUGE Exception to everything I just told you: Chi/ki manipulation. Because everyone has an "aura" or a "life force," then technically this ability is Innate in everyone. However, it's not Innate in the traditional sense because you don't just automatically know how to manipulate your own energies. So, it's an Innate ability that must be Learned but doesn't need a medium (are you eyeballs spinning in their socks yet? sweatdrop ). It's incredibly difficult to get really good with this ability, though. You'd need a teacher, and years of study to be able to do anything really impressive, like chi-blasts or anything.
Note: The rest of these are also in the Main FPQ Section. I just decided to throw them in here for additional reference.
How Many Crafts Can my Character Master Before his Head Asplodes? I won’t get too into this because there’s a note about it under the Craft section in “Odds ‘n’ Ends,” but characters don’t get more than 1-2 innate abilities. Everything else is Learned… and, since Learned abilities take a lot of time to master, I don’t see people having more than 2 of these maximum, either. So basically, no more than 3 Craft abilities per character, and the more you have, the weaker they become.
So, Craft = Pixie Dust and Magic Fairies, Right? – Er, not exactly. Or rather, not at all. We call it Craft instead of Magic, and we call it that for a reason. Magic has this sense of “Poof! Look! Now you’re a frog!” while Craft is more technical, along the lines of “Well I need to figure out where I need to draw the power from and how to hold it in my mind so I don’t lose control…” and so on. The basic idea here is, your abilities don’t just pop out of thin air: it took work to get where you are, and now you’ve got a pretty good grip on whatever-it-is your abilities come from. Of course, some people learn faster than others, so there’s no real learning curve. Just keep in mind that, if you only awakened to your abilities recently, and you haven’t used them very much, here’s what’ll probably happen:
1. If you have good control, it’s not going to be very strong yet
2. If it’s really strong right away, you’re not going to have very good control over it yet
Like I said before, there aren’t any fixed rules about this stuff. These are just some things to keep in mind when you’re writing.
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Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:03 am
Forms of Craft There are five basic forms of Craft: offensive, defensive, healing, support, and non-combat. They are fairly straight-forward, but here are some important things to keep in mind if your character specializes in one of these.Offensive
Naturally, this refers to anything used to attack an opponent. Water spouts, fire arrows, lightning bolts called down from the heavens… you name it. The Elemental Crafts of fire, ice and lightning tend to be the best forms of offensive, though water, earth and shadow can be quite dangerous as well. Illusion Craft can be vicious as an offensive ability – after all, if you can get someone to believe that they’re drowning in a river, then you’ve got a pretty nice weapon on your hands. Holy Power trends towards defensive or healing strengths, but if you can find a user who’s mastered the offensive side of the power, it’s incredibly deadly.
These, of course, are just some ideas of Crafts with offensive strengths. The list is really endless, though. Telekinesis, Necromancy, Music Craft… if you can imagine it and explain it well, then it can probably beat the hell out of someone. 3nodding
If a Craft-user focuses on offensive abilities, their healing or defensive abilities (or both) take a harsh hit, simply because it’s impossible to be really good at everything… and it’s especially difficult to shield yourself from an enemy’s attack or heal your friend when you’re busy chucking giant icicles at your enemies.
Defensive
Again, kind of a given, but this one’s for abilities that protect against another’s offensive attack. These are typically shield- or armor-like creations, either used to soften an enemy’s blow, deflect it, or ping it back at the enemy (Rubber Craft, for the win! blaugh ). Of the Elementals, wind tends to be the best at defensive spells, though again water and shadow have their share of useful purposes. Holy Power can form impressive protection barriers, a well-trained telekinetic can have fun, and of course Metal Craft’s you’re best friend if you’re after someone whose arsenal includes fifteen different guns with fifteen different types of bullets. Again, the list could go on.
As with one who focuses in offense, a defensive specialist tends to have a hard time with offensive and/or healing abilities, though they have a better affinity towards learning healing than offensive casters. It’s also important to note that many support forms of Craft have a focus on defense, they just operate in a different way.Healing
Abilities that aid in healing injuries, sickness, and other ailments. Of the Elementals, earth and wind are the strongest healers, with water falling in a far third. Holy Power tends to be the most powerful overall, with some users even able to heal damaged eyesight or small severed limbs. Like with defensive, healing abilities can blend with support a lot, so check that out if you’re curious. Now, here are some nitty-gritty details about the messy business of being a doctor…
First and foremost, it’s important to note that you cannot magically make a wound go away unless it’s a tiny cut or scratch. Healing yourself is only ok if it’s a minor thing, like a cut; otherwise, you can’t heal yourself. The reason is that you can’t fix anything major with energy that comes from yourself, because then you would just be depleting yourself further. I do suppose that you could try, but it might kill you (especially if it’s something terrible, like a gunshot wound). What healing Craft can do, however, is speed the healing process. So, for instance, if someone breaks a bone, the Craft can align the bone properly and cut the mending time in half. Much is still manual, though. Take a gunshot wound: the healer would have to remove the bullet the old-fashioned way, but could use Craft to clot the blood so the bleeding stops.
Something of extreme importance: to effectively use Healing Craft, scientific knowledge of the body is necessary. For example, if your Healing Craft is strong enough to stop someone’s lung from filling with fluid, it’s still impossible to do that if you haven’t studied extensively to a) know what a lung looks like, and b) know how it works. There is no anatomy class in the general curriculum of Church-sanctioned schools, so most people need extra study to know these things. Knowledge also extends to knowledge of medicines and how to make them.
Also, most Healing Craft is really indirect Craft. This means that usually, it’s used to tweak medicine (an herb or something) to make it more effective. Healing is tough, not glamorous; these people are essentially doctors. Remember all of that lovely stuff about sick people throwing up and defecating? If you guessed that the healer gets to clean that up, then you're correct. Support
Support abilities, while they might not allow you to directly attack, defend, or heal, can do all of these in much subtler ways – and so much more. A user of Metal or Steel Craft could create powerful weapons, armor, and shields (not to mention dishware that never rusts); a master of Earth Craft could enhance the healing properties of certain herbs and medicines (and roll a bitchin’ blunt wink ); a telepath might be able to block other telepaths from reading his or her thoughts, or alert his/her friends to incoming enemies. The list is endless… though of course my favorite form is Charm Craft, no doubt because I have a character with this ability (see the Parade for details, as always xd ). Basically, if it’s indirectly helping with anything – offense, defense, healing, even non-combat – it counts as a support ability.
Those who specialize in support abilities tend to not specialize in anything else, since it’s such a broad category. However, on the other side of that, many Craft-users who specialize in one of the other abilities also keep a few support spells up their sleeves as well. Non-Combat
In a way, this list basically means “anything that didn’t fit into the above categories,” though of course – like everything else – some non-combat abilities are also support abilities (as mentioned above). Technically, healing is also a non-combat ability, but its so detailed and specific that it gets its own category. It might seem like a boring category, but if you’re not going to war, this is easily the most practical of the Crafts, and the one you’d be happiest to have in your daily life.
Some popular examples include: Empathy, future sight, and (to a point) telepathy and Charm Craft. All of the Elementals can also function as non-combat – after all, you can just as easily start a cooking fire with Fire Craft, or purify the drinking water with your Water Craft – though Holy Power and “Hellfire” tend to focus more on the battle/healing aspects of life.
Some not-so-popular examples include: Cooking Craft (make a soufflé that’ll put Ratatouille to shame), Cloth Craft (seams that never unravel! wool sweaters that never itch!), and Music Craft (just wow the audience with your soothing tune, instead of causing all that mind-exploding pain, why don’t’cha?).
If the Craft can attack, or defend, or heal, or support, then chances are they have a few non-combat skills as well. It overlaps nicely with other abilities, and some of the spells are so simple and practical that it’d be silly for the user not to learn them (like the water-purification one from above). Anyway, it’s quite useful, so keep it in mind when you’re creating characters. 3nodding
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Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:04 am
Parade of Crafts From here on, this thread will focus on the different types of Crafts, especially the more complex ones. If you create a specialized type of Craft, don’t be surprised if we send you a PM and ask for a little more detail on it. Nine times out of ten, though, the description in your profile will be plenty. 3nodding
This section will be arriving...eventually. sweatdrop
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