Chloromancy (you know... plant spells)

[Haru]

Ah, now I get it, I am new to the system, so I didn't get the aspects thing completely. After reading that chapter again, I think it is exactly what I was thinking of. The acorns will place the WILD GROWTH aspect on the scene, which is the kind of thing I had in mind, using whatever stored growing energy is inside them on every plantlike life in the vicinity making them grow and the chloromancer can now tag that growth and shape it. I like it.
Lore will possibly start at 4 or 5, not sure yet. Either way, I think WILD GROWTH would qualify as a sticky aspect, so I am going with it.

As for the oxygen idea, I really really like it, I haven't even thought of that one. Another idea in that direction: how would it work, if I wanted to enrich the area with oxygen, so an unsuspecting sorcerer might throw around his fire and have it blow up in his face, because it is overpowered due to the oxygen overdose?

Ritual (Chloromancy) is already on the charactersheet, as I thought most things involving plant magic might take a while, so thaumaturgy would be the way to go. The Bonzai-Bob was something I was considering, but also things like letting the bonzai behind a window come to life and open that window or something similiar. Hell, you could do all kinds of fun things with a bonzaifiend.

Now all I have to do is get my friends to play, which would mean getting them into dresden first...
To the geek-mobil!!!

[Morgan]

Awesome I'm glad it clicked, those ah-ha moments when you see people figure out how aspects work is one of the best things about FATE.

For flooding an area with oxygen you'd be casting a spell that is a maneuver that would place something like "OXYGEN RICH ENVIRONMENT" on the scene now when Mr. Fire Wizard lights up you could tag it for effect and give him or the zone he's in the ever popular "ON FIRE" aspect, as he lights himself up. Now the thing that takes a little getting used to is that even though there is now fictionally a fire it doesn't actually cause him any stress or consequences until you tag it to have an effect. But usually he's going to spend a round to get rid of that aspect, rather then stand around and let himself continue to burn.

As for the opening the locked window with a houseplant idea that's totally a great use of Chloromancy, but I wouldn't worry about creating a whole mini chlorofiend every time you want to do something like that. Animating houseplants to do simple actions is probably a lot easier to do than creating a brand new plant matter homunculus for something that could just as easily be solved with a brick through the window, or a glass cutter.

I was wondering though since you have Ritual (Chloromancy), do you also have Channeling (Chloromancy)? A lot of the effects you were talking about using in your initial posts would be pretty hard to pull off quickly enough to be useful in stressful situations if you don't have the ability to use Evocation. Of course with both of those powers you are becoming something of a Chloromancer Supreme but it sounds like that's what you want your character to be which is also very cool.

[mostlyawake]

Essentially, the same spell would "oxygenate" an area.  As a ritual though, you're casting it ahead of time... hard to do if he's about to cast fire and you want to cause it to blow up in his face.  Easy to do if you know he's a fire-guy and place it early.

I like the aspect on the scene (instead of yourself) because the free tag can be transferred *at your discretion* to someone else in the party, if need be.

Other ideas:

Hedge Maze (as thaumaturgy)
complexity: varies, usually 7-9, plus extra for size or duration; fairy tale castles may exceed 30 or more!
The caster first outlines an area with grains and fruits, flowers, or seeds of common shrubs or bushes. Once enclosed, the caster places a few more lines completely across the area, making random intersections, and then closes the spell. The caster can draw an "inner circle" of an area to remain clear and surrounded, if desired. If a building is to be surrounded, then all of the zones adjacent to the building must be included in the complexity. If the building is to be covered inside the maze, then all of the zones that the building contains must also be included.  The shrubs and bushes then grow to great height, forming a hedge maze around the area. The maze does not necessarily follow the pattern drawn by the maze, but the caster must specify two openings (either two on the outside or one outside, and one on the inner circle), and whether or not the maze is open at the top or if the hedges form true tunnels. The caster instantly knows the way through the maze, as well as anyone that meets a condition set by the caster according to the rules for ward recognition.

All other people must surpass a barrier strength equal to the complexity of the spell, minus any shifts spent on size or duration, to pass through the maze.  To overcome the barrier, a person can use might (to break through a section), weapons (to hack through) or academics (to solve the puzzle) for each zone that they pass through. For high complexity mazes, this could be treated as accumulated successes... however, the maze shifts and regrows any damage every few minutes, making such a trip a one-time deal.
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[mostlyawake]

Also, props if you avoid the "gnarled staff" motif and instead get yerself a magical watering can as your focus item.

[Haru]

Well yeah, it does need getting used to, though the best way probably is a practice game. But that is exactly why I started doing the characters, so I can run into problems like these and get them out of the way early 

To see if I got it: The sorcerer is ON FIRE, and because it is an aspect I just placed on him, I can tag it for free. Now I go and use some roots from the trees to grab him and put ROOTED on top of it. Now I have 2 aspects I can tag to entangle him even further, meaning I cast another rooting spell as an attack. At power 5 it becomes a weapon:5, discipline +4 plus 2 tags are +8 shifts without even rolling. Assuming a roll of 0, the sorcerer gets 13 stress, so the heat together with the roots wrapping around his body will be enough to take him out (or at least hurt like hell) and I can get away. With conviction at 5 this would give me 1 shift of mental stress (2 actually, counting the first rooting spell).

As for the opening the locked window with a houseplant idea that's totally a great use of Chloromancy, but I wouldn't worry about creating a whole mini chlorofiend every time you want to do something like that. Animating houseplants to do simple actions is probably a lot easier to do than creating a brand new plant matter homunculus for something that could just as easily be solved with a brick through the window, or a glass cutter.

I can't help but imagine the face of someone minding his own business, when suddenly one of his plants gets up to carry stuff around. Priceless 

I was never going to give her a gnarled staff, because, well... it has been done to death. I was going to go with a shovel or a spade as a ritual focus item. I realise it is still stafflike, but it fits the character. Plus most rituals will probably involve a lot of preperation in the form of gardening, so it is not only for magical use. For evocation I was going to go without a focus, but that's where the acorns come in, if I really need the extra power.

The Maze is a great idea. How long in advance would I be able to prepare such a thing? I am thinking of a kind of thing like Harry has around his apartment, when he lights that one candle. Seeing as the chloromancer lives in a shed in the tree nursery she works in, it wouldn't be a problem to set it up in advance all the way around her home.

[dlw32]

I like the plant motif. Remember fungus, molds, and algae are all plants. Not sure what I'd do with that (grow algae to walk on water perhaps?) but good to know.

[mostlyawake]

The Maze is a great idea. How long in advance would I be able to prepare such a thing? I am thinking of a kind of thing like Harry has around his apartment, when he lights that one candle. Seeing as the chloromancer lives in a shed in the tree nursery she works in, it wouldn't be a problem to set it up in advance all the way around her home.

The duration of thaumaturgy is 1 day, with 1 extra complexity per time shift on the time chart.  So, technically you can set it up "several lifetimes" in advance (for +13 difficulty)... though it probably makes more sense to redo it every season or year (lower difficulty, plus, better fits the gardener motif). I forget the scale there, but that's probably only 5 or 6 extra shifts.  Which you can easily pick up with declarations (resources: excellent quality seeds; scholarship: thought-out puzzle; endurance: cast completely through without stopping (as it will take several hours minimum to draw the lines of seeds around a structure)... that gets you 6 right there (each declaration is an aspect that you tag for 2 shifts of power; look up declarations in the book for more info).

[Haru]

I've been thinking about some thaumaturgy spells for my chloromancer:

Rampage Growth
Complexity: 23 (21 to reduce time from "a mortal lifetime" to "a few moments" + 2 to cover a zone)
Duration: a few moments
Effect: The plants in the zone start growing extremely fast, creating cover and obstacles, growing in and over houses, cars, everything.
Variations: reduce shifts for a slower growth (14 would take a whole day to grow), making it more of a reforestation spell, but it would also be a lot easier to do.

The time chart is usually used to increase the duration of the spell, I used it to lower the growing time of the plants, did I still count the complexity right?


Banana phone (yeah, that's right)
Complexity: 2 for duration +1 for each banana over the first two, that is connected to the "network"
Duration: 1 hour
Effect: The chloromancer takes a bundle of bananas and creates a link between them. For the duration of the spell the bananas will act as a radio to communicate. It is important, that the bananas are still connected before the spell is cast.
Variations: add shifts to increase duration.

I know, this one is kind of silly, but I really like it. Bananas are plants (or parts of), so as a chloromancer I should be good to go. For complexity I took the advise from iago from another thread, where he suggested the complexity of a water breathing spell at a level equal to a resource roll for buying scuba gear. Radios are not really expensive, so a roll of mediocre should be enough, so the spells complexity is only made up of duration and the number of "phones".
As a matter of fact, you could use pretty much anything to create short term radio communication for your group. Take some playdo, put a little piece in everyone's ear and you got the full blown wizard version of it (and the less silly/fun one). Of course, the range is limited, maybe a block or two, but if you use it to storm a house from opposite directions or something similar, it is extremely useful. And it is hexing resistant as well.

There are some other spells, but with those two I was not sure if they should be able to work like that.

[newtinmpls]

I like the oxygen creating spell, but you could also do more dangerous things; like if I recall correctly the gas inside the "bladders" that keep kelp afloat is actually CO2, and if you pump enough of that into the air, you can suffocate folks. As a possible "block" to this effect, you could empower something that would look like a flower in the buttonhole or some such; enough locally created O2 to protect against the effects.

How about some sort of shaping thing, to allow accelerated growth of a tree to allow a branch/ladder to be formed where/to needed.

Think about carnivourous plants - a huge sized venus flytrap.

Extra-poisonous Ivy (or maybe oozing the irritating oil?).

Dian

[Warpmind]

For some reason, my mind keeps insisting that Chloromancer needs the Trouble Aspect "Goddamn Batman"...

Oh, and fungus and mold is technically not plant, but a category of its own. Difference between botany and mycology.

Also, consider all the fun plant toxins you could extricate from specialized flora... Like, say, almonds carrying a deadly dose of cyanide... Or maybe a plant which draws a specific mineral from the soil and stores it in its leaves or something? (Like an Aluminium Flower, for example.)

[crusher_bob]

I've been thinking about some thaumaturgy spells for my chloromancer:

Rampage Growth
Complexity: 23 (21 to reduce time from "a mortal lifetime" to "a few moments" + 2 to cover a zone)
Duration: a few moments
[...]
The time chart is usually used to increase the duration of the spell, I used it to lower the growing time of the plants, did I still count the complexity right?

First, you need to allocate power for the base effect (usually around 3).  Then, you want time.  As your base time will be '1 day', going up 13 steps on the time chart (assuming I've counted right) to 'several mortal lifetimes' adds another 13 complexity.  Then at least 2 complexity to effect a single zone.  So you are only looking at complexity 18, +2 for every zone after the first.

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For the banana phone, remember to add extra power if you want to be able to use them inside the house, as you'll have to beat the threshold scores.

[devonapple]

Difference between botany and mycology.

Mycomancer!
Creating animated mushroom homunculi (D&D's Myconid race).
Casting hallucinogenic spores!

[Warpmind]

Mycomancer!
Creating animated mushroom homunculi (D&D's Myconid race).
Casting hallucinogenic spores!

Sounds like a fun guy.

[bibliophile20]

Sounds like a fun guy.

Not really, but he grows on you.

[Katarn]

Also consider using the Asian elemental system, to make magic more focused.  Channeling/Ritual would keep the refresh down.  Typically, catches are reserved for sponsored magic (like Fae), so rely on compels to make situations interesting.