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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Radijs on February 10, 2013, 03:15:42 PM
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I'm wonderinig what kind of things someone can do with terramancy. I've seen very few examples of it in the books.
Harry himself uses it to play with magnetism and gravity and once to bury his goodie bag.
Donald Morgan used some kind of subterranean shockwave when he fought with Harry. But what other ways are there to use (and abuse) terramancy?
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Armor is a cool thing to do thematically, you can also do a declaration to be in an iron rich area when fighting fae. Pretty much look at avitar the last air bender and look at what those people do for ideas
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Manipulating earth itself to do various things, gravity and magnetism as you mention, also, lightning can be Earth magic. That's a pretty big thematic scope to play with, IMO.
So...you can pretty much whatever you want?
I mean, name a thing you'd like to do, and you can likely use one of the things I just listed to do it. Usually more than one.
Attacks? Earth shockwave, bouncing metal ball of death (or Harry's attack-keys), direct gravitic assault,or lightning bolt. Stalagmites sprouting at them from the ground. Almost anything.
Defensive Blocks? Wall of earth, gravitic warping effect, magnetic forcefield ala Magneto, floating blades that parry attacks for you, etc.
Offensive Blocks? Trapping people with magnetism or gravitic force, burying them up to their necks, wrapping them in chains, etc.
Maneuvers? Well, a lot of the things listed above could be maneuvers too, also knocking people down with earthquakes, casual disarming of entire zones with magnetism, reshaping the terrain to put up scene aspects. All sorts of stuff.
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I'm wonderinig what kind of things someone can do with terramancy.
Anything you want as long as it involves using "terra" and fits your group's game. Build yourself a rock golem, draw strength from the earth, change the earth under something (foundations of sand won't hold much of a building), make ground travel easier...or harder, dig holes, find metals / gems, locate and map caverns, collapse tunnels, build or destroy roads (and many other constructs), and much more. Perhaps a better question is, what do you want to accomplish? If you can find a way to do it using earth, terramancy should work.
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I was mostly looking for general inspiration around using earth themed evocations.
This is helping a lot :)
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And if you want to draw fire, you don't necessarily have to use lightning--superheated lave chunks work just fine on Vamps and other things that have it in for you without having to worry about silly things like the villain jumping into a car and laughing as your lightning bolt is harmlessly absorbed by the car into the ground.
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My character, Sunny O'Connor, currently has access only to his Earth evocations. I've written up almost two dozen spells just for the one element - Sunny's approach is the manipulation of energies through electromagnetism as well as the control of environments with gravity.
Gravity is pretty...straight forward. Lots of attacks and blocks. With electromagnetism, I use it for his principal shield-block as well as for the one quick veil he can still do (which operates by manipulating sensory data, which is all received by the brain via electrical impulses and such).
When I approach developing spells for an Element I first think about the physical properties of the Element in our world, then address the metaphysical properties that might be tied to the Element (depending on the perspective of the practitioner and their paradigm), and finally, I flavor it all based on the character. Magic is as flexible as our imaginations are...tis why it's big fun ;) .
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I was mostly looking for general inspiration around using earth themed evocations.
Evocations? Mechanically you'll be a bit more limited in what you can do with an evocation than with themed thaumaturgy. You'll need to fit what you want into one of four actions - attacks, blocks, maneuvers, and counterspells.
For example you're not going to build a golem (except perhaps as flavor) or find things with evocation. You should be able to use attacks varying from explosions of earth & rock to rocky fists striking from the ground, lightning, gravity changes, or even tiny elementals striking and dissipating. Blocks may cover anything from walls of earth, grasping fists of stone, slick graphite, sharp basalt or even veils such as clouds of dust. Earth themed maneuvers have nearly unlimited sources. Counterspells are probably limited to other earth themed spells or things which could be grounded.
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I gm'd a terramancer who was guarding an NPC in a building. He used ritual to make all the windows super-hard/bullet-proof. Glass is melted sand, after all.
For evocations, UmbraLux gave lots of good examples.
The only thing I can think of that might not have been mentionned is Maybe digging out holes in the ground or caverns. This impedes movement, but it could also create new zones.
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I like the idea of Earth Evocations manifesting visually as feats of strength and stability. The Terramancer makes a small stomping motion that reverberates through the area and channels the strength of the earth through a mean left hook. Bam, simple kinetic attack released through the fist, or a ring, or a gauntlet, but it looks like you have a punch worthy of an ogre.
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Thanks for all the great examples guys and girls. There's some great ideas in this thread.
I like the idea of a gravity assault. Just crush them like a bug.
Slightly unrelated: What kind of spells could best be used for a character's rote evocations?
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Id personally go with a defense spell (Possibly armor) and then an attack spell at the least. Probably make a maneuver spell too (like reduce gravity in a specific area to set them up for another attack.)
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How many you got?
A defensive block and a direct attack would be good to start with, probably followed by a Maneuver and an offensive block. If you're really Lore heavy finish up with something that targets a Zone. Those are particularly appropriate for Earth magic.
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Thanks for all the great examples guys and girls. There's some great ideas in this thread.
I like the idea of a gravity assault. Just crush them like a bug.
Slightly unrelated: What kind of spells could best be used for a character's rote evocations?
Don't forget that Gravity goes both ways. ;)
The wizard I just made has a Earth Offensive Block that hovers the target in mid-air. Attacks against Endurance, no Strength Powers need apply.
I think Earth magic would be particularly good at working with Ley Lines. Relatedly, I think Counterspells would work by cutting off the flow of magic from the source (as opposed to Water diffusing the magic at the effect).
Otherwise, Deadmanwalking has said the other recommendations I could think of.
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@Dougan
Love the gravity!
My current character's defensive blocks and counterspells primarily work like that - lots of deflecting or scrambling of energies. I never knew the Element of Earth could be so much fun till I started working on it!
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I like playing around with magnetism when it comes to earth magic. Magnetic fields can induce an electrical current in metal, and that current can cause the metal to heat up and in extreme cases melt.
Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7DBS2Is0ws
Also, gravity doesn't have to mean pushing someone further down, but you could pretty much make him move in all directions. One of my characters (though he is a science mage, using a different elemental set) has a spell where he can do a sort of gravity tunnel that lets him sort of fall upwards to get up a building and things like that.
Then, as others said, there are all kinds of fun you can have with the element itself. Most buildings are made of some kind of stone. Do a spell that lets you become one with it and simply walk through a wall, without the need to break it down.
It all comes down to your characters style. I could see a metalbender style character, that is carrying a piece of metal everywhere and morphs it into all kinds of shapes to fit his needs. A lance that lashes out as an attack, a flat disk in front of you to clock, a chain to constrain someone and many many other things. I've actually had something like this plant as an IoP for a character (the metal takes the form of a bracer by default, and can be morphed from there).