Destruction

From Neverend

Destruction is a process that temporarily stores items and objects, releases items and objects in damaged states, or replaces them with debris and trash. Destruction compartmentalizes entire groups of items to deal with them rapidly, requiring them to be quickly removed from the scene and replaced with an animation of objects being destroyed. A table is the most common example, as a destroyed table would contain its plates, food, and items on the table, show a destructive animation, and then leave debris, trash, and surviving items. Items in a debris state are tossed around an area and are not picked up until they revert to items or are destroyed. Some items cannot be destroyed and remain after destruction completes.

A larger area of destruction takes into account more items and objects at once, such as a room filled with tables with plates of food. A large meteor would force all tables to be stored while the tables go through destruction animations, then leave behind tables, with items or trash.

A building or a city block would face the same need to store away its items and objects, show flying debris and destruction effects, then leave behind items. The storing, animation, and leaving items must all be fast processes, so processing may begin before destruction begins, such as a spell effect coming towards an area- the area is already calculated for destruction, but the effect can be canceled by another spell and prevent destruction. If the destruction effect is lagged, it may substitute generic effects including smoke, dirt, clouds, dust, ash, wood chips, saw dust, embers, flames, fire, vibration and air distortion effects.

Destruction areas already know where a spell or effect will land, such as an area on the street filled with items. This area is already calculated for destruction and has its destruction effect ready as the effect approaches, but may cancel if the spell is canceled. If someone takes an item before its destruction effect, it must be checked against the items contained in the effect to prevent duping, or destroy the contained item if it has the same ID as an existing item.

Geomancy uses destruction for the ground, showing rippling, quakes, digging, trails, and other distortions, dividing an area of land to be altered such as a quake or landslide spell.