Rituals
From Neverend
Rituals are used to create enchantments. Rituals require certain actions to take place, along with certain items, such as an athame, a sacrificial creature or item, a wand or staff, herbs and reagents, holy water, metallic items, cauldrons, pentacles, medallions, braziers, tables, or other miscellania.
Rituals will affect a certain area and perimeter. A circle of protection prevents spells and attacks from crossing the circle. A force field prevents moving past the perimeter. Rituals may benefit crops, heal others, summon monsters or creatures, attract monsters, cause damage, cast spells, act as a "camera" point, act as a warp point, increase protection towards an element, poison or damage anyone inside the area, and other effects.
These spells on the land are "enchantments." The actions that create them are called rituals. Enchantments can also be created by spells, without using rituals. These are often weak enchantments or costly spells.
Enchantment power and area are based on magic power and skill, thus a weak mage will have a smaller and weaker enchantment. Powerful mages will have larger and powerful enchantments. Enchantment are and perimeter is selected and dragged outwards, then "set." It is in effect for a duration of time, number of creatures alive, mana available, or a specific object that holds the enchantment. When the condition for its existence is gone, the enchantment is gone.
Some enchantments have charges, meaning the effect happens a limited number of times before the enchantment is destroyed.
Objects and items can have enchantments, and are left to leave an effect on the land. Powerful items can have almost permanent effects on the area until the item is drained or destroyed.
Some objects can affect enchantments, bolstering power or negating/nullifying them. Similar to the Pylon area effect in Starcraft, these objects act positively or negatively with each other to affect their given area.
[edit] Ritual area
When starting a ritual, a 9x9 square is drawn and placed on the ground if terrain is flat and there are no obstructions. Items placed in this ritual space count as being dropped. When items are placed and the player starts the ritual, the area is checked for the position of the items. A match with a spell in the database is a success, and no match is a failure. Books, scrolls, and NPCs give hints on the necessary items and item placement on the ritual area. When the ritual is canceled, the ritual area grid is no longer in place. When the area is destroyed by terrain editing or building editing, the area grid is no longer in place.
Rituals use geometric and trigonometric patterns. while avoiding common religious symbols. Non-symmetrical patterns are possible. Typical items include wands, skulls, bones, leaves, candles, bowls, bottles, urns, dirt, dust, ash, coal, gems, swords, shields, armor, currency, ore, wooden items, clothing, and jewelry.
Depending on the spell, the results can include:
- Enchanting one of the items with a magic effect
- Recharging a chargeable magic item
- Creating a new item
- Creating a temporary magic item
- Creating a new wand, scroll or potion
- Creating a magic weapon or armor
- Summoning a monster
- Summoning undead or ghosts
- Creating a construct creature, enchanted item creature, or possessed item creature
- Animating a corpse, reviving a party NPC or quest NPC, or speaking to an NPC corpse (used in quests)
- Destroying an item to create another item
- Duplicating one specific low cost item (bread, gold piece)
- Talking to a voice or non-corporeal NPC, or having a message with no further conversation (used in quests)
- Creating a portal to a specific dimension
- Casting a temporary magic effect such as invisible, strength up, defense up, speed up, magic power up
- Creating an astral projection or camera view effect
- Causing a detrimental effect to those in the area besides the caster such as poison clouds, sleeping, burning, unconsciousness, blindness, or paralysis.
- Revealing anything hidden and invisible in the area
- Summoning an aggressive monster that attacks the caster and those in the area
- Summoning a monster under caster's control
- Summoning a monster that requires item or magic upkeep to control
- Summoning a monster that requires a certain alignment or frequent malicious attacks to remain in control
- Summoning a monster with its own will and needs such as killing, vandalizing, stealing, casting magic destructively, and taunting
- Retrieving a player or NPC character from the underworld
- Scrying the location of ore, artifacts, currency, powerful weapons and armor, powerful magic users
- Having a birds eye view of an area with perimeter borders
Some objects have a ritual space that is either active or inactive depending on level ground, and can also be active or inactive based on time of day, weather, or terrain. An altar has a default ritual space on itself. A ritual rug or carpet item has a default ritual space when laid down. Some ritual spells require an altar or rug, and some require a specific time of day or weather condition.
