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Excellent! It's like the secretive old master who takes on a single apprentice and teaches them The Ancient Arts over the course of a few months in a brutal training montage, but concentrated into an ancient artifact that slumbers, awaiting the day when a student passes by.

I highly approve of this. Go to Comment

You know, I had actually intended #2 here to be the standard: shrines are used but once, and are then merely stones. Never did state that, though, huh? Go to Comment

It was inspired by the Deus Ex Machina that made Aerex Matare a ranger in AuR. Go to Comment

Wow. Novel! For some reason my first thought upon reading this was, Doomsday Seed Vault meets Mr. Miyagi meets ancient telepathic relic meets, well meets one other thing or other :)

So many ways to go with these! The plot-hooks multiply in my brain. Go to Comment

There are a lot of possibilities with these items, though it would need careful control from going overboard. One could create a dynasty of unparalleled warriors simply by chaining the knowledge generation after generation.

Other thoughts:

1. Forced Mastership - through magical compulsion, threat, hostage, etc, a renown individual is made to pass on his skill to an unworthy, but powerful enemy.

2. Stolen Mastership - The kingship of a certain nation is held by one who has the ability to control the sentient castle that serves as the nations capitol. The Duty shrines are used to pass this knowledge from generation to generation. And now the king is dead, and the shrine stolen...

3. Corrupted Shrine - The ritual to build the shrine was witnessed by a dark power, who managed to edit a few things to make life more ..interesting...



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I can see a couple of variations on this.

1. More than one person can receive the skills at any given time, letting a tyrant build an army of crack soldiers out of peasants.

2. The knowledge leaves the shrine once taken up by the recipient. In order for the shrine to be used again, the knowledge must be willfully transferred back through a nonmagical ritual. Go to Comment

Perhaps the runic carvings disappear from the stone while injecting themselves upon the recipient's skin as tattoos. Through another ritual, the tattoos could then be returned to the stone, or possibly shifted directly to another person (all that's needed is the tattoo-marked skin.) Go to Comment

I like it. Especially so for a 100. For some reason I had pictured the jewelry worn in some extravagant outside ball of sorts...in the rain. Not sure where to go from that or what affect I think the metal should have but I like the visual. Any rain event has added flair of these kind of weapons are broke out for battle. Stored in tanks and pulled out in proper conditions. England, Washington State/Oregon, rain forests? 

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Only voted Go to Comment

Useful for Merpeople.

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Is this like some "reverse rust", a material only usefull in oxydized form, useless otherwise? It is easy to see how terrestial civilazations mighy have overseen such an material; trying to melt it like other metals woult only produce a worthless dust. Though maybe deserts that were once seas might have deposits of it in dust-form. It seems like the ideal material for submarine life, but if your campaign does not take to the seas... Go to Comment

I know its a 100 word challenge sub, but i yearn to know more of this aquatic metal. Its fascinating really, a reverse-rust substance as Phaidros said. Can start, alter, or grow an entire campaign with this stuff! I just love the little fact that it needs to stay wet, and if it dries it cracks. Very evocative for a 100 word sub. Go to Comment

I like it.

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Very good and I look forward to giving it an HOH.

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I don't really have huge heapings of praise to express, though I wholeheartedly enjoyed the thoroughness and deeply thought out nature of this system.

Very well done.

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Still working out the details here, but I wanted to get what I had out there for your perusal. Suggestions on spells, equipment, noted notables, and RP hooks are all welcome.

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Cool idea, added it.

In theory, any map created by a cartogramancer can be used for appropriate spells for as long as it lasts. Rather than time be the limitation on an instantly created map, I made it accuracy. Go to Comment

Great response, thanks for the suggestions axlerowes.

I wrote most of the spells as they came to me and organized them later. I think a number of them are essentially varities of one another. I'll consider reorganizing and/or synthesize some of the spells.

I'll see if I can flesh out and explain the Mountweazel more.

Hadn't thought about maps at that small a scale. I think I'm geared mostly toward the geographical sorts of maps, but that's an interesting idea to explore.

I considered the timeliness of maps. Like perhaps being able to see the movements of an event that happened a week or even a century before. As for time travel, I feel like it may be out of my intended scope. But then, historical maps are a pretty prominent portion of cartography... It's something I'll have to consider.

My tendency towards subs like these are to provide broad ideas. I'm terrible when it comes to mechanics. :P I saw someone out in the Interwebs created a D&D 3.5 Prestige Class cartogramancer with some mechanics, but they essentially limit the spells to what I called a casting map. If you have suggestions for mechanics, either system-specific or otherwise, I'd be curious.

Again, thanks for the constructive comments. Much obliged! Go to Comment

Okay, finally completed more or less. Thanks for the very helpful comments - I've added and modified what I could from your suggestions. Feel free to comment or add your own suggestions.

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