#ligic

[markermage]

Ligic in Warclema - Casting and Neutral Ligic

As established in the previous post, ligic is a magical energy that is generated by matter under the effects of Warclema's physics. It builds up until it starts leaking out. But how do people in Warclema manage to shoot each other with blasts of it?

Stored ligic can be forced out of an object by having it put under some sort of stress, whether it be stretching, applying pressure, or causing it to undergo a sudden acceleration. Almost about anything that could wring water from a cloth can wring ligic from an object. Common methods used by humans are tensing the muscles of one's hand or simply punching the air.

I go with the general idea that a lot of DBZ style ki blast stuff can be done with ligic. It can be concentrated at a single point before being forced forwards in some sort of hadouken or kamehameha. It can be shot as a finger beam. It can also be used for beam struggles. The main differences between the DBZ ki blasts and ligic is the elemental nature of ligic and that ligic can't be guided once it leaves the person, so no curved shots or hellzone grenade attacks.

The ability to release ligic through sudden acceleration allows one to do melee attacks that let out some ligic that will extend past the attack's normal range. The ligic stored in a sword, fist, or other weapon is able to retain the momentum of the weapon even as that weapon stops or changes direction, resulting in a wave of energy continuing out. This provides an easy justification for sword beams and similar ranged attacks with melee weapons.

In games, ligic would have three stats associated with it that I'm going to call "capacity", "control", and "power" for now. Ligic capacity is pretty much max MP. Ligic control kinda corresponds to a mix of dexterity equivalent and wisdom in that it can be used for skillful aim of ligic and is a major part of holding back enough to make efficient use of beneficial properties of ligic without letting it get strong enough to do damage to a target (getting red ligic to heal instead of burn). Ligic power would pretty much be used for magic attack strength.

While ligic use is simple enough for most residents of Warclema to quickly learn the basics of, many still use external means of using ligic, such as plants that can be coaxed into releasing stored up ligic. This is mostly because plants have a higher ligic capacity and being more adapted for its use. The use of one's own ligic by humans is treated like unarmed combat. It can be a useful skill, but having an actual weapon/plant tends to be preferable.

Neutral Ligic

Neutral ligic is ligic outside the colors of red, blue, black, and white. It doesn't really have any elemental effect to it and instead sort of adds some weight to attacks. Even when reflected by an object of the same color, the impact of it can be felt. It's able to be used to physically push objects or continue a cutting slice beyond a blade's normal reach.

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[agatanfoundation]

Another of Many Best Moments of Dan Barker

[thisisforthepixels]

Ok...

[markermage]

Techniques in Warclema - Non-Ligic Techniques

Let's end the week with some stuff that's less focused on using the magic system.

Neutroslime Bandage & Neutroslime Use in General

Pretty much the use of neutroslime to repair a wound. Unlike red ligic, it grants instant healing of HP, but the HP is kept track of differently. The HP recovered by it is lost if something interrupts the use of the technique. It is not real healing but having the neutroslime shapeshift into connections that were previously damaged. If the neutroslime reverts back from inattention, lost focus, or repurposing, the damage comes back. It can aid in healing though, improving regen speeds, especially if combined with the use of red ligic to quicken metabolism.

This and other neutroslime-based techniques would be available to neutromorphs and people that have learned how to manipulate neutroslime. They would probably also use some sort of neutroslime point system (separate from magic/mana points) that keeps track of available neutroslime/concentration available and be more of a "per turn" sort of thing where instant effects don't drain it, but buffs and healing reduce it until ended. Like, maybe a neutroslime technique where the neutroslime forms a spike that pierces the target for an attack might use 5 NP. It would require the user to have that 5 NP available, but the 5 NP it uses up is recovered when the turn ends or possibly at the beginning of the user's next turn. Meanwhile a strength buff that uses 5 NP would not give back that 5 NP until the buff is canceled. Neutromorphs might be able to tap into stores of neutroslime used for body maintenance, but this comes with the possibility of debuffs that will need a turn to remove.

Epy Quinn's Analysis & Rage

So I kinda went over how this would work in a game back in this post. While typing this post though, I had a good idea for different ways to handle it. For those that want a summary, Epy Quinn (a character from the game I describe in the linked post) is supposed to be a human character with a sort of scholar/berserker yin-yang thing to her where she scans the enemy and plans in the beginning of combat, then lets loose in a mindless rage. My initial idea was for a switch from 2D Zelda combat to a sort of 2D Devil May Cry style of combat.

Well now, my idea is that for turn-based combat, it could work as a deckbuilder sort of thing where the first phase is a scan ability and some probing attacks that provide opportunities to modify a deck of combat actions. When the player makes the decision to do so, they can have Epy enter a rage mode where she gets powered up but is only able to choose from attacks drawn from the deck. I feel it gets across the idea of yin planning and yang execution phases rather well.

For a turnless action game, I'm thinking of having Epy start with a defense boost in the planning phase and be able to have a sort of Metroid Prime-style scanning mechanic that requires focus to be maintained on a target. If the scan is completed, Epy gets some bonuses against it. These bonuses might increase with another scan. When the player decides to go into the execution phase, the defense boost of the planning phase is lost, and Epy is granted access to her full list of offensive abilities, and now has a combo system that grants stat bonuses based on how big the combo has gotten. If she keeps landing hits, she will eventually get her defense higher than it was in the planning phase, but if it's lost, she will be very vulnerable.

Leaf Shield

A defensive technique of felves and anyone with plant-based weaponry or armor. It's pretty much using a leaf to intercept ligic-based attacks. It can restore a felf's MP or charge up skills that plant-based equipment grants if it manages to block a ligic attack, but comes with a risk of temporarily changing the element of the felf or equipment to that of the blocked attack. Such a change will wear off over time, but it will wear off faster if the altered element is used.

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[markermage]

Techniques in Warclema - Blue Ligic Techniques

Moving onto some Blue Ligic stuff today. It's pretty much a cold/ice/slow/stop element.

Freeze

Your basic ice magic technique of doing damage by making something colder. It robs the target of movement as well as temperature, potentially causing it to come to a complete halt, even in mid-air. This is mostly because blue ligic accomplishes the ice/cold stuff through the slow/stop stuff. In a turn-based RPG, this could reduce enemy speed. In a platformer, this would be able to turn enemies into temporary platforms.

Stasis

Pretty much freeze, but the user is attempting to have the technique spread evenly across the target to get the slow/stop effect without the body getting damaged by part of it experiencing thermal contraction. Good not just for making platforms without killing the target, but also for keeping an ally that has suffered a fatal blow or has a deadly poison spreading within them alive longer.

Ice Formation

Pretty much any use of blue ligic to freeze water for use as a solid object. It just needs water, either in liquid of vapor forms, though access to liquid water does make it much easier. Some creatures will use it for forming icicle horns or spikes. More skilled users may be able to get it to form more intricate shapes. It gets used for temporary weapons, icy projectiles, barriers, and armor.

Vacuum Pull

Some use blue ligic to thermally compress the air, creating a vacuum that will pull in whatever is around to fill it. I can see this being used for pulling in collectables in a game. I can also imagine it being scaled up into a method of character movement with the character being propelled into the area they aim it at, having it work as a double jump or even flight. The bleather penguin breed uses this technique during its flight.

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Techniques in Warclema - Red Ligic Techniques

Moving onto Red Ligic today. It's pretty much a fire/heat/speed element that's also used for HP recovery.

Burn

The biggest combat use of red ligic is to burn things, whether it be burning the an opponent or lighting parts of the environment on fire. It's worth noting that resistance to red ligic does not necessarily mean resistance to fire damage, so a game that features environmental damage might have some red-colored enemies that are able to fend off the direct use of red ligic, but not be able to handle stepping into fire. The giant blazesilk weaver of the Fire Forest has a lot of prey that is resistant to red ligic and has to rely on coating them in a flammable webbing to light on fire in order to burn them down to the ashes it eats. This is also what all red ligic uses become if too much power is put into them or they get overused on a target.

Haste

While lighting things on fire is what red ligic is most known for, what it is at its most basic is haste magic. This would be the typical do more things between the enemy's turns type of thing. It can be a case of getting two actions per turn. It can be getting another turn in combat sooner. It can be the character's movement speeding up in a game that isn't turn-based.

Quicken Metabolism

Red ligic's healing technique. It does not restore health all at once but instead gives a regen effect that will restore HP over time. If the game it's used in has a natural regen rate, this will apply a multiplier to it. With status effects that will wear off on their own, this can also make that happen sooner. For games with distinct in-combat and out-of-combat phases, this might work like typical RPG health-restoration magic when used out of combat. In a Mystery Dungeon game, it would shorten the number of turns it takes to recover HP or lose energy. Any Warclema game that will bother with a hunger meter will likely have this technique come with a drain on that hunger meter as it restores health, all with the excuse that it speeds up the body's natural processes like digestion and healing.

This technique does have a nefarious use as well though. If the target is suffering from poison or some other damage-over-time effect, this will multiply the damage taken from such effects. The crimson crocker uses it in this way on targets it poisons.

Fire Breath

Some of Warclema's creatures that I haven't gotten around to posting about are able to perform a fire breath attack with the explanation of it being them expelling a flammable gas or liquid and hitting it with enough red ligic to light it on fire as it's shooting out.

Thermal Propulsion

Pretty much using red ligic to thermally expand the air to propel stuff away from a spot. It can be used for some knockback or as an alternative to white ligic for double jumps and flight, because using fire magic for jet propulsion is awesome.

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[markermage]

Techniques in Warclema - White Ligic Techniques

Today's techniques will focus on White Ligic, which works like an air element with a magnetic levitation or antigravity theme to it.

Repulsion Slam

The main damaging move that white ligic has. It takes advantage of how Warclema's alternative to gravity works, specifically edge repulsion. The idea is to pretty much make the target quickly gain altitude through white ligic's magnetic levitation properties fast enough that they get crushed against the edge repulsion counter force. In 2D platformer gameplay, this would likely be represented by the target being sent up and slamming into the top of the screen despite it being an outdoor area with open sky. It would of course have an indoor equivalent where the target is slammed into the ceiling and another for sky islands where the edge repulsion is replaced by the matching levitation of the sky island or the ground below it. The damage of the ceiling variant might be different enough to be counted as a different damage type in a game that bothers with damage resistances. I'm actually thinking of having this be the sort of attack that larger varieties of flysh use for hunting smaller prey.

Double Jump

Pretty much using a small burst of white ligic to propel oneself upwards. Adjusting strength and length of it can change it into a flutter jump, a floaty jump, aa glide, or a hover.

Lighten

White ligic can be used in smaller amounts to make an object lighter. This does not really affect the object's mass or inertia. It just makes it partially levitated so that the object doesn't need as much to hold it up. This can be used to make heavy weapons more wieldable.

Positive Uppercut

Pretty much the opposite of black ligic's ground pound. The user quickly charges themself, a body part, or a weapon with white ligic to make it quickly levitate upwards to collide with a target.

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[markermage]

Techniques in Warclema - Black Ligic Techniques

This week's poll came up with Techniques as the winner through my usual tiebreaker ruling of "oldest wins". Previously revealed info on this one has been...

Planning to get into descriptions of visuals and mechanics.

I might try to describe multiple per post.

Will probably not stick to a single game genre.

Now let's get onto the techniques, and I think I'll try starting with some that use Black Ligic, which works as a sort of ground element magic.

Ground Pound

User imbues themself with black ligic to quickly pull them down to do damage to whatever they land on. Pretty much a standard platformer technique. Might have in more RPG-ish systems as an attack that allows for damage based on defense (better you are at tanking damage, the more of powerful of a drop you can handle) or character weight (if included as a stat).

Ground Slam

Hit opponent with a blast of black ligic to pull them down, hard. Does more damage on airborne targets.

Ground Shield

User imbues themself with black ligic to pull positively-charged ground towards them to form a barrier. Pretty much a protective move that would increase defense.

Ground Lightning

Aim black ligic at the ground to create an electrical current that will electrocute whatever it touches. Will likely be an MP/sec type of technique that goes on until the user voluntarily ends it or runs out of MP.

Grounded

Charge target with black ligic to render them too heavy to move. If over-used, will give a defensive buff as it starts pulling in positively charged ground into a protective barrier around the target.

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