Automata

Automata are a collection of glyphs that can be triggered to produce an effect.

Inscribing Automata

Inscribing is the process of writing down the glyphs to create a new automata. To inscribe a new automata you take a number of glyphs and combine them on a hexagonal grid. The size and shape of this grid depends on the object you are inscribing. The available glyphs are listed on the glyphs page. Note that automata can only be inscribed on imbued items, which have been specially crafted so they can be inscribed. Inscribed automata can be removed from an item with the Imbue skill.

Each automata needs to be written on a surface consisting of hexagons oriented with the straight edges up. Each hexagon should be 2cm by 1.5cm. The size of the grid is the amount of surface of the object you are inscribing. Note that in the case of very thin objects like paper sheets only one side can be used. You are allowed to use a paper to represent the surface of the object when inscribing things like wands.

Rules

Each automata has to follow a certain set of rules. These rules were created by the original creators of primordial magic and serve as an abstraction on reality to make it possible to - literally - create magic effects.

To start the inscribing process, pick a starting grid tile and place the "Begin" glyph. Put other glyphs adjacent to the start glyph or other glyphs such that it will eventually produce the desired effect. It is very important during this process is to account for how the power flows through the glyphs: From the "Begin" glyph, the power will flow to the other glyphs in a single chain. The next glyph to be powered will be determined by starting from the top of the current glyph and moving clockwise. The first glyph that is encountered will be the next glyph to be powered. The previous glyph, take and put glyphs are excluded from this process. Should another, previously powered glyph be encountered this way the automata will short-cirtuit and be disintegrated.

Input and Output

Each glyph can have at most two inputs and one output. However, it depends on the glyph whether or not it will actually use an input or produce an output. To find the inputs, the same clockwise lookup is performed as for the next glyph except that Take glyphs are included. If the previous glyph produced an output, it is also included in the lookup. The first such glyph encountered is assigned to the first input of the next glyph, the second glyph is assigned to the second input.

For outputs, the surrounding glyphs are searched for a Put glyph using the same clockwise lookup. The first such glyph encountered will be used to put the value produced by the glyph. If there is no Put glyph, the value will be available for the next glyph to use. If nothing is done with the value, it will be lost.

Picking

Certain glyphs allow you to "pick" something. This represents a collection of Glyphs that your character knows that share a common design but have slightly varying parameters. Picking the parameters for the glyph does not mean creating a new glyph, but rather means that you know a glyph of that type with the chosen permutations. For example, the Create Particles glyph needs you to pick an amount and a type. If you need 5 Fire particles, you can pick "5" for the number and "Fire" for the type, which results in a "Create 5 Fire" glyph.

Dominance

Some glyphs are marked as "Dominant" with a certain element. If more than 50% of the power of your automata is spent on dominant glyphs of the same type and there are no glyphs of the opposite of that type, the automata will become dominant of that type. This can have certain benefits, most importantly it allows certain skills to provide you with bonuses.

The Effect

The end result of the automata - the effect, needs to be put into game terms once you are satisfied with your automata. To do this, contact a Game Master and hand him or her your automata. The game master will check it for you and then hand you a closed note with the effect in game terms. You can open and read the note the first time you activate the automata.

Activating Automata

To activate an automata, you have to put enough power into it. Each automata comes with a power cost that needs to be matched. The power cost of the automata depends on the glyphs used for the automata. You need to be able to touch the automata with one of your hands to be able to put the required power into it.

The source of the power used to activate the automata depends on the components you use. See components for a detailed list of all available components and how to use them. Once an automata has been activated, the automata creates an effect either at the palm of one of your hands or at a point of the object the automata was inscribed upon, as decided during activation. The effect persists for a certain duration, then dissipates. How long the effect persists depends on several things, primarily on what type of matter - if any - is used. Please see "Stability and Radiation" for more details.

Example Automata

To create an automata several steps have to be taken. This page provides an example automata and the process to create it.

Effect

To start off, we need to decide what kind of effect we want to achieve with the automata. For this example, we will create an automata producing a simple Stumble effect for two seconds and can be used during combat on touch.

With the effect decided upon, we need to decide how to produce this effect. There are many ways of producing a stumble effect, for example you could produce a gust of wind to push someone back, try to push someone backwards using pure force, make him feel like there is something ahead of him that he needs to get back from. However, one very simple way of producing the effect is using a property of the matter mages work with: Combining two opposing particle types annihilates them, releasing the energy used for those particles as a burst of light. Producing a burst of light in someones face is bound to cause them to stumble back.

Implementation

To start the implementation, we need to come up with a way of prducing this burst of light. Since annihilation happens when combining opposing particle types, we need to create a certain amount of two opposing particle types and then perform a combine on them. The amount of particles we need is dependant on the strength of the effect. To produce a Stumble effect we need to produce a flash of light of about 1350 power. Annihilation produces light equal to the amount of particles combined, so to produce a burst of light of 1350 power we need to produce about 675 grains of both types of particle, as each grain of particles requires one power to produce.

To put this all down on paper, we start off with a Begin glyph. Underneath that, we put a "Create Particles" glyph, picking "Fire" as the particle type and "675 grains" as the amount. We will need to store this value somewhere so that we can later use it for the combine operation, so we put a "Put" glyph to the top right of the "Create Fire", picking the location "Alpha". Underneath the "Create Fire" glyph, we put another "Create Particles" glyph, in this case picking "Water" as the type but using the same amount. We place a "Put" glyph to the top right of the "Create Water" to store the value again, this time picking "Beta" as the location.

Underneath the "Create Water", we now place a "Combine" glyph to perform the actual annihilation. "Combine" needs two values as input, so we put a "Take" glyph to the top right of the combine, picking "Alpha" for the location and we put a second "Take" to the bottom right of the combine, picking "Beta" for the location. These two glyphs will take the values from their respective locations and make them available for the "Combine" to use.

Final Implementation

Glyphs

Basic

Creation

Transmutation

Convenience

Artithmetic

Triggers

Emotion Manipulation Glyphs

These glyphs produce effects that manipulate emotions of others.

Flow Control

Stability and Radiation

Primordial Magic creates many forms of matter. This has the potential to greatly affect the world around the magician. However, this matter only exists for a short while, eventually dissipating into the same nothing it came from. This process releases the energy of the matter back into the environment. This process is called radiation, as each particle decays and radiates away.

Unfortunately for primordial mages, this can negatively impact the environment. The exact reason is a subject of debate among the more scholarly mages, but the result is that sometimes, things go awry. Older mages have been known to grow tumours, lose their hair or even more radical things - including death. In addition, sometimes spells go wrong and instead of simply fizzling, create an anomaly.

In game terms, this is represented by an instability score. One of the side effects of an newly inscribed spells can be to increase your instability score. If your instability score reaches 10, you should contact a GM. Instability cannot be reduced.

Components

Components are small things you can do or use to provide power to your automata when activating them. What components you have access to depends on your skills. You need to use at least one component to activate your automata.

Unless otherwise noted, each component can be used only once per activation and each component requires exactly one second to use. In addition, only one component can be used at the same time, so you will have to string them together to use multiple components. Every component provides a certain amount of power as described by the component. Once finished using components you have five seconds to power an automata before the power is lost.

Using components requires a certain amount of concentration, which means you can not fight, run or perform other phisically heavy tasks. If your concentration is broken, all power you gathered to activate the automata is lost and you need to start again. Note that components that are consumed when used for power will still be lost!

Types of Components

Each component type represents a different source of power.

Verbal and Somatic

These are the most basic of components, that provide a little power even to an untrained apprentice. They represent an innate power source, the power of your own body. Both components are a way to access this power. The Verbal component is something like a spoken word, a short melody or even just a raw shout. The Somatic component is a gesture, like a hand wave, a piroutte or similar. Both components can be the same every time or something completely different per activation. Verbal and somatic components can be used at the same time, this is an exception to the normal rules of only allowing on use at a time.

Material

Material components are small amounts of matter that are consumed to provide power to your automata. They are simple things like a handful of sand or a cup of water, but also more elaborate things like a piece of silk or a specially crafted gold coin. Each material component provides an amount of power as described on the item card of that component. To use the component, perform an action with the material, preferrably something that indicates the material is being consumed. For example, in the case of a handful of sand you can sprinkle it around. You can use any amount of material components during activation, but each material component is consumed during use. Note that each material component still counts as a separate use, so using five materail components will take ten seconds.

Focus

A focus component is a specially crafted item that can be used to focus and channel the ambient energy around you. The amount of power provided is described on the item card. Focus components are not consumed when used. To use a focus component, wave it around it the air around you, touch it to the ground or perform some other action with the object to indicate the energy gathering.

Willpower

Willpower can be used to add power to your automata. To do so, choose an amount of willpower you want to expend. After concentrating for two seconds, you expend the amount of willpower. This will provide you 500 power for every willpower expended.

Hitpoints

Your own flesh and blood can be used to power your automata. To use this component, cut or otherwise damage yourself to become injured. You will drop to 0 hit points and receive 500 power. Note that this will not break your concentration like taking damage normally would. This process can be repeated once during the same activation, the second use drops you to -1 hitpoint and will also provide you with 500 power.

Special Components

There are several special components that are provided by skills, like "Sacrifice Flesh" or "Power Reserve". The details of these components are described by the skills, but remember that unless otherwise noted, the normal rules apply to them.

Skills and Conditions

These skills and conditions generally give a mage power. These sources of power can then be used to power automata (which can be seen as the spells the mage can cast).

The spark is a mutation that enables the mutant to actually tap into the primordial flow for power and influence. Without the spark there would be no primordial mages. In theory you are able to cast spells but unless they are incredibly basic they will require willpower or your blood to power them.

Power reserve is a condition that gives a person the ability to cast more powerful spells without needing to spend consumable resources. It is also the only way to gain more power without formal automata crafting training.

Probably the first skill any mage learns. Automata crafting gives you the ability to create your own spells and gives you access to enough power to cast them trough additional components.

Most powerful mages specialize in an element to further their power.

A small trick most mages learn to gather additional power from their immediate surroundings by finding sand water or sticks from the ground that hold primordial flow irregularities.

Items

Imbued Objects

Automata need to be inscribed on imbued objects. The items following items describe some common items avaialbel for this.

Imbued Item Grids

The following two tables list the grids associated with items described above.

Material Components

Some materials are infused with small primordial flow irregularities and can be used to power automata.

Focus Components

Other Items

Particle Types and Units

The following is a description of the particle types and several in game units.

Particle Types

The first five particle types are the primary constituents of matter. They are divided into two pairs and one single type. The two pairs are Fire and Water and Earth and Air. Fire and Water annihilate eachother. Earth and Air also annihilate each other. The single type is Spirit, which is separated into two forms, Positive Spirit and Negative Spirit. Positive spirit annihilates negative spirit and vice-versa, but positive spirit does not annihilate positive spirit and negative spirit does not annihilate negative spirit.

There are currently two other, special particle types available. The first type is Divine, which is a special form of energy that is primarily used by Divine magic, but certain spells need to use it as well. Most notably, it is needed for spells affecting emotions like fear. Divine particles always annihilate eachother. This means first and foremost that any combine operation on divine energy is always subtractive. Second, no glyphs can be divine-dominant, because such glyphs would disintegrate on first use. Lastly, care needs to be taken when handling larger amounts of Divine particles as they can become unstable and disrupt the rest of the automata.

The second special type is Force. Force is a special type used in primordial magic that represents kinetic force. Contrary to Divine, Force is always additive. For dominance, any force dominant glyph may only manipulate force, no other elements are allowed. The exception to this is the apply() operation, which is allowed to be used with Force and any other type.

Annihilation

Annihilation is the process whereby two opposing particle types completely annihilate each other.

Units

These units are used to describe in-game quantities. Note that the in-game system uses base-6 for counting, denoted here with 0s. This means 0s10 equals 6, 0s100 equals 36, 0s55 equals 35, etc.

Volume

• Grain
  The base unit and smallest amount of the system. The grain is defined as the minimum amount of matter needed to affect anything. It is approximately equal to the volume of a sphere of 5mm diameter or 65mm3.
• Pebble
  0s105 (41 in decimal) Grains, approximately a sphere of 2cm diameter.
• Fist
  0s43 (27 in decimal) Pebbles, approximately a sphere of 6cm diameter.
  0s5043 (1107 in decimal) Grains.

Weight

• Grain
  The weight of 1 Grain of Carbon. Approximately 0.15g.
• Stone
  The weight of 1 Fist of Carbon. Approximately 256g.

Force

• Muscle
  The amount of force needed to accelerate 1 Fist of Carbon so it moves 1 yard in 1 second.
  1 Force particle produces 1 Muscle.
  Approximately equal to 0.25 Joule.
• Strike
  The amount of force that is delivered to a target by a sword strike. Equal to 0s1040 (240) Muscle.
  Approximately equal to 60 Joule.

Time

For time we use the normal seconds, minutes, hours since things get way too complicated otherwise.

Length

For now, we simply use the traditional English units of measurement, inch, foot, yard and mile.