The Realm of Saphriel

IGN: Chevyboys Tl;dr: If I were to summarize my general experience with ice: You can’t do things with ice magic. It’s really cool, but you can’t use it for anything. This is of course engaging somewhat in hyperbole, but... it sadly isn’t much hyperbole Magic is an incredible and fun way to interact with the server, and I've enjoyed so much of it. Staff seems to do a fantastic job with 99% of magical interactions, and many staff members have illustrated a lot of cool things that magics can do. It seems though, that ice magic has been left behind. Staff, you are all incredible. The amount of time you spend is honestly a little mind boggling, and you should all feel proud of the work you do. The frustrations expressed here aren’t a reflection on how my general experience has been, only the things isolated to this specific issue. Many of the contributing portions to this larger problem have already been partially addressed by staff, and those efforts are appreciated, however they are included to help give context to the issue and illustrate why partial fixes haven't fixed the wider issue. The problem: So, Ice magic seems to be pretty poorly defined compared to other magics. This is pretty frustrating to try to engage with as a player, especially when answers to questions have had wildly contradictory answers from staff members, that unfortunately leave players stuck in the middle of staff communication gaps.  As an example: Feeble spells: Wind: Lifts several feathers into the air Lightning: Coin sized lightning Ice: Do small manipulations of snow.  What is considered to be a small manipulation? throwing a snowball? making snow fall off a roof? it isn't specified at all. I suspect this is supposed to actually mean you can’t do anything with actual ice yet, rather than tell you something you can do, which is a theme going through. When I submitted an advanced crafting request asking about this, I unfortunately didn't hear back. Imagine learning you have strawberry magic! It’s so cool! There’s some specific things it can do that staff seem genuinely excited about, and that's incredibly exciting for you, even if you don’t know what those specific things are! It will be fun! You can use it to do something vaguely, and specifically ripe strawberry related. What does that mean? Unfortunately, it’s never clarified. Moderate spells: Wind: Create a breeze able to shift 10Lbs (Fantastic, gives a specific measurement, that allows for improvisation, but also has clear definition so someone doesn't run the risk of upsetting a staff member. S tier magic description) Lightning: Miniature electricity bolts (Less well defined, but presumably useful in combat), and running a current through metal. Ice magic: Do something with ice. (Not really at all helpful)Experimentation with help ops has revealed a lot of things that ice mages can't do, but unfortunately not much of what they can do. Furthermore, things that one staff member has explicitly approved, other staff members are highly opposed to, compounded by very few ice mages being available for IC conversations, and the inaccessibility of books on the subject. This seems in contrast to the amazing experiences that seem common in other magics. Lightning magic has books giving examples that are hugely helpful, even when the online resources fall short. Vel managed to learn things about wind magic his very first day, and it was fun!What can ice actually do? You would hope a strong ice mage would be able to figure that out.What it seems ice magic can do, from my experimentation. Weak: • When existing ice is around, slightly chill a glass of liquid. Feeble: • N/A (Would love to know what ice can do at this level, but I honestly haven't yet successfully found a spell I can consistently use here) Moderate: • Manipulate armor specially designed for the purpose very slightly • Move an ice cube five feet • Turn a small patch of snow into ice Medium: • Creation of ice and snow from moisture in the air (But actually not any moisture, only applicable when it is raining or snowing. Moisture in the air directly after a storm, or from sea spray is not applicable) • Convert a small area of rain drops into snow. Instantaneous duration • Freeze small bodies of water with time. (Small bodies of water defined as a hand held water bottle, or, depending on who is answering the helpop, sometimes a bucket). • Reshape existing ice slowly • Reshape armor specifically made for the purpose Strong • Do something with ice, more than moderate • Do something with things being colder • Change the color of ice. (Sometimes this is only something that can be done by alteration mages though, unless one sites discord messages) • Do something to small fog and snowstorms. Small seems to be ambiguous Unknown effect levels: • Somehow improve holy magic spells? • Let the user breath out prestigitation levels of fog (Best guess, moderate) • Create a 10ft radius cloud of fog (best guess powerful, but likely higher for some staff members) • Turn a rainstorm into a blizzard (Best guess, divine) • Put out a campfire (Best guess, wonderous) Ice magic is generally not really able to do much of doing anything beneath medium unless the temperature is already freezing or there is unmelting ice present. This would be an interesting and fun restriction, if it didn’t feel like ice magic’s payoff in roleplay and combat both before divine felt... virtually non-existent. The desire to leave magic as flexible and interesting by not nailing it down too hard is a laudable one, and one I support, however The descriptions of strong ice magic, feeble ice magic, and moderate ice magic miss the mark, and are so vague as to frustrate attempts at creativity and experimentation, apparently give contradictory impressions even to staff, and generally feel difficult to engage with. Much of this will probably be a find out IC and submit advanced crafting requests, however my success at getting responses that aren't contradicted is sadly less than stellar, and it leaves me feeling almost like I've done something wrong in trying to play an ice mage, and that there isn't a anything interesting to do with ice magic. Responses I have gotten that are not helpful: - "Find out IC" I'm playing a strong ice mage, I don't think getting clarification on what a feeble ice spell can do is unreasonable. and this response doesn't address the problems with staff providing contradictory information IC. There have been some fantastic examples of what a find out IC could mean, such as when Pru told me to find out IC about lightning magic, then helped me set up a roleplay with Nemi so I could. Facilitating the in game experience, and a ton of great roleplay! It was great. Unfortunately, most of the time people say find out IC, I'm left with little guidance on where to find that in character, and it feels like more of a hard shutdown on trying to understand how anything works enough to roleplay. • "Submit an advanced crafting request": Results with crafting requests have been.... spotty, and I honestly feel kind of bad submitting them. A few staff members seem too busy to answer many questions, even when they take up the crafting request, and seem deeply exhausted, or have taken advanced crafting requests and then just... never responded, even with followup bumps. Having IRL things come up is of course, completely understandable, but it contributes to the frustrations of trying to interact with the game. • "Find a teacher, we want players to interact": This would be fantastic, except: ice mages are few and far between, and the reaching out I have done hasn't met any success. • “At divine level, it can-” Divine level is not relevant to most casters because of the rarity of divine trinkets, and I don’t currently anticipate having a divine trinket ever. Furthermore, if a magic is only useful to the one mage who has a divine trinket and training in a magic, then it isn’t really a useful magic to most of the players who might want to interact with it. • “Ice magic is great as a part of X mixed magic:” Mixed magics aren’t ice magic, and they don’t resolve the underlying concerns and difficulties by existing, even if they are a cool way to interact with the magic. • Submit a /helpop request: Staff is justified in saying this, however, if this is the route staff wants to go, I don't see a better option than sending in helpop requests and gm requests as part of every daily practice session until I feel like I have an expert level grasp on ice magic, which seems like an extra burden on staff, and one not likely to go anywhere when my schedule so rarely directly aligns with that of staff. Suggested solutions: - A review of the more vague descriptions of ice spells to add a rough scale of effects. As a rough example of what might be more helpful, even if the specifics need to be adjusted to be in line with desired power levels: Weak: • Able to chill a glass of liquid enough to cause condensation on the glass • create small hand sized semi transparent bursts of fog   Feeble: - move an amount of snow roughly the size of a human's fist slowly   Moderate: • Turn half meter radius circle of snow into ice, that could cause someone to slip if they aren't paying attention to their footing   Medium: - Turn a fist sized amount of room temperature water to ice - Able to convert falling rain to snow in an area the size of a cart - Create enough fog quickly to hide a hand   Strong: - Turn the surface of snow into ice in a meter radius (Obviously, this is not balanced at all, this is merely meant to be illustrative of the kind of description that might be more helpful) - Decrease the temperature of a liquid to -5 C - Create enough fog to hide most of a person   Powerful: - Able to create sheets of ice to walk on water with some effort - Manipulate snowstorms the size of a city block and fog banks around twice that size   Wondrous: - Create snowstorms over an area the size of a small town - Move person sized icicles around fast enough to injure someone   Divine: - Reduce the temperature to dangerous levels in an area the size of a house These don't even need to be public, so long as staff has a consensus and seem interested in providing payoff to players on the implicit promises of having a magic in game Other suggested solutions: • Add a few weird things ice magic can do, codified somewhere (maybe even a non-public space if staff want to leave it up to player experimentation). Some ideas that could be fun: Extend the duration, but reduce the effects of other spells in an area, reduce vibrations in certain materials (lightning can make vibrations, it seems like some other magic could easily do the opposite), slow the movement of animals and plants for a bit, specifics on creating fog, making ice that melts more slowly than natural ice, cause numbness, preserve things, cause condensation on metallic or glass objects • Incentivize the creation of books on even a few specific things that can be done at low levels. I'll help write them! But they need to have accurate information that won't be vetod by a staff member • Have a staff document with more details on what ice magic can do, that includes specific examples of spells people at each level that people have cast at each level, that can be fallen back on so players don't get caught between staff member disagreements. Thanks for reading all this way, here is a picture of a baby sloth

In the effort to continue on the practice of passing down trinkets--both for those seeking to further their potential or to whomever may simply take an interest in the aspect--I would like to trade a Strong Fire trinket for a Medium one, this Medium trinket for Moderate, so on and so forth. The Strong Fire trinket that I shall pass on are a pair of cracked goggles that can ever so slightly bolster one's capabilities in crafting basic explosives. Please contact Gregory Topaz if you have any interest in being a part of this chain. As before, there is a chance that the lowest person within the chain can receive a trinket without requiring one to trade down in turn. In the case of two candidates of the same level express interest, do state for what purpose you would like to further or explore this aspect so that a decision can be made between each case. Please be sure to disclose any special conditions for any trinkets that may be passed down, including any descriptions or specific requirements needed to cast with it. Again, do not contact me if you only intend to sell this trinket upon receiving it. (( Send a letter to Cysha through Discord or by responding to this posting! ))

Starting this month, lessons on combat will be conducted within the Arena by I, Braq Magada. These lessons are aimed at teaching all those of various skill levels and allow people to test themselves to new heights. The first lesson will be aimed at those who never fought or wish to understand melee combat in it’s most basic of forms. We will go over basic weapons, their uses, and a few weapon drills for any you choose to learn. Wear clothes you are fine getting dirtied, drenched in sweat, and potentially ripped or torn. Having armor, weapons, or any combat skill is not required for these lessons. This is a free lesson. The only cost is your time. Wooden practice weapons will be provided to use during these lessons.