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Pass over the page under the soma dual: pneuma has one form and is always held; elements, the square, reactions and hybrids move to Soma; typed pneuma goes, phials are the only physical pneuma; casting is pneuma to activate and soma for the body; Attrition on every move between vessel and soma; Affinity section rewritten as progression rules; open question on affinity and soma cost (2026-09-06 session, Tyler + Bembi) (via update-page on MediaWiki MCP Server)
State rules positively: drop denials of unimplied negatives ("not destroyed", "not dead", "loses nothing", "no regeneration", "cannot condense", "never decreases", "consumes no soma") (via update-page on MediaWiki MCP Server)
 
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'''Pneuma''' is the world's life-force. Everything alive holds it; anything holding it is alive. It is both a resource you gather and spend and the basis of character progression. Its counterpart is [[Soma|soma]], the matter it animates: pneuma is energy and soma is matter, and a creature's pneuma is its power where its soma is its health.
'''Pneuma''' is the world's life-force. It is a resource that creatures gather and spend, and the basis of character progression. Its counterpart is [[Soma|soma]], the matter it animates: pneuma is energy and soma is matter. A creature's pneuma is its power and its soma is its health.


== Form ==
== Form ==


Pneuma has one form: '''pure'''. The elements belong to [[Soma|soma]]. Pneuma bound in fire soma is the same pneuma as anywhere else; what is fire about it is the soma.
Pneuma has one form, '''pure'''. An element is a kind of [[Soma|soma]]. Pneuma bound in fire soma is the same pneuma as pneuma bound in anything else.


Pneuma is always '''held''': either circulating through a vessel (Law I) or bound in soma. Pneuma with nothing to hold it goes dull where it is (see [[#Spent pneuma|Spent pneuma]]).
Pneuma is always held in one of two ways: circulating through a vessel (Law I), or bound in soma. Bound pneuma is inert. It can be carried, stored and traded. Pneuma released outside any vessel or soma goes dull where it is (see [[#Land|Land]]).


'''Binding''' lodges pneuma into soma. Bound pneuma is ''charged'': inert, and safe to carry, store and trade. A '''phial''' is soma made to hold a charge, and is the only physical pneuma there is (see [[#Physical form|Physical form]]).
A '''phial''' is soma made to hold bound pneuma. It is the only physical form of pneuma (see [[#Physical form|Physical form]]).


== The Three Laws ==
== The Three Laws ==


There are three simple laws which describe the rules of how pneuma works.
'''Law I — Vitality.''' Pneuma circulating through a '''vessel''' — soma arranged to carry it — is alive; pneuma bound in soma is inert. The structure of a creature's vessel determines what the creature can do, and the amount of pneuma in it determines the creature's power. An empty vessel is exhausted (see [[#Death|Death]]).


'''Law I — Vitality.''' Pneuma is life, but only when it moves. Pneuma circulating through a '''vessel''' — soma arranged to carry it — is alive. Pneuma merely lodged in matter is ''charged'', not alive: it sits inert, and can be carried, stored and traded safely. Fill a vessel and it wakes; drain it and it goes still.
'''Law II — Attrition.''' Every shaping (see [[#Key terms|Key terms]]) loses part of the pneuma moved. Carrying and storing bound pneuma are free.


What a living thing can ''do'' is decided by its vessel, not by its pneuma. Pneuma supplies animation; structure decides what that animation amounts to. The same pneuma glows in a stone and thinks in a person. More pneuma in a simple vessel makes it stronger, not cleverer.
'''Law III — Affinity.''' Affinity for a soma lowers the Attrition loss of shaping through it. Affinity grows by spending pneuma through that soma.
 
'''Law II — Attrition.''' Shaping has a cost. Any time pneuma moves between a vessel and soma — absorbed, condensed or cast — part of it is spent. Only carrying and storing it are free.
 
'''Law III — Affinity.''' Each soma favors those with an affinity for it. Affinity grows by spending pneuma through that soma (casting or exertion). The higher the affinity, the less each binding loses to Attrition.


== Key terms ==
== Key terms ==


* '''Shaping''': moving pneuma between a vessel and soma, either direction. Always costs (Law II).
* '''Creature''': anything with a vessel. A '''player''' is a creature a person plays.
** '''Absorption''': drawing pneuma out of soma — an elemental site, a slain creature, a phial — into one's own vessel.
* '''Working''': a spell or an ability.
** '''Condensation''': moving pneuma out of one's own vessel into a phial, for later use or trade.
* '''Shaping''': any move of pneuma between a vessel and soma. Every shaping loses part of the pneuma moved (Law II).
* '''Affinity''': how strongly a living thing is aligned to one soma, with pure counted as one more. Tracked per practitioner. Sets casting cost and power. Grows by spending through it (Law III).
** '''Binding''': shaping into soma.
* '''Mastery''': a single [[Ability|ability]]'s accumulated experience, measured as the total pneuma ever spent through it. Affinity for a soma is the sum of mastery across the abilities tagged with it — the same count at a wider scope.
** '''Absorption''': shaping out of soma into the absorber's own vessel. Sources are elemental sites, slain creatures and phials.
** '''Condensation''': binding from one's own vessel into a phial.
* '''Mastery''': one [[Ability|ability]]'s accumulated experience, measured as the total pneuma spent through it.
* '''Affinity''': a creature's alignment to one soma, with pure counted as one more. Affinity for a soma is the sum of mastery across the abilities tagged with it. Affinity lowers shaping cost (Law III).


== Sources ==
== Sources ==


* '''Elemental sites.''' Throughout the world, wherever a soma is concentrated — a river, a burning fire, a rocky mountain — pneuma sits bound in it. Absorbing takes the pneuma and leaves the soma; what the site yields as soma is on the [[Soma#Sources|Soma page]].
* '''Elemental sites.''' Wherever an element is concentrated — a river, a fire, a mountain — pneuma is bound in the soma there. Absorption removes the pneuma; the soma remains. The soma yield of a site is on the [[Soma#Sources|Soma page]].
* '''Creatures.''' Everything alive gives up its pneuma when slain. It passes to the victor's vessel, and what the victor cannot take goes dull where the body fell. The body itself is soma, and what it yields is on the [[Soma#Sources|Soma page]].
* '''Creatures.''' A slain creature releases its pneuma (see [[#Death|Death]]).
* '''Phials.''' Pneuma condensed into a phial can be absorbed back out of it.
* '''Phials.''' Pneuma condensed into a phial can be absorbed back out of it.
* '''The self.''' A body slowly refills its own reserve by drawing on the pneuma around it (Law I). Exercise or meditation speeds this, but far slower than gathering from the world or market. Because it is drawn rather than created, this is faster where the land is rich and poor where it is spent. Refilling stops at the baseline (see [[#The pool|The pool]]): the body restores what its vessel circulates, and not a drop more.
* '''The self.''' A creature below baseline refills from the land (see [[#The pool|The pool]]).
 
=== Land ===


=== Spent pneuma ===
Land holds a pool of usable pneuma. Regeneration draws from it (see [[#The pool|The pool]]). Its level is described as '''rich''', '''spent''' or '''void'''. A void pool is empty, so regeneration on void land is zero.


What Attrition takes (Law II) is not destroyed. It goes '''dull''' — still present, no longer usable — and settles into the ground where it was spent. Battlefields, ruins and long-worked sites are thick with it. Pneuma released with nothing to hold it — a creature slain with no one to take its pneuma, a [[Soma#Alchemy|dissonant reaction]] with no vessel at hand — goes dull on the spot.
The pneuma lost to a shaping goes '''dull''': it settles into the land where it was spent, separate from the usable pool. Pneuma released outside any vessel or soma — a creature slain with no victor, a [[Soma#Alchemy|dissonant reaction]] with no vessel in reach — goes dull the same way.


Dull pneuma can be '''reclaimed''' and returned to use. [[Celaborans]] do this; whether anything else can is unsettled. Land that is heavily spent and never reclaimed goes sour, and land beyond that is '''void''' — nothing living draws anything from it.
'''Reclaiming''' converts dull pneuma back into the usable pool. [[Celaborans]] reclaim. Whether anything else can is open.


== The pool ==
== The pool ==


Each living creature has an unbounded reserve of '''pure''' pneuma. There is no ceiling.
Each creature holds an unbounded reserve of pure pneuma.


There is instead a floor: the '''baseline''' — the amount of pneuma the creature's vessel keeps in circulation (Law I). Below baseline the creature is depleted, and the body draws on the surrounding land to refill itself: faster the deeper the deficit, faster where the land is rich, slower where it is spent (see [[#Sources|Sources]]). At or above baseline there is no regeneration at all. Everything above the line is '''surplus''', and surplus comes only from the world — absorption, slain creatures, phials, trade.
The '''baseline''' is the amount of pneuma that circulates in the creature's vessel (Law I). Below baseline the creature is '''depleted''' and draws from the land's usable pool to refill: faster the deeper the deficit, faster where the land is rich, slower where it is spent. Regeneration stops at baseline. Pneuma above baseline is '''surplus''', and comes only from absorption and trade. The regeneration rate is below the spend rate of combat.


Baseline regeneration is a safety net, not an income: it sustains puttering, it does not fund serious exertion.
* Filling: absorption from elemental sites, slain creatures or phials.
 
* Filling: absorbing from elemental sites, from slain creatures, or from phials.
* Draining: casting spells, using abilities, condensing into phials.
* Draining: casting spells, using abilities, condensing into phials.


=== The vessel grows ===
=== The vessel grows ===


The baseline rises with lifetime pneuma spent — strongly sublinearly, so early growth is felt and later growth is earned. Circulation is the exercise that enlarges the vessel: not all of what Attrition takes settles into the ground (see [[#Spent pneuma|Spent pneuma]]) — a trace lodges in the one who did the spending, and years of it accrete into structure. A veteran practitioner is a long-worked site. The baseline never decreases.
Baseline is a function of lifetime pneuma spent. The function is sublinear; the exact curve is open. Baseline only ever rises.


=== Surplus and condensation ===
=== Surplus and condensation ===


Condensation draws on surplus only — a vessel cannot bottle its own baseline. (Otherwise land regeneration would quietly become an income: regenerate, condense, sell.) Spending below baseline remains possible: spending one's vitality in an emergency is allowed; packaging it is not.
Condensation uses surplus only. Spending below baseline is allowed.


=== Death ===
=== Death ===


Death is the vessel breaking (see [[Soma#Death|Soma]]); an empty pool is exhaustion, not death. Everything alive gives up its pneuma when slain (see [[#Sources|Sources]]), and players are no exception: death sheds the surplus. Part goes to the victor; the rest goes dull into the ground where the body fell — battlefields are thick with dull pneuma for exactly this reason. What death cannot take is anything lodged in the vessel's structure: baseline, mastery, affinity. The land refills the vessel to baseline, and the practitioner stands back up. Carrying a great surplus into danger is therefore a wager; condensing it first — paying Attrition's fee — is the insurance.
Death is the vessel breaking (see [[Soma#Death|Soma]]). A creature at zero pneuma is exhausted.
 
When a creature is slain, its surplus is released. The victor absorbs a fixed share; the rest goes dull into the land where the body fell. The share is open. Baseline, mastery and affinity are unchanged by death. On respawn the pool is set to baseline. Phials are kept on death.


== Casting ==
== Casting ==


Every working spends pneuma to activate it. What else it spends is decided by what the working is made of:
Every working spends pneuma. An elemental spell spends soma as well:


* A '''pure''' spell — Blink and its kin — shapes pneuma directly, with no soma involved. It answers to pure affinity, the same affinity physical abilities train.
* A '''pure''' spell (Blink, for example) spends pneuma straight from the vessel. Its cost is set by pure affinity.
* An '''elemental''' spell has a body of soma: a fireball is fire soma flung by pneuma. The caster supplies the soma and the cast consumes it (see [[Soma#Casting|Soma]]). Binding the pneuma into that soma is a shaping — cheaper with affinity for the soma (Law III), never free (Law II).
* An '''elemental''' spell has a body of soma. The caster supplies the soma and the cast consumes it (see [[Soma#Casting|Soma]]). The cast binds pneuma into that soma. This is a shaping: it costs less with affinity for the soma (Law III) and always loses something (Law II).


Each spell has an associated mastery which governs how powerful its effect is. A spell's intrinsic requirements are fixed; affinity shaves only the binding overhead around them. Cost therefore falls with affinity toward a floor it never reaches (Law II), while mastery keeps raising the effect: investment makes a spell cheaper and stronger, never free.
A spell's intrinsic requirement is fixed. Affinity lowers only the shaping loss around it, so cost falls with affinity toward a floor. Mastery raises the effect.
 
Pure is pneuma itself, unshaped. The four elements are kinds of soma.


== Abilities ==
== Abilities ==


Pneuma is the primary resource used to power physical abilities. Each ability uses pure pneuma, and one's pure affinity determines how much the ability costs. Warriors, rangers, rogues, and other non-magical combatants all primarily use abilities. An ability's body is the practitioner's own, and the weapon in hand, so it calls for no soma beyond them.
Abilities spend pure pneuma, and pure affinity sets the cost. An ability's body is the creature's own body and the weapon in hand, so its soma cost is zero.


Every [[Ability|ability]] spends pneuma — combat techniques, gathering actions, and utility workings alike: exertion is pneuma moving (Law I). Gathering carries its own counterweight: it happens at elemental sites, and sites are pneuma sources (see [[#Sources|Sources]]), so a gatherer absorbs from the site as they exert. At a rich site the loop nets roughly nothing — the land's pneuma passing through the gatherer's hands — while the gross flow still grows mastery and the baseline. Where the land is spent, the same work runs at a loss.
Every working spends pneuma, gathering and utility actions included. A gathering action spends pneuma and absorbs pneuma from the site in the same action. At a rich site the absorbed amount roughly matches the spent amount; at a spent site it is less. The exact ratio is open. Only the spent amount counts toward mastery and baseline.


== Affinity ==
== Affinity ==


Affinity is tracked per soma, with pure as one more, and grows in whatever a working spends through. It governs binding cost — how much a shaping into or out of that soma loses to Attrition (Law II) — and so how cheaply and how powerfully a practitioner works with it.
Affinity is tracked per soma, with pure as one more, and equals the sum of mastery across the abilities tagged with that soma (see [[#Key terms|Key terms]]). It lowers the Attrition loss of shaping through that soma (Law III).
 
The [[Soma#Kinds|elemental square]] shapes how affinity grows. Growing affinity in a soma costs nothing extra in its allies: this is '''synergy'''. Growing it in a soma's enemy is harder the higher the first stands: this is '''dissonance'''.


A practitioner is therefore inclined to pick one soma and stay with it. One who wants a second takes an ally, and since a soma's two allies are each other's enemy, the natural pairing is an edge of the square — a shared quality — which is also the pairing that hybridizes. Dissonance is a rising cost rather than a wall, so mastery of all four is reachable.
The effect of the [[Soma#Elements|elemental square]] on affinity is open: whether allied affinities help each other ('''synergy''') and enemy affinities hinder each other ('''dissonance'''), and how (see [[#Open questions|Open questions]]).


== Physical form ==
== Physical form ==


Physical pneuma is a '''phial''': soma made to hold a charge, filled from a vessel's surplus by condensation and emptied back by absorption, each at Attrition's cost. Every other physical elemental good is soma, on [[Soma#Sources|its own page]].
A phial holds bound pneuma. It is filled by condensation from a vessel's surplus and emptied by absorption; each is a shaping (Law II). Every other physical elemental good is soma (see [[Soma#Sources|Soma]]).


== Open questions ==
== Open questions ==


* Whether affinity also thins the soma an elemental working consumes, so a master forms a fireball from a pinch, is unsettled.
* The effect of the elemental square on affinity: whether and how synergy and dissonance affect affinity growth or shaping cost.
* Whether affinity also lowers the soma cost of an elemental working.
* The victor's share of a slain creature's surplus.
* The baseline curve, and the gathering absorb ratio.
* Whether anything besides Celaborans can reclaim dull pneuma.




Latest revision as of 04:54, 7 September 2026

Pneuma is the world's life-force. It is a resource that creatures gather and spend, and the basis of character progression. Its counterpart is soma, the matter it animates: pneuma is energy and soma is matter. A creature's pneuma is its power and its soma is its health.

Form

Pneuma has one form, pure. An element is a kind of soma. Pneuma bound in fire soma is the same pneuma as pneuma bound in anything else.

Pneuma is always held in one of two ways: circulating through a vessel (Law I), or bound in soma. Bound pneuma is inert. It can be carried, stored and traded. Pneuma released outside any vessel or soma goes dull where it is (see Land).

A phial is soma made to hold bound pneuma. It is the only physical form of pneuma (see Physical form).

The Three Laws

Law I — Vitality. Pneuma circulating through a vessel — soma arranged to carry it — is alive; pneuma bound in soma is inert. The structure of a creature's vessel determines what the creature can do, and the amount of pneuma in it determines the creature's power. An empty vessel is exhausted (see Death).

Law II — Attrition. Every shaping (see Key terms) loses part of the pneuma moved. Carrying and storing bound pneuma are free.

Law III — Affinity. Affinity for a soma lowers the Attrition loss of shaping through it. Affinity grows by spending pneuma through that soma.

Key terms

  • Creature: anything with a vessel. A player is a creature a person plays.
  • Working: a spell or an ability.
  • Shaping: any move of pneuma between a vessel and soma. Every shaping loses part of the pneuma moved (Law II).
    • Binding: shaping into soma.
    • Absorption: shaping out of soma into the absorber's own vessel. Sources are elemental sites, slain creatures and phials.
    • Condensation: binding from one's own vessel into a phial.
  • Mastery: one ability's accumulated experience, measured as the total pneuma spent through it.
  • Affinity: a creature's alignment to one soma, with pure counted as one more. Affinity for a soma is the sum of mastery across the abilities tagged with it. Affinity lowers shaping cost (Law III).

Sources

  • Elemental sites. Wherever an element is concentrated — a river, a fire, a mountain — pneuma is bound in the soma there. Absorption removes the pneuma; the soma remains. The soma yield of a site is on the Soma page.
  • Creatures. A slain creature releases its pneuma (see Death).
  • Phials. Pneuma condensed into a phial can be absorbed back out of it.
  • The self. A creature below baseline refills from the land (see The pool).

Land

Land holds a pool of usable pneuma. Regeneration draws from it (see The pool). Its level is described as rich, spent or void. A void pool is empty, so regeneration on void land is zero.

The pneuma lost to a shaping goes dull: it settles into the land where it was spent, separate from the usable pool. Pneuma released outside any vessel or soma — a creature slain with no victor, a dissonant reaction with no vessel in reach — goes dull the same way.

Reclaiming converts dull pneuma back into the usable pool. Celaborans reclaim. Whether anything else can is open.

The pool

Each creature holds an unbounded reserve of pure pneuma.

The baseline is the amount of pneuma that circulates in the creature's vessel (Law I). Below baseline the creature is depleted and draws from the land's usable pool to refill: faster the deeper the deficit, faster where the land is rich, slower where it is spent. Regeneration stops at baseline. Pneuma above baseline is surplus, and comes only from absorption and trade. The regeneration rate is below the spend rate of combat.

  • Filling: absorption from elemental sites, slain creatures or phials.
  • Draining: casting spells, using abilities, condensing into phials.

The vessel grows

Baseline is a function of lifetime pneuma spent. The function is sublinear; the exact curve is open. Baseline only ever rises.

Surplus and condensation

Condensation uses surplus only. Spending below baseline is allowed.

Death

Death is the vessel breaking (see Soma). A creature at zero pneuma is exhausted.

When a creature is slain, its surplus is released. The victor absorbs a fixed share; the rest goes dull into the land where the body fell. The share is open. Baseline, mastery and affinity are unchanged by death. On respawn the pool is set to baseline. Phials are kept on death.

Casting

Every working spends pneuma. An elemental spell spends soma as well:

  • A pure spell (Blink, for example) spends pneuma straight from the vessel. Its cost is set by pure affinity.
  • An elemental spell has a body of soma. The caster supplies the soma and the cast consumes it (see Soma). The cast binds pneuma into that soma. This is a shaping: it costs less with affinity for the soma (Law III) and always loses something (Law II).

A spell's intrinsic requirement is fixed. Affinity lowers only the shaping loss around it, so cost falls with affinity toward a floor. Mastery raises the effect.

Abilities

Abilities spend pure pneuma, and pure affinity sets the cost. An ability's body is the creature's own body and the weapon in hand, so its soma cost is zero.

Every working spends pneuma, gathering and utility actions included. A gathering action spends pneuma and absorbs pneuma from the site in the same action. At a rich site the absorbed amount roughly matches the spent amount; at a spent site it is less. The exact ratio is open. Only the spent amount counts toward mastery and baseline.

Affinity

Affinity is tracked per soma, with pure as one more, and equals the sum of mastery across the abilities tagged with that soma (see Key terms). It lowers the Attrition loss of shaping through that soma (Law III).

The effect of the elemental square on affinity is open: whether allied affinities help each other (synergy) and enemy affinities hinder each other (dissonance), and how (see Open questions).

Physical form

A phial holds bound pneuma. It is filled by condensation from a vessel's surplus and emptied by absorption; each is a shaping (Law II). Every other physical elemental good is soma (see Soma).

Open questions

  • The effect of the elemental square on affinity: whether and how synergy and dissonance affect affinity growth or shaping cost.
  • Whether affinity also lowers the soma cost of an elemental working.
  • The victor's share of a slain creature's surplus.
  • The baseline curve, and the gathering absorb ratio.
  • Whether anything besides Celaborans can reclaim dull pneuma.



CONCEPTING

Problem; having only Pneuma has a single type of resource inherently causes certain content/sources of Pneuma to be irrelevant and useless as they are much less efficient than other methods, thus is dead content and wont be used/played

Solution: having different "types of Pneuma/resources" would make many more situations viable to do as all types of resources are needed to do anything and avoids content becoming dead and makes the world a little more interconnected

-these supplemental resources would be similar to catalyst runes in OSRS, not like another element

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