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'''Pneuma''' is the animating spirit of the world — breath, life-force, and the fuel of all magic. Everything alive contains it; to be alive ''is'' to carry pneuma. It is both a collectible resource and the foundation of character progression.
'''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.


== The Three Laws of Pneuma ==
== Forms ==


Long before scholars gave it a name, every breath-worker's first teaching held the same three truths, and no apprentice has yet found cause to doubt them.
Pneuma has one '''pure''' form and four '''elemental''' forms.


<blockquote>
* '''Pure''' — plain life-force, no element. Life-magic and all physical power run on pure.
'''I. Vitality.''' Pneuma is the force that underlies all life. To breathe is to live, to live is to breathe — they are one and the same.
* '''Elemental''' — pure pneuma bound to one of the four elements: fire, air, water, or earth.


'''II. Attrition.''' No shaping of pneuma is without loss. Pneuma may be imbued with an element, and imbued pneuma unmade back into pure, but nothing crosses that threshold whole — the deeper one's affinity, the less it leaves behind, but never nothing.
[[File:Aristotle's Elemental Square.gif|thumb|The four elements on a square. Each edge joins two elements that share a quality — a temperature (hot or cold) or a moisture (wet or dry); the diagonals share none.]]


'''III. Affinity.''' Every element embraces its neighbor and attacks its opposite: what is close may be joined, what stands in opposition, forced together, unmakes both, leaving nothing but breath beneath them. So too an element draws close only to the one who breathes it, and remains a stranger to the one who merely holds it.
Each elemental form also has:
</blockquote>


=== I. Vitality ===
* '''Allies''' — two elements that share a quality (adjacent on the square). Every element has two allies.
* '''Enemies''' — the two elements that share no quality (diagonal). Every element has exactly one enemy.


It is why a mountain spring runs cold with both water and earth at once, never one alone; why a slain salamander gives up fire enough to warm a hand, though it lived its whole life on nothing grander than insects and shade; why even the stillest hermit, who has never lifted a blade nor spoken a spell, wakes each morning a little fuller than the night before.
== Reactions ==


=== II. Attrition ===
When two elements are combined, a reaction occurs. What reaction occurs depends on the relationship between the two elements.


An alchemist who forces fire against flood in a crucible is left with pure pneuma, always less of it than the two elements held between them — the loss is not a debt owed to anyone, only the price of the crossing itself. It is the same toll paid when pneuma is drawn from a vent into a body, or unmade from pure into a spell: some part is always spent on the shaping and never seen again. No teaching, however deep, closes that gap to nothing.
{| class="wikitable"
! Elements combining !! Relation !! Reaction !! Result
|-
| Share a quality || Allies || '''Synergy''' || Combine into a hybrid
|-
| Share none || Enemies || '''Dissonance''' || Cancel into pure (less than went in)
|}


=== III. Affinity ===
'''Hybrids''' are created when two allied elements are combined. The type of combination depends on the shared quality of both elements:


A flame held near a gust becomes a storm's lightning; held near stone, a forge's magma. But hold flame against flood, or wind against mountain, and neither survives the meeting — only breath remains, and less of it than either side began with.
{| class="wikitable"
 
! Allies !! Shared quality !! Hybrid
So it is between a breath-worker and the elements they touch. One well-versed in fire draws deep from a vent that leaves a stranger with almost nothing for the same reach; and to call that breath back out again, shaped as fire or frost or storm, costs less and carries further the closer that bond runs. The bond itself is built only one way — by spending, never by holding. This is why the deepest fire-sworn in the world still kneels at a vent before battle, and why no buyer of pneuma, however rich, has ever purchased their way into closeness with an element: coin buys the breath, never the affinity to shape it.
 
== Forms ==
 
Pneuma exists in one '''pure''' form and four '''elemental''' flavors it takes on when steeped in the world:
 
# Water
# Fire
# Earth
# Air
 
Pure pneuma is the unflavored animating spirit itself. Life is not a fifth element: healing, growth, and other "life magic" is pure pneuma work, since mending a living thing means handling unflavored spirit directly. Earth is cleanly stone, soil, and mountain.
 
By Law 2, anything crossing into a body is unmade back to pure — a person never carries elemental pneuma internally, only pure. Elemental identity lives in the world (sites, creatures, condensed crystals) and in a person's mastery of each flavor, never in a body's own reserve.
 
=== The elemental square ===
 
The elements follow the classical (Aristotelian) square of qualities (Law 3): fire is hot+dry, air is hot+wet, water is cold+wet, earth is cold+dry. '''Opposites share no quality''' — fire↔water, air↔earth. '''Neighbors share exactly one''', and only neighbors can combine:
 
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
! Element !! Qualities !! Opposite (annihilates to pure) !! Combines with → hybrid
|-
|-
| '''Fire''' || Hot + Dry || Water || Air → lightning / storm-fire; Earth → magma / forge-heat
| Fire + Air || Hot || Lightning
|-
|-
| '''Air''' || Hot + Wet || Earth || Fire → lightning / storm-fire; Water → mist / ice / tempest
| Fire + Earth || Dry || Magma
|-
|-
| '''Water''' || Cold + Wet || Fire || Air → mist / ice / tempest; Earth → mire / clay / the deep places
| Water + Air || Wet || Mist, ice
|-
|-
| '''Earth''' || Cold + Dry || Air || Fire → magma / forge-heat; Water → mire / clay / the deep places
| Water + Earth || Cold || Mud
|}
|}


Laid out geometrically, neighbors sit adjacent and opposites sit across from each other:
== The Three Laws ==
 
<pre>
                FIRE
              (Hot + Dry)
              /      \
        EARTH            AIR
    (Cold + Dry)      (Hot + Wet)
              \      /
                WATER
              (Cold + Wet)
</pre>


Hybrids stay ''physical''. Water+earth is mud and clay, never "growth" — verdant life magic belongs to pure pneuma, not to an element pair.
There are three simple laws which describe the rules of how pneuma works.


A hybrid spell consumes pneuma of both parent elements, and its mastery feeds both attunements. Hybrid casters are naturally neighbor-pair specialists (the storm-caller and the frost-caller share nothing), with no extra machinery.
'''Law I — Vitality.''' Pneuma is life. Anything holding pneuma is alive; anything alive holds pneuma. Fill a lifeless thing with pneuma and it wakes; drain it and it goes still.


=== Opposition ===
'''Law II — Attrition.''' Shaping has a cost. Any time pneuma is converted between pure and elemental, or two enemies annihilate one other, part of it is spent. Only carrying and storing it are free.


Opposition lives '''in the world, never in the soul''':
'''Law III — Affinity.''' Elements favor those with an affinity for it. Affinity grows by spending that element (casting or exertion). The higher the affinity, the less each conversion loses to Attrition.


* '''Annihilation.''' Opposed pneuma forced together cancels its flavors, leaving pure pneuma at a loss. This is a craft, not a cast: anyone can force two opposed typed items together — an alchemist's bench, not a caster's own body — and it requires no attunement at all, because Law 3's mastery only governs a ''person's own'' drawing-in and shaping-out, never a reaction between two inert items. Annihilation is how pure enters trade: it cannot be node-harvested directly, only refined this way or generated by a person's own effort.
== Key terms ==
* '''Interactional counters.''' Counters are verbs, not percentages: water quenches burning effects and extinguishes fire walls; each element counters exactly one and is countered by exactly one. No flat damage multipliers.
* '''No attunement opposition.''' Deepening one element never impedes its opposite — mastering one element never costs another. Mastery of all four is honestly achievable — the ledger already prices it; no wall is needed.


== Where pneuma comes from ==
* '''Shaping''': converting pneuma between pure and elemental, either direction. Always costs (Law II).
** '''Absorption''': the act of siphoning energy from physical elemental pneuma present in consumables or in the world, to fill one's pneuma reserves.
** '''Condensation''': the act of transferring one's pneuma reserves into physical elemental pneuma for later consumption.
* '''Affinity''': how strongly a living thing is aligned to one element. Tracked per element, per practitioner. Sets casting cost and power. Grows by spending that element (Law III).
* '''Mastery''': a single spell's accumulated experience. Affinity for an element is the sum of mastery across its spells.


* '''Elemental sites and nodes.''' Typed pneuma is drawn in at places where an element runs strong — springs, vents, groves, currents. Abundance is a ''gradient'', not a zone: everywhere has some of everything, and sites shift the local mix. A mountain riverbank yields both water and earth. There is no "fire area."
== Sources ==
* '''Creatures.''' Everything alive carries pneuma and releases it when slain. A fire spirit yields fire pneuma — it was life-stuff steeped in flame. An ordinary animal yields a trickle of pure. Drops are not arbitrary currency; you are releasing what animated the creature.
* '''The self.''' Every character slowly regenerates pure pneuma just by being alive (Law 1) — their own breath. Deliberate practice (exercise, meditation) can push this harder than passive regeneration alone, though it remains far less efficient than engaging the world or the market.


== Carrying pneuma: the pool ==
* '''Elemental sites.''' Throughout the world, wherever elements are present - a river, a burning fire, a rocky mountain.
* '''Creatures.''' Everything alive gives up its pneuma when slain. An elemental creature yields its element; a common beast yields pure.
* '''Consumables.''' Pneuma can be condensed into physical form, which can be consumed to yield its power. Both pure and elemental pneuma can be condensed.
* '''The self.''' Every body slowly regenerates their pure pneuma (Law I). Exercise or meditation speeds this, but far slower than gathering from the world or market.


A person's own reserve is a single, unbounded pool of plain pure pneuma (Law 2). There is no separate reserve per element, no capacity to grow, and no cap to hit. What varies by flavor is not how much you can hold, but how efficiently pneuma moves across the boundary of your own body in either direction:
== The pool ==


* '''Absorbing.''' Drawing typed pneuma out of the world — a crystal, a vent, a fresh kill — and into your own pool always converts it to plain pure. How much pure you get out of a given amount of typed pneuma is set by your mastery of that flavor: a fire adept draws deep from a vent that leaves a novice with barely a trickle.
Each living creature has an unbounded reserve of '''pure''' pneuma.
* '''Condensation.''' Pneuma also moves between bodies and vaults without ever entering a person: typed pneuma condensed into crystals or vials (or pure, refined by annihilation) is inert, storable, and freely tradeable. This is the only form pneuma takes while it is not inside a living thing.


Because absorption is where pneuma stops being effort and starts being currency, everyone — caster or not — feels their own mastery here first: a well-attuned fire warrior fills their pool at a vent faster than an unattuned one, before either of them ever spends a drop.
* Filling: absorbing elements from the world, pneuma from other creatures, or by consuming physical pneuma.
* Draining: casting spells, using abilities, condensing pneuma into physical form.


== Casting ==
== Casting ==


Casting a spell spends pure pneuma, shaped into the spell's flavor as it is spent (Law 3). There is only one path: draw on the pool of pure everyone carries, and pay whatever your mastery of that flavor makes the shaping cost. An unmastered flavor is not blocked, just expensive and weak; a mastered one is cheap and strong. This is symmetric with absorption — the same underlying mastery governs both directions of the boundary — but the two are trained together, since mastery is built only by spending, never by gathering (see the ledger, below).
Pneuma is the primary resource used to cast spells. Each spell draws a specific kind of pneuma: pure or elemental. Since creatures only have a pool of pure pneuma, to cast elemental spells, they must convert it. This conversion is more or less efficient based on one's affinity with that element (Law III), and is never lossless (Law II). Each spell has an associated mastery which governs how powerful that spell's effect is.
 
== Progression: the ledger ==
 
Progression is resource-bound, not time-bound. The rule:


<blockquote>Pneuma channeled through a cast becomes that spell's experience. A spell's accumulated experience is its '''mastery'''. Your attunement to an element is the sum of mastery across that element's spells.</blockquote>
== Abilities ==


Consequences, all deliberate:
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.


* '''Spending is progressing.''' There is no tension between using pneuma and growing; hoarding is never correct. Absorbing pneuma into your pool, on its own, grants nothing — only pneuma actually spent through a cast or an exertion builds mastery (Law 3).
== Affinity ==
* '''However you play is how you align.''' Attunement is derived from what you actually cast, not chosen from a menu.
* '''Attunement cannot be bought.''' Pneuma held grants nothing; only pneuma channeled counts. A rich buyer skips the gathering half, never the casting half — two gates, one for sale. Cast throughput (cast times, cooldowns) is therefore the progression pacing lever.
* '''Practice casting counts.''' A cast need not accomplish anything to leave residue — channeling fire into the air is legitimate practice. The pneuma cost makes it self-limiting.
* '''Grinding a cheap spell is self-limiting''' by construction: it burns real gathered resources slowly.


'''What attunement does:''' it makes your spells in that element stronger and cheaper, and grants passive effects. It does not unlock spells — individual spells are learned from masters, spellbook drops, and quest rewards, then deepened by use.
Casting a spell grants affinity to its user corresponding to the type of pneuma needed, pure or elemental.


=== The warrior ===
Affinity governs how cheap it is to convert back and forth between pure pneuma and elemental (to cast it, or condense it).


The non-caster is not outside the system; they are its internal practitioner. Elementalists channel external, typed pneuma drawn from the world; a warrior cultivates the pure pneuma of their own body through exertion. Physical effort invests pure pneuma into weapon mastery, which sums into '''pure attunement''' — the same ledger (Law 3 treats "a cast" and "an exertion" identically), the opposite direction of flow.
Just like living creatures have affinity, elements have affinities too: allies and enemies. An element's ally can be combined to create powerful hybrid spells, and growing one's affinity in an element does not hinder one's ability to grow their affinity in an allied element. This effect is called '''synergy'''. An element's opposite destroys or negates it, and growing one's affinity in an opposing element is more difficult. This effect is called '''dissonance'''.


== Trade ==
Due to how affinity works, a spellcaster is naturally inclined to pick a particular element and stick to it. Due to how synergy and dissonance work, a spellcaster who wishes to grow their affinity in multiple elements will likely pick an ally of their first chosen element. Since each element has an enemy, and each ally is an enemy of each other (e.g. fire has allies air and earth, which are both opposites), players will typically pick an element pairing according to a shared quality (hot/cold/wet/dry), and hybridize. As one grows their mastery, it is eventually possible to become a master of all four elements, despite how dissonance works.


* '''Typed pneuma — sites, drops, crystals — is the primary market good''': freely gatherable and tradeable, and the raw material for both absorption and annihilation.
== Physical form ==
* '''Pure pneuma cannot be gathered from the world directly.''' It only exists refined — by annihilation of an opposed pair (a craft anyone can perform, always lossy) — or generated by a person's own effort (self-regeneration, deliberate exercise). Refined pure is a legitimate market good like anything else; trade sells fuel, never power, since the same handful of pneuma does more in a more deeply attuned pair of hands.


== Open questions ==
Physical pneuma comes in two forms:


* What does deep '''pure attunement''' concretely grant the warrior beyond weapon mastery? Likely tied to how elemental imbuing works, which is proposed but not yet designed.
* '''Typed pneuma''': dropped by elemental creatures, siphoned from elemental sources, or condensed by spellcasters. This is the primary market good that gets traded.
* Should warriors and other non-casters reach elemental effects through imbued gear (weapons, armor)? Proposed, not yet designed — deliberately deferred until the base pneuma system above is settled.
* '''Pure pneuma''': dropped in very small amounts from slain elementless creatures, or created by annihilating elemental pneuma of opposite types. This is a luxury resource which is much harder to come by in large quantities.
* Is there a "death" or corrupting force opposed to pneuma? Largely rejected as a new substance in favor of death being a violation of Law 3's annihilation (destruction with no pure residue) and undead being beings whose Law 1 self-generation has failed — but this is explicitly deferred until the base system above is fully settled.
* Ambient dynamics: should weather and time shift local pneuma abundance (storms surging air)?
* Concrete numbers everywhere: absorption and casting efficiency curves at each mastery level, self-regeneration rate, annihilation loss rate, condensation costs.

Latest revision as of 09:05, 20 July 2026

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.

Forms

Pneuma has one pure form and four elemental forms.

  • Pure — plain life-force, no element. Life-magic and all physical power run on pure.
  • Elemental — pure pneuma bound to one of the four elements: fire, air, water, or earth.
The four elements on a square. Each edge joins two elements that share a quality — a temperature (hot or cold) or a moisture (wet or dry); the diagonals share none.

Each elemental form also has:

  • Allies — two elements that share a quality (adjacent on the square). Every element has two allies.
  • Enemies — the two elements that share no quality (diagonal). Every element has exactly one enemy.

Reactions

When two elements are combined, a reaction occurs. What reaction occurs depends on the relationship between the two elements.

Elements combining Relation Reaction Result
Share a quality Allies Synergy Combine into a hybrid
Share none Enemies Dissonance Cancel into pure (less than went in)

Hybrids are created when two allied elements are combined. The type of combination depends on the shared quality of both elements:

Allies Shared quality Hybrid
Fire + Air Hot Lightning
Fire + Earth Dry Magma
Water + Air Wet Mist, ice
Water + Earth Cold Mud

The Three Laws

There are three simple laws which describe the rules of how pneuma works.

Law I — Vitality. Pneuma is life. Anything holding pneuma is alive; anything alive holds pneuma. Fill a lifeless thing with pneuma and it wakes; drain it and it goes still.

Law II — Attrition. Shaping has a cost. Any time pneuma is converted between pure and elemental, or two enemies annihilate one other, part of it is spent. Only carrying and storing it are free.

Law III — Affinity. Elements favor those with an affinity for it. Affinity grows by spending that element (casting or exertion). The higher the affinity, the less each conversion loses to Attrition.

Key terms

  • Shaping: converting pneuma between pure and elemental, either direction. Always costs (Law II).
    • Absorption: the act of siphoning energy from physical elemental pneuma present in consumables or in the world, to fill one's pneuma reserves.
    • Condensation: the act of transferring one's pneuma reserves into physical elemental pneuma for later consumption.
  • Affinity: how strongly a living thing is aligned to one element. Tracked per element, per practitioner. Sets casting cost and power. Grows by spending that element (Law III).
  • Mastery: a single spell's accumulated experience. Affinity for an element is the sum of mastery across its spells.

Sources

  • Elemental sites. Throughout the world, wherever elements are present - a river, a burning fire, a rocky mountain.
  • Creatures. Everything alive gives up its pneuma when slain. An elemental creature yields its element; a common beast yields pure.
  • Consumables. Pneuma can be condensed into physical form, which can be consumed to yield its power. Both pure and elemental pneuma can be condensed.
  • The self. Every body slowly regenerates their pure pneuma (Law I). Exercise or meditation speeds this, but far slower than gathering from the world or market.

The pool

Each living creature has an unbounded reserve of pure pneuma.

  • Filling: absorbing elements from the world, pneuma from other creatures, or by consuming physical pneuma.
  • Draining: casting spells, using abilities, condensing pneuma into physical form.

Casting

Pneuma is the primary resource used to cast spells. Each spell draws a specific kind of pneuma: pure or elemental. Since creatures only have a pool of pure pneuma, to cast elemental spells, they must convert it. This conversion is more or less efficient based on one's affinity with that element (Law III), and is never lossless (Law II). Each spell has an associated mastery which governs how powerful that spell's effect is.

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.

Affinity

Casting a spell grants affinity to its user corresponding to the type of pneuma needed, pure or elemental.

Affinity governs how cheap it is to convert back and forth between pure pneuma and elemental (to cast it, or condense it).

Just like living creatures have affinity, elements have affinities too: allies and enemies. An element's ally can be combined to create powerful hybrid spells, and growing one's affinity in an element does not hinder one's ability to grow their affinity in an allied element. This effect is called synergy. An element's opposite destroys or negates it, and growing one's affinity in an opposing element is more difficult. This effect is called dissonance.

Due to how affinity works, a spellcaster is naturally inclined to pick a particular element and stick to it. Due to how synergy and dissonance work, a spellcaster who wishes to grow their affinity in multiple elements will likely pick an ally of their first chosen element. Since each element has an enemy, and each ally is an enemy of each other (e.g. fire has allies air and earth, which are both opposites), players will typically pick an element pairing according to a shared quality (hot/cold/wet/dry), and hybridize. As one grows their mastery, it is eventually possible to become a master of all four elements, despite how dissonance works.

Physical form

Physical pneuma comes in two forms:

  • Typed pneuma: dropped by elemental creatures, siphoned from elemental sources, or condensed by spellcasters. This is the primary market good that gets traded.
  • Pure pneuma: dropped in very small amounts from slain elementless creatures, or created by annihilating elemental pneuma of opposite types. This is a luxury resource which is much harder to come by in large quantities.
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