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Prose pass on the mechanical sections: sweep "flavor" → "element" throughout, and recast the design-doc voice (antithesis "not X, but Y", staccato negations, second-person "you", dev-meeting asides) into calm in-world encyclopedic prose in the lore-wiki register. No design content changed; the Three Laws and Open-questions lists are left as-is. (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 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. 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.


== The Three Laws of Pneuma ==
== Form ==


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 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.


<blockquote>
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]]).
'''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.


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


'''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.
== The Three Laws ==
</blockquote>


=== I. Vitality ===
'''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]]).


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


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


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.
== Key terms ==


=== III. Affinity ===
* '''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|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).


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.
== Sources ==


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.
* '''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.''' A slain creature releases its pneuma (see [[#Death|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|The pool]]).


== Forms ==
=== Land ===


Pneuma exists in a single '''pure''' form and, when steeped in the world, in any of four '''elemental''' ones:
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.


# Water
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.
# Fire
# Earth
# Air


Pure pneuma is the animating spirit itself, holding no element. Healing, growth, and other "life magic" draw on pure pneuma rather than on any fifth element, since to mend a living thing is to handle pure spirit directly. Earth covers stone, soil, and mountain alike.
'''Reclaiming''' converts dull pneuma back into the usable pool. [[Celaborans]] reclaim. Whether anything else can is open.


By Law 2, whatever crosses into a body is unmade back to pure as it enters, so a practitioner carries only pure pneuma within, never elemental. An element's identity persists instead out in the world — in sites, creatures, and condensed crystals — and in a practitioner's mastery of it, never in the body's own reserve.
== The pool ==


=== The elemental square ===
Each creature holds an unbounded reserve of pure pneuma.


The elements follow the classical (Aristotelian) square of qualities (Law 3): fire is hot and dry, air hot and wet, water cold and wet, and earth cold and dry. Opposites share no quality — fire stands against water, air against earth — while neighbors share exactly one, and only neighbors may combine:
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.


{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
* Filling: absorption from elemental sites, slain creatures or phials.
! Element !! Qualities !! Opposite (annihilates to pure) !! Combines with → hybrid
* Draining: casting spells, using abilities, condensing into phials.
|-
| '''Fire''' || Hot + Dry || Water || Air → lightning / storm-fire; Earth → magma / forge-heat
|-
| '''Air''' || Hot + Wet || Earth || Fire → lightning / storm-fire; Water → mist / ice / tempest
|-
| '''Water''' || Cold + Wet || Fire || Air → mist / ice / tempest; Earth → mire / clay / the deep places
|-
| '''Earth''' || Cold + Dry || Air || Fire → magma / forge-heat; Water → mire / clay / the deep places
|}


Laid out as a diagram, neighbors sit adjacent while opposites sit across from one another:
=== The vessel grows ===


<pre>
Baseline is a function of lifetime pneuma spent. The function is sublinear; the exact curve is open. Baseline only ever rises.
                FIRE
              (Hot + Dry)
              /      \
        EARTH            AIR
    (Cold + Dry)      (Hot + Wet)
              \      /
                WATER
              (Cold + Wet)
</pre>


Hybrids remain physical. Water and earth together make mud and clay; verdant life magic belongs to pure pneuma, not to any pairing of elements.
=== Surplus and condensation ===


A hybrid spell consumes pneuma of both its parent elements, and its mastery feeds both attunements. A caster of hybrids is therefore a specialist in a neighboring pair, and the storm-caller and the frost-caller share no common ground.
Condensation uses surplus only. Spending below baseline is allowed.


=== Opposition ===
=== Death ===


Opposition plays out in the world, not within the practitioner:
Death is the vessel breaking (see [[Soma#Death|Soma]]). A creature at zero pneuma is exhausted.


* '''Annihilation.''' Opposed pneuma forced together cancels both elements and leaves pure pneuma behind, always less than went in. This is a craft rather than a spell: anyone may press two opposed typed items together at an alchemist's bench, with no attunement at all, since a practitioner's mastery governs only the pneuma they themselves draw in and shape out, and has no bearing on a reaction between two inert items. Annihilation is the chief way pure pneuma enters trade, since it cannot be gathered from a node directly — only refined in this way, or generated by one's own body.
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.
* '''Counters.''' Counters take the form of actions rather than modifiers. Water quenches burning and douses walls of fire; each element counters exactly one other and is in turn countered by one other, and none of it reduces to a flat damage multiplier.
* '''No opposition of attunement.''' Deepening one element never hinders its opposite, and mastering one element never comes at another's cost. Mastery of all four is fully attainable, and the ledger already accounts for it without need of any artificial barrier.


== Where pneuma comes from ==
== Casting ==


* '''Elemental sites and nodes.''' Typed pneuma is drawn in wherever an element runs strong — at springs, vents, groves, and currents. Its abundance shifts by degree rather than by boundary: every place holds a little of everything, and a site only tilts the local mix. A mountain riverbank yields both water and earth, and nowhere is wholly a land of one element.
Every working spends pneuma. An elemental spell spends soma as well:
* '''Creatures.''' Everything alive carries pneuma and gives it up when slain. A fire spirit yields fire pneuma, being life-stuff steeped in flame, while a common animal yields only a trickle of pure. What a creature drops is simply what animated it, set loose.
* '''The self.''' Every living body slowly regenerates pure pneuma of its own accord — its own breath (Law 1). Deliberate practice such as exercise or meditation quickens this beyond idle regeneration, though it stays far slower than drawing on the world or the market.


== Carrying pneuma: the pool ==
* 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#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).


A practitioner's own reserve is a single unbounded pool of pure pneuma (Law 2). It keeps no separate store for each element, has no capacity to raise, and never runs full. The pool's size never varies; an element governs only how readily pneuma crosses the body's boundary, inward or outward:
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.


* '''Absorbing.''' Drawing typed pneuma out of the world — from a crystal, a vent, or a fresh kill — into one's own pool renders it down to pure. How much pure results from a given measure of typed pneuma depends on one's mastery of that element: a fire adept draws deep from a vent that leaves a novice with barely a trickle.
== Abilities ==
* '''Condensing.''' Pneuma can also pass between bodies and vaults without ever entering a person. Typed pneuma condensed into crystals or vials — or pure pneuma refined by annihilation — sits inert, and can be stored and traded freely. This is the only form pneuma keeps while outside a living thing.


Because absorption is where pneuma turns from labor into currency, every practitioner feels their mastery here before anywhere else: a well-attuned fire warrior fills their pool at a vent far faster than an unattuned one, before either has spent a single drop.
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.


== Casting ==
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.


Casting a spell spends pure pneuma, shaped into the spell's element as it leaves the body (Law 3). Every caster works the same way, drawing on the common pool of pure pneuma and paying whatever cost their mastery of that element sets. An unmastered element still answers a caster, though dearly and feebly, while a mastered one answers cheaply and with strength. Casting mirrors absorption — the same mastery governs pneuma crossing the body's boundary in either direction — and the two grow together, since mastery is earned by spending pneuma and never by gathering it (see the ledger, below).
== Affinity ==


== Progression: the ledger ==
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).


Progression is bound to resources rather than to time. The governing rule:
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]]).


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


This carries several consequences:
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]]).


* '''Spending is advancement.''' Using pneuma and growing in power are one and the same act, so hoarding gains nothing. Pneuma merely absorbed into the pool yields no progress on its own; only pneuma spent through a cast or an exertion builds mastery (Law 3).
== Open questions ==
* '''Play shapes alignment.''' A practitioner's attunement follows from what they actually cast, and is never chosen outright.
* '''Attunement cannot be bought.''' Since only channeled pneuma counts, wealth can carry a caster past the gathering but never past the casting. For this reason the rate at which spells can be cast — their cast times and cooldowns — is what ultimately paces a practitioner's growth.
* '''Idle practice still counts.''' A cast need not achieve anything to leave its residue; channeling fire into empty air is practice enough, and its pneuma cost keeps such practice from ever being free.
* '''Grinding a cheap spell limits itself,''' since even a cheap spell steadily consumes gathered pneuma.


'''What attunement grants:''' it makes a practitioner's spells in that element stronger and cheaper to cast, and confers passive benefits as well. It does not by itself unlock new spells — those are learned from masters, from spellbook drops, and as quest rewards, then deepened through use.
* 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.


=== The warrior ===


The non-caster stands within the same system as an inward practitioner of it. Where an elementalist channels typed pneuma drawn from the world outside, a warrior cultivates the pure pneuma of their own body through exertion. Physical effort invests that pure pneuma into weapon mastery, which gathers into '''pure attunement''' by the very same ledger — for it counts a cast and an exertion alike (Law 3) — with only the direction of flow reversed.


== Trade ==


* '''Typed pneuma''' — from sites, drops, and crystals — is the chief good of the market: freely gathered and traded, and the raw stock for both absorption and annihilation.
CONCEPTING
* '''Pure pneuma''' cannot be gathered from the world directly. It exists only as something refined, through the annihilation of an opposed pair — a craft anyone may perform, and one that always loses a little in the making — or as something a body makes for itself through regeneration and deliberate exercise. Refined pure pneuma trades as freely as any other good; what the market sells is fuel, while the power to spend it well belongs to attuned hands alone, where the same handful of pneuma achieves far more.


== Open questions ==
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


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