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Rewrite in rules-manual register; unify the diagonal (annihilation/counter/suppression); adopt counter=diagonal; add mastery-of-all aspiration; split combat detail to new Combat page (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 the resource you gather and spend and the basis 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.


== Forms ==
== Form ==


Pneuma has one '''pure''' form and four '''elemental''' forms.
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.


* '''Pure''' — plain life-force, no element. Life-magic and all martial (warrior) power run on pure.
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]]).
* '''Elemental''' — pure pneuma bound to one of the four elements.


Each element is a pair of qualities, one temperature and one moisture:
A '''phial''' is soma made to hold bound pneuma. It is the only physical form of pneuma (see [[#Physical form|Physical form]]).


{| class="wikitable"
== The Three Laws ==
! Element !! Temperature !! Moisture
 
|-
'''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]]).
| Fire || Hot || Dry
 
|-
'''Law II — Attrition.''' Every shaping (see [[#Key terms|Key terms]]) loses part of the pneuma moved. Carrying and storing bound pneuma are free.
| Air || Hot || Wet
|-
| Water || Cold || Wet
|-
| Earth || Cold || Dry
|}


[[File:Aristotle's Elemental Square.gif|thumb|The four elements by quality. Adjacent elements share a quality (allies); diagonal elements share none (enemies).]]
'''Law III — Affinity.''' Affinity for a soma lowers the Attrition loss of shaping through it. Affinity grows by spending pneuma through that soma.


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


== Reactions ==
* '''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).


{| class="wikitable"
== Sources ==
! Elements meeting !! Relation !! Reaction !! Result
|-
| Share a quality || Allies || '''Synergy''' || Combine into a hybrid
|-
| Share none || Enemies || '''Dissonance''' || Cancel into pure (less than went in)
|}


'''Hybrids''' — an allied pair combines around the quality they share:
* '''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]]).


{| class="wikitable"
=== Land ===
! Allies !! Shared quality !! Hybrid
|-
| Fire + Air || Hot || Lightning, storm
|-
| Fire + Earth || Dry || Magma, forge-heat
|-
| Water + Air || Wet || Mist, ice, tempest
|-
| Water + Earth || Cold || Mire, clay
|}


Hybrids are physical (water + earth makes mud and clay). Life-magic is pure pneuma, not a pairing.
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.


== The Three Laws ==
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.


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


'''Law II — Attrition.''' Shaping costs. Any time pneuma crosses between pure and elemental — or two enemies cancel to pure — part of it is spent. Only carrying and storing are free.
== The pool ==


'''Law III — Affinity.''' An element only answers someone attuned to it. Attunement grows only by spending that element (casting or exertion), never by holding, hoarding, or buying it. The higher the attunement, the less each cast loses to Attrition.
Each creature holds an unbounded reserve of pure pneuma.


== Key terms ==
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.


* '''Shaping''' — moving pneuma between pure and elemental, either direction. Always costs (Law II).
* Filling: absorption from elemental sites, slain creatures or phials.
* '''Attunement''' — how strongly a living thing is aligned to one element. Tracked per element, per practitioner. Sets casting cost and power. Grows only by spending that element (Law III).
* Draining: casting spells, using abilities, condensing into phials.
* '''Mastery''' — a single spell's accumulated experience. Attunement to an element is the sum of mastery across its spells.
* '''Carrying / storing''' — holding or moving pneuma without changing its form. Free.


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


An element and its diagonal enemy oppose each other in three ways at once:
Baseline is a function of lifetime pneuma spent. The function is sublinear; the exact curve is open. Baseline only ever rises.


* '''Annihilation (crafting).''' Two opposed typed items pressed together at an alchemist's bench cancel to pure, always less than went in. Needs no attunement — the reaction is between the items, not the crafter. One of the few sources of pure.
=== Surplus and condensation ===
* '''Counters (combat).''' Each element answers its diagonal opposite and is answered by it: water quenches fire, earth grounds air. Countering is an action, not a damage multiplier. See [[Combat]].
* '''Attunement suppression (progression).''' Deepening one element makes its diagonal opposite weaker and slower to raise. A rising cost, not a wall — both halves of a pair can be mastered, but it is a long road.


Pure has no diagonal. It neither suppresses nor is suppressed, and feels only the general drag on total attunement (see Progression).
Condensation uses surplus only. Spending below baseline is allowed.


Learn the diagonal and you have learned all three: fire ↔ water, air ↔ earth.
=== Death ===


== Where pneuma comes from ==
Death is the vessel breaking (see [[Soma#Death|Soma]]). A creature at zero pneuma is exhausted.


* '''Elemental sites.''' Springs, vents, groves, currents. Abundance shifts by degree, not by border — everywhere holds a little of everything, and a site only tilts the local mix.
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.
* '''Creatures.''' Everything alive gives up its pneuma when slain. An elemental creature yields its element; a common beast yields pure.
* '''The self.''' Every body slowly regenerates pure pneuma (Law I). Exercise or meditation speeds this, but far slower than gathering from the world or market.


== The pool ==
== Casting ==


Your reserve is a single, unbounded pool of '''pure''' pneuma.
Every working spends pneuma. An elemental spell spends soma as well:


* No per-element compartments — the pool holds only pure.
* A '''pure''' spell (Blink, for example) spends pneuma straight from the vessel. Its cost is set by pure affinity.
* No capacity to raise, and it never fills. Progression makes pneuma go '''further''', not the pool bigger.
* 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).
* Spending drains it; gathering refills it.


Attunement governs how efficiently pneuma crosses your body's boundary:
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 from the world into your pool renders it to pure. Your attunement to that element sets how much pure you get — a fire adept drains a vent that leaves a novice a trickle.
== Abilities ==
* '''Condensing.''' Pneuma stored outside a body — typed pneuma in crystals or vials, or pure refined by annihilation — sits inert and trades freely. This is the only form pneuma keeps outside a living thing.


== Casting ==
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.


A spell spends pure pneuma, shaped into its element as it leaves you (Law III).
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.


* Every caster draws from the same pure pool.
== Affinity ==
* Attunement to the element sets the price. Mastered: cheap and strong. Neglected: still fires, but costs far more and hits far weaker.
* Casting and absorbing use the same attunement (crossing the boundary either way) and grow together — but only casting builds attunement (see Progression).


== Progression ==
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 what you spend, not to time.
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]]).


'''Core rule:''' pneuma channeled through a cast becomes that spell's mastery. Attunement to an element is the sum of mastery across its spells.
== Physical form ==


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.''' Only pneuma spent through a cast or exertion builds attunement. Pneuma merely absorbed does nothing on its own; hoarding gains nothing.
== Open questions ==
* '''Alignment emerges from play.''' Attunement follows what you actually cast — never chosen outright.
* '''Specialization is the path of least resistance.''' Attunement comes fast at first and slows as it grows; deepening one element suppresses its opposite; and total attunement carries a gentle drag on all further gains. Committing to an element and its allies is easy; straddling an opposed pair or mastering everything is a long grind, not a barred door.
* '''Attunement can't be bought.''' Wealth carries you past the gathering, never past the casting. Cast times and cooldowns ultimately pace growth.
* '''Idle practice counts.''' A cast need not hit anything to leave its residue; its pneuma cost keeps practice from ever being free.


'''What attunement grants:''' spells in that element are stronger and cheaper, plus passive benefits. It does not unlock new spells — those are learned from masters, drops, and quests, then deepened by 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.


'''Mastery of all elements''' is the game's long aspiration — not a normal endgame state but a lifetime achievement. Opposition is what gives it weight: a master has fought the suppression headwind the whole way and ends with no weak element and no bad matchup. See [[Combat]] for what that means in a fight.


=== The warrior ===


A non-caster is the same system, inverted. A warrior works in pure pneuma alone — regenerated by their own breath and released from everything they slay — and invests it through physical exertion into weapon mastery. That gathers into '''pure attunement''' by the same ledger (a cast and an exertion count alike, Law III), with only the direction of flow reversed.


== Trade ==
CONCEPTING


* '''Typed pneuma''' (sites, drops, crystals) is the market's main good — freely gathered and traded, the raw stock for both absorbing and annihilation.
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
* '''Pure pneuma''' comes from three places: slain elementless creatures, a body's own regeneration, and annihilation of an opposed typed pair. No site yields pure from the ground. Pure trades freely — the market sells fuel; the power to spend it well belongs to attuned hands.


== Open questions ==
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


* '''Concrete numbers.''' Absorption and casting efficiency at each attunement level, regeneration rate, annihilation loss, condensation costs, suppression strength, and the total-attunement drag curve. The suppression/efficiency curve is the master dial: it sets how far the game leans toward specialization versus mastery of all.
-these supplemental resources would be similar to catalyst runes in OSRS, not like another element
* '''Hybrids in play.''' Are hybrid spells a distinct track, or gated by both parent attunements? (Proposed: gated by the weaker parent, learned as spells like any other.)
* '''Imbued gear.''' Should non-casters reach elemental effects through weapons and armor? Proposed, deferred until the base system settles.
* '''A death/corrupting force.''' Largely rejected as a new substance — death as a Law III violation (destruction with no pure residue), undead as failed Law I self-generation. Deferred.
* '''Ambient dynamics.''' Should weather and time shift local pneuma abundance (storms surging air)?

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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