Weekly Bonus Material - Gemstones (Patreon)
Content
Gemstones! Briefly mentioned in Aquiliea, where Elaine got a diamond to store a skill! (And her parents got some as well, but they were responsible)
How they works: Artisans and crafters with the right class and the right Element (Gemstone), can "Attune" a gem, by a combination of skill and cutting it, make it receptive to holding skills. Anyone with the right elemental affinity can then store a skill in the gem, giving the skill a one-time use at no mana cost to use.
This creates some interesting situations:
1) Someone wealthy can buy a few gems with life-saving skills in them for themselves or their kid. A few gems are ok. Dozens of gems can be problematic. They're hard to hide, and the person ends up with a giant "Rob Me, I'm relying on gems and I'm low level" target on them.
2) You can get a bunch of gemstones not in your element with a skill stored, but once you use it, it becomes a shiny paperweight until you can convince someone to recharge the gem for you. Some people do this as a service, and charge a pretty penny for it.
3) For skills where efficiency matters (Elaine's healing skills, for example, have wildly varying mana use depending on how good her image is), gemstones are by default lowest efficiency. Elaine thinking "Heal" vs "Gotta reattack the bone, the nerves, blood, muscle, ligaments, skin...." etc. when healing.
However, if it's one of your skills you're throwing out from the gem, you're in luck, and you can control the efficiency.
4) It's almost always better to have more Arcanite, and a deeper mana pool effectively, than it is to have gems in your element. Gems in your element are still good, a rare status symbol, and can be useful for longer-cast skills, and there isn't the delay in "absorb mana, then cast" vs "just cast"
5) Passive skills can't be stored in a gem. How would that work?
6) Gemstone-heavy users are extremely deadly in a fight for the first few seconds, as they unload all their skills. However, after that, they're almost a sitting duck. Then again, when you have heavy magic artillery, fights only tend to last a few seconds anyways. See Artemis's standard tactic of "throw a dozen rocks and lightning bolts at them"
7) Given the value of attuned gemstones, one could easily imagine them being hoarded, rarely given out or released from the owner's grasp.
8) With the right combination of skills, gems, and Arcanite, a Gemstone artisan can create rechargeable traps and formations.
9) The larger the gem, the higher "max mana" skill can be stored.
For example: With a dozen Arcanite stones, a single Ruby, a large, complex, and expensive formation, a Gemstone expert can make a rechargeable flame-trap. Step on the panel, explosive flames shoot out at you. If you get fried, great! It'll slowly recharge over a period of time (a few hours/days/weeks depending on the Arcanite:gem:Skill Power ratio). If you don't get fried, LOOT! Expensive gems, expensive Arcanite, all for the taking!
Just be careful about the secondary trap ;)
Formations aren't moveable generally speaking, although I'm not discounting them on say, a ship.
Onto elements and their gemstone! In Primary-Secondary, then alphabetical order:
Primary:
Dark - Obsidian
Earth - Feldspar
Fire - Ruby
Light - Diamond
Metal - Amethyst
Water - Lapis Lazuli
Wind - Jadeite
Wood - Emerald
Secondary:
Acid - Peridot
Arcanite - Arcanite. (I might flip this to be "Doesn't store skills", since it already stores mana.)
Ash - Neptunite (Clearly Pallos has a different word for it, that gets translated back into English.)
Brilliance - Quartz
Celestial - Moonstone
Coral - Pearl
Decay - Bloodstone
Erosion - Morganite
Forest - Opal
Gale - Aquamarine
Gemstones - N/A. No storing gemstone skills.
Gravity - Apatite
Ice - Kyanite
Inferno - Cinnabar
Lava - Olivine
Lightning - Iolite
Magic Metals (Any of them) - Labradorite
Mantle - Citrine
Miasma - Axinite
Mirage - Zircon
Mirrors - Pyrite
Mist - Amazonite
Mountain - Topaz
Ocean - Sapphire
Ooze - Torquoise
Poison - Hauyne
Pyronox - Garnet
Radiance - Sunstone
Sand - Jasper
Sound - Agate
Spatial - Onyx
Spore - Chrysoberyl
Steam - Carnelian
Storm - Alexandrite
Verdant - Malachite
Void - Jet
Questions away!
Or plotholes/major problems with this. I know the broad, general idea, but I might have overlooked a detail that completely breaks everything.