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[TricMagic]

Sol(ar) Crystals

Sol Crystals are made by using freshly produced liquid sunlight to boil forgewater within a closed pot. As the two evaporate, the magic within the forgewater is stripped, forcing the bonds between the two liquids to crystalize together into dim and fragile yellow crystals. This results in most of the energy being lost, but the crystals can be recharged by simply leaving them in the sun, and the amount the larger crystals can store is rather great. As they don't lose power over time(other than amounts lost over the course of a week in the dark), they can be used to feed the liquid light elementals and train them. Conserving energy is rewarded, and being able to keep them alive long enough to teach results in wiser cherubs, especially with lessons from Muu on the value of patience. Conserving energy for the fight means you survive to defeat even more evil, and the value of retreating to fight another day when their mass grows too small to continue effectively. Liquid Light Elementals receive up to 3 Sol Crystals  which they can draw on to maintain their form and be drawn upon during combat in place of their mass. While easy to shatter and weaken the elemental, they give them far better longevity. The Sol Crystals and this rewarding lesson should allow them to operate for longer, and the crystals are much easier to transport and use than barrels of liquid light. Though to restore loss mass to elementals, these are still needed.
A Wealth Token is used to ensure ample production of Sol Crystals. While they do need to be cut so they can be distributed , the process of creation and use is rather simplistic.



The development of Sol Crystals can give us a magical container for other things, as once they are drained they could serve as magical capacitors. A good two-point for the upcoming tome token. Coral/Bonewood for the handle, and crystals atop. Very traditional.



Solar Crystals En Masse

Sol Crystals are made by using freshly produced liquid sunlight to boil forgewater within a closed pot. As the two evaporate, the magic within the forgewater is stripped, forcing the bonds between the two liquids to crystalize together into dim  yellow crystals. This results in most of the energy being lost, but the crystals can be recharged by simply leaving them in the sun, and the amount the larger crystals can store is rather great. As they don't lose power over time(other than amounts lost over the course of a week in the dark), they can be used to feed the liquid light elementals. Think of it as pay. Make enough crystals and keep them charged, and you've mostly solved the issues involved, even if they don't dim their lights. At the very least, it means camps are fairly safe at night. And yes, we're using wealth to ensure enough are produced to meet this goal. A large crystal around the size of a human head is enough to keep them going for 6-7 hours, and takes about that much time to recharge. A set of 8 per elemental is more than enough.

[Kashyyk]

I have two writings today. The first is a Lore contest entry, would appreciate some vetting and critique.

The second is a Fix for the Drakegull's appetite being such a problem. They slow us down strategically, and their hunger stops them from chasing down fleeing Demonic cultists, allowing them to consolidate after battle more effectively.

"...you are hereby found Guilty of:

• Sedition
• Incitement To Riot
• Defamation of an Official of Xyrania
• Defamation of the Government of Xyrania
• Defamation of the Church of Xyrania
• Blasphemy
• Heresy
  
• High Heresy
• Impersonation of a Cleric of the Church of Xyrania

By the power invested in me as an Officer of Xyrania, I hereby sentence you to hang by the neck until dead."

I wanted to search the sea of faces for one I recognised, but the words of my mentor cut through the fog.

"Xyrania is tearing itself apart when the Gods want only Compassion!" I cried. A gloved hand tries to shove a rag into my mouth, but I turn aside. "How we worship is immaterial to the weight of our intentions!". My vision is obscured as a sack is pulled over my head. I try to continue, my voice muffled, but suddenly I'm floating, and everything turns white.

---

What do you mean that's not... Oh! Yeah, that makes more sense.

---

My family were long-time followers of Neo-Orthodoxy, although most of our neighbours were part of the local Post-Covenant congregation. We got along well enough, as we agreed on all but the most minor scriptures, until the Covenant Revival anyway.

White Robed Zealots came through the neighbourhood, extolling the virtues of the "New Covenant", and offering the traditional Covenant guest gift of saltbread and fish. We declined every time of course, accepting food from a guest being a hospitality Taboo, but they kept pushing. Eventually, they grew tired, and our once-friendly neighbours drove us out. Last I heard they'd turned the whole place into a gated community.

Life on the streets was hard, but luckily we were picked up by an old Fundamentalist preacher. She cared for us, and I at my behest taught me her creed. She felt that the damage caused by the many sects of Xyrania caused more suffering and pain than any caused by worshipping the Gods in the "wrong way".

I took to this like a goat to the cliff, and quickly consumed all she had to teach. She recommended I learn from an acquaintance of hers, a priest from the North. Before I knew it, I was being taught how to spread this truth to the uninitiated. I was dressed in a robe of white, blessed in the name of the Mother, and with an unfamiliar warmth in my heart, I found myself standing on the edge of a fountain, facing a crowd.

Then it was a blur. I spoke. People listened. The Holy Guard showed up, and dragged me a way. You know the rest.

---

And here we are. Now I watch my family through a veil as they mourn, surrounded by people I don't even know. The only thing I recognise is the white robes of the caterers, with their saltbread and fish.

Edit to add: The obvious patch here is to fix their appetite and metabolism, but that's boring. Hence an alternative suggestion that should be [Patch] grade.

For their size, Drakegulls require a lot of food to keep going, and disproportionately so compared to similar sized beasts. Thus their digestive system is updated to be fully omnivorous. Whilst they'll likely prefer to eat actual food, like fish, fruit, and carrion, they should be perfectly capable of functioning on grass, leaves, kitchen waste, rotten meat and even mild cannibalism.

This should massively simplify logistics for feeding our Drakegull units, as they can be maintained off the waste produced by our army, and just ne turned out to graze like any mundane army of horse.

[m1895]

Cherub Psychorestructuring [EF]
The cherubs just need some minor modifications to properly function.
By giving them a base comprehension of The Future^TM they now understand not waste their limited resources before the time is right, so they remember this, we gave them a little coral plaque that says "be frugal. Be resolute. Behave." This allows us to use them with much less fuss than we currently have to.

[TricMagic]

[EF] Drakegulls Eat Anything: (1) TricMagic
[EF] Solar Sentinels: ()
[EF] Cherub Psychorestructuring
[EF] Patience, Cherubs: (1) TricMagic

Patience, Cherubs
One major issue is the elementals have no concept of waiting, or restraint. By imbuing them with the virtue of Patience in their creation, that they will no longer only feel the all-consuming drive to illuminate everything with their light. Instead they will restrain their light until the time is right, then illuminate everything with their light. They still feel that drive, and it's a core part of their being. But they now know that it is not for them to illuminate that which is already lit by the light of Good, but to focus their attentions on the shadows of Evil. Of the many meanings within Patience, Self-Restraint is one of them.
While this doesn't make the elementals smarter, it does mean they embody the trait of Patience.

Born by Muu, the standard Cherub is one of righteousness. It is unyielding in its drive to eliminate evil. However, placing it in liquid sunlight to create an elemental imparts that element's innate drive onto the core. The Light burns, unending in itself. There is no desire for compromise or restraint. The Cherub becomes the core of a being that wishes for nothing more than to burn as brightly as possible until it burns its last.

In this way, the Liquid Light Elemental is a failure, the Cherub Muu created is unable to handle the desires of the element it acts as the core of. The Cherub has no core tenet with which to resist the elemental light. And so they sit inert, sleeping until battle arrives, burning brightly, before going out. But among these beings rise a newer one, one who has a purpose beyond righteousness, a wisdom born of Muu and gifted to them. Patience. The patience to wait for eons before igniting, to shine gently and warm the hearts of their allies, to burn the shadows free of evil. To cheer, to accept the feelings of their element, and to set them aside for their holy mission. To act as a light in the darkness for those who have none, and the resolve to carry on long after those older cherubs would have burned themselves out, having shone for but a brief moment. This is the path forward, its presence suggests. Silent as it is, it resonates, shining its light far and wide across the sea, an everlasting candle illuminating the darkness.

Crystal Light Elementals
One issue with the standard elementals is they burn all their liquid light away. This seeks to fix that by using forgewater to crystalize parts of their form, with the new crystals eating light to empower the elemental. The result is a type of golem, with multiple hands/feet, feet, and a torso, connecting them with rays of light. They have rather far reach as they can send their limbs flying forward with great force, and their very presence heals allies and damages enemies nearby the crystals. Anything caught in the rays emanating from the torso's core suffers a more pronounced effect. They've got good defensive power and have no issues acting at nightguards, as even moonlight can keep them somewhat powered outside. This does mean they are weaker at night, not being able to throw their limbs that far, just punching/kicking distance. They can also jump, somehow. Which helps given they are stuck on seabed level in water. The crystals solve the major problem of burning all their light in the simplest way, removing their ability to burn it in exchange for a steady release, and absorption from light sources. Granted, the process to deploy these elementals is expensive. Despite using Forgewater, a lot of liquid light is needed to fuel them before deployment to be effective, rendering them a Rare subset of Liquid Light Elementals.
Notes: Forgewater, when boiled, strips it's own magic, crystalizing the water. As Liquid Light Elementals also burn away their light, this interacts with the evaporation, the energy resulting in crystal formations capable of storing that light. The creation of Crystal Light Elementals has a central torso soaked in the Forgewater with the Cherub inside, followed by it using the rays of light emanating from them to connect to other prepared pieces that they use as body parts. Before deployment, they absorb the light out of liquid light directly into these crystals.

[EuchreJack]

Cherub Psychorestructuring [EF]
The cherubs just need some minor modifications to properly function.
By giving them a base comprehension of The Future^TM they now understand not waste their limited resources before the time is right, so they remember this, we gave them a little coral plaque that says "be frugal. Be resolute. Behave." This allows us to use them with much less fuss than we currently have to.

I like this idea, because it could be spectacularly good. Or weird.

[TricMagic]

Patch: Restraint Rings
A Restraint Ring is made up of coral enchanted with light. It stores energy much like the Spears of Light and acts as a filter. The Cherub is limited in the amount of light it can burn at any time by these Rings. As a combination storage and limiter, it should make it so the Liquid Light Elementals do not burn their entire stock in a matter of hours. 3 are placed around the cherub, and as they are broken the limit on the Cherub breaks as well. The luster of the rings is as if bright gold.

Spoiler: This is silly, but eh. (click to show/hide)

Patch: Energy Storage
Unlike organics, Muu isn't constrained by ordinary physics. By creating a specialized organ to convert excess food into bioenergy required to fuel body, that energy can then be stored in a crystal for later use as needed. This allows the Drakegulls to fill up before being deployed, solving their whole need to eat in the field. This crystal mirrors the heart, and as the Drakegull gets hungry, energy will be drained to the relevant cells demanding energy. Good prevails over hunger!. (At least until the crystal organ is completely drained.)

The latter is very silly.
I'm also out of focus.

[EuchreJack]

The Restraint Rings are interesting!

[m1895]

[EF] Drakegulls Eat Anything: (1) TricMagic
Solar Sentinels: (1) m1895
[EF] Cherub Psychorestructuring
[EF] Patience, Cherubs: (1) TricMagic

If it's a patch why not

[TricMagic]

... Did you mean to remove the EF tag?

[m1895]

Yes because it was never intended to he an EF

[TricMagic]

Fair.

I'll be fine with any of the LLE patches as a EF, though prefer the Virtue/Future one. Restraint Rings are cool too. Living Trashbags doesn't really have a counterprosal. Failing an EF turn, still waiting/hoping for Flying Hussars. Though the EF route to remove the weight on our logistics would have immediate impacts even if all it does is patch up those holes. Not having to drag around barrels and find food would be nice.

[EuchreJack]

[EF] Drakegulls Eat Anything: (1) TricMagic
Solar Sentinels: (1) m1895
[EF] Cherub Psychorestructuring: (1) EuchreJack
[EF] Patience, Cherubs: (1) TricMagic

[Quarque]

[EF] Drakegulls Eat Anything: (1) TricMagic
Solar Sentinels: (2) m1895, Quarque
[EF] Cherub Psychorestructuring: (1) EuchreJack
[EF] Patience, Cherubs: (1) TricMagic

[Kashyyk]

[EF] Drakegulls Eat Anything: (2) TricMagic, Kashyyk
Solar Sentinels: (2) m1895, Quarque
[EF] Solar Sentinels: (1) Kashyyk
[EF] Cherub Psychorestructuring: (1) EuchreJack
[EF] Patience, Cherubs: (1) TricMagic

[m1895]

Infovores
The Infovore is uh, uh...

infovores are sapient ideas summonable by acolytes to do our dirty work for us. Once summoned the acolytes points out a mind for it to target, and, if the infovore detects demonic taint, it will nestle itself inside the targets mind and begin eating away at their memories. Standard procedure is to eat away any memories relevant to fighting off the infovore, then start with childhood memories, working their way forward until eventually the target is an empty husk, at which point the infovore will initiate a transfer to one of the target's compatriots and so on. Once the infovore has filled up on memories, it will return to its master. The master should produce two cubes, a palm-sized black cube covered in glyphs, and a red cube with twice the volume and similar glyphs. The infovore will dump any relevant information into the black cube. Meanwhile, all the irrelevant memories get dumped into the red cube (free-floating memories being a hazard) where they get "compressed" and abstracted.
While the infovore clearly has much utility, it also comes with some weaknesses; any enchanted weapon that strikes the hosts brain, or magic missile that strikes anywhere on the host, is liable to kill outright if not grievously wound the Infovore infesting them. Furthermore, once forced to exit a mind without a transfer, it must return to its master to be redeployed, and finally, an acolyte can only manage about one infovore at a time.

probably needs some polish