Cosel (Bronze Age Edition) Worldbuilding Info

[Alicorn]

Yes; if an elemental is freed while neither elemental nor amulet is near anyone the elemental would kill then it's pretty safe.

Languages are by planet.

[Moriwen]

How social-with-each-other are wild elementals? Do they make friends, or does that only happen when they've been captured by humans and forced to hang out that way?

How powerful are artifacts? Given enough skill and enough elementals to tap, can they in theory be arbitrarily powerful?

Could you in theory make an amulet with different restrictions from the default set? Either removing some (an amulet that let you make the elemental blink) or adding some (an amulet that wouldn't let you make the elemental shut up)? (I could see a market in amulets with somewhat heavier restrictions, of the kind most owners would impose on an elemental, built-in, so you couldn't carelessly give your elemental permission to do things you didn't really want to.)

I assume it's not possible for elementals to tap each other?

Does the amount of mana you have left feel like a thing, or do you have to guesstimate based on how much magic you've done?

Can you make artifacts whose effects involve interactions-with-other-artifacts? (That is: can they get a crystal ball network like Materia's, eventually, or is 'interface with other artifacts like this one' not a feasible thing to do?)

What are mana costs for artifacts typically like? (How many singing humidifiers can you make in a day? How many amulets?)

[Alicorn]

They make friends and may pairbond but definitely have no impulse to civilization on their own. They will probably stop to say hi if they see others while they're doing stuff but only seldom hang around for long or make plans to see each other again.

I don't have this hard capped but I don't want to commit to arbitrary power.

The amulet spell as-is is Special but I am not firmly decided on exactly how special. I do think it is the default thing you get when you attempt "artifact to forcibly tap an elemental" and that the things you can't make them do are hard limits at least for this approach.

Right. Nor can they tap mages.

It feels like a thing.

They could do that eventually (in original Cosel, there were magic mirrors, but I'm not committing to that here).

How many amulets you can make in a day (given all the possible substitutions) depends on your affinities; if you're 4-2-2 then you can do a couple in a day. Singing humidifiers would probably be like 4ish a day without elemental help.

[DanielH]

Is there an upper limit to affinities besides a 4 and eleven 3s? Does more affinities/power in your affinities correlate with your mother’s Relevant Seafood consumption during pregnancy, or is it heritable, or pretty much random, or what?

[pedromvilar]

What does it look like when the an elemental is freed, to someone looking at the elemental? At the amulet? What does it feel like to the elemental? Does it feel like anything to the person who freed them, assuming they don't die? Does the elemental know that the person they'd like to kill is near them/the amulet or is that automatic enough that it doesn't matter?

When you say "spell," what exactly do you mean? As in, are spells basic units, can they be modified, what are the mechanical actions involved in casting one... Basically what's a spell like, from invention to casting?

[Alicorn]

4 and eleven 3s is it and pretty unheard of (Maurabel is 4/3/3/3/2/2/2/2/1/1/0/0 and about 97th percentile). "Not being a mage" is a birth defect but how many affinities you have and how many is pretty random (it would be a birth defect of some kind if you were born with no hair on your body but extremely wide variance in exactly how much is normal); it is a little (but not a lot) heritable, mostly random, I might decide it has something to do with proximity of elementals while you're in the womb or something.

It looks like the flaringest halo flare of all time, on the elemental; the amulet bursts into tiny bits. The elemental is suddenly no longer paralyzed (even if they weren't being controlled that much, it feels like that) and overwhelmed with all the emotions they were not able to fully express because they were being controlled all at once. Doesn't feel like anything to the freer except that the amulet bursts into tiny bits. The elemental's connection through the amulet persists long enough for them to find and kill the person thereby.

Did I say "spell", I've been trying to avoid that but we don't have a good word for "informal skosh of magic-doing". Doing magic is like a motor task, it doesn't fundamentally have basic units and you can make adjustments and tradeoffs all over the damn place with energy, elegance, practice, efficacy, keeping it under control, etc. There aren't magical "limbs" but you can sort of think of having a 1 in an element as like getting around with one leg, a 2 as getting around with two legs, a 3 as playing piano with one hand, and a 4 as playing piano with two hands.

[pedromvilar]

So if I got this right doing magic is basically sort of just... moving this mental/fundamental bit and having effects happen, there's no chanting, drawing, moving in specific ways, building concepts from specific atomic ones in your head, right?

If the mage is very very far from the elemental they're controlling (like idk the elemental isn't a Shadow and would take several hours/days to get there) and free them, what is the thing that kills the mage? Is it just that the elemental really really will chase them down and murder them?

When you say the unexpressed emotions overwhelm them is that mostly metaphorical or are those emotions actually "stored away" somewhere/somehow and then released all at once?

[DanielH]

I imagine the emotional backlash is approximately instant, but that there is a brief moment where the elemental can do magic through the breaking amulet, and any elemental can kill with magic near-instantly?

Can elementals usually do magic through the amulet if they and their controlling mage so desire?

[Alicorn]

Yeah, although people do make gestures while doing it sometimes and a lot of stuff requires that you be touching things.

You have to touch the amulet and they can kill you through that.

Somewhere between the two.

Yes.

[Ezra]

Where you said "spell" above was the amulet spell, which seems to be more one specific consistent thing than most exercises of magic are.