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[Madman198237]

Pie Eye In the Sky
Lets the user take a vantage point as if they were floating above the world, using our Divination magic to collect information about the present world. A mage using this spell is capable of communicating with others, or utilizing the Hammer and Spear of Allah. This spell requires some concentration, but not enough to interfere with instantaneous spells or actions, like talking or casting the Spear.

Alternatively:

Mind Trail
Using our new apprentice-training tool, two experienced mages can use long-distance communication so that a carpet rider or mage onboard an Alsamma Safina can show another what he can see, allowing for multiple mages to share the information through our other mind-reading spells, and thus call down precise blasts of lightning from far outside the enemy artillery's ranges.

[evictedSaint]

Design: Wrath of Allah [4, 5-1, 4]

For too long have we let Arstotzka deny the will of our god.  Allah commands the sky to fill with lightning, and our enemies think they can simply freeze his will?  No - the Wrath of Allah is an upgrade to our Storm Strike, Hammer, and Spear all at once.  Conjuring a storm still takes an entire day, but the skies do not clear for days unless we clear them ourselves.  Yes, these clouds may still belch snow and hail, but the righteous Lightning of Allah will not be denied by such trivial things.  Our lightning now arcs through the frigid winter air regardless, laying about with furious abandon.

Wrath of Allah can now be conjured by a single mage working alone over the course of a day, or several mages to join together and proportionally decrease the time required.  Lightning can now be cast in cold weather, though it still requires line of sight for both the Hammer and Spear.  Unfortunately, casting Storm Strike prevents the users from casting Clear Skies around them, and on occasion the spell will be interrupted by the very storm it conjures.  This can be avoided by having yet another mage standing nearby, continuously casting Clear Skies to prevent the caster from being interrupted.  The storm does not, unfortunately, dispell Arstotzka's cold advantage, or even convert the snow to rain.  The relatively long casting time and expense of the casting components makes the spell means it can only be cast by trained wizards and is Expensive.

[NUKE9.13]

Alright then. Fours across the board. Can't complain.

For our revision, then. Consensual mind-reading, was it?

Share Thoughts: Based primarily on Detect Thoughts, these spells strips away some of Detect Thoughts functions: the spell can only be cast at close range- in fact, the target and caster must be touching for it to work. The spell can no longer overcome natural mental defences, requiring the target to actively open their mind to the caster. After these functions are removed, the spell is further refined, to make it even easier to cast.
The result is a spell with no combat use whatsoever. It is, however, a useful educational tool, which apprentices can cast to 'learn' from their teachers. This does not provide us with more apprentices, but it does speed up the training of apprentices into fully-fledged wizards.

Basically, we just make Detect Thoughts cheaper, so that apprentices can cast it.

[Kashyyk]

So apprentices turn into wizards faster? I can see the appeal.

On that theme though, I feel the teletalk wands can be improved:

Enhanced Teletalk - This comes in two parts. The first is a simple range increase so that our ships can finally reliably talk to one another, as well as regiment commanders on the battlefield. The second is binding teletalk wands to individuals rather than pairing them. This way each comms mage needs only one, personalised wand. Anyone who wishes to communicate with them just needs to focus on a recipient when they send the message. By intentionally not focusing on anyone, a user can also transmit to everyone in range.

[Madman198237]

Well darn. Not bad. Might need to sink another design to make it ALL-POWERFUL, but that can wait until we explore the possibilities.

Hold on, lemme find the original proposal I had. I like my proposal, NUKE, more than yours (I'M BIASED! I admit it proudly ).

Alrighty: Here's the list of revision ideas I had:

Academy of Magic
Using our Detect Thoughts spells, worthy apprentices' thoughts are scanned. If they are found pure of heart and iron in resolve, they may then be granted early knowledge of how to use a new spell: Knowledge. This simple spell allows the user to touch the mind of a willing mage, who can impart knowledge through the mental link. The apprentice can learn only what the master chooses to share, it only needs to work over a distance of a few feet, and the spell cannot be sustained by an apprentice alone---the mage with which they are mentally conversing must help sustain the link, as it relies on the willingness of the subject. This greatly simplifies the spell, allowing even the newest apprentice to cast it, if only under the strict guidance of a master. Then they will use that spell to learn from the likes of al-Mutriqa and our Researcher Priests. This will greatly increase the speed of apprentice training, meaning that more combat-ready apprentices can be deployed to the front, and more mages will join our ranks every year. Apprentices who are not worthy, or whose thoughts contain hints of treason, revolt, or a lack of skill, will be put through a harder but more mundane training course. They will be indoctrinated properly, and brought to the level of skill necessary to fight.

But if we think that we first need to work out some ways of directing our lightning spells:

Pie Eye In the Sky
Lets the user take a vantage point as if they were floating above the world, using our Divination magic to collect information about the present world. A mage using this spell is capable of communicating with others, or utilizing the Hammer and Spear of Allah. This spell requires some concentration, but not enough to interfere with instantaneous spells or actions, like talking or casting the Spear.

Alternatively:

Mind Trail
Using this new version of Detect Thoughts, two or more experienced mages can link minds, using relatively long-distance communication so that a carpet rider or mage onboard an Alsamma Safina can directly show others what he can see, thus allowing them to call down precise blasts of lightning from far outside the enemy artillery's ranges. The spell does not interfere with concentration too much, which means that the mages participating can utilize the Hammer and Spear of Allah or flying the carpet.

[Atomic Chicken]

(1) Academy of Magic (aka Share Thoughts): AC

(0) Eye In the Sky

(0) Mind Trail

(0) Enhanced Teletalk

(Hope you don't mind Share Thoughts / Academy sharing the vote; they're practically identical aside from some fluff.)

Remember, aside from augmenting our mage training programme, the Detect Thoughts revision should also bring us one step closer to securing next turn's revision bonus if we update Hayat's curriculum to make intensive use of it.

[Madman198237]

I don't mind. In fact, I think that's what NUKE was going for.

I'm going to wait and see if anybody has an arguments as to what comes first, as I honestly am not sure what to suggest, though I lean towards the Mind Trail idea to get greatest combat application immediately, although the Academy of Magic would be quite interesting to use in an effort to train the heiress...

[crazyabe]

Something I'd like to eventually get, is a Speak with dead spell, from that we can eventually start drawing up spells to pull our dead back into the land of the living, and eventually unleash ghostly hoards of men to Slaughter our enemies.

[Madman198237]

Except that falls under the "dubious" category of fairness and balance, and is a field of magic we've not even got a SLIGHT step into yet. Necromancy is pretty much a no-no for Moskurg--we've played ourselves as the valiant, righteous religious hordes of the South, and we can't really change now just because necromancy would be powerful.

Also, necromancy is liable to have nasty side-effects. Like zombie apocalypses.

[crazyabe]

Ever heard of Angels? If we started with a Divination spell that would allow us to question the troops they Execute about what they saw last, and then move on to Asking Allah to provide us with Lightning, Charged to bring our men back down from Heaven to Continue fighting temporary, and finally finish off by Drawing the Souls themselves as (Practically unharmable) Men of Lightning, given wings of Flame... See where I'm going with this? Our men are dying to the Dishonorable means of the Arstoskans, Returning them life so they may go forth and die again with Honor this time would be a Massive Blessing (Besides that Seeing one's fallen comrades Get up for one last charge at the enemy lines, and later, Attack as Blessed Angels would likely improve moral).

[Madman198237]

Perhaps instead you would like to just enchant our men with spells that store and release huge amounts of electricity of death?

Combined with amulets or, preferably, tattoo-like markings of apparently holy symbols and such that protect our soldiers from lightning?


Actually, next turn's design: Permanent markings that protect the person they're applied to from the affects of lightning, via magically changing the path of the lightning. Doing this would allow us to advance directly under the cover of a full-bore hundred-mage-powered Wrath, fighting the dying Arstotzkans in a field suffering from the Hammer of Allah....Now I wish we had someone who could draw it.

Evicted, you appeared to have some talent with MSPaint or whatever it was you used way back in like turn 5. For old times' sake, can we have a picture of Moskurgers killing Arstotzkans in the midst of an unnatural lightning storm? Drawn during your copious amounts of free time.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

(2) Academy of Magic (aka Share Thoughts): AC, SMMI

(0) Eye In the Sky

(0) Mind Trail

(0) Enhanced Teletalk

We need to snatch the Revision credit.

[Madman198237]

(3) Academy of Magic (aka Share Thoughts): AC, SMMI, Madman198237

(0) Eye In the Sky

(0) Mind Trail

(0) Enhanced Teletalk

Good enough reason as any, I guess. Let's go.

[Khang36]

(3) Academy of Magic (aka Share Thoughts): AC, SMMI, Madman198237,Khang36

(0) Eye In the Sky

(0) Mind Trail

(0) Enhanced Teletalk

For a design should we consider making black powder? We have experience in chemistry from our fire shells and with our admintine making our own cannons should be viable.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

(4) Academy of Magic (aka Share Thoughts): AC, SMMI, Madman198237,Khang36

(0) Eye In the Sky

(0) Mind Trail

(0) Enhanced Teletalk

For a design should we consider making black powder? We have experience in chemistry from our fire shells and with our admintine making our own cannons should be viable.

Right now we need to counter their cold and start striking from other means of attack, or enhancing our bigger weapons. So weaponized Thunder, Night Attacks, Tunnelling, Scrying, anything you can think of that will turn this war into a new type of combat. I forgot about our Teletalk, it has potential I'm thinking.