Wyld Shaping

Biggest Issue

With regard to 2nd edition Wyld-Shaping Technique, I have found the re-Wyld-Shape thing to feel anti-thematic once players started to actually use it. Instead of going to the edge of the world and forcing order from the teeth of chaos, players just kept reshaping the same area, and generating more and more stuff from it, all while remaining safely inside of what was now part of Creation. And because it counted as Middle Marches, it was actually better than the Border March from which it was made. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with players trying to get the most out of the Charm as written. I am saying that this particular feature of the Charm is the most problematic for me. I would rather the shaping result in a fixed product. The simplest fix to the Charm, in my view, is to simply remove the line about land being made with it being a special re-shapeable tainted land.

Wyld-Shaping Technique

Here is an idea for a much bigger rewrite of Wyld-Shaping Technique. Note that its operating principle is meant to be a sort of "craftsman needs no materials" rather than simply being able to make whatever the heck you want:

Mins: Craft 5, Essence 3

Prerequisite Charms: Chaos-Resistance Preparation, Craftsman Needs No Tools

As Craftsman Needs No Tools allows a Solar to create new things without many of the implements he would normally need, so does this Charm allow the Solar to work without a varied stock of resources. In the First Age, Lawgivers used the Wyld-Shaping Technique to conquer the Wyld and expand Creation. They stood at the edge of the world and forced shape into the teeth of the howling storm. This Charm forces the inchoate material of chaos to take form as the Exalt commands.

A Solar must have at least one Craft at a rating of 5 to qualify for this Charm, but his use of it will be restricted by whichever Craft skill(s) the Storyteller deems relevant to the resource creation in question.

Wyld-Shaping Technique is an extended dramatic action. The dice pool used equals (the Solar's Intelligence + lowest relevant Craft). Each roll requires five hours of effort, and the character pays the Charm's cost with each roll. This roll has a cumulative difficulty of 1 in regions of Pure Chaos, 3 in the Deep Wyld, 5 in the Middlemarches and 10 in the Bordermarches of the Wyld. Failure to garner any successes means that the Solar's efforts to shape the Wyld fade as quickly as ripples on disturbed pond. Attempts to discern what she was trying to create require a Perception + Lore roll with a difficulty equal to the normal region difficulty minus the number of successes she rolled. Thus, if she failed along a Bordermarch, with 4 successes rolled, discerning what she was trying to create would require 6 successes. With success or failure, the Wyld area sometimes responds by mimicking the Lawgivers's efforts in some fashion. If she works to create a skeleton, for example, then the Wyld might temporarily manifest as a graveyard. Botches result in horrible side effects as reality shapes to the character's subconscious whims. It may take the shape of his fears or simply coalesce in some horrifically wrong fashion. Even in the days of the Old Realm, Solars usually tried to investigate unforeseen results of this Charm.

The Lawgiver can spend accumulated successes at any point to complete part of her construction. Various effects may require one or more Craft ratings. This functions according to the following guidelines:

Demesne: To forge a Demesne, the Solar must first create the underlying land and then spend successes equal to its demesne level. Elemental demesnes require one or more relevant Craft skills of at least the level of the demesne being created—a level 4 Fire demesne, for example, requires that the Lawgiver possess Craft (Fire) 4. Celestial or exotic demesnes may require similarly exotic Craft skills, potentially more than one. Sidereal demesnes use Craft (Fate), Malfean demesnes need Craft (Vitriol), Lunar demesnes demand Craft (Air) and Craft (Water), while Solar demesnes are made with Craft (Fire) and Craft (Air).

Exotic Materials: The Lawgiver may create rare or "impossible" components suitable for use in the crafting of magical constructs such as Artifacts. He must possess relevant Crafts at a suitable level, such as requiring Craft (Air) 3 to manufacture the extraordinarily rare northern phenomenon of frozen lightning. This Charm cannot create spirits (demons, ghosts, gods, elementals), behemoths, Primordials, Fair Folk or Exalted, nor can it create any component derived from such.

Land: To create a stable region of land, the Solar must spend successes equal to its Resources value. She can spend up to five successes at a time. This does mean that creating fertile land and mineral resources requires more effort per acre than blasted plains, desolate marshes and lifeless ocean. Unless, the region in question is a bottomless stretch of western ocean or eastern forest, this use always requires a Craft (Earth) at least as high as the Resources value of the land in question. Additionally (or sometimes in place of it), a region may require other Craft skills. Creating a tract of forested land requires Craft (Wood) in addition to Craft (Earth), while crafting an archipelago would require both Craft (Water) and Craft (Earth). Various minor animals, as with a general native population such as would naturally exist within the land being created, may be included for one extra success per species.

People or Greater Beasts: The Solar may create mortal extras, each of which requires successes equal to the greater of its Resources cost or the value of its highest distinguishing trait. Thus manufacturing an unskilled human would cost 2 successes each as she would be worth Resources •• whereas a person of the air would require 6 successes each to cover the fact that his wings are a 6 point mutation. Breeds of Marukan horses, simhata or ata-beasts would similarly require successes according to the highest of their Resources value or their highest distinguishing trait. Using this facet of the Charm requires at least Craft (Genesis) 1, and often higher, depending upon Storyteller discretion.

Wealth: To create portable wealth, the Solar must spend successes equal to its Resources value. She can spend up to five successes at a time. Wyld-Shaping Technique may only create raw materials, such as iron ore, wooden logs, uncut gemstones or piles of hay. It is up to the Solar or her minions to shape such materials into useful implements. As with the other aspects of the Charm, the Lawgiver's Craft skills control what she can create. Craft (Earth) will suffice for raw gemstones, while Craft (Wood) is necessary for logs of rare ironwood, and a glowstone from the south might require Craft (Earth) and Craft (Fire).

Things made by this Charm are not real in and of themselves. Their reality stems entirely from Creation–from the reality of the Lawgivers, the Imperial Mountain and the Loom of Fate. As long as the created things continue to interact with Creation or the Exalted, as through the magical trade networks established in the First Age to tame the Wyld, they survive.

If something created by this Charm fails to interact extensively with the things of Creation during a story, it begins to lose its reality. Roll its creator's Essence against either difficulty 1, or, if the Solar's creation does not interact with real things that story at all, difficulty 2. After three failures without any extensive interaction with Creation or an Exalt, something created by this Charm fades away entirely.

Creatures made using Wyld-Shaping Technique are outside Creation's processes of life and death. They do not reincarnate in Creation or count as a real creature unless Heaven orders their pattern woven into the Loom of Fate. Nor do they form ghosts unless the Neverborn intervene to recreate their Essence pattern as such. They simply pass away upon their deaths and are no longer valid targets for Charms or other effects unless otherwise stated. As creations of this Charm are not fully integrated with fate, none of its results may be heroic in nature. Exceeding these boundaries requires epic actions beyond those of the Charm's craft.

Notes

It seems like a lot of the issues that people have with the Wyld Shaping Charms (and their equivalents) could be fixed as a result of changing the Charms to be a Craft Charms instead of a Lore Charms.

If it was cut off from its Lore Charm brethren, certain Lore Charms would still be useful to SAFELY deploy Wyld Shaping, but the general Craft Charm rules would kick in, and suitably modify the Wyld Shaping Charm parameters.

Imagine if you could not use Wyld Shaping to make anything for which you don't have a Craft that the Storyteller deems relevant? Oh, do you like that? Well, this would come for free just by making the Charm fall under the Craft tree. You already cannot use Craft Charms to do actions for which you have insufficient *relevant* Craft. This would automatically mean that you couldn't create items out of the thin air of the Wyld unless you had a relevant Craft skill.

It seems to me that this might readily cover the mutant issue as well. You could (or could not) make mutated people, depending on whether you had relevant Craft. Of course, arguably you wouldn't be able to make people at all without Craft (Genesis), and thus you might always have the ability to do neither or both. This doesn't bother me, as it seems like making mutants out of the Wyld is fairly thematic to the manufacturing material in question.

One of my own personal issues with the 2nd edition version of Wyld Shaping is that it lets you Wyld shape while you are NOT in the Wyld at all. Once you use it to turn some area of the Wyld into "land" that area suddenly can be a totally safe zone where you shape stuff and nobody else can. At first I looked at this as a feature, and I suspect some other folks may have done so as well. However, the longer I have run games using that "feature" the more I have come to see it as a bug. 1st edition Wyld shaping required you to RISK the Wyld to do your shaping, and that is a feature in my mind...

One thing that was suggested by one of my players as a potential contradiction in a version of the proposed errata (from the White Wolf forum, by Holden) is this:

• 1. You can create things as part of a Land creation.
• 2. The Wealth option forbids you from creating useful things.
• 3. Just create useful things using the Land option instead!!!!!