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If you are new to Artifice Wars, please refer yourself back to: Artifice Wars - Hub and General Discussion Artifice: Soulfire is what powers Infusions. There are three ways Soulfire will be transferred: It can be infused, it can be spent or it can be stored. Infusing can either be to raise an entity higher along the Sentient Progression (or Sentient Scale), or it can be used to give it an Infusion. If a entity that is somewhere along the Sentient Progression loses all it's Soulfire, it will drop off the Sentient Progression and become a Base-Artifact or less. Infusions will accomplish a specific task. The cost of using the Infusion, the cost of creating the Infusion, and the way an infusion will act depends on the circumstances of it's creation. The more Soulfire has already been infused into an entity, the higher the cost of future infusions. Soulfire is spent to power infusions. Soulfire can only be transferred from Living-Entities++ to Storage-Entities. That Storage-Entity can then be raised to a Living-Entity. Once it has been raised, it cannot receive more Soulfire externally. Sentient Progression: As a default, most objects are not within this sentient progression. Any object can be raised along the progression, but as a progression, it must be done step by step. You must get Storage before getting Soul, etc. Storage: An entity with Storage can have Soulfire transferred to it. Infusions that are within an entity that has Storage will draw on that entity's internal storage. Otherwise it will use the storage of the user. Soul: An entity with Soul is alive. The Soulflame of an entity with Soul will grow according to the size of the existing Soulflame. If an entity does not have Soul, but has Storage, it's Soulflame will die at the same rate it would grow if it has Soul. If left alone, because the Soulflame's death is proportionate to it's size, it will never each zero. Soulfire can only be transferred to a living entity if the giver has Synergy. Sentience: An entity with Sentience is aware and has a Will. Any infusions within it are now controlled by it own will. If an Artifact does not have Sentience, then any Sentient-Entity++ in contact with it will have control. Synergy: A Synergistic-Entity can connect to other Synergistic-Entities. While connected, the entities will partially meld. They must either work with each other to use an infusion or body, or one must have enough willpower to overpower the other. Any infusions or body in a network will be under the control of one of the Wills within the network, typically whichever one had control when the bond or network was initiated, unless another will wrests control away. It is easier to stop a will from acting than it is to do said action. When an infusion is used while multiple entities that have at least Storage are connected, the distribution of the usage of the various Soulflames will be directly proportional to the sizes of each flame. So if two synergistic entities work together to infuse an entity, and one has twice the flame of the other, then he will be losing twice as much Soulfire. Synergistic entities working together will need less Soulfire to do the same infusion, and the knowledge of both can be worked together. The usage of Sentient-Entities-- by a Sentient-Entity++ is very similar. Infusions: Infusions are the core of Artifice. There are theoretically an infinite amount of Infusions that could be discovered, but most societies only have a couple dozen infusions that they are aware of. Because of the lack of travel, the world is relatively isolated, which means in some places certain infusions have been fully implemented and innovated, while in other places they have no idea it's possible or how to create the infusion. Artifice Scholars spend their lives trying to either discover a new infusion or learn different ways to infuse an infusion into an entity to make it work differently. And example: A scrying infusion would allow one to see anywhere, but would cost an immense amount of Soulfire to use, and a much larger amount of Soulfire to infuse. However, an innovation of the scrying spell allows you to see a specific person or place determined when the infusion was created, which would cost much less Soulfire to create and to use. How an Infusion is powered will depend on whether the host artifact is a Base-Artifact or not. If it isn't, it will draw on the host's storage. Otherwise the infusion will be fueled by the user's own Soulflame. How an Infusion is controlled depends on who has control. As a general rule, if the artifact is a Sentient-Entity++, then it will control itself. Otherwise whatever Sentient-Entity++ first came in contact with it will control it. The exception is when control is wrestled away by someone else while part of a Synergistic Network. Definitions/Jargon: Some of this will find it's way into the books. Some of this purely Jargon for my notes so I don't have to use full sentences to describe the same concept over and over again. Artifice - The name for this entire system of magic. Artificer - Someone who creates entities or uses infusions regularly. Artifice Scholar - Someone who researches Infusions with either the goal of developing a new way of using that infusion, of finding a new infusion, or of understanding more about infusions in general. Soulfire - Magical energy that courses through all living entities. It is required for pretty much all of Artifice. Soulflame - An entity's Soulfire reserve is called its Soulflame. Entity - Anything that has either an Infusion or is somewhere on the Sentient Progression is an entity. Infusion - This can refer to multiple things: the action of infusing, the type of infusion you are using (a Scrying Infusion), or the final result that is within an entity after the infusion process is complete. Hopefully this isn't confusing you. Infusing refers both to creating Infusions, and to raising along the sentient progression. Sentient Progression - A scale or progression that give entities capabilities that fuel or guide infusions. Storage/Soul/Sentience/Synergy - The 4 stages of the Sentient Progression. Base-Artifact - An entity that doesn't have any of the stages of the Sentient Progression. Since all entities have either an infusion, or a stage along the Sentient Progression, it is assumed that Base-Artifacts have an infusion. Storage-Entity - An entity that has the Storage stage of the Sentient Progression, but not Soul. Living-Entity - An entity that has the Soul stage of the Sentient Progression, but not Sentience. Sentient-Entity - An entity that has the Sentience stage of the Sentient Progression, but not Synergy. Synergistic-Entity - An entity that has the Synergy stage of the Sentient Progression. Storage-Entity++ - An entity that has the Storage stage of the Sentient Progression, with or without Soul, etc. Same concept applies to Living-Entity++ and Sentient-Entity++. As a general rule this also applies in reverse to Living-Entity-- as any entity that doesn't have Soul (So in this case, Base-Artifacts and Storage-Entities.) Artifact - Any Entity that has been given an infusion. <type-name>-Artifact - Any Artifact that has an Infusion of the <type-name> type. Example: Scrying-Artifacts are artifacts with some version of the Scrying Infusion. Since it is possible for Artifacts to have more than one type of Infusion, an Artifact can be in both categories. You could have an artifact that is both a Link-Artifact and a Scrying-Artifact. User - Any Sentient-Entity-- Artifact can be controlled by a Sentient-Entity++. Otherwise, it is inactive. The Sentient-Entity++ is referred to as the User as long as it is actively using the Artifact. Network - When multiple Synergistic-Entities are in a connection, they are referred to as a network. Host - An Infusion's host is whatever Artifact it has been infused into. That's the core of the Magic system. Now I just need to figure out a bunch of possible infusions, their different variations, and which societies has knowledge of which infusions/innovations.

Hey, so a couple people asked me for some details about the Artifice Wars world/novel I'm working on. I'd love ideas, etc. Especially in places where I mention that I haven't found a satisfactory name. This is still almost all in concept phase, so nothing I write here is set in stone. Here are some basics of what this story has, without going into too many details. As I expand on this, I'll keep links to more specifics in this post. Artifice: (Artifice Wars - Artifice & Infusions) The magic system is called Artifice. In fact, There will be some cultures and stories where the word "magic" isn't in the dictionary. It revolves around infusing Soulfire into Entities. By definition, anything that is alive will have a Soulflame, which grows proportionally to how large it already is. If you expend all your Soulfire, your Soulflame dies and so do you. Infusions are Infused into entities using incantations (might remove that), allowing that entity to access the infusion to spend more Soulfire and do something specific, like fly, shoot fire, or glow green. The more Soulfire has been infused into an entity, the more Soulfire is required to continue infusing it. Core to Artifice is the concept of the Sentient Progression: Storage => Soul => Sentience => Synergy. Each affects how infusions are used. They all build on each other, and thus always come in that specific order. Any similarity between this system and Warbreaker's is a complete coincidence. This system came about from a completely different direction and evolved into what you see here. The World: Artifice Wars is not intended as a book, or even a series. Eventually I want it to mean much the same thing Cosmere means for Brandon's Works. The stories, books and series will all be part of the same world (which has yet to be named), happening in different places. It would be like having a story going on in Europe while another one happens in China. They will have different societies, and different technologies. In this case, technology is essentially all the different ways Artifice (the magic system) can be used. In some places, everyone flies. In others, they think it's impossible. In some places you have universities where Artifice Scholars try to discover new infusions, and in others Artificers are hunted and killed. For most of the world, we are leaving a medieval style of war and intrigue towards the renaissance era, and a little of the steampunk or industrial era in some parts of the world, where Artifacts are starting to become common (think a little like the Age of Legends for the Wheel of Time). Current Series: The story revolves around a set of 5-7 heroes (profile pictures in progress) who will have to try and stop a 700 year old Conquering Witch-Empress named Fyutsa. Her growing empire is fueled by her discovery and invention of <living-constructs> (really need a name). These <living-constructs> are metal robot-like entities that she has given Storage and Soul to, and in a dozen cases, Sentience and Synergy too. These are designed as her puppet armies, and her generals. The title of this 5-book series will be whatever name I give to these living constructs. Please give suggestions for the name. This is set in a part of the world that much like Australia is almost completely separated from the rest of the world. As far the the people in this part of the world know, their little corner of the world is all there is to mankind. I have a lot of stuff written, and a lot more just sitting in my head. Depending on where the conversation goes, I'll be posting more of it on this forum, so keep an eye out for other posts with the tagged "Artifice Wars".