Chalking strength

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

We know that more complex and beautiful chalkings are more powerful than simple and ugly ones, but how does that scale?

 

Or to put it another way, if Melody drew this, how many wild chalkings would it be able to smash?

 

 

Also, how would perspective chalkings behave?

Edited May 24, 2013 by Sir Read-a-Lot

[Meg]

We know that more complex and beautiful chalkings are more powerful than simple and ugly ones, but how does that scale?

 

Or to put it another way, if Melody drew this, how many wild chalkings would it be able to smash?

 

 

Also, how would perspective chalkings behave?

 

 

That bear that Melody drew seems quite "perspective" to me. 

[makromag he/him]

Something related I have been thinking about is, how the size of chalkling-size affects its power, is it harder to kill, does it have more strength than a small chalkling? Also, what would using different colours to draw a chalkling do? Maybe it makes it more beautiful, if the colouring is done aritsticly, and thus stronder.

And by the way, chalklings seem to get smarter when you draw them prettier, too, as seen when Melody gives them orders and uses them to scout.

There is just so much we don't know about chalklings that might be relevant.

[Isomere]

I hate to bring this up... but chalklings as access links to Forms? The "best" chalklings create an ideal representation of the Form. Shading, colors, accuracy of proportions etc. help make your chalkling more ideal and thus more powerful. 

 

If the Rithmatist has a strong connection to the underlying Form could that make it easier to give commands to the chalkling? So the reason Melody can control Unicorns so well is because she is completely obsessed with them. 

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

That bear that Melody drew seems quite "perspective" to me. 

Not the same way the legos are.  http://imagineomit.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-julian-beever-chalk-art-plea.html'>here are some more examples.  They only look right if you're looking at them from a particular point of view because some of the lines have to be distorted to create an illusion of three dimensions.  here is the lego drawing from another angle.

Melody's bear, on the other hand, looks like a bear no matter what angle you look at it from.  Some times it looks like an upside-down bear, but it's always a bear.

[blackmagic3 he/him]

This is what I don't understand about the war in nebrask why don't they get artists to draw big chull chalkings that are incredibly detailed then get rithmatists to trace them and aim them at the tower with instructions to kill everthing in its path.

[Windrunner he/him]

Because the wild chalklings don't die. They get messed up for a bit, but just reform. No matter how huge these chalkings are, they can't beat enemies that are essentially immortal.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Because the wild chalklings don't die. They get messed up for a bit, but just reform. No matter how huge these chalkings are, they can't beat enemies that are essentially immortal.

I thought wild chalklings could be destroyed, and they were just constantly spawning from the tower.

[Windrunner he/him]

I dunno, I seem to remember them being impossible to destroy, like Harding's chalklings. There's a distinct possibility that I'm wrong on this, I read the book once very quickly. Since I don't have the ebook, I'm too lazy to look up a quote. Whether they are indestructible or simply keep coming from the Tower, the result is the same, isn't it? You can't stand against countless or immortal enemies.

[Senor Feesh]

Black magic has a point though. If Rithmatists sent wave after wave of Über-chalklings at the tower, they could tie up the wild chalklings for a long time, during which you can be drawing more awesome chalklings of your own. It's a viable tactic.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

I dunno, I seem to remember them being impossible to destroy, like Harding's chalklings. There's a distinct possibility that I'm wrong on this, I read the book once very quickly. Since I don't have the ebook, I'm too lazy to look up a quote. Whether they are indestructible or simply keep coming from the Tower, the result is the same, isn't it? You can't stand against countless or immortal enemies.

Immortal chalklings?  Incapacitate them, then lock them up individually within tanks of acid.

 

Infinite chalklings?  Gradually add more and more lines of warding, shrinking down the size of the inner circle, until you can seal up and fill the entire building with acid.

[Windrunner he/him]

Those both seem well beyond the tech level of the time in Rithmatist. I also fail to see how you'd get a two dimensional creature inside a tank.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Get 2d creature onto surface. Put in jar. Fill with acid. Seal up lid with clay or wax, creating solid inner barrier.

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

Infinite chalklings?  Gradually add more and more lines of warding, shrinking down the size of the inner circle, until you can seal up and fill the entire building with acid.

I got the impression that that's what they were doing.  (except maybe the acid bit.)

Of course, the presence of the Forgotten probably complicates the situation horribly.

[Shardlet he/him]

This is what I don't understand about the war in nebrask why don't they get artists to draw big chull chalkings that are incredibly detailed then get rithmatists to trace them and aim them at the tower with instructions to kill everthing in its path.

 

I think that nobody had every thought of a stategy like this before Joel.  The separation of the Rithmatists from others and their elite status would effectively prevent any strategy not conceived by a Rhithmatist to be ignored.  Further, Rithmatists would likely balk at getting help from a non-Rhithmatist in the chalkling wars other than someone to serve them and carry and throw acid.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure it was only the chalklings formed by capturing Rithmatists which were industructable.  I didn't see anything to suggest that the wild chalklings were indestructable.  I think the fact that acid is used to destroy chalklings rather than to delay them at nebrask says much on this point.

[Observer]

Everybody seemed super surprised to learn that the Scribber's chalklings were immortal, so I doubt that's normally the case. Also, it probably took forever to make that huge circle. A gradually closing box would take a very long time.

[BrindIf]

Because the wild chalklings don't die. They get messed up for a bit, but just reform. No matter how huge these chalkings are, they can't beat enemies that are essentially immortal.

 

I agree with Shardlet, rythmatists seem too proud for that.

Plus, it's possible the strength of the chaklings has less to do with its inner objective beauty, and more with the projection of what the person drawing is having in his mind. Then copied chaklings would be useless.

[king of nowhere]

It's possible that chalklings are strong only if the person drawing them have an artistic mind, so tracing them won't work.

Also, is your mental idea of the chalkling important? I could draw a chalkling supersoldier with power armor (including jetpack) and a flamethrower-like plasma rifle, would it have superior resistance, superstrenght, superspeed, and the capability to fire a cone of bidimensional chalk flames just because I envision it that way?

Those both seem well beyond the tech level of the time in Rithmatist.

I don't know, the tech level of the rithmatist is pretty strange.

On one hand, they have rail bridges spanning tens of kilometers over the ocean, connecting each and every island, and they're even talking of making one that would go all the way to europe. in the real world, a bridge spanning a few kilometers of water costs billions of dollars even today. there's no way an early 20th centurry society has the resources to build such a network. and I don't even want to know what it would take to make a working clockwork horse.

On the other hand, ice cream cost a huge sum, so they lack refrigerating machines. and I've never seen electricity mentioned, either.

they're not at any tech level definable with real-world equivalent. there's no telling what they can or cannot do.

[Swimmingly he/him]

Well, they basically have infinite clockwork power to run off of, what with the rune-of-rending winding mechanisms.