Shockmancy and the arkenhammer

[DevilDan]

I don't see any reason why we should consider that the arkenhammer is aligned with shockmancy—based on Stanley's use of electricity-based attacks—given what we know of the nature of shockmancy as used by Sizemore against the RCC. What I'm saying, in other words, is that the "Shock" in Shockmancy may not refer to electricity at all.

[Maldeus]

True enough, but do you have an alternative suggestion that you can back up with evidence from the comic or wiki (note that the Speculation section of the wiki doesn't count as evidence)? If not, Shockamancy remains our best guess.

[Sethram]

When Sizemore casts the Shockamancy Spell, he chants Lemonparty, Tubgirl, Goatse and Meatspin, a genre of webpages with what are typically called shock images. The ones above refer to a three gay men in coitus, a girl in a tub covered in fecal liquid, and an animated gif of two men in coitus. Many a youth link people to these webpages as a joke to try and shock them.

So I think it's safe to assume that Shockamancy has nothing to do with lightning or electrically based attacks, but more of a shock in the psychological sense.

[Cmdr I. Heartly Noah]

The lightning attack might be Deletionism, or even Dittomancy, or perhaps is not one of the magical disciplines at all (especially considering Stanley is not a caster and the hammer's other powers don't seem themed together - ie taming/calming dwagons, possible flight, turning walnuts into pigeons and orlies into walnuts)

[Maldeus]

Shockamancy might be both. It might be electric attacks with a shock-site theme for comedic value.

[fjolnir]

I thought we determined that they were flashy and gaudy and an example of carnymancy

[raphfrk]

I thought we determined that they were flashy and gaudy and an example of carnymancy

That is one of the theories, but some have also suggested shockmancy due to the lightening.

[cloudbreaker]

Since the arkenhammer's powers seem to be a mismatch of unrelated abilities, then if I had to make a wild guess, I would guess it relies on the mysterious power of weirdomancy.

[DevilDan]

My point is that I see little reason at this point to think that Shockmancy has any relation to electrical attacks. Carnymancy seems a far stronger contender, with such arguments behind it as the transformation of nuts and birds and the taming of dwagons. (And let's not forget the association between mallets and carnival games.)

[DentedHead]

My point is that I see little reason at this point to think that Shockmancy has any relation to electrical attacks. Carnymancy seems a far stronger contender, with such arguments behind it as the transformation of nuts and birds and the taming of dwagons. (And let's not forget the association between mallets and carnival games.)

Add to that the appearance of the Arkenhammer. All the Arkentools are 3d rendered, sure, but the pliers and dish look pretty "real", where-as the hammer looks "fisher-price", like a toddlers toy that squeeks when it hits something. Why are we tending toward a single discipline for the tools? "Decrypting" doesn't seem much like croakamancy to me TBH. I reckon the tools may utilies multiple disciplines.

Dent.

[Maldeus]

Decrypting is uncroaking, but better. Sounds pretty Croakamancy-focused to me. The ArkenDish had shown no non-Thinkamancy powers, either, and the ArkenHammer is...Just...Weird. So single-discipline ArkenTools seem the most likely to me right now, albeit not by much.

[Kreistor]

I'm curious DevilDan. How do you explain 125 and 126, wrt the Shockmancy scroll?

[Cmdr I. Heartly Noah]

I'm curious DevilDan. How do you explain 125 and 126, wrt the Shockmancy scroll?

You have got to start being more clear about what you mean, rather than constantly forcing everyone to guess what your question/issue/point is, so you can argue what they say as wrong, until you can't, and then say "well that wasn't my point anyway."

What on earth do you mean, "how do you explain the Shockmancy scroll?"

Let me try: A scroll is a spell "saved" onto a piece of parchment (or similar) for future use. A caster who doesn't know a spell can use a scroll of that spell anyway.

Good enough?

Or let me go again: The Shockmancy scroll (or should I say, one of them), in Sizemore's hands, was cast using a series of magic words that are internet memes of shocking images. The spell then cast with a sound effect of 'NSFW' which reinforces the theme of shocking or inappropriate images. It also manifested in a series of magical "beams" that spread out and hit several targets to unknown effect: stunning, knocking over, injuring, possibly croaking.

Not what you wanted?

The "Van De Graf" lightning from the Arkenhammer (supposed by many to be Shockmancy) and the urine-yellow magical beams of the actual, for sure, undeniable, legitimate, confirmed, canonical, how many ways can I say this? definite, "control" group, Shockmancy scroll spell look NOTHING ALIKE. Furthermore, there is no sense that the Shockmancy magical beams are electric. None. So what has to be explained? That the two effects share nothing in common except a) they seem to be magical, and b) they hit multiple targets?

"Van De Graf" has nothing in common with "Goatse."
Blue lightning, starting at a point of impact and blasting units out in all directions, has little or nothing in common with yellow magical beams, shooting out from the caster and reaching out, homing, at several distant targets. The effects look nothing alike.

What on earth is your point?

[Erk]

noah, I can see why you're annoyed, but keep civil. There's no reason to raise your proverbial voice.

[Kreistor]

If DevilDan doesn't understand my question and relevance to his point, I'll expound. I think he will, so I don't think I need to.

[DevilDan]

If DevilDan doesn't understand my question and relevance to his point, I'll expound. I think he will, so I don't think I need to.

I'm afraid I don't see anything in pages 124 and 125 that detracts from my suggestion, Kreistor. Shockmancy scrolls in Wanda's stash are specifically assigned to Sizemore. Sizemore is later seen using a scroll. The effects of said scroll—which is not conclusively a shockmancy scroll but it is not unreasonable to assume so—appear to have absolutely no "electrical" component. The first beams look like plasma or fireballs or lasers but not at all like electrical discharges. The explosion and "cloud" certainly don't suggest electricity to me, which is clearly the case with both the appearance and the name of the van de Graaf attack.

If I missed your point, well that just proves that perhaps its not such a bad idea to be explicit. This has the additional benefit of being both courteous and of allowing others to participate in a conversation in this open forum.

[Kreistor]

Okay, DevilDan, that's all I was looking for. I just didn't want to have to approach this from a direction I didn't have to.

Shockmancy has the root word Shock. Now, a lot of people jump on that and say, "It needs to be electrical," but, I think a lot of people forget the other definition of shock.

1. a sudden and violent blow or impact; collision.

You've heard it before... "The shock of the impact ran up his his arm." (BTW, 6. is electrical.)

In 126, we see what should be a Shockmancy scroll create an effect that creates a blow or collision that knocks its targets down. It is yellow,and you don't think that might be electrical, but it doesn't have to be. This establishes that Shockmancy receives its name in the same way that other known Discplines do...

Croakamancy -- involves the croaked.
Dirtamancy -- involves dirt
Thinkamancy -- involves the mind (thinking)
Lookamancy -- looks at places remotely
Foolamancy -- fools you
Moneymancy -- deals with money (known to convert shmuckers into gems, for those not reading the Wiki)
Flower Power -- produces psychedelic flowers (page 11)
Dollamancy -- produces moving dolls (scarecrow)

The known Disciplines so far do not get their names subtly. There is obvious connections between the name of the Discipline and the effect. We have a Shockmancy scroll and a shocking effect... not electrically shocking, but it meets the strict definition. That establishes that an effect that shocks is reasonably believed to be a Shockmancy effect. Since the effect in 126 shocks its targets, it fits the trend of the other Disciplines in directly matching name to effect.

Now, consider page 113. Does the effect there fit the definition of shock? The 1. definition, that is, not 6. electrical shock, because people don't want Shockmancy to cover multiple definitions of shock. (I'm a lot looser in my definition like Maldeus, thinking that Shockmancy might also include mental shock effects. Low probability for me, though. I would expect that on a Fate axis, with Thinkamancy, a known mental effect Disc. But, hey, if I can satisfy those wanting a singular definition...) The effect appears to be electrical, but there's something a lot of people miss. Electrical shock doesn't cause knockback like this, except in movies, comics, and cartoons. (You should have learned that in G12 High School physics.) If someone is thrown because of electrical shock, it is because the electricity causes their muscles to fire somewhat randomly and the person jumps/jerks uncontrollably. (Grabbing a live wire can cause you to be unable to release your grip killing you, so never grab an electrical wire. EVER!) Electricity has insufficient momentum to cause someone to get blown back (unless it's powerful enough to create a plasma). So, why does Caesar get thrown back? The bats might be thrown by their own muscles, but Caesar flies by thought, not muscle. But back he goes, just like the bats. So he is thrown back by impact or collision (not electricity), and that makes this Shockmancy by the same definition used on page 126. The electrical aspect of the attack is not necessary to make this Shockmancy.

Others suggest it is something else.

Deletionism -- Caesar isn't deleted, but is clearly injured after the fight. Injuring isn't deleting. (The dwagons on 69 come a lot closer to being deleted...) It's called Deletionism, not Hurtamancy.
Dittomancy -- I don't know how people are getting to this one, but since Ditto means repeating an action a second time, and we see Stanley use the Lightning effect three times in three places with no one to copy, I doubt we're looking at this one. Someone might have a creative def'n of Ditto to use, but I'd just point at the Disc def'n trend and shrug.
Carnymancy -- A Carny runs booths at a Carnival: not really this sort of thing. If you're taking Carny to be short for carnival, carnivals are about performing acts, for the most part. Tamed Lions. Dogs through hoops. Clowns. Trapeze acts. I understand people want it to be "flashy" magic, but that bucks the trend of magics associating directly to the name of the Discipline, making it highly speculative. It's not "Showoffamancy" or "Impressiveism". There needs to be an obvious tie to Carny or Carnival, and lightning from a hammer to a target just doesn't make that obvious connection to me.
Weirdomancy -- Interesting idea, but the problem is that each effect in Weirdomancy must be weird, not the collection of effects overall. If a spell fits a particular Discipline, it will be that Discipline. Two of the three effects (changing birds into walnuts and Shockmancy) are explained by other Disciplines, so they themselves are not Weirdomancy. Not sure where flying upward would fit, though. That might be Weirdomancy, but I don't think it's weird enough to justify that name for the Disc. More like "Nearlyuselessamancy".

I could go on, but that's enough to answer why I put it there. (I believe you're talking about the Arkentool page. Ironically, with all of the Spec on the Arkenhammer tool page, it's just spec there.) The Shockmancy connection is strong, a lot stronger than some people may have thought.

Frankly, the concept of an "associated discipline" is Speculation in and of itself. We know that the Dish gives Charlie certain ability, but the Pliers merely make Wanda better at what she was already a master of. Plus, that effect only creates the associated unit to the Pliers. Charlie gets a Disc and a Unit, where Wanda only gets a Unit. Stanley gets a Unit, and maybe only a specific spell, with no Discipline at all. Were we to get pedantic on this, I'd wipe out that entire table as Speculative. Someone else created it and put it on there. Heck, no one even speculated that the electrical attack was shock at all, when it is clearly the strongest and most direct association of any effect anywhere. It is shocking, and we're looking at Shockmancy.

And, of course, there's another possibility... it is not the Tool that is associated with the Discipline, but the attuned user. Wanda didn't care which Arkentool she attuned to, because she knew it would enhance her Croakamancy. If she had known the Pliers associated with Croakamancy, she wouldn't have sought the Arkenhammer. So, it's not that teh Arkenhammer confers Shockmancy to Stanley, it's that Stanley, were he a Caster and not a Warlord, would have been a Shockmancer.

Just a couple things to finish with that should make you think. Casting doubt on the entire thing.

[DevilDan]

I was never happy with the assumption that an arkentool is only associated with a single magic, but we don't quite have evidence to the contrary and people mostly seem comfortable with that assumption. At the moment, it certainly seems that the 'pliers and 'dish have a significant relationship to a single type of magic (both Fate magics, just as Carnymancy is a fate magic).

I don't know much of carnivals firsthand, I'm afraid, but I do my share of reading. I know that many carnivals featured working acts or sideshows like the Electric Chair Man.

Now, you can argue ad infinitum about the dictionary definitions of "shock," but it's not what I'd call compelling personally. We're now dealing with convoluted contortions that push this argument into what is at best tenuous speculation. I say this because we have seen examples of Shockmancy and tying those, which clearly use one meaning of "shock," to the van de Graaf attack seems like a stretch. (By the way, different dictionaries use different schemes for ordering the different definitions in an entry: Some use chronological order.)

"Electrical shock doesn't cause knockback like this, except in movies, comics, and cartoons." You missed one: in games. And what sort of world is Erf? As you may guess, I don't consider real-world physics in the case of electricity to be a particularly convincing point, frankly.

Some clean-up: the 'pliers don't just make Wanda better, they allowed her to create something unseen before on Erf; in the case of the Parson's TPK, it allowed her to create an army of non-decaying, fully-powered decrypted rather than quickly-decaying, low-powered uncroaked. As to what the 'hammer's powers are or have been seen to be, we have to take other factors into account, such as the fact that it's attuned to a warlord rather than a caster, one who has a martial orientation and "if you have a hammer the entire world looks line a nail" tunnel vision. So, yes, I do think that there could be some subtler connection between 'tool and user, but lets not forget that the only special effect/power that Ansom (a warlord, albeit one not attuned to it) found did involve the uncroaked, suggesting some link between the 'pliers and croakamancy.

P.S. If I missed addressing something in your previous post, do bring it to my attention, Kreistor.

[Kreistor]

Ah, I see. Okay, Dan, thanks. I'm sorry that I can not satisfy you.

[Maldeus]

It's worth noting that electrical shock doesn't cause knockback in war games because, in war games, electrical shock exists only to cause casualties. Of course, while Rob can generally be trusted get things right, the details of the effects of realworld electricity aren't exactly plot-vital and can be handwaved away by saying "Erfworld is different."