Magical Speculation

[Frogpop]

Hat Magic - pulling rabbits out of a hat, make things disappear and reappear, saw a woman in half

Hat magic is known to be used in communication. I would suggest it involves extradimensional spaces and teleportation, going along with the theme of pulling stuff out of hats and the demonstrated transposition of mail from one hat to another. These also cover all sorts of other stage magic tricks, like pulling coins out of ears.

Don't leave out another major category of traditional entertainment magicians: Escapologists

A master class Hatmancer should be pretty much impossible to capture, and they could probably lend some serious protection to their side's other units or warlords in this regard.

Rhyme-o-mancy might be bard stuff, or something organizational.

Yeah, I'd lean towards bard too (or maybe even THE Bard).. A Stagemancy involving Rhyme/Numbers sounds like either a Musician, a Poet (slam or classical), or an Actor/Playwrite. I could see some (more) weird Shakespeare mashups in our future if we ever run into a Rhyme-o-mancer. Afterall, now that Jack is sane we have to get our dose from somewhere!

And I know we've seen all sorts of units/warlords contributing towards Dance Fighting, but I can't help but think that the Number axis Stagemancy could have something to do with Dance Fighting too. If not directly leading or participating, maybe the choreography or creation of new dance fights? Or maybe regular Dance Fights can be made much more powerfull when done in combination with a Rhyme-o-mancer, making in effect a big blowout Broadway-style song and dance number.

EDITED TO ADD: You know, I was just thinking about Ansom's flying carpet, and best I can figure that's likely another Hat Magic item. Between that and the message hats, seems to me that Jetstone's got a Hatmancer somewhere.

[raphfrk]

Breaking down what we actually know about each type:

• Erf
  
  • Findamancy: find things
    
  • Dirtamancy: dig/build
    
  • Lookamancy: see far away
    
  • Shockamancy: Stunning/disrupt
    
  • Hat Magic: Stage magic (slight of hand)
    
  • Luckamancy: Increase/decrease luck

Maybe this is skills/characterists of "ordinary"/"down to earth" people that have been enhanced.

That doesn't really help with estimating the other ones

Turnamancy -> maybe controls loyalty/turn-coats
Flower Power -> this is likely drug use/knowledge of 'special' plants

• Fate
  
  • Predictamancy: Predict the future
    
  • Thinkamancy: Control thoughts
    
  • Croakamancy: Raise from dead
    
  • Healamancy: Heal people

Dealing with fate, not sure how thinkamancy fits in though, keeping the that vein, maybe the others are

Dollamancy ->
Changemancy -> maybe related to life choices and changing your direction
Signamancy -> seeing the signs and knowing when to "fold them"
Carnymancy ->

• Numbers
  
  • Mathamancy: calculate odds
    
  • Foolamancy: trick people/illusions

Applications that require intelligence and/or methodical mind

Weirdomancy ->
Dittomancy -> making copies (requires attention to details)
Date-a-mancy -> keeping schedules/good organisation ?
Deletionism -> destroying things without a trace (leaving no leads/"perfect crime")
Rhyme-o-mancy -> enhanced dance fighting? ... good at coming up with cutting taunts/compliments as needed.

[Infidel]

Findamancy sounds obvious but appears to overlap with Lookamancy, so maybe it's not about finding objects, but finding out.

Finamancy. You know that item z is in grid xx,yy
Lookamancy. You see item z is in a small room. You don't know where that room is.

Mathamancy is basic number-crunching; you could call it knowledge manipulation or a kind of informational alchemy. Probably lets you calculate unit bonuses, army strengths, figure out why a stack has the stats it does, etc. We know it can calculate victory odds, but that's not really prediction so much as a measure of how close the battle is.

NOT BASIC! I think the term math makes people think basic, but when you look at the results, they are way over what we can even do in RL with game theory and calculus. A RL general cannot look at his force composition and use basic math to determine his odds against an opposing force. There are a lot of situational factors that just do not lend themselves to simple computation. Even in games units have situational powers that can dramatically affect the coming battle. The mathamancy tool if it existed in the real world, would be very powerful item. That mathamancy tool gives the user to plug in an enemy force, and then play out a number of different force compositions looking for the golden ratio of each unit type for that specific encounter that maximizes unit survival and chances of winning.

[raphfrk]

Finamancy. You know that item z is in grid xx,yy
Lookamancy. You see item z is in a small room. You don't know where that room is.

I would go with

Findamancy: You tell it what you want and it will find an item meeting those criteria
Lookamancy: You tell it where you want to look and it tells you what is there

The only example of Findamancy is the Parson finding spell. However, that was linked with Predictamancy.

The findamancy went through every person 'in all of existence' and then the predictamancy determined how well that person would do if transported to Erf. Without the Predictamancy, Findamancy would only be able to search for current characteristics of the item in question.

Maybe, in principle, if you had a list of all the units in an enemy force, you could use Findamancy to tell you where they all are.

[Hobgobwin]

Maybe findamancy's summoning magic? Or has something to do with it?

[raphfrk]

Maybe findamancy's summoning magic? Or has something to do with it?

That makes sense, as either Predictamancy or Findamancy had to summon Parson, and it is unlikely that Predictamancy does it.

Btw, does anyone think Predictamancy seems overpowered?

OTOH, maybe it is like the Oracle in OOTS, once you look into the future, you lock that future in place. Ofc, this would mean that as soon as Wanda cast the spell, Parson was forced to be the perfect warlord.

[Agarwaen]

I was thinking perhaps 'Hat Magic' encompasses teleportation and portals. For instance, you could leave a tasty little stack cut-off and looking like an easy target. The enemy moves in and a foolamancer drops his veil on him and a Hat-mage. Then the Hat-mage pulls a flight of dragons out of his hat ambushing the attackers.

Obviously, the more powerful the Hat-mage the larger the amount of things he could pull out of his hat. A master class might be able to make portals like the ones that go to the magic kingdom only to allied cities.

We have seen some limits on Predictamancy, specifically, that it's not clear and can be over many turns. It's sorta like prophecy. You can get which town that needs to be veiled next and major events, but probably not when they will occur.
I think Signamancy might give more immediate advice in the form of a horoscope. Like "avoid fights with Blue clad people today". It could also be able affect personalities. Aries is supposed to be rash, and headstrong so you might be able to temporarily evoke that kind of attitude on opponents.

Final epileptic tree: Dollamancy is probably either controlling someones action as with a voodoo doll or is controlling an actual inanimate Doll. Changemancy is likely changing one thing into another. Croakamancy is very much combination of the two.
Dollamancy is the Fate Axis 'Motion' discipline and Changemancy is the Fate axis 'Matter' discipline. Croakamancy is of course the Fate Axis 'Motion and Matter' discipline. The others known can be stretched to fit that sort of template so using that technique might give us good clues on what the unknown disciplines do.

[Lothmar]

Just joined the forums so im not sure if this has been discussed yet. But im thinking wanda's attunement to the arkenpliers has expanded her magic beyond croakamancy, but since croakamancy was already 'fate' magic I think 'decrypt' is a 'deletionism' ability. To me it makes sense.

Basically, You are not only dead, you have been removed from the logs thus your unit upkeep is 0 and decay is zero because I dont believe it's technically croakamancy since you were simply removed from the 'trash' bin before you were deleted a second time and the system was reformated. Then again this is just a wild theory of my own. However if im right, then I believe we're seeing our first uses of 'deletionism' in the comic. ^^

Just like how the arkenhammer gave Stanley the ability to use 'shockamancy' through itself, in a sense even though he's not actually a caster. (Note- I dont believe he can read scrolls of shockamancy, use speciality spells, etc or anything just speculating)

[raphfrk]

Just like how the arkenhammer gave Stanley the ability to use 'shockamancy' through itself, in a sense even though he's not actually a caster. (Note- I dont believe he can read scrolls of shockamancy, use speciality spells, etc or anything just speculating)

Lightening may not be shockamancy. The example we say was more of a 'stun' abaility when Sizemore took out the RCC leadership.

[Lothmar]

Well, I still think he showed evidence of that in a sense. Especially in the fight with the Translyvito units when he engaged the chief warlord 'Van de Graf!' It looked like they were minorly 'stunned' to the point where he could not re'engage for the remainder of that battle. XD
http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F113.jpg

But im probably grasping at straws there.

[Agarwaen]

I've been thinking about Carnymancy and have this sneaky suspicion that it would allow you to turn regular troops (maybe even enemy troops) into side-show Freaks. They'd have greatly improved stats and abilities but less intelligence. This would be fairly similar to Croakamancy which makes it compelling.

[Frogpop]

Carnymancy may also involve elements of standard carnival games, both rigged and legit..
unwinnable ball toss (may offer protection from missile attacks)
dunk tank (temporarily removing a flying unit's flight ability while over a lake)
three card Monty / shell game (foolamancers may not be the only casters capable of hiding units)
guess your weight (they could.. uh.. guess your weight?)

[moose o death]

the shell game idea would most likely manifest as creating duplicates of the stack leaving the enemy unable to establish which is in fact the real stack.

which would be it's main use in combat if it's true.

i'd also assume all the magic's have golems, your caster may have to achieve master class to unlock theirs though. croakamancy seems to be more balanced by only allowing to uncroak regular unit types. support units like the weiner rammers and the siege gear probably couldn't be before (if siege gear is popped, i'm going to assume it's possible to decrypt now...whether anyone bothers is a whole other story)

[Frogpop]

i'd also assume all the magic's have golems

I wouldn't go so far as all, but certainly several, and probably many.

Where I wonder does everyone think the tcotchkes fit in on the magic table?

[raphfrk]

I think Signamancy might give more immediate advice in the form of a horoscope. Like "avoid fights with Blue clad people today". It could also be able affect personalities.

Balder posted this on the wiki

Signamancy. Like the Peace sign, man. Like the protest sign, man. Signs, signs, everywhere a sign. Far out. Balder 17:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if that means that Signamancy could be used to split sides into 2 as they get larger? Given the absolute nature of rulers, I don't see much point in peaceful protests.

Maybe Signamancy can be used to decrease loyalty of units to their Rulers.

It could also produce a morale boost to the sides troops, if the protest was about the actions of some other side. Ofc, since it is a Hippiemancy type of magic, giving a boost to your side's military doesn't seem in character.

Another option would be that it increases the cost for a city to produce military units and decreases the cost for the city to produce peaceful units.

[Agarwaen]

Well, we know that Vulcan put Parson to sleep without hurting him so maybe he's a Signmancer. 'Chill dude, just Chill'
Signmancy then could do things like DnD sanctuary spells. Basically, You can't be attacked, but you can't attack without breaking the spell. Might be able to create calming effects and such. We know calming spells are within Hippiemancy we just don't where. The Fate axis makes the most sense.

[moose o death]

i'd also assume all the magic's have golems

I wouldn't go so far as all, but certainly several, and probably many.

i would definetely assume many to be true especially the more offensive based magics, thinkamancy doesn't seem to so i suppose mathamancy wouldn't (luckamancy may have leprechauns just for the laugh)

but golems seem to be a caster ability, independant to the construction queue. making them very handy for battles. so i guess all the magics with a more practical angle to their usage. their limitations are then caster specific. eg if wanda wasn't masterclass she might only be capable of individual uncroaks, or time taken to uncroak might take substantially longer. likewise sizemores crap golems may be less numerous. i think the other golems on the side are attached to gobwin knob and not sizemore.

[Ichthus]

Updated main article.

[ang3lboy2001]

So . . . what happens when a Thinkamancer creates a link with (wait for it . . .) two other Thinkamancers? They could do spells that "no single caster could even contemplate"... like maybe create a group of 7 (the two thinkamancers that aren't the linking one become linking ones for 2 other casters each)?

I bet Charlie could do it.

[raphfrk]

So . . . what happens when a Thinkamancer creates a link with (wait for it . . .) two other Thinkamancers? They could do spells that "no single caster could even contemplate"... like maybe create a group of 7 (the two thinkamancers that aren't the linking one become linking ones for 2 other casters each)?

I bet Charlie could do it.

I suggested the same in the page 147 thread.

Also, it is possible/probable that Charlie could form an N caster linkup, but where he doesn't lose his individuality and is in control of the link.