Regnancy Slots

[Gerolf]

You have it backwards Gerolf. Adam would be the puppet-master, not Betty. Also there is no guarantee that Adam will be able to force Betty to do anything using regnancy.

I knew there was a reason I kept you around.

[Jules]

To me, the biggest issue here is that there was literally NO limit before on number of awakened mages, and now there's a very stringent one. Anything that any mage can do, like awakening, does strike me as something that should be reasonably element-agnostic. I like the idea of having a set number of slots for awakened ones (a small number, maybe 3 tops? 1 at circle 1, 2 at circle 3, 3 at circle 5?) and then slots added to that for fire mages for regnants obtained in other fashions. The bonds are, to me, supposed to be different.

This sounds like a reasonable step-wise limit to me. Zeita's idea has some potential, but it doesn't address the fundamental nature of awakening -- which I think could probably use some clarification and attention here. Is awakening something that always forces only a weak bond no matter what and can't be done without creating one? If so, give awakeners ways to break those weak bonds early without harsh penalties. Given that regnancy and control magic are supposed to be taboo, a mage (of any variety) continuing to maintain a bond after awakening could be seen as crossing some line, regardless. This would mean both cultural and mechanical reasons not to maintain many bonds.

(Though, I do wonder whether those taboos are ever really observed.)

My point about the helpfile, Rabek, was to say that if staff want to give fire mages an -intended- mechanical bonus for being skilled at blood magic, there would seem be some basis for it, depending on one's reading of the helpfiles. There are multiple ways to slice and dice this issue, with reasons both for and against particular restrictions, depending on the outcome staff are most concerned with and how they want to define the nature of the bonds, now that regnancy has undergone such a huge facelift. I also think the awakening helpfiles could use a rewrite, tbh -- the fact that fire mages also have a spell called Threshold of the Flesh was incredibly confusing to me when I first started out.

[The_Last_Good_Dragon]

An alternative solution (to giving people 'freebies') might be to prevent damage caused by breaking any link that is still tenuous, and making it more obvious during the awakening process that a link has been formed. Give the awakening mage a chance to break the link, risk free, before it solidifies into a real bond, maybe?

I rather like this idea. In essence, truncating the bond before it has a chance to develop into something more real, removing the potential for the disruption and pain later on. It makes the most sense to me; I'm also in favor of giving Fire Magic inherent benefits to regnancy. Rather than complain about mechanical advantages of one sphere, let's try coming up with ideas to make other mages have more—though, as someone mostly unfamiliar with the system, it seems like the other spheres very pointedly do have their advantages. Magic should feel more, not less, unique and elemental choice should matter as much as it possibly can matter, in my opinion.

Earth mage A has already awakened newbmage B and thus has a 'natural' regnancy. When they try to awaken newbmage C they do so, but without a bond being placed? Limit the bond and decouple it from being strictly enforced upon awakening.

I also mostly like this compromise to the "But I can't awaken cause of Regnancy slots!" issue!