User:Alchimous

Magic Primer
As I'm sure you've all noticed, there is no true explanation as to how magic works. So, as roleplayers, we've created our own. Because of this, there is no possible way to judge magic from one player to the next. I hope to help this somewhat, but offering a possible universal method of explaining magic. so, without further a due, my explanation. I apologise in advance for the wording.

Consider a line which lies on a Cartesian plane. It need not be straight, nor need it follow a formula. Therefore what we have is a series of seemingly arbitrary points in an infinite plane. Now imagine another arbitrary line, this one going through three-dimensional space; with this, the line may be more complex. Now consider, but do not try to visualize, a line going through a space of nigh-infinite dimensions. This line is our world, and the space is the realm of possibilities.

When shown a graph, we tend to pay attention to the figure, not the infinite empty space around it; likewise, when it comes to existence, we tend to pay attention to reality, not the infinite possibilities surrounding it. However, a mage must pay attention to, and to her best ability, study the surrounding space, the realm of possibilities. For the craft of a mage is to find a desirable possibility and bring it into reality by use of her will.

Consider this example; a lone mage stands against a skilled knight in full armor. The mage, protected only by her robes and agility is likely to be slaughtered. However, the mage is aware that there exists some possible reality where there is a large ball of fire coming from her and going toward the knight. Using her skills, she looks into the realm of possibilities and finds a possible reality with the ball of fire, then using her will, she turns her current reality into the desired reality. The result; our skilled knight finds a fire wave slamming into his helmet.

While we have seen such things many times before, few people understand how this happens. Even many skilled mages do this intuitively, and thus do not think through their actions. As a result of this ignorance, many mages and common folk alike believe that runes are necessary for magic, whereas they are only tools to make spells easier (a concept I will elaborate on shortly.)

Before I turn to the subject of runes allow me to define magic, but before I do so, let me define a coherent reality as one which can be explained via logical progressions (our reality is one such reality.) Returning to my earlier example about the mage fighting a knight, she could load a catapult with a ball of tar and set it ablaze before firing it at the knight, the end result would be the same, the knight would be hit by a ball of fire (assuming he didn't kill the mage before then.) This is logical progression, one goes through a series of steps which follow the laws of science to achieve a result. Magic therefore may be defined as jumping between coherent realities; rather than go through the steps to create and launch a fireball at my opponent, I simply make into reality, the possibility that the fireball has already been created and launched.

In this example, if we were to replace our knight with a seperate mage, who uses their own skill to try and prevent the spell from being cast, it would lower the possibility of the fireball existing in any coherent reality. However, the same is true for the opposing mage after the spell is cast. If they were to try and dispel the fireball, they would need to find a coherent reality where they had in fact been successful in stopping her.

Now having defined magic, allow me to state that the further two possible coherent realities are from one another, the more power it takes to jump between the two. A powerful mage can easily manipulate a tossed coin to land on either heads or tails since the possibilities are so close to one another, but the possibility of a city being on a different continent from where it is now is such a remote possibility that it would be nigh impossible to magically move it without a large group of mages working in unison. This is where runes come into the equation. Many of you may be familiar to bank notes; slips of paper on which an item and amount are written. If you take one of these to any bank, you can request that the item be turned over to you, and the bank is legally obliged to do so. Well, runes are like bank notes issued by the universe.

Essentially if you are carrying around a number of fire runes, the universe “understands” it as if you were carrying around a large fire (enjoy that image in your head.) Why is this useful? Well, while carrying the fire runes with you, the reality you are in is understood to have a large fire in your vicinity, and if there is already fire nearby, the odds of say, a large fireball striking an enemy of yours are much higher, as such it takes much less energy to make this happen via magic. While this is interesting in its own right, it is made all the more so by realizing that if runes are not the source of magic, one can use magic without the use of runes.

Please note, this brief treatise, if you will, does not say characters have the right to use magic without runes freely, this is to be judge case-by-case on the character's race and background.

It should also be noted, that magical ability would increase with age, as well as training. This however, is counteracted by how vigourously different races train. In effect, an elven mage close to death from old age would be near the same skill level as a human mage, in the same condition. This again does vary by background and race.

Area Teleblocking
Area teleblocks have been done a number of times by groups and individuals within RuneScape. HAM, Nomad, Movario, Arposandra, and some individual in While Guthix Sleeps(I can't remember which one) all have done it to a different scale, from a single cell, to entire bases. And, almost all have been by different methods, with glyphs on the walls being the most prevelant as the size increased. Some examples have no clear source(Movario's base and Nomad's fight chamber), however.

It is my personal belief the Glyphic method to be the most viable to a standard group(HAM is evidence of this).However, the forming of these would take a great deal of time, and would need to be created by a group of mages experienced in this area of magic working in tandem. These would need to run the perimeter of the area of the area to be blocked. However, for a smaller area, such as a single room, scribing single glyphs at equal distances around the perimeter would suffice. These could be counteracted by disrupting one of the glyphs. For extremely limited areas, such as singular cells, a highly experienced mage could block it with a spell similar to a standard teleblock. This area would most likely require some form of metal around it, metal bars would suffice. This could potentially be disrupted by destroying, or removing the metal. It would also end if the caster does not renew the spell within the time limit.

Then, there are the instances that don't display a clear source of the teleblock(Movario's base and Nomad's fight chamber). It is my belief these areas are powered by a singular item providing a constant stream of the EMP-type energy. The soul obelisk, for instance. This object would need to be extremely powerful, and nigh impossible for most any group to create, let alone single characters. It would also, logically, immovable. In this case, it would likely have some sort of countermeasure that allows the creator, or a permitted group to bypass this defence. This, finally, could be counteracted by simply destroying the object causing the teleblock, with no other method being feasible in the short term. This would, however, unleash all energies currently stored within the object, in what would likely be a lethal blast.

To summarise, area teleblocks are feasible, though difficult or time consuming. With at least one known method being impossible without godmodding. They can all be counteracted after having been put in place. The method of counteracting a teleblock with a teleother will not be addressed by myself at this time.