Arcana and Magic Items mod for Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead Text and lore data yoinked from my old forum post for it on the CDDA forums, way back before I first PR'd it. Expect the content to be outdated, incomplete, and subject to change. :V
This is a mod idea I cooked up a long time ago, first mentioned the idea over on the Drawing Board ( http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=10987.0 ).
Arcana Skill:
- A new skill, which I'm surprised I got working. It's used as the primary crafting skill for magical items. Thanks to a PR by BevapDin, magic weapons can now use this skill.
The Essences:
- Regular essence drops from slaying several different sorts of anomalous creatures, the more otherworldly the better. Main use is for creating most enchanted items. Certain magical items are also fueled by this.
- Blood essence is drained from non-anomalous beings, using anomalous means. Main use is ammo for the one magical ranged weapon available, and as a less efficient alternative to essence for crafting. Some magic weapons are fueled by this. Certain items will ONLY be able to use blood essence for crafting, and conversely some items will only allow using normal essence to craft them.
- Dull essence is obtained by dismantling magic items and essence using the correct tool. Used to craft and fuel certain items.
Item Dismantling:
- Recipes for dismantling most magical items, using the hammer of the hunter. Items made by The Cleansing Flame lack deconstruct recipes, as dismantling unsanctioned magical items is implied to be their shtick.
Monster Tweaks:
- A wide range of monsters have been edited to allow obtaining essence. Will add the full list later on.
Potions:
- Black potion. Very potent painkiller, but with several side effects. What were expecting, for something so simple?
- White potion. Boosts strength a fair bit, and boosts speed a little, also with side effects.
- Yellow potion. Big speed booster, and shifts stats around. Still a few side effects, almost there...
- Red potion. Heals various injuries and features a milder return of the painkiller effect, which milder side effects. Remove a few of the weird ingredients, add some pearl ash, and what would you get? Go on, guess.
Magic Items:
- Offering Chalice. Used for a few recipes from Oaths to the Chalice, as you could surely guess. Go on, take a swig from it. I dare you.
- Silver Athame. Used for a few recipes in Sanguine Codex. Only a mere 3 butchering quality. Still sharp enough, so don't play around with it. Or do play with it, that's exactly what the authors of the Codex want you to do.
- Symbol of Judgement. Uses blood essence to fire bolts of lightning. Hmm. Lightning, fueled by life force, where have I heard that before...?
- Revenant Crown. Use it to gain temporary immunity to poison, in exchange for increased hunger gain. Since this includes immunity to food poisoning...
- Hellfire Stave. Finally added that fire weapon. Uses bursts of blood essence.
- Veinreaver. Remember that silly "bloodsplosion" idea mentioned previously?
- Thunder gauntlets. Can you say tazerpunch? Exists due to lack of decent lighting-themed items, when I've got multiple fiery explody items.
- Hammer of the hunter. Weapon of choice for magiphobes the world over. Required for uncrafting most magical items and essence. Also can be used to blind enemies, and yourself if you aren't careful.
- Incorruptible Sword. A holy blade that uses "consecrated" dull essence, when activated it gives of light and searing radiance.
- Gilded Aegis. A cloak that can be activated, consuming dull essence to heal a small amount of damage, in exchange for pain.
- Wraithslayer crossbow. Fires dull essence, basically a magic crossbow with good armor penetration and that lovely "shot" flag to annoy those annoying hard-to-shoot monsters.
- Mask of insight. One more thing craftable via The Cleansing Flame, used to work around the flashbang effect hammers of the hunter have, with a few added benefits and drawbacks.
- Demon claw. You won't be crafting this one. It's up to you to find it. Burn all the things.
- Bane staff. Shoots acidic shots, with a side order of toxic gas. Also uncraftable.
- Cursed blade. Another uncraftable weapon, using it can be Fun.
- Cleric ring. The fourth and final uncraftable item, provides an assortment of protective effects when used.
Summoning Items:
- Silver glyph. On its own it's merely a shiny piece of silver. But...
- Glyph of trickery. Ever wanted your own pet kreck?
- Glyph of impassiveness. Probably the only summoning item that won't get your face wrecked if you mess up.
- Glyph of the beholder. It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?
- Glyph of Crawling Chaos. Sit. Stay. Good boy! Who's a good widdle winged worm wmonster?
- Glyph of the eye. Best used underground.
- Glyph of the looking-glass. Might want a vorpal sword for this one.
- Glyph of anthozoa. No, not the name of some alien deity.
- Glyph of Yuggoth. Don't ask them about their two-for-one plastic surgery and genetic alteration special.
- Glyph of the platyhelminthes. In Soviet Russia, spawn of Ythogtha is bribed by you!
- Glyph of the Elder Things. Tekeli-li? Tekeli-li.
Scrolls:
- Blank scrolls. Used to craft magic scrolls, obviously.
- Scroll of light. Using it might be a bright idea.
- Scroll of darkness. Who needs sunglasses?
- Scroll of command. Can turn monsters friendly, though the side effects might be Fun if you're using it to get out of a sticky situation.
- Scroll of overgrowth. Grow your own garden, grow your missing arm back. And maybe grow a few more arms while you're at it.
- Scroll of sundering. Bring the whole house down. Trumpets not included.
- Scroll of discord. Try not to teleport into the walls. And mind whatever might tag along for the ride.
Books:
- Apprentice's Notes. Entry-level 0-to-1 skillbook, with no recipes. A religious book, implied to discuss magical concepts using religious metaphors.
- History of Alchemy. For crafting potions, and for getting from levels 0 to 3. A madman's interpretation of old alchemical texts, with results that would be profoundly useless without magical essence. You get a cookie if you notice the references to historical alchemical concepts, hidden underneath the stranger things the recipes involve.
- The Six Pillars. Levels 2-4, requires a decent intellect to understand. Used to craft disposable magic scrolls.
- Oaths to the Chalice. Also a religious book. This is where we leave the realm of sanity behind and get into stuff that requires some arcana skill to understand, for skill levels 4-7. Allows crafting the offering chalice, recipes for sacrificing items to obtain essence, and what's currently the only magical weapon. Also needed to extract blood essence from a used chalice.
- Sanguine Codex. Blood magic, for levels 3-6. Allows crafting the silver athame, and producing blood essence. Second option for extracting blood essence from a used chalice.
- The Cleansing Flame. Levels 4-7. Written by an order of witch-hunters, it allows crafting a select number of sanctioned items fueled by dull essence.
- To Master the Unknown. Levels 6-10. A book for summoning your very own pet monstrosities.
Monster Addition:
- A fiery boss monster for players to find. Hint: which arcanist group would fight fire with fire?
- A plantlike boss-level monster. Expect a lot of poisonous Fun.
- A robed figure, possessed by unknown forces and wielding a symbol of judgement.
- Dragon? Dragon. Undead dragon, in fact.
Mapgen Addition:
- A curious structure, to be found out in the wilderness. Formerly in use by a religious order, implied to be the authors of The Cleansing Flame.
- A strange grove, that seems to have grown over some underground ruin. And now I have yet another reason to give root walls a proper sprite.
Furniture Addition:
- An upright sword, currently serves as an easily-removed barrier and a DF reference.
Misc:
- Meditate has been given an item_action definition due to the religious items with additional uses.
- Added some overrides to make a new monster mutually friendly to both factions of monster that spawn in its area.