Enchantment
Overview
An enchantment is a persistent, beneficial magical effect, usually produced by a ritual.
Any given target may only be under a single enchantment. If a new enchantment is created on a target, it completely removes the earlier enchantment.
A ritual enchantment may target:
- A character: These are among the most common sorts of enchantments. Splendid Panoply of Knighthood and Fan the Flame of New Life are both enchantments that affect a character.
- A resource: These rituals usually enhance a personal resource owned by a character who is present when the ritual is performed. Examples include Rampant Growth and Streams of Silver are both enchantments that affect a resource.
- An item: Very few rituals directly target items, Enchantments that target items are almost exclusively the preserve of the realm of Night, and are used to conceal information about an object or it's bonds (such as Masque of the Blinded Weaver). The practice of giving magical properties to objects is largely the preserve of the artificer rather than the ritualist.
- A territory or empire Some powerful rituals, such as Drawing the Penumbral Veil or Hallow of the Green World, target everything in a very large area. Such enchantments are usually indiscriminate - hallow the Green World targets every herb garden in the Empire regardless of who owns it. As with other enchantments, a territory can have only be under a single enchantment at a time, and the Empire can likewise only be under a single enchantment at a time. However, an enchantment on a territory is not "over written" by an enchantment on the Empire and vice versa.
Enchantment Duration
The majority of enchantments are either 'encounter' - a duration that lasts for a single quest, skirmish or battle or 'season' - expiring at the start of the next Empire event that Profound Decisions runs.
Rituals that last for an encounter expire after the end of the next quest, skirmish, or battle the character goes on - or at the end of the current quest, skirmish or battle if cast during an encounter. They automatically expire at the end of the current event if they have not been used beforehand. Occasionally a quest may not involve any combat and our plot writers will chose to specify that the anyone who goes on the quest has not expended the use of any encounter enchantments they are under. If a ref informs you that a quest did not expend your encounter duration rituals, (and only if directly informed by a referee), then they were not expended, even if used during that quest.
Rituals that last for a season expires immediately before the start of the next Empire event run by Profound Decisions. The intent is that effect of rituals performed at an event can be used at any sanctioned events that take place before the next event. It also means that any season or encounter rituals that are cast at player events will end before the start of the next Profound Decisions Empire event.
It is also possible to make an enchantment permanent through the use of ilium; further details can be found here.
Identifying Enchantments
The detect magic incantation will tell the caster what if a target is under an enchantment; the Realm that enchantment comes from; and the magnitude of the enchantment. Further information is a matter of deduction or using certain rituals that analyse enchantments.
Removing Enchantments
In almost all cases, the most recent enchantment is the only one that applies. A magnitude 50 enchantment affecting a target is removed by a magnitude 2 enchantment that affects the same target.