Warding
Warding
The best way to protect something is with a defense few people understand how to bypass. For those who wish to seal away or protect something securely when they’re not around, Warding is their method of choice.
A Ward is an elaborate weave of Rigen made in a tight formation that obstructs a wide variety of things. A Caster protrudes their own Personal Rigen into the air to attract unbonded rigen from the Atmopool. The first stage is configuring the unbonded rigen particles into a thread. If the particles are not stable it can cause harm to anything in a close proximity or degrade back into the Atmopool. Once a thread has been made, the Caster creates a weave. They do so by forming a condensed pattern of threads. While each practitioner develops their own unique way of forming a weave, there are always underlying similarities in the patterns. The advanced Wards are designed in a way to continuously attract unbonded rigen and add it to the weave. This sustains the Ward for years, or even decades.
When a Caster designs a Ward, they are able to establish parameters in it. In many situations the Caster forms a Ward to completely seal off something from everything that surrounds it, or that would attempt to gain access to what lay beyond the Ward. Advanced Wards are so elaborate that they permit exceptions that would allow them to be bypassed. If a Caster desired for anything, or anyone, that wasn’t them to have the ability to bypass the Ward, then a piece of that thing, or blood of the person, must be present during the Ward’s construction. A Ward cannot be altered after a Caster finishes it.
The appearance of a Ward can vary greatly, and in most instances there is an obvious visual indicator of its presence. A Caster with Auristics would be capable of seeing the pattern in which the weave was made with. But without any Warding experience, they would not understand the intricacies to deciphering another Ward’s construction details.
Wards can never be attached to a living organism. The amount of Rigen that flows through a Ward would cause permanent damage to any organic material that maintains physical contact with it over an extended duration. While a Ward can be applied to an object, it will deteriorate rapidly if the object is moved to different locations in a short period of time. One weakness all Wards are subject to is Siphonics. Depending on the complexity of the Ward, a Siphonist could absorb enough of the Ward’s Rigen to deteriorate it to the point of collapsing. A Caster knows how to collapse their own wards.
Prerequisites
Casters must have an understanding of manipulating unbonded rigen before they can take any skill points in Warding. The Caster must be at least a Journeyman in Rigenology in order to learn Warding.
Initial Learning
An instructor is required in order to learn how to harness Rigen from the Atmopool and weave it into a Ward. The instructor must be at least an Expert in the spell.
Skill Levels
Apprentice
Under the instructor’s guidance a Caster learns how to link unbonded rigen into threads in order to create a weave. The Caster’s style of creating a Ward is a direct copy of their instructors at this stage. Only simple Wards can be made by an apprentice. In which they obstruct the passage of Rigen or anything infused with Rigen. It takes an apprentice an hour of uninterrupted work to generate a Ward. The barrier is not strong enough to obstruct a living creature and only able to prevent apprentice level magic from passing through a couple of times. The Ward can only be up to twenty square feet in size and lasts for thirty minutes before collapsing.
Journeyman
The Caster begins to develop their own pattern for weaving a Ward. The time it takes is reduced a little, to where it only takes about thirty minutes At this point they are also able to begin making exceptions to what can bypass a Ward without completely deteriorating it. A Caster is only able to include one exception to their Ward as a journeyman. Wards can now obstruct Journeyman level spells and spell effects up to five times. They can also obstruct living creatures. A Ward can be up to two hundred square feet in size and lasts for three hours before collapsing.
Expert
Wards can now be constructed with up to three exceptions. Alternatively, an exception can be repurposed so that the Ward only obstructs one specific thing. Wards can obstruct Expert level spells and spell effects up to ten times. Apprentice and Journeyman spell that are blocked do not count against the number of spells that the Ward can obstruct. A caster now only requires ten minutes to create a Ward. The construction pattern is now tight enough to prevent things that are not in a solid state from passing through (Including air and water). A Ward can be up to two thousand square feet in size. An expert has also learned how to configure their Wards to absorb Rigen from the Atmopool to dramatically extend its duration. A Ward can last up to one month per skill point the Caster has in Warding at the time it was made.
Master
The Caster’s Wards have reached near legendary status. When they create a Ward they can choose for it to be invisible. Wards can now obstruct Master level spells and spell effects up to fifteen times. When it blocks a spell of Expert or lower quality, the Ward does not suffer any damage, and do not count against the number of spells that the Ward can block. A Caster only requires five minutes to generate a Ward and can include up to five exceptions in its construction. The Ward can be up to twenty thousand square feet in size and last up to one year per point of Warding the Caster has at its construction.
100 Points
A Caster with 100 point in Warding is able to generate a Ward that is able to obstruct any spell or spell effect that does not exceed 100 points in value. The number of spells it can block is nearly limitless, and only Master level spells are able to leave any damage. The Ward can be up to two hundred thousand square feet in size. Any Ward under ten thousand square feet can be generated in less than one minute. Wards last up to two years per point the Caster has in Warding at the time of its construction.
Cost
Warding has a base spell cost of 25 points from the Caster’s Spellpool and 50 points from the Atmopool. The costs change each time the Warder ascends to the next tier. While the Caster’s personal cost will be reduced, more Rigen will be harnessed from the Atmopool. The table below is a quick reference for how much Rigen a Warder uses to create a Ward.
| Warding Level | Personal Rigen Cost | Atmopool Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Apprentice | 25 | 50 |
| Journeyman | 20 | 100 |
| Expert | 15 | 200 |
| Master | 10 | 400 |
| 100 | 5 | 800 |
Important Note: The Atmopool does not replenish the unbonded rigen used to generate a Ward for as long as the Ward remains active.
Risks
Warding is a high risk spell. Low level Warders harness a lot of unbonded rigen and can suffer extreme burns due to exposure if they don’t properly stabilize their weave. More advanced Wards require more Rigen from the Atmopool which can cause ardention very quickly. If not designed carefully, a Ward could prevent unbonded rigen from entering an area where the Atmopool is depleted and cause ardention that way. When an advanced Ward is taken down through aggressive action, the Rigen used to create it quickly seeks to reenter the Atmopool and can be volatile with anything it comes into contact with.
Article Credit to Abraxas.
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