Tonight, we feast on the blood of the innocent

The Heretic Cabal
The Heretic Cabal is a cult of people who have willingly handed their minds over to Ural, and now work to spread his influence throughout the universe. You can find them on page 52 of character creation.

The faction opens up some of my favorite abilities that I've ever created. By the time I'm done overhauling the mage colleges, they should all have abilities that are at least as interesting as these. To begin, the entire mechanic is centered around vampirism:

From there, you can choose to specialize in a vampiric state: Either feral or Heightened.

Each has state has sub-abilities that make your character a killing machine, and for maximum carnage you can specialize in both. However, you will have to manage your HP wisely so not to fall out of your desired vampiric state or kill yourself outright.

Theory Arena
The fourth installment of Theory is still work in progress, but here is one thing that I think will make it useful even to those who care nothing for PVP combat.

I have added pre-calculated tables for the most common costs of experience in the game. Want to buy that next rank of the skill but don't want to do the math? That's okay, I've done it for you. Want to buy multiple ranks of a skill but don't want to go through the math to determine how much experience that would be in total? Look no further than the right section of the table. Each row includes the experience costs of the ranks before it. so if you wanted to buy the 4th rank of a 100xp skill that you have no ranks in, it would cost you 1,500xp. Man, that was easy.

Currently, the PDF also has a lot of in-depth discussion of strategy in all types of strategy games. This helps you narrow down your strategy and hone your mental skills for victory. This strategical advice is not limited the Theory either: it is presented as a broad, overarching guide to strategical thinking for all types of strategical thinkers.

Up and coming, the PDF will contain maps and game modes that will test your strategical thinking and planning and hopefully throw a few wrenches in your gears.

The document will likely be available next weekend, but keep an eye on the blog this weekend as more updates may squeeze their way out!

Fourth Theory Document Coming Soon

The fourth document for Theory will be "Theory: Arena" and will focus on the Player Vs Player aspect of the game. In the doc, I will showcase custom PVP maps and game modes which alter the tactics beyond simple death-match and capture the flag. The document will be free and available (like the rest of theory) here on the blog. Got an idea, comment, or thought for Theory: Arena? Email me or leave it in the comments below.

New Terramage Ability:
Altruism allows the terramage to sacrifice his own HP to heal an ally. you may also notice that it's a defensive action, which provokes offensive actions from anyone within range. This ability is intended to give the terramage an external form of healing that is in line with the "Regeneration of self" theme. A terramage's healing isn't as effective as a light mage's healing, and I don't feel that it should be (since a primary aspect of light magic is healing).

New Metamagic Ability:
Dual allows the mage to fire two spells simultaneously. However, the sum of the metas for both spells cannot exceed the mages spell matrix, and the spells don't share power metas, making them weaker than if they were cast individually, but more effective in terms of cast time. When I first envisioned this meta, I imagined a robed figure entering hostile territory and quickly getting surrounded, then throwing two fireballs in opposite directions and unleashing hell.

New Weapon Enchants:
Arc-strike should provide some interesting Area damage and potentially modify where players choose to stand when fighting each other. Get close and be ready to strike back, but take damage. Or, Stay back and attempt to reduce that damage but have less AP to use on the offensive.

Who doesn't like turning your enemies to stone?

An angry weapon for an angry wielder: the furious enchant will likely become a staple for melee characters due to it's well rounded bonuses and the fact that it removes the chance for you to fumble your weapon.

While knocking enemies back might not be useful for all melee archetypes, it puts others in the perfect position for their next move. Not to mention the extreme usefulness to ranged archetypes.

New General Abilities:
I have also added new general abilities to the "Hit Points", "Mana", "Initiative", and "Action Points" sections. These abilities should allow more flexibility within character creation and allow players to fine tune their characters in a very specific way. Many of these abilities are simple inherent bonuses or regenerative augmentations.