Rambling about Lore: Enchantments (Patreon)

This time, I want to talk about Enchanments, their rarities, and their potencies. It’s a bit of the world lore that I’m happy about, like the lore behind the Gods of the world. This one, unlike the Gods’ lore, will come up naturally throughout the story for you guys to piece together as you go along—but it won't hurt to know how they work before it’s all spelled out in the writing.So, a Ramble! I like talking about the world building c:(Quick note: This isn’t something that’s been directly covered before, and it’s on my ‘to-do’ to return to the chapter where Emilia visits the enchanting shop and see if I can squeeze bits of this information in there without hurting the pacing.)So! First and foremost, enchantments are mana-crafted runes etched (or spelled) into items, places, people, etc. They have various effects, and the enchantments can be less/more complex based on said effects.For instance, the Featherstep or Storage enchantments are significantly more complex than, say, Warmth or Self Repair. This is why you may see enchantments like Self Repair and Self Clean on a plethora of magical items all throughout the story—and why it was easy for Emilia to get most of her clothes enchanted with them.That being said, the complexity of the enchantments themselves play absolutely no part in the rarity of the enchanted item.Rarities are universally graded in the world I’ve created. Classes, Items, and even Races have rarities. It starts at Common and goes through Rare, Epic, and Legendary… and two others that I won’t mention for spoiler reasons—though you know of one already from Chapter 45: the “Ascended” rarity.Rarities for enchanted items is determined by how many unique enchantments are on the thing. Common items have up to one enchantment, Rare has two, Epic has three, and so on. The reason rarity is determined this way—instead of the complexity of the enchantments themselves—is because combining enchantments on an item makes them exponentially more complicated the more you tack on.So yeah, a Tier Zero practicing enchanter could slap a Self Repair on a broom no problem, but ask them to add Self Clean, Featherweight, and Automation on top of it, and boom—exploding broom.Or reality warping broom.Or sassy talking broom that very loudly complains about every mess you make as it cleans.Botched enchantments can be downright terrifying, or utterly ridiculous. Sometimes the enchantment just fizzles, sometimes it eats mana forever, and sometimes you get nonsense like a flying spoon.Wild magic is absolutely a thing in the world I’ve created, and if any of you have played with it in D&D… well, yeah. It gets weird.Any more than four enchantments (aka, Legendary rarity) is widely considered either impossible or the work of the System and/or the Gods themselves. Of course, this isn’t always the case, because magic is complicated and geniuses do exist.Then there’s enchantment quality, which is another thing entirely.There are Lesser, Normal, Greater, and Perfect qualities to enchantments. Just like rarities, there are qualities that are higher, and you can safely assume “Ascended” will be one of them, but I won’t dive into that now.(Quick note 2.0: “Normal” isn’t displayed on the enchantments like “Lesser, Greater, and Perfect” are. Instead, the item simply shows the enchantment itself, with no further descriptors. ie, Lesser Self Repair, Self Repair, Greater Self Repair, Perfect Self Repair. )Enchantment qualities are determined by the skill of the enchanter and/or crafter. Lesser is usually what a less experienced or practicing enchanter will get with their work, while Perfect is something a master could do.Perfect is, for all intents and purposes, exactly as it says: Perfect. There are no flaws, no wasted mana, no errors in the runework, etc. It’s about as good as it gets.That might make you think: “Well, if it’s perfect, then how can there be higher qualities?” Good question.Quippy answer: Magic!Actually though, the simplest explanation I can think of is that enchantments of higher quality than Perfect are supernaturally potent. They are Perfect enchantments, but made better by powers outside of normal enchanting.A good example would be a Master of enchanting crafting a Perfect enchantment, but while doing so they use a Class Skill that improves the enchantment further, pushing it into the next grade.I also want to go on about just how varied enchantments can be, and how there are just as many—if not more—useless ones as there are useful ones, but this ramble has already gotten longer than I thought it would.I feel like I just hosted a school lecture or something… but the lore is so fun to talk about! Sorry for rambling so much this time! <3