Ferring Race(s)

[lukep]

This is an idea for an addon, based on the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson. I might get around to coding it, but I wanted to get it down somewhere before my thoughts on them went away. First, some background:

A ferring is an individual who has access to magic that allows them to store and retrieve of one attribute inside of a specific metal, as follows:(note: they only get one of these powers)

Iron: mass (inertia/weight)
Steel: physical speed
Tin: Each of the 5 senses (independent from each other)
Pewter: Strength (muscle mass)
Copper: Memories (store it to forget, retrieve it to remember)
Bronze: Wakefulness
Zinc: Mental Speed
Brass: Physical warmth (body heat)
Cadmium: Breath (oxygen in the blood)
Bendalloy: Food (calories and water etc...)
Gold: Healing
Electrum: Determination
Chromium: Fortune (luck)
Nicrosil: "Investiture" (basic power of magic, IIRC)
Aluminum: Identity (sense of self)
Duralumin: Connection (spiritual connection with others)

Eventually, I'd like to make 16 subraces, one for each type of Ferring, although some would be much easier to come up with abilities for (gold/healing, pewter/strength etc...) than others (Aluminum/identity, Bendalloy/food etc...)

On birth, a Ferring would have a unique resource pool (called "metal" for now) with a capacity of 100, and two talents, one that decreases the attribute associated with the Ferring's magic, filling the resource pool, and one that increases the attribute, draining the resource. The resource cannot be filled past capacity. Later, more talents would be unlocked (I also imagine most of them being single-point talents).

Here is an example of what an Iron (mass) Ferring's skill tree would look something like:

Iron Feruchemy

Heaviness: sustain, instant cast, -4 metal per turn, 5 cooldown (given at birth)
-20% movement speed, +50% knockback immunity, +25% teleport immunity, - (some) accuracy (exclusive with Lightness)

Lightness: sustain, instant cast, +4 metal per turn, 5 cooldown (given at birth)
+20% movement speed, -50% knockback immunity, -25% teleport immunity, -(some) physical power (exclusive with Heaviness)

Weightless Jump: Activated, +20 metal, 10 cooldown, 2 duration
100% evasion, cannot move, cannot hit in melee, switches to Lightness.

Massive Smash: Activated, 5 duration, 20 cooldown, (no cost to activate)
Adds a 50% chance to knock back and (some) physical power to your attacks, at a cost of -10 metal per swing. Switches to Heaviness.

Weightless: Sustained, instant cast, +10 metal per turn
If you get hit in melee, or by archery, you are knocked back (like 0 gravity), -50% movement speed, +200 encumbrance, switches to Lightness.

Not all types of Ferring would have advantages for both storing and retrieving attributes; for example, there is no advantage in storing Health, you simply heal slower.

Anyways, thoughts?

[Rectifier]

I've read the mistborn series and they kind of seem like psionicists/telekinetic users, the only difference is that they eat metal crap instead of mental kung fu.

In the series they had a limit to the amount they could eat and the rate at which they consume the material to increase/decrease its affect on their bodies. Also, it seemed as though the amount they could eat and the amount of control at the "burn" rate of the metal improved with their use of this stuff over time. I remember there being other crap as well, but how would you, as a concept, add this and the other things that I missed?

(Basically just some elaboration, no in-depth or literal code statements needed.)

[Goblinz]

These look interesting ideas and the extra resource might be interesting. Because 16 seems like a lot of races to make I may suggest just making them for the metals that appear in tome. Of course you have some source you are basing things off of so this is optional but I think it will be easier for you to make, they will fit into the game slightly better and each be more unique. If you made 16 trees with 5 talents you would have to make 80 unique talents. plus they have to be different than the ones already in the game.

[jotwebe]

It's been a while since I read those. Was there some explanation how alloys like bronze (senses+memory=wakefulness?) or electrum work? Seems to me like allowing those opens the door to all kinds of less common alloys that then should work, too. Also aluminium in a medieval-ish setting is really strange, not to mention the lesser known stuff. I'd keep it to the stuff well known in alchemy - lead, iron, tin, copper, silver, gold, maybe chromium (not known in the west, but in china). No alloys. Still probably more than enough work for you if you really want to do subraces and all that. There's also something to be said to instead use existing tome materials, maybe crushed gems, instead. That would avoid introducing additional game elements without need.

[bricks]

Funny, I just finished this series. Sanderson's really got a knack for fantasy worlds. I think that a full roguelike could be based around the system of magic, even if was only loosely adapted (consumables which give you short-term superpowers/ability to store and recover attributes). I don't know how I would feel about its inclusion in ToME, especially since your adaptation isn't too far from the source material.

Also, your example talents feel more like a class than a race to me. Maybe call them Metalchemists? You could retain the exclusivity of the "metal" pool by clearing it any time a different metal is used. In other words, you'd have a bunch of mutually exclusive sustains for each metal, the active metal defining the skills you are allowed to use. Switching sustains would clear the "metal" resource. Might be fun, might be obnoxious.