What Is Vim?

[Red]

I get what stamina is. I understand what psi is, and feedback, and souls. I'm pretty sure what mana is, and I've got an educated guess as to positive and negative energy.

But what exactly is vim? I've got some vague ideas, but I just don't know.

[HousePet]

Stolen life energy.

[Satarus]

Vim is some sort of corrupted essence. It is the antithesis of nature. Hence using it increases equilibrium.

[Red]

So consuming others life is against nature... But eating meat is just fine?

Really, nature is a brutal, --up kinda place. I mean, sure Corruptors disease your soul off, but at least they don't paralyze you, lay eggs inside you, leave you in a hole and have babies hatch from inside you, consuming your organs before escaping your possibly still living (but soon to be dead) body.

Well, except for that one ability that is literally that, minus the paralyzation and guaranteed death bit. So really, Vim is just copying nature.

[breadsmith]

Everything not nature is the antithesis of nature. Vim, mana, positive energy, paradox, everything seems to piss nature off. Vim just does it better as it messes with a person's equilibrium, which is their connection to nature.

[Red]

Man. Nature's kind of Old Testament, in the jealous and vain way and not the apocalypse kind of way. (Also the apocalypse kind of way sometimes.) Really, you don't see mages throwing a hissy fit if some flowers grow in Angolwen.

[ProfessorCirno]

Some of it's understandable. Mana is used to tell nature what to do whether it likes it or not, and paradox is literally the magic of breaking space and time. Nature probably doesn't like wizards telling it to shut up and obey, nor does it like paradox mages who are constantly making holes and tears in the cosmic order of things just to call three different pizza places and choose whichever one arrives late enough to ensure they get a free pizza. Psi is fine because it's not based around breaking part of the world or telling it what to do; psi may as well be Stamina But Also It Makes Things Float. It's purely internal. Hate is just Angry Psi. Not ENTIRELY sure what the issue with positive/negative is, mind you.

Vim isn't especially bad because it does bad things, it's especially bad because it's made out of Blight, which is basically anti-life. Blight is also the only element that doesn't occur naturally - it was created by/during the Spellblaze. Mana is arrogant and demands nature obey. Paradox is irresponsible. But Blight is more or less the element of "NOT NATURE." There is nothing positive that comes from Blight. Blight exists for the sole purpose of spreading sickness, disease, and ruin.

[Red]

Bacteria no longer count as life, I see. Papa Nurgle is displeased.

I get what the intention is, I just see nature as being... Well, mana is a result of nature, basically. Blight and Vim too. People were born of nature, they developed techniques to do things, that's a natural result, be it psi or mana. However, it does still make sense if you think of it in terms of people. Summoners, Wyrmics, they all believe nature is opposed to these things, that in order to use their abilities they must avoid magic. But it's not really true-taking all resources as a way of channeling energy, Vim and Equilibrium actually seem to be more closely related than anything else. They both use the same "channel", so to speak, from the body, and so using Vim also messes up Equilibrium. But really, anything nature is opposed to is mind games. They have a belief in how it should be, and even if it almost never holds up, they find it harder to do what they normally can because their own mind blocks them out. As it's been pointed out before, if you had a fight between a mage and a caster Mindslayer in the middle of Derth, no one outside the fight could tell you who was magic and who was mind.

Shame Darkgod isn't the Dwarf Fortressapproach and modeling everything down to the subatomic level, because I can't know for sure whether this stuff is actually opposed or whether it's all in their heads.

[twas Brillig]

Actually, the nature resource being equilibrium is probably the closest thing to an explanation we'll get as to why nomming lifeforce is bad but nomming adorable animals is natural. Vim is out of control and out of balance, cancer more than growth. The diseases are either magical corruptions of the natural state of creatures (do bacteria even exist on Eyal?) or else forcing pathogens to grow and spread out of control. You could probably spread a disease with a nature power...but unless you can wait a week for the incubation period to kick in, it's probably faster to just spit poison in their face.

Maybe Vim is just the Equilibrium of a system out of phase with Eyal's own ecosystem. In another world, maybe everything being in a state of constant, uncontrollable growth maintains a different sort of equilibrium. It's probably the Sher'tul's fault that it got to Eyal.

[Red]

Huh... Looking at it that way, Vim is Nurgle's blessing. (Not that Nurgle, as far as we know, actually exists here.) That's pretty interesting.

But that really does make sense. They're the same power, so using one messes with the other, but nature is too peaceful and reserved to mess with Vim. Vim though is nature on steroids, complete with roid rage, and so blows all your nature to hell.

Thanks, Jabberwock.

[ProfessorCirno]

But Blight ISN'T natural. Again, it was created when the Spellblaze broke the universe. It's related to demons, horrors, and other outsiders that don't belong here. Mana is a vague "inner focus," and wizards learn how to use it to power their spells. It's natural, but it's typically used to manipulate nature against it's will, so nature hates it for being arrogant. The resource for nature is equilibrium, after all - even Wilders can't just go all crazy and throw around nature magic willy nilly. They have to be in tune with nature; it's why they're all hippy dippy and regaining equilibrium through meditation (or by just shoving nature INTO YOUR VEEEIIIIINS). Mana ignores that need for balance and just does whatever it wants, with nature having no say. If someone took your hand and started slapping you with it while chanting "stop hitting yourself!" you wouldn't go "well I suppose I COULD be hitting myself..." Vim , however, isn't natural at all; it's taking life energy and flipping it. Mana is natural, wizards just be dicks. Vim is unnatural. And Corrupters also be dicks.

I mean at a certain point you gotta accept that magic be magic, yo . Vim is bad because it's Bad Magic. It's evil blood and sickness and death magic.

[twas Brillig]

Sure! I'm just spitballing. I mean, what did the spellblaze do but tear at the seams between worlds? So maybe it didn't create vim and blight as much as give it a path into Eyal. Mostly I just think the word choice behind "vim" is interesting. There's the obvious (and probably intended) meaning of "vital essence", since you're literally sucking it out of people like they're juiceboxes. It's capturing the natural energy of living things (and, like, rocks and golems and stuff that the PC kills, but whatever) to an unnatural degree and bending it to an unnatural end.

But it also fits with my wild-ass theory about it being an alternate (and from Eyal's, and our, perspective freaky and unpleasant) dimension where reckless growth and consumption is the norm. Then you get the option of Bizarro Eyal where freaky cultists worship nature and seek to eclipse blight from its natural (?) place in the world.

[Red]

Except the Spellblaze didn't really break the universe. It broke the portal system something fierce and created a firestorm that wiped out entire universes, but it's just a fire spell that tapped into the mana channels the Sher'Tul used. Sort of like supercharging a guass rifle with the entire power output of the sun, converted into magnetic force.

It makes more sense if Blight, and by extension Vim, is something from outside the universe immigrating in to survive. Of course, elements don't usually migrate, so there's something behind it, even if it's just a sentient element.

[HousePet]

The Spellblaze did break the universe in a couple of ways. See the sudden appearance of chronomancy.

Blight (the element and power source) is seeping into Eyal through a crack.

[Red]

...

Guys, I think the Spellblaze might be Lord English.

Or, for Doctor Who fans, it might be the Silence.

And thank you, Housepet, I wasn't aware Chronomancy happened because of the Spellblaze. Important question about that, though-can Chronomancy affect any time before the Spellblaze?