Committed Essence

[Vanman]

This is probably such a noob question I should be embarassed, but when you commit Essence to an artifact, is it supposed to come from Personal Essence or can it come from Peripheral Essence? If you could point me to a page number in the rules, then I can read it myself. But I can't seem to find where this is explained.


Cheers,


V

 

[Flagg]

I can come from either pool, though, outside of extraordinary circumstances, most characters will want to use Peripheral.


-S

 

[Vanman]

That's what I thought but I was reading a post on Alchemicals, and there was mention that committed Essence had to come from Personal Essence. I haven't read Autochthonians so I thought I was doing something wrong.


ops:

 

[Flagg]

That's only for the "Installation Cost" of Alchemical Charms.


-S

 

[Vanman]

Cool. Thanks Still.


Cheers,


V

 

[Silence In Daylight]

The advantage of committing from Personal Essence is that one doesn't potentially give oneself away as a Prince of the Earth (or Anathema) every morning. Or in the case of DBs, do a number on the surroundings without taking extra time.


 If that's not a concern, then Peripheral Essence is preferred.

 

[Fruan]

Where are you getting that from, SiD? You don't have to respend the essence you have committed to an artifact every morning. It stays committed indefinately, exactly like a charm with duration 'indefinate'.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

Do you have a page ref on that? I admit that I can't find one for my position, but I can't find one for an explicit 'indefinite commitment' either...

 

[Persell]

I'd say the word "commitment" is enough of a hint that fruan is right here. The essence stays where it is. When you commit to the artifact for the very first time your anima banner flares but afterwards not anymore.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

I'll concede the point, though I'd still like to see something explicit stating the duration of the commitment to artifacts.


 The suggestion about using Personal Essence still stands if one first attunes an artifact in the presence of others.

 

[Fruan]

One of the biggest failings of the 1st ed rulebook was stuff like this - The artifact rules, such as they are, that are relevant are on page 340/341. There's basicly nothing there.

 

[Solfi]

I'll concede the point, though I'd still like to see something explicit stating the duration of the commitment to artifacts.

If it worked the way you intimated, all you had to do to "uncommit" an Artifact or Hearthstone from someone would be to steal it, and get it away from the person for a day, and it would be free for use.


Van77Man: For an official ruling; here's a snippet from the Errata:

If you commit Essence to an effect or attunement, the Essence comes out of the pool you spent it from and stays out of that pool until the commitment ends, so you should try to commit from your Peripheral Essence pool unless you like not having any Personal Essence.

 

[Fruan]

I'll concede the point, though I'd still like to see something explicit stating the duration of the commitment to artifacts.

If it worked the way you intimated, all you had to do to "uncommit" an Artifact or Hearthstone from someone would be to steal it, and get it away from the person for a day, and it would be free for use.

You can do that anyway.


The motes remain commited indefinately, but a condition of keeping them there is handling the artifact at least once a day.


Most people, when searching for a metaphor for essence manipulation settle on electricity. Motes = Electrons. Essence manipulation = creating a circuit. I know I did. But having delt with the system a lot, I've come to a conclusion that a better one is bees.


Seriously - I have developed the Bee Metaphor for essence.


It's easy to think of motes of essence as being some voltage you can run down a wire to make things work. But this leads to mistaken impressions such as your anima continuing to flare if you're mantaining a commitment. I have instead come to think of motes of essence not as something like electrons flowing down a wire, but as bees proforming a task for a hive - When you commit 5 motes to your artifact, you pull out 5 bees and say to them "Sit in this and make this work!". And they do - They'll sit in that artifact for as long as you want, buzzing away, making it work. But they're not very smart - they're sorta prone to  forgetting what they're meant to do and drifting off unless you keep an eye on them.

 

[dmoonfire]

I believe the official ruling for not glowing every morning while using perp. for commited essence is in the errata, near the back, but you have to read it since it isn't in its own section.