Approved Thunderoc

[Makt]

Thunderoc
Challenge Rating 6​

Description:
One of the fastest creatures of the skies, the Thunderoc is not to be trifled with. It has the appearance of a bird, though its size can rival even those of Elder Dragons. Its feathers are a golden yellow that seems to blend in perfectly with the flash of lightning. The tips of its feathers seem to dance with electricity at all times, making the Thunderoc quite easy to spot at a distance.

Thunderocs are incredibly rare creatures that tend to travel all across the world. They are most often spotted during large thunderstorms, though it's not unheard of to see a bolt of lightning on a clear day as it dives for prey.

These birds hold themselves with an air of superiority. They lack the intelligence of playable races… but are still smart and powerful enough to be, or contend with, the apex of their biomes. They tend to fight with other large creatures over prey.

Cultural Significance:
These birds are revered by some cultures and feared by others. Their presence in a populated area can be seen as divine punishment as its presence is usually associated with dead livestock. Others welcome its presence in the skies as thunderstorms are associated with rain.

Habitat:
These birds can live basically anywhere. They tend to nest around areas with frequent storms or around flora/fauna with electrical properties. The Whispering Yew is a common tree to breed and raise children around.

Size:
They are born the size of dragon whelps and can grow to be as large as an elder dragon.

Biome Role:
It's unclear what purpose they serve. Scholars think they help regulate the power of thunderstorms, either increasing or decreasing intensities as they see fit. They also have a symbiotic relationship with lightning-themed flora.

Life Cycle:
Thunderocs only mate during thunder storms which is a sight that most consider worth seeing. Multi colored lightning bolts shoot off, lighting up the skies for miles around. They lay only a handful of eggs and are abandoned shortly after birth. Those that survive will grow to adolescence at 50 and adulthood at 100. They can live to be 300.

Resources:
Their feathers have electrical properties which alchemists can take advantage of.

Their bones are twice the hardness of steel which can be worked with grandmaster crafting.


Notable Features:

• See Beast Magic, below:

Beast Magic:​

Lightning's Call

This magic uses Luxium as its metaphor. A thunderoc is assumed to have Ascended Luxium spell reserves.

Minor Merit
Yes

Active Ability: Chain Lightning - Emits a cone of lightning that will zap those caught within it. This is similar to a dragon's breath weapon.

Active Ability: Redirection - When hit by lightning, the user can expend spell reserves to redirect the lightning elsewhere.

Active Ability: Storm Blink - Allows the user to travel in a flash of lightning. This is effectively instantaneous travel, similar to an Exodii's blink.

Passive Ability: Storm's Protection - Grants passive resistance to luxium.

Buff Ability: Lightning's Edge - Imbues a weapon with the ability to paralyze a target. This can be applied to Chain Lightning as well, effectively replacing its damage capability with the ability to paralyze when one doesn't want to kill.

Novice
At this stage, the user is just beginning to learn how to make use of its lightning magic.

Chain Lightning: 5 foot reach. Can cause a tickling sensation and is effectively useless in combat.
Redirection: Not available
Storm Blink: Not available
Storm's Protection: Not available
Lightning's Edge: Not available

Apprentice
Now the user is beginning to learn how to use lightning to travel

Chain Lightning: 20 foot reach and can burn wood.
Redirection: Not available
Storm Blink: Can blink up to 10 ft. at a time
Storm's Protection: Not available
Lightning's Edge: Not available

Journeyman
The user is now learning how to redirect lightning

Chain Lightning: 50 foot reach and can melt stone.
Redirection: Available
Storm Blink: Can blink up to 15 ft. at a time
Storm's Protection: Not available
Lightning's Edge: Not available

Expert
The user is now comfortable living around electrical fauna and flora due to their resistance to luxium. The also find it easier to hunt as they've learned how to paralyze their prey.

Chain Lightning: 100 foot reach and can melt iron.
Redirection: Available
Storm Blink: Can blink up to 30 ft. at a time
Storm's Protection: User takes half damage from expert and lower tiered luxium attacks
Lightning's Edge: Can paralyze those with lesser resistances

Master
The user has superb control over all abilities

Chain Lightning: 250 foot reach and can melt steel.
Redirection: Available
Storm Blink: Can blink up to 60 ft. at a time
Storm's Protection: User takes half damage from master luxium attacks and is immune to attacks of lower tiers.
Lightning's Edge: Can paralyze those with lesser resistances

Ascended
Neigh impervious to luxium, the user is now a true master of lightning.

Chain Lightning: 250 foot reach and can cause catastrophic damage.
Redirection: Available
Storm Blink: Can blink up to 120 ft. at a time
Storm's Protection: User is immune from all luxium based attacks
Lightning's Edge: Can paralyze those with lesser resistances

 

[Hananozō]

-Adjust this Beast Magic into an arcana with skill tiers for its abilities. I'll update the wiki to reflect this as a requirement, but this will be the same of most merited Gramarye and Dominion.

-The unnatural abilities of the animal should match their beast magic 1 for 1, and it's assumed the Thunderoc itself can use these.

-There is no negotiating on whether Beast Magic is more or less powerful by being that beast.

-Mention that this Beast Magic would use Luxium Spell Reserves to cast.

-A Thunderoc on its own would also have limited spell reserves (equivalent to an ascended mage as a CR6) and this should be mentioned.

-Give the Roc a consistent size ratio, since that ability just feels tacked on without any reason for why. It doesn't need to be small and would be too convenient as a CR6 Animal Familiar - you can easily use Seeming and Ensorcelling to accomplish this, however.

-Immunity to Luxium or lightning should only occur at Mastery of this Beast Magic.

-Redirection should be its own ability and cost spell reserves.

-The maximum speed of Stormway should be 80 feet per second. Merge this with Storm's Protection.

-The roc should have a separate spell to shoot forward in a similar way to Blink from Exodus.

- Keep this to 5 abilities in total. Right now there's Redirection, Stormblink, Stormway, Lightning Immunity, Storm Breath, and Luxiite Generation. You'll need to drop 1 of these to make it work.

 

[Makt]

Changed the beast magic into an arcana. Some spells changed or were replaced

Clarified this uses Luxium

Clarified the spell reserves in the beast magic

Removed the size changing ability

Luxium resistance now scales

Redirection costs spell reserves

Stormway is removed entirely

Blink spell added

Only 5 abilities now

 

[Hananozō]

Looks good so far.

I'd just remove the 2x steel piercing mention, but you're free to talk more about how violent it is with more colorful adjectives like 'catastrophic' or such--we try to leave some wiggle room for defending against these since Ascended-level spells are potent enough on their own

 

[Makt]

okay, changed that bit :3
If you wanted me to change all mentions of steel, iron etc. let me know and I'll remove those too! I was kind of just copying what grist had for breath weapons (or trying to, at least)

 

[Hananozō]

It's more that 'piercing' has a strong association, since steels true durability is based on its thickness. Saying that you pierce x material means that you can puncture it regardless of how thick the material is, but having the capability to damage, rend, or bend steel would probably be a more fair wording.

Defensive abilities set up the material range.
Offensive abilities tend to be less clear since equivalent spells are meant to cancel each other out.

Everything else looks good so far, except for one thing: we don't allow efficiency bonuses on Gramarye, so even Ascended-level discount isn't acceptable even if its a fairly minor thing.

I'll add this bit about piercing to the Dominion article! Thank you again for helping me to test this.

 

[Makt]

Gotcha!
removed the efficiency bit

 

[Hananozō]

Passing this off to Vic for the final look since this is primarily roosting in their setting.

 

[Vicissitude]

Can you change the phrasing of "pierce" per the instructions by Aster? I agree with him that the phrasing of "pierce" implies you can bypass material thickness, which is vague and easily abusable.

 

[Vicissitude]

꧁══════════• ༺༉ { Approved } ༉༻•══════════꧂​

Per a brief discord conversation + your edits, the Thunderoc is now approved.

꧁══════════• ༺༉ ❁ ❀ ❁ ༉༻•══════════꧂​