Greetings.
My name is Herschel of the Astronomy institute of the Academy of Magic and Sorcery of Dwinn, also known as the Magic Towers or Magic Academy of Dwinn.
I believe these presentations are enough for a first meeting. Besides, you are not here for me, I believe.
From now on my task will be to explain a few of our world's guiding mechanic or as it is often called, the system.
To do so, I will go through many subjects of interest starting with the most basic one: the Paths..
Without further ado, let us begin with our duties.
1 . What is a Path?
Paths are essentially manifestations of the Smiling One's blessing in religious beliefs. As a matter of fact, they do give some special abilities to their effect but those effects are not always positive hence why the Towers do not classify them as blessings but rather simple insights.
What is an insight then?
To explain this, I must explain what a passive ability is. It is a name given to abilities that don't need a conscious activation from their user to be in effect. They are either constantly active or react to something.
There are different types of passive abilities, but insights are differents in a few points:
a . they are linked on the very soul of the user (and thus cannot be changed)
b . their effects/strength can evolve with time
c . their perception might change with people
c . they cannot be seen in the status screen
Think of insight as inherent effects linked to someone's very being. They cannot be deactivated unless the person itself ceases to be. Also, people having the very same insight at the very same level might not experience it the same way though there will be similarities.
That is how Paths are. People are born with a Path and cannot change it until they cease to exist. They also cannot turn off their Paths' effects once they are activated (though the effect can be dimmed), and people from the same Path might not be able to get benefits from it in the same way.
2 . How many Paths are there?
This is a question that cannot be answered at the moment. That is because new Paths are discovered almost every year and there's still a debate—that I personally find stupid—on whether or not people sharing Paths or having two or more Paths should be considered to be new cases all together.
Personally, I believe those special cases should simply be listed as aberrations of their main counterpart. The term aberrations here is of course used with the same meaning as it was when the Yellow Path was created, but not so extreme of course.
Now, should we ignore those, there's still the debate whether or not Awakened Paths should be counted as main Paths. Normally I would answer by the affirmative, but this would also classify the Paths Eldwitches, Judges, Executioners, Ba'als, and whatnot haves as main Paths too. For this reason (and because there's no time to review all candidates of such a big list), we will focus on the old classification that is sadly growing out of fashion these days.
This was a classification based on the communities holding those Paths and based on it, they are Six (6) Paths.
The first three are those belongings to those who were first graced with the divine grace of the Smiling One. Depending on where you ask, the list is either Green, Purple, and Blue, or Red, Orange, and Green.
The first one is the one mostly learned but if I have to use a bit of critical thinking here, I would say that the Red, Yellow and Blue Paths all share a single trait: they can be awaked.
So I will put it like this.
a . The Paths that are only acquired through birth which I will call Bloodborne Paths (Purple, Green, Orange)
b . The Paths that can be acquired either through birth or some form of stress called Awakened Paths (Red, Yellow, Blue).
Regardless, each of these Paths is linked to one of the 6 Great Clans of the world and each of those clans were originally the only one to possess them. Then, the clans started to mingle together, creating its own set of happy and sad accidents.
Aside from those, there's the three (3) Paths of the Eldwitches, the twelves (12) Paths of the Judges, and the seven (7) of the Ba'als to cite a few.
We, of course, don't have the time to dive too deep into those so I believe we should conclude on a rapid description of the most common Paths—the six ones I described at first.
3 . What do they do?
Probably the most important question. What does each of the—what I will now have to sadly refer to as the—main Paths do?
We are not sure. Unlike normal passives, we can't visually check the effects of an insight.
However, those are very old insights in our history and they have been studies on them for centuries now, so we are not starting this discussion with no basis at all.
So, let us begin by the Bloodborne Paths.
What does the Green Path do?
The Path associated with the most numerous clan of the continent, the humans. Humans are naturally born with it and it cannot be acquired otherwise—not really.
This allows them to stock things in or on other things while ignoring size and mass just by holding them. Just by grabbing a sword, one could put it in their pocket as if it was a twig for example.
But it goes further. One could also stock something into something effectively fusing things that normally have nothing in common with rather surprising effects—I believe they call this crafting and is the reason why humans rely so much on tools.
Well, that reliance did make them one of the strongest clans on the continent when their bodies are otherwise pretty weak. The class associated with that Path is Craftknight, the tools derived from it are inventories and equipments.
What does the Purple Path do?
The Path associated with our kind, witches.
It allows us to see the domains left behind by being called visitors and establish a link to them. But I suppose this is a bit technical now, isn't it?
So allow me a little tangent here.
What are visitors?
There are people coming from other worlds, like Ba'als, though the term mostly refers to those who come from some world similar to our own.
The system seems to favor them and give them incredible powers no one else has.
Additionally, they seem to be favored by fate and people too as most of them are instantly liked by almost everyone they meet and are able to control them like puppets.
Like Ba'als they are theorized to be superior beings but they use avatars that looks like us. You might have guessed it by now, but some call them heroes which is why I won't bother to explain why the fourth order isn't tracking them down like they do with Ba'als and their worshippers.
Now that is explained, I can explain domains.
What are domains?
They are places, conceptual or not, that are linked to a specific name or keyword. In the case of visitors, they are conceptual places where their powers are stocked.
So, what does the Purple Path actually do?
By using the name of a visitor, we can use the powers in his domain. As visitors mostly have powers that bend the laws of our world, those often break the laws of common sense.
Making fire out of thin air, healing grave injury with light, making thunder strike when there's not even a single cloud in the sky… This is what we called witchcraft.
The class associated with this Path is, of course, Mage, and the tool derived from it is magic. We might talk about this in more detail later on.
What does the Orange Path do?
The Path of the fairies, the beings of radiance. They are the rarest beings on the continent yet one the most feared.
Their Path allows them to manifest their inner world into reality. Think of it as a materialization of their souls, something quite similar to a domain with the only difference being that they aren't linked to the actual name of the user, but the name of their inner self.
This can manifest in two ways—a being called a Lucid or an area called a Circle. The latter is an area inside of which the rules of the world are overwritten by those of the user's mind, while the former is a being that can be summoned and whose properties are defined by the user.
I must note however that when I say that those two abilities are defined by users, I do not mean that in the literal sense. The fairy doesn't choose its Lucid or Circle, they are dependent on their personalities, experiences, and so on. What I often talked about as the soul, the embodiment of what a being is.
The classes associated with this Path are summoner and illusionist. The tool derived from it is the title system.
Now onto the Awakened three…
What does the Red Path do?
The Path of the demons, the most feared clan on the continent. At least until recently, I suppose.
The Red Path allows it's user to enhance themselves as they lose HP. This can even go into a full change of form for particularly powerful individuals. Those forms are similar to Lucids and Circles as they reflect they user's soul but can also be influenced by their lineages and the crown associated with it.
What are crowns?
Here it refers to the Seven Archdemons fathers to the seven great demon clans. Each of them has a specificity and can turn non-demon people into their kind with their blood though the method differs.
We won't enter into the details here sadly. What must be known for now is that the Red Path is the only Awakened Path that wasn't somehow created by other clans. In fact, demons existed on their own and their Path just happened to be accessible to non-demon beings under certain circumstances.
Still, it is the hardest of the Awakened Paths to willingly awaken.
Because of prejudice they suffer even to this day, there's no class associated with demons and thus the Red Path. It is the same for tools.
However the Demon Hunter class exists to kill users of the Red Path more easily and they use Cleansing Weapons as tools. Both are made using other Paths as the basis however.
What does the Yellow Path do?
The Path created in an attempt to reproduce the Orange Path. It belongs to the beings called sprites, but you might know them as dwarves or false-fairies.
Similar to the Orange Path, it manifest the user inner world in the outside world, but only as a action or group of actions. Think of it as way to push your body to do something without actually having to think about everything single details involving it—a way to move the way you wish in your mind without thinking of every step.
This is the Yellow Path. It wasn't able to perfectly reproduce the original, but it found its uses with the creation of two classes (Blade-Master and Monk) and the Art tool.
You see, while it can't bend reality to the same extent as a Circle for instance, it can still bend it enough to allow for feats outside of the user's actual capacities.
A powerful move totally automated by the user's imagination. Quite a powerful tool indeed.
For this reason, arts became invaluable in dungeon exploration just like magic and equipments.
What does the Blue Path do?
The last Path unrelated to any specific clan. Or rather, it is related to a clan that isn't really one—the similis.
It allows to perceive the true nature of things, to analyze them. From this analysis many things can be gained like an accurate estimation of someone's physical or even mental state as well as the position of all of their weak points.
I am saying this because this Path is mainly used for what is called critical hits which revolves around hitting something right in the cracks of their soul. Again, I use this term—soul—but what I mean by that is once again, the embodiment of what makes something what it is. It is the combination of the being's form and thoughts at any given point so to speak.
It is not only used for combat though as this analysis allows to also use other Paths to their utmost potential. It is in fact, possible to "critically hit" just about any action—you might know this as The Time, that moment of extra lucidity that often strikes unattended.
As you might have guessed, this Path is actually awoken in everything. One could say it is not even a Path as it only serves as a sub-path to most and that it wouldn't even have been discovered if nobody bothered to look for it.
Then again, you might forget that our very royal family is long line of pure Blue Path users. That is because the Coldhearts family is a family of similis, one of the only two types of beings in the world that can have this Path as their main one. Well, as far as we know.
What are similis?
Descendants of people possessed by visitors so to speak. Visitor themselves are the only other ones that can be of the Blue Path naturally.
They tend to have unnatural eyes patterns for humans. By that, I mostly mean strangely shaped pupils and no pupils at all in some cases.
The tool derived from this Path is the basis of every other tool. You know it for sure, it is the status screen. The class associated with this Path is Edge Fencer.
With that I conclude this rather long explanation on Paths. But before going away, I will address one of the points that might become a concern later on.
Why does some of these Paths seems to work on activation? Weren't they supposed to be passive abilities?
A rather good question. The keyword her is "seem" because no Path's is activated by the user so to speak though this might take a while to explain.
Let's take the Green Path. If it allows to stock everything and is always active, how come humans can live without stocking everything (the whole continent for instance) in their pocket?
Well, this is because…
a . Their attunement with their Path is not on that level
b . They cannot hold the continent which is somewhat necessary to use that Path until proven otherwise
Now, the reason they don't do it either with everything they CAN hold is because—and be prepared as it is not the only reason—Paths have an opposite force going against them called Common Sense or CS.
No, it is not totally a joke. We actually call it The Pillar of Reality, but it is simpler to call it by that other nickname.
What does it do? Simply, it makes Paths and everything related to the system significantly weaker outside of zones rich in miasma like monster dungeons. According to the church, it is the mechanism the Smiling One built to discourage the use of Paths outside of where they are supposed to be used.
As a matter of fact, the Green Path taken in this exemple is one of the Path who is the most affected by CS to the point it barely works outside of dungeons for people with low attunement (which is a condition most common in the human clan interestingly). This is why even with the constant activation, humans do not actually seems to use the Green (Path) at all.
Still, one might notice that they often lift objects heavier than they should be able to like those giant swords they seemed to like a few decades ago—this is especially true for people who spend a lot of time in dungeons or crafting items using the Green.
But as you can see, humans always use their Path, just not in a visually impressive way.
Then, there's the invocation of Lucids and Circles done by the Orange Path. Are those not activated too?
Actually, those are constantly active too as a great user of the Blue Path noticed. This allows me to talk about the last reason why Paths are not really activated—the intensity of their effects can be adjusted which gives the illusion of activating them. This is what I referred as attunement earlier.
While the maximum value on an attunement is not known, a state called attunement 0 does exist though it is not attainable by living beings. What it means is a complete disconnection from a Path and the powers linked to it.
The CS does reduce the attunement level, but so does the user's will.
Still, Paths are called Paths for a reason. They are the pathways, not the powers themselves. Raising your attunement simply means following the path—lowering it means putting yourself on the side of the road. The Powers themselves are always active just like a river will still run whether or not you are into it.
To explain why this is different from active skills like magic and arts would require me to speak of them now which isn't the subject. However, we will eventually speak of them so be patient please.
Well, well, that was a rather lengthy lecture, wasn't it? And I barely flew above the whole thing. I hope it allows you to understand more the essence of what we must do as researchers of the magic towers because understanding core concepts is only the beginning towards reaching the truth.
Should you be curious about the Light, blessings, and the Smiling One… don't ask me about them. There are vestals in the white tower, they should answer your questions about the holy and the divine better than I.
They also use different terminology to talk about all of this so you might get confused, but that's really necessary at some point here.
Anyway, class is dismissed. Don't forget to bring your Monster Compendiums next time since I intend to introduce them too before speaking about magic and arts.
See you next time.