Erfworld GenCon notes 2016

Erfworld GenCon 2016 Notes

Findamancy can be conceptualized with a fair bit of accuracy as the ability to query the Erfworld database for already-existing information and getting it in a format relating to the user of the discipline. At the most base level this is a query which returns a distance; "where is the nearest enemy heavy" returns "8 hexes away" or similar. Increasing mastery of Findamancy (and increasing expenditure of juice) gives direction and allows for the use of more complex queries from the user.

What Findamancy does NOT do is anything other than retrieve existing numbers. Pure Findamancy cannot, for example, say "find a ruler who would be willing to ally with me", because it can't model the interactions between units which may or may not result in an alliance (the example required would need date-a-mancy). It could find a ruler, or a ruler of a specific side, but it can't predict what that ruler will do. The farther you move outside the realm of hard observable facts, the more difficult a time Findamancy has. It may not be able to reference things based upon intangibles at all, even those whose existence is certain; that discussion was left incomplete. Nor can it reference the past, or potential futures; only the present is within its scope. Mixing it with other disciples can drastically change this; thinkamancy in Parson's summoning spell allowed for the Findamancy to locate someone based upon psychological criteria, for example. Presumably date-a-mancy could allow queries which account for modeling expected interpersonal interactions and signamancy could allow queries of past events.

The three disciplines of Hocus Pocus fit together in a highly synergystic way as different aspects of informational magic; Findamancy is essentially the database tables of Erfworld-as-it-is, Mathamancy does not gather data but rather is used to generate output tables of some specific operations using already-acquired data, usually presented as probability statistics, and Predictamancy alerts the user to special rules and cases which modify which of those probabilities are valid. Taken individually, any of these disciplines have significant holes in their ability to achieve what a caster might want, but when combined they make for truly staggering data processing ability by covering each others' informational gaps and leapfrogging off each others' information to produce more impressive results.

Summoning does fall under Findamancy, which initially seems unrelated to information retrieval, but object retrieval is in many ways a physical application of the same principle- except that instead of returning numbers in response to the findamancer's juice-fueled database query, Erfworld returns the object itself to them. The amount of juice required is directly proportional to distance, because movement in Erfworld is "paid for" by Move as units change location, and the Findamancer is essentially substituting for this Move by paying their juice instead. Note that this operation cannot be reversed- Findamancers cannot do outgoing teleportation, only incoming, because Findamancy is always rooted in the self- the user is the locational anchor of their spell. Hat Magicians can do outgoing, as we've seen in the comic, but they need an anchor (hat) at each end to make that work and it's functioning on entirely different principles.

Because of these applications and limitations, Findamancers are generally considered most useful when taken into the field, since triangulation and being close to any teleportation objectives means lower juice costs. A findamancer could have easily found Faq, veil or no veil, assuming that they asked the right questions.

Neutral cities go into stasis when their side falls, but the city will retain its command structure as a pseudo-side. That is, even though the units in there are barbarians, they still consider themselves allied to the other barbarians in-city and commanders can issue lasting orders, control troops they're not stacked with, and so forth. They are in stasis at any point during which the city is not contested, but the city being contested only requires an enemy presence in any city zone.

This means that there is an arguable "unlimited lifespan at no upkeep" exploit where a city of neutrals has a friendly warlord walk in every day, stay in the city without actually taking it so that it's "contested", then leave before nightfall. No upkeep is ever paid and the city-dwellers can continue to experience sapient awareness for as long as the warlord keeps showing up, though they'll never sleep, recover Move (which is set to 0 when they go neutral), or recover juice. Rob commented that this can certainly happen but is obviously limited by the existence of a friendly side maintaining the system, and they of course are paying the upkeep on the commander unit doing so.

On upkeep, the question of how, if only part of upkeep can be covered by rations, feral units can still feed themselves came up. The answer is that any non-commander unit can have the entirety of their upkeep covered by rations. It's only commander units that have an upkeep floor requiring the use of schmuckers instead of rations, generally 50% of their base upkeep. This means that a feral stabber or similar could conceivably live forever as a hunter-gatherer, but a feral warlord could not; he would need schmuckers.

To get them, there were a number of speculated options that Rob brought up or confirmed as likely-real-but-not-canon-until-declared-so. A barbarian warlord might pop with some in his purse (but those won't last), he could mine or otherwise acquire gems, he could get transferred them by someone else, or he could kill units. Units popped by sides with equipment can have their equipment "cashed in" for schmuckers by barbarian units which defeat them and claim it as trophies rather than use it as equipment for themselves, which allows barbarians to keep themselves alive as long as they keep raiding each other. Barbarians could also claim each others' purses outright if they should kill each other.

The foraging skill, which any unit can do, includes the set of actions needed to maintain the ability to forage. This means that the previously mentioned feral stabber (and yes, feral stabbers actually pop, this was confirmed) could repair or recreate a crude spear if his broke, or fashion hides into clothing, or similar; from Erfworld's perspective all of that is rolled into the "foraging check" the unit makes, along with the acquisition of food. The stabber could spend a day making a spear instead of hunting from his own perspective, but to Erfworld they're not distinct actions as long as they're ultimately both done in pursuit of ration acquisition.

Cities must always be popping; they can't choose not to pop. They can, however, constantly change production allocation so that they never actually pop anything, wasting their pop-time on units which are promptly cancelled. The economical thing to do if for some reason no more units are desired, though, is generally to pop a harvestable unit, though, because the one turn of upkeep they cost their side is inevitably a fair bit less than the money gained from the rations via harvesting.

Erfworld's size is undefined (Rob doesn't want to pin that down), but as a practical matter from an in-world perspective its effective size is very small. Travel is difficult because move is limited, and there's generally nothing practical that sides which are far apart can do for one another- if they don't border your neighbors, or at least border your neighbors' neighbors, then they might as well not exist at all. Move is limited for sides that don't have a lot of fliers, and sending units off exploring is a burden to the side doing it since there's no immediate practical benefit and their upkeep must still be paid. Aside from that, Erfworld is full of sides who want to keep their own territory as well scouted as is practical and who will notice the existence of others coming into their battlespace by changes in the turn order, and they may default to hostility. Securing safe passage agreements through multiple sides is difficult at best. The Magic Kingdom is an exception to this but casters aren't generally diplomats.

Units can be ordered to turn, but not freely. A unit of the side they're turning to must be present and active; the turn mechanic is fundamentally an offer of patronage from the side gaining a unit to the unit which is turning, a statement that they'll take responsibility for them (and their upkeep). This means that units can't be ordered to simply go barbarian- there would have to be a barbarian present and offering them the barbarian lifestyle in order for it to happen. If that criteria was met units could be spun off into barbarians freely, though, which could have uses in deniable operations or in having numerous units live past the fall of their native side (though see previous information about commander upkeep, so this has limitations).