Bob the Geomancer

Bob the Builder: Geomancy Edition
a silly minigame module by castfromhp

~*Description*~

Performing acts of large-scale geomancy such as creating a house is like a careful dance with the earth itself. One first must call up a large collection of nature spirits in one spot, in order to make the land sufficiently malleable to compose it into a complex structure. However, even as you use your geomancy to shape gardens and spires and foyers, the land has a will of its own, and while it is not malicious toward your efforts, it is ultimately indifferent to them and may accidentally destroy the unformed parts of your structure in the natural ebb and flow of spirits - as well as accidentally harming you if you get swept up too close to where the spirits are flowing!

Therefore you must also take care to subdue the spirits as you build. However, one must be careful not to act too quickly in this - subdue all the spirits too soon and you will be stuck with what you have built - the nature spirits must remain alive and active for you to perform your construction work, but they must also be tamed enough to avoid destroying it. Only completely suppress the nature spirits and render them docile at the end of construction, when you are done designing your structure - or when they become too overwhelming and threaten to destroy what you have created.

~*Mechanics and Scene-running*~

Start off by leading the Geomancer into these conclusions about the difficulties of creating complex structures. This can be done by having their first few haphazard attempts at shaping the land fail to properly create something that needs as much precision as a house, and then slowly guiding them toward books on Geomancy, or by giving them hints through the ease or difficulty of construction when faced with different densities of nature spirits throughout the estate. Once they've realized what they need to do, you can start the construction scene properly...

Begin the scene by having the geomancer draw up nature spirits all in one spot. This will be a combination of nature/force/finesse rolls and describing the plot of land that will be used for the construction work - be sure to note to the Geomancer that their choice of biomes will impact both their options in constructing the house and the challenges they will face in molding and subduing the corresponding spirits.

Each round, the collective of nature spirits will occupy one of the chosen biomes in the plot of land for the house, and the natural ebb and flow of them will cause disruptive activity from the land to happen - geothermal energy from the earth rising up to damage a foundation, vines growing uncontrollably over a plot of land, water from the rivers of Treno overflowing their banks, etc, and the Geomancer acts at the same time to channel their choice of a Biome's energy toward two actions split between construction action and support action (explained later below), with the former building the actual house, and the latter being actions dealing with suppressing the power of the nature spirits and controlling the fallout from their activities. The two actions can be split any way each turn. The scene ends when the nature spirits have been totally rendered docile.

Strictly speaking, these rounds of combat do not take the usual amount of time but instead represent larger investments of time as a Geomancer shapes the land in a more developed and complex way. However, at the of construction, the structure is not fully complete, and the Geomancer needs to refine their house, though this need not be played out in a mechanical way.

OPTIONALLY SPEAKING there are ideas given for what kinds of mechanical benefits having particularly well developed instances of certain types of rooms may bring, though the reward itself could just be building a house to the geomancer's liking. If there aren't mechanical bonuses for parts of the house, consider setting rank targets for each component of the house for the Geomancer to meet before the battle starts (see directly below for rank explanation).

So summary of the mechanics:
1. a) Geomancer rolls nature and narrates which parts of the estate are being used to build a house.
b) Geomancer decides upon what parts of the house they're aiming to build based on what is possible from the biomes they choose.
BATTLE START
2. a) At the beginning of each round, the nature spirits and the geomancer each pick a biome to occupy.
b) Combat proceeds as normal, but the Geomancer has two actions per round by default and the option to do construction work in addition to attacking the nature spirits. Available actions are influenced by which biome is being occupied.
c) Combat ends once the nature spirits are defeated entirely, and the Geomancer must stop construction at that point as well.
3. Evaluate the rank of the parts of the Geomancer's home and give fluff/mechanics for the home appropriately.

~*Action Types*~

Construction Action: Choose a biome and roll nature to build a type of structure/room related to that biome or to reinforce an existing one. Add that to the value of a portion of the house. Value is rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with the first digit of the total value being the rank. (ex: 10-19 is rank 1, 20-29 is rank 2, etc) Higher ranked parts of the house will apply a bigger bonus or be required to gain a bonus. ex: maybe workshops require rank 3 at the least in a portion of the house, or you get a bigger variety of synth materials from a rank 4 magical atelier than a rank 2.

Support Actions vary based on the biome chosen, though one is always available.
Suppress - Make a geotrance attack roll against the nature spirits with a biome of your chose as the element. If you deal damage, subtract that from the nature spirits' vitality rating (aka HP). When the nature spirits' vitality rating reaches zero it is completely suppressed and the nature spirits are rendered docile.
The Nature Spirits will be rendered weaker to certain elements when occupying certain biomes. Don't tell the Geomancer though. Let them figure it out.

Defensive geotrances are always available too, but only in the biome you choose each turn.

If ever the Geomancer chooses the same biome as the nature spirits have occupied, they can roll an attack against the Geomancer as well in that round, fluffed as incidental damage/backlash from channeling so much raw nature energy.

The nature spirits always have the following actions available to them:
Ravage Land - the spirits make an opposed nature roll against the Geomancer (give them a HUGE bonus like 10 or 12 so that the question isn't really "will the Geomancer fail?" but "by how much do they fail?" and subtract that value from one of the strutures the Geomancer has built. What this typically ensures is that the nature spirits will not totally wreck the house, but they will do enough damage to make it difficult to get high values on all their parts of the house without some strategy being involved.

Lash Out - the earth strikes out against the geomancer shaping it. The spirits make an attack roll against the geomancer with element corresponding to the geotrance of the biome they're occupying.

~*Biomes*~

These are listed with a description of what kind of area they are, what they can be used to build, what benefit those places could provide, what offensive options they give to a nature spirit, and how they modify the Geomancer's Support Actions.

Note - you should probably only tell the Geomancer what can be built in each biome type and then explain their ability options only after they have committed to a biome choice, so they're discovering things as they go.

Forest - Obviously, the forested parts of the estate.
Can be used to build: Gardens, Fancy wooden furniture within the estate, etc.
(optional) What is that good for?: A place with available components for creating food that refreshes once in a while.
Nature Spirit Ability: Hindering Vines - Make an opposed force roll vs the Geomancer. If you win, they are set to one action per round for 1d4 turns. Cannot be reapplied until it wears off.
Support Action: Redirecting Vines - As a standard action, if you are occupying the Forest Biome, you may choose to change the target of the Nature Spirits' Ravage Land action.
Vulnerability: Fire

Plains - the flat part of the estate, makes up most of the area
Can be used to build: pretty much anything, it's kind of the neutral "build stuff that's a house" area
(optional) What is that good for?: You may want to make the rank value of the plains portion act as a bottleneck on how fancy the rest of the house can be (ex: the square of the rank of the plains portion is the maximum total of the rank values you can add up from the rest of the house's parts)
Nature Spirit Ability: None
Support Action: None
Vulnerability: Earth

Mountain - The rocky parts of the estate
Can be used to build: the foundation of the house, large structural supports, etc
(optional) What is that good for?: If mechanical benefits are given out at all, allocate ranks from the mountain biome parts of the house to other parts of the house to represent those parts being particularly well built
Nature Spirit Ability: Unmoving Mountain - While the Nature Spirits occupy the Mountain biome, they can only use Ravage Land, but they double their ARM and M. ARM.
Support Action: Reinforced Stone - As a standard action, pick one part of the house you have started to build. You roll at +4 whenever resisting Ravage Land against that part of the house. Only one part of the house may be targetd by Reinforced Stone at a time. It takes an action to switch
Vulnerability: Water

Lava - Geothermal pockets underneath the ground
Can be used to build: Workshops, hotsprings, etc
(optional) What is that good for?: Well, obviously workshops are good for...being workshops
Nature Spirit Ability: Rage of the Land - When occupying the Lava biome, the skill bonus for Ravage Land is multiplied by 1.5
Support Action: All damage dealt to the Nature Spirits while channeling the Lava biome is increased by 50%
Vulnerability: Water

Underground - Areas of earth beneath the estate, especially if there are cave systems or the like
Can be used to build: a mine underneath the estate, secret cave systems for dungeons/storage/hiding
(optional) What is that good for?: Collect synthing materials once in a while, keep items hidden from authorities, keep prisoners?
Nature Spirit Ability: Hidden in the Land - AVD is increased by 4 while occupying the Underground biome
Support Ability: Sealed in Earth - The Geomancer may hide underground as a standard action. They take a -2 penalty to all construction rolls, rolls to resist ravage land, and AC checks this round for their second action. If they do so, they are immune to any attacks rolled against them by the nature spirits until the start of their next turn.
Vulnerability: Plains

Water - The Treno river
Can be used to build: a magical atelier surrounded by flowing water, a series of fountains
(optional) What is it good for?: Alchemy synth materials, possibly an alchemy workshop if the magical atelier option is taken
Nature Spirit Ability: Rejuvenate - Nature spirit casts Cura on itself for no MP cost.
Support Ability: Healing Springs - The Geomancer recovers 10% of their maximum HP each turn spent in the water biome, but their attempts to suppress the nature spirits deal half damage.
Vulnerability: Forest

~*Nature Spirit Stats*~

(note these don't follow FFd6 monster gen rules cause fuckit)
Creature Type: Arcane
HP: 350
MP: fuck that shit
PWR: 20
MND: 15
Nature Skill bonus: 12
Force/Finesse: 4/4
ARM/M. ARM: 18/18
AVD: 10
ACC: 7

Attacks increase from tier 3 to 4 to 5 as the nature spirits' HP goes down to 50% then 25%.