Reign

The Origins

It was a sight he had witnessed all too many times: a blood-soaked battlefield, soldiers laying on the ground with their limbs torn or hanging on ligaments; screaming and wailing, bodies impaled through broken bayonets and faces lying in the mud with their bodies disconnected from them, severed and tossed into some pile of bodies or some ditch dug into the center of the field. For once, a twisted thought ran through the Draedan's mind: what if I made all of this much, much easier? The severing, the blood-soaked bodies, the bullet wounds from something other than rackety, barely-functional muskets. Taelian considered what bringing a brutally efficient war magic to his own side might do in helping to reshape the world to a more personally preferential state, and so Reign was born.

Concepts

The Guncrown: Reign is unique among all magics in that it is the only magic with two Marks of Control: one is the image of a tattooed bandolier of bullets that runs laterally across both sides of the left hand and through the palm, while the other is the image of a tattooed crown of thorns that wraps horizontally around the center of the right palm. Both of these markers are considered the two halves of the Guncrown, the axis through which Reign creates and manages the elements of the magic. When the magic is in use, both of these symbols will flow with a molten-like mixture of the color gold (the bandolier) and red (the crown of thorns).

Gunbelt: The bullet-bandolier can forge bullets in the left hand, which can then be loaded or reloaded into the Kingmaker's gun. Reloading is not required, but by reloading the Kingmaker will significantly reduce the ethereal cost of bullets, shells, rockets or other fuel for Reign's abilities, overall considerably increasing the magic's efficiency.

Bloodwelt: Each time a gun is created or reshaped in the Kingmaker's right hand, they can choose to squeeze the gun tightly against their palm, which will trigger the crown of thorns to bloody the palm with barbs. As the mage bleeds, their blood will flow along the barrel of the gun, feeding the weapon with sustenance. All bullets fired by a properly blood-fed gun will splinter into shrapnel shards upon impact, greatly increasing their ability to inflict wide-scale harm.

Initiation

The Mark of Reign, the Guncrown, is delivered to the body of the initiate in a unique way: it is shot into their head, point-blank, with Specter; no bullet is loaded into Specter's clip, but instead the Mark itself, which will penetrate through the skin and infuse into the arteries of the body before flowing down towards the soul. Before the Mark manages to meld with the soul, it is a physically tangible calculi, squeezing through arteries in an excruciating and damaging crawl. Many initiates of Reign die from internal hemorrhaging and arterial ruptures as it travels through them, and most go unconscious from the sheer agony it inflicts.

Heart failure resulting from prolonged blockage claims the lives of many initiates, though this initial travel towards the soul poses the greatest threat. Once the Mark melds with the soul, the initiate's eyes will open and glimmer gold, as they witness themselves lying on their knees in an open field, a crown of thorns causing blood to pour down over their features as they bake in the sun's warm light. Around them will lie a veritable artillery, and in order to awaken they must load one of the weapons with a bullet from the bandolier around their torso, press its barrel against the crown of thorns and towards their brain, and fire.

Overstepping

The drawbacks listed below do not always come in pairs, and certainly not simultaneously. Some may come and others may not.

Lesser: Nausea, fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, dehydration

Moderate: Bleeding through the nose, eyes and ears, intense cramps, seizure-like shocks and spasms, internal bleeding, vomiting and weakness

Severe

Ideation: Ideation is a very lethal penalty, though it can be survived. This backlash against the overuse of Reign causes the Kingmaker to become fixated on their own death, descending into a suicidal mania where all they can envision is hundreds of violent iterations of their own death. Ideation can last a week or even longer, and during Ideation's subversion of the Kingmaker's mind, all bullets fired from any gun (Reign or otherwise) will immediately reverse towards the mage, potentially killing them outright.

Mutations

Reign's mutations generally involve things like: guns, precision, hand-eye coordination, bloodlust and the relevant themes of the magic. They also often involve particular weapons within Reign, their mechanics, and their bullets or related capabilities. Because of Reign's split focus between several weapon archetypes, no two sets of Reign themes tend to be the same.

Abilities

Amass: Novice. Within the hand that wields the crown of thorns, Amass allows the Kingmaker to form their initial weapon, a process performed by creating a "cast" (or shape) with ether and having the Mark of Control's will flow through it, with the crown of thorns as a conduit. At Novice and when the Kingmaker is first inducted into the magic, Amass can only create Specter, a set of dual-revolvers that will form in each hand and provide the basic functionality of the magic Reign. Though Amass enables the Kingmaker to form an unlocked weapon, only by learning the firing ability can the Kingmaker actually use the gun. Amass enables the creation of six total weapons:

Specter. Specter's two arms appear as rusted red revolvers with a black handle, with a skeletal face wearing a battered bronze crown on both sides. This weapon is meant to provide general use, including dueling and short to medium-range combat.

Purifier.

Bloodletter.

Maligner.

Unmaker.

Magnate.

Avenge: Novice. WIP. Fire an ethereal bullet from Specter.

Reign: Apprentice. WIP. Shift the ethereal gun into a different form. Artillery (Magnate), flamethrower (Purifier), sniper (Unmaker), dual-pistols (Specter), shotgun (Bloodletter), Gatling gun (Maligner).

Stagger: Apprentice. WIP. Withhold bullets in the air, firing them at intervals.

Cleanse: Apprentice. WIP. Activate the flamethrower (Purifier), releasing an unyielding torrent of flame.

Pyromania: Apprentice. WIP. Create a lingering pocket of fire with Purifier, both controlling the battlefield and coating any bullet that passes near it with a brutal flame.

Leaden Vortex: Journeyman. WIP. Do a full spin, releasing dozens of bullets from Specter with each three-sixty rotation.

Bloodspray: Journeyman. WIP. Fire Bloodletter, each impacting bullet swelling into a red bulb that implodes the surrounding section into a bloody paste. Bullets are blade-like shrapnel shards.

Armament: Journeyman. WIP. Create a shard of ether in your hand, before throwing it. Upon impact, Armament explodes outward with devastating shrapnel.

Leadtide: Journeyman. WIP. Fire Maligner (Gatling gun), releasing a torrent of hundreds of bullets to mow fows down.

Rebuke: Expert. WIP. Travel to one of your bullets, before releasing an explosion by striking it with your fist.

The Rail: Expert. WIP. Fire the sniper rifle (Unmaker), unleashing a bullet that exceeds the speed of sound and annihilates all it crosses.

Calamity: Expert. WIP. Fire the artillery (Magnate), releasing a torrent of rockets that decay into fiery beams.

Bulletreign: Master. WIP. Unleash thousands of bullets from Specter, raining down on enemies without relent.

Overreign: Master. WIP. Merge all guns into a massive laser-cannon, held by both hands and able to dismantle nearly all matter.

Hellbreaker Abilities

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Ascension: The Hellbreaker

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