Tricks & Trials!

Tricks allow a witch, through headology, to trick a person into seeing an event that the witch wishes to occur. While the event does not actually happen, to the untrained eye, it often looks like a spell.

Headology is an extremely important aspect of the guild used by witches all over the Discworld that makes us truly unique from the other guilds. Headology is:

"Granny's magic seems to consist mostly of what she calls headology: understanding how people work, and playing on their expectations. Why cast a spell when hinting to the possibility of spells being cast or nasty things just sort of naturally happening works just as well, if not better? Intimidation is the crudest form of headology, though. Granny said of headology, 'That's all that matters. Everything else is just messing around.' It's a way of turning people's own customs, beliefs and tricks against them."

Headology seems to be a prime force behind creating tricks. Through convincing and manipulation (and the right bonuses) you can have a large hag stone remember a Trick for you. The best way to describe a trick is an infant spell. It's a trick in the matter that it's cast just like a spell, appears to be a spell, can consume items like a spell, but doesn't actually have an effect like a spell. It simply tricks the mind, by using headology, of the people who see it or are at the recieving end of it. However, what it does do is give XP and TMs which are very helpful to the growing witch.

Though an important aspect of tricks are what they reflect. The more witches who learn and cast a trick the more popular and well-known it becomes. Here is a growing list of tricks. These tricks can be obtained by random luck through a variety of witch stalls such as Hilta's, Mama Diksha's, and Harmony's. From Hilta's you can also order tricks.

Dates for the Lancre Witch Trials:
     10 April 2005
     26 September 2004
     13 September 2003
      7 June 2001

At the bottom of this page I'm attempting to gather and list known problems and milestones that often occur while making tricks.

Trick Manual

Tricks, to many ladies, are something of an artform. You're weaving together a spell that is not only practical but something of an artwork. You need necessary skills for tricks particularly to make larger ones and the actual writing of the stages is something of a poetic form.

Each of the more formal sections have a follow up italicized section containing examples and extra help, which, will hopefully, make your trick making experience run a little more smoothly.

I. Starting Off

To make a trick you must use a Large Hag Stone. These can be found around streams in quiet places such as the willow tree near Granny's, the river that runs through Scrogden, the river in Bes Pelargic, and around Creel Springs. All that is required is for you to "search" the area. They can sometimes be difficult to find. If one has recently been taken for the area it could be some hours before another one is made available. There are stones sold at Hilta's in OC, however, these most often already have a trick in them so the stone is useless for making your own.

Searching uses ot.points. A successful search looks like: You search around and find a large round stone that, curiously enough, has a hole through it. You pick it up. A hag stone looks like: This is a large piece of grey stone, perfectly round, smooth and with a symmetrical hole running through the middle. All in all, it's the perfect hag stone to use when perfecting a spell for the Witch Trials. It has the hazy octarine sparkle of a magical talisman. To check and make sure the stone is empty you can "listen to stone". Fortunately: You put the large round stone up to your ear and listen intently. The wind whistles through the hole in the stone and rattles around in your head. This is an empty stone.

II. Granny Benedict's Bond of Loyalty

You need the spell Granny Benedict's Bond of Loyalty or to find an older witch about who is willing to perform the service. To then bond the stone to yourself use, "cast Granny Benedict's Bond of Loyalty with hag stone 1". This stage links you mentally with the hag stone so you'll be able to "convince" it into doing what you want it to.
Skills used: miscellaneous, talisman, summoning, charming, and binding

The entire process of making a trick depends on the witch having a bond with the stone.

III. WARNING!

This is my advisory step. Please actually write your Trick in notepad or a word document and not actually in your MUD client! Not only is it safer but next time you make a trick it's much easier. You'll only have to fill in the blank then copy (ctrl-c) and paste (ctrl-v). If you don't do this you risk exploding and bugged stones not to mention this makes rewriting the trick, if necessary, much more easy.

Throughout the trick making process you'll be using "syntax convince". Below is a run through of the stages you'll have to go through with convincing to finally have a trick!

At this point, "syntax convince" only gives one option: convince <stone> to learn <Trick>

IV. Naming Your Trick

First you need a name for your trick. It must be a unique name not like any other spell or trick and it is case sensitive. You can even name it after yourself if you'd like!
Syntax: convince stone to learn {Trick}
Skills used: talisman, evoking

Our example trick: convince stone to learn Granny Fyodor's Bat Treat If this is successfully done you'll get "The large round stone nods agreeably."

V. Trick's Target

As with real Spells, Tricks can be cast on someone, something, or nothing.
Syntax: "convince <your Trick's name> that it isn't cast on anything"
"convince {Trick} that it is cast on something"
"convince {Trick} that it is cast on someone"
Skills used: talisman, convoking

At this point "syntax convince" will limit you to either 1) having your stone forget the trick you're having it remember. This is an option that will remain until the very end. And 2) to set the stone so it's cast on something, someone, or nothing. Our trick is going to be cast on someone. The syntax for this is: convince Granny Fyodor's Bat Treat that it is cast on someone. During the trick making process a "voice" will speak to you. The voice either tells you that it accepts what you're trying to convince it of or that you need to try again. When you have to try again either the stone does not understand what you're trying to do, you can't do it, or you don't have the skills for it. Usually this is the latter option.

VI. Amount of Trick's Stages

This is probably the most difficult, skill wise, of Tricks. How long your Trick is or how many stages it will have. I don't think there is a maximum amount of levels (though I've never heard of more than five) but it does need a quite heavy convoking and talisman bonus. However with a 190+ convoking bonus 3 stages should not be a problem and with a convoking bonus of 250+ a 5 stage trick is certainly an option. However, the more stages you have, the harder it will be to educe at the end from the stone.
Syntax: "convince {Trick} that it has {number} stages"
Skills used: talisman, convoking, special

Stage number basically represents how intricate, developed, or challenging you're going to make your trick. While a one stage trick can be nice a many stage trick can bring new dimensions to your creativity! At this point using "syntax convince" brings up the familiar option of 1) having your stone forget the trick and now a new option 2) to set the stages. To make our trick a little more of a challenge we'll have it encompass two stages. The syntax for this is: convince Granny Fyodor's Bat Treat that it has 2 stages Once again, at the completion the stone will "speak" to you.

VII. Body of Trick

Now this is where you get to actually inform your trick to tell you and the audience what it should be doing! Certainly the most creative and important part of a trick. However, in your stages you need to state what skill you're choosing to use and try to be careful that you don't accidentally include more than one skill. To include a skill (it's not mandatory) just include it's name such as "brew" or "brewing".

However, if you do accidentally include two different skills the MUD will automatically select which one it's using. Any skills in the ma.methods skill tree can be used here. There are some "technical" sides to this in considering pronouns and so forth, I recommend looking at the Discworld MUDs webpage for trick information and help here.

A specific skill can also only be used twice within a single trick.
Syntax 1: "convince {Trick} to say "{message}" at stage {number}"
Syntax 2: "convince {Trick} to tell me "{message}" at stage {number}"
Skills: talisman, convoking, animating

For many this is undoubtedly the most complicated bit of trick writing. Not only does "syntax convince" have a much wider range of options in addition you'll need to decide whether or not to use any skills and if so how exactly to state the skill in the trick! The advantageous part of adding a skill is the use of any skills from the ma.methods tree can lead to prospective TMs.

VIII. Trick Consumption

You can choose for you trick to need or even consume specific items. For this you must have the specific item in your inventory.
Syntax 1: "convince {Trick} that stage {number} consumes {item}"
Syntax 2: "convince {Trick} that it needs {item}"
Skills: talisman, convoking

IIX. Trick Difficulty

This stage is very important particularly when it comes to TMing... how hard will each level be? That depends on your bonus and the skill in that stage. A good rule of thumb is if your bonus is under 100 set easy, under 200 set average, under 300 set difficult, under 400 set impossible. (This is not exact nor precise.) The difficulty markers do overlap it seems to a great degree at times. If you're nearing the border of a particular difficulty range you'd like to TM I recommend making a trick of varying difficulties. If you use focus tea on this the TMable stage tends to be around the "flip a coin" message,
Syntax: "convince <Trick> that stage {number} is easy,average,difficult,impossible}"
Skills: talisman, convoking

IX. Setting & Educing Your Trick

Now you've finally arrived at the end. First thing you need to set your trick. Here, if anything has gone wrong, you'll be informed and can go back and fix it. If everything went well you'll break your bond with the stone and it will officially be set. (This comes to the point of why I warned about writing offline rather than in a MUD client.) Often Tricks can be rather tricky too educe. The larger they are the better educing (talisman bonus) powers you'll need. Firstly I recommend going some place quiet, forgetting all the spells in your head, "forget all spells", use a bronze helm if you have one available, and educe away!

Three things will happen at this point. The trick is sucessfully educed into your head stone intact, the trick is sucessfully educed but your stone crumbles into dust, or you're stone explodes. If the latter happens you'll need to repeat this process with a new stone.
Syntax Setting: "set {Trick} in stone"
Syntax Educing: "educe {Trick} from stone"
Skills: talisman, convoking, binding

From Woom: Educed tricks take the form of a miscellaneous spell. To calculate the GP cost of casting a trick, start with 20 and add 20 for each stage of the trick. This way a one stage tricks costs 40GP to cast while a five stage trick costs 120GP to cast. To calculate the size of your trick start with zero and add two for each easy stage, six for each average stage, 13 for each difficult stage, and 16 for each impossible stage.

X. Testing Your Trick

After all this hard work we finally get to test your Trick. South of Lancre square you'll find a scarecrow named Unlucky Charlie. If your Trick is cast on someone "remove Charlie from pole" otherwise let him be keep him on the pole. If your Trick is cast upon someone or something, "cast {Trick} on charlie" otherwise just "cast {Trick}". Now you have the otherwise leave him on the pole "look Charlie" to see what he saw or "gaze into ball" to see what the audience would have seed. If any typos or such have occured or any tweaking is to be done you do have to start over from the beginning to mend these problems. Otherwise though, good job!

Tricky Complications

While making tricks many things can go wrong. Stones can stop accepting convinves for no apparent reason, other times a stone for no reason will refuse to be educed. While certainly not all expansive this is a continually growing list of some problems a witch may face whilst making tricks. Currently these are in no particular order.

1. You Must Use A Capital Letter At The Start Of Each Word Throughout The Entire Name Of Your Trick. They Are Case Sensitive!

2. Sometimes stones are simply borked. You may want to try dropping it and picking it up again, suing, or worse comes to worse simply find another stone.

3. If you're having problems initially getting your stone to be convinced make sure you've "listen to stone" to ensure that there are no other tricks or spells within it.