Does Illumination Protect Chaotic Personal Items From Detection?

[EricW]

Say an illuminate who has the ability undetectable as law or chaos wears a chaotic magical ring? Does the ring detect as chaotic?

What if the illuminate swallows the ring? Is it still detectable as chaotic?

If the ring is detectable as chaotic even if swallowed, what about chaos ooze? At what point would the chaos ooze no longer be detectable as chaotic?

[French Desperate WindChild]

imo illumination is not a "power" / "spell" / etc

you are not detectable as law or chaos because your mindset says you are not law or chaos.

of course people will see your third leg or anything and can decide (and mistake) that you are chaos.

but that's for you, not your gear.

 

if a gear is detectable, it is, that's not the wearer that's the gear.

To swallow the ring ? I see it like a chaotic ring in a chest (ahah how can i do such word game). Will people detect the ring in a chest when its walls are  3-5cm wide of metal / wood / flesh

now you may have a chaotic power cancelling the nature of chaotic things you swallow, of course

[radmonger]

if the chaotic ring became undectable when a illuminate with that power picked it up, then that would be a test for illumination. Which seems contrary to the point of having that power.

[David Scott]

5 hours ago, EricW said:

Say an illuminate who has the ability undetectable as law or chaos

Don't forget it's an opposed roll Sense Chaos vs. Illumination ability. Immunity to Sense Chaos/Law Skills or Spells just lets the illuminate attempt the roll (and they can augment)

5 hours ago, EricW said:

wears a chaotic magical ring? Does the ring detect as chaotic?

I would suggest it depends what you believe a chaotic ring to be. If it's the opposite of a piece of truestone, so incorporates a piece of the chaos ooze, then it's independently chaotic. So the ring doesn't oppose the Sense Chaos roll, but the roll can still fail. I'd likely allow the ring's holder to augment a resistance roll for the ring with their illumination ability and apply that to a basic 20% Chaos taint. If the Augment fails then the ring can't resist.

5 hours ago, EricW said:

What if the illuminate swallows the ring? Is it still detectable as chaotic?

Yes. as above. 

5 hours ago, EricW said:

If the ring is detectable as chaotic even if swallowed, what about chaos ooze? At what point would the chaos ooze no longer be detectable as chaotic?

Beyond 15m, the range of Sense Chaos.

[PaulJW]

I'd say that items cannot be illuminated.  Therefore, if they are tainted with chaos they can be detected.

If a character possesses a magic ring, it will detect as magic even if the character themselves is not inherently magical and may not have cast any spells upon themselves.  The ring will still detect as magic however.  It's the same scenario.

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, PaulJW said:

I’d say that items cannot be illuminated.  Therefore, if they are tainted with chaos they can be detected.

• It is sometimes tempting to say that a Chaos taint is a condition of the soul brought about by choices.
  If we went with that, then objects with no souls would not have Chaos taints to detect.
   
• Your animism will vary, but some items might be candidates for Chaos taints, anyway — malicious soul-drinking swords, for example.
  Mournblade might become illuminated, I guess.
   
• I quite like the possibility that “Chaos tools” and even the raw stuff of Chaos itself is in no way tainted or illuminated.
  This is not pretend canon, just an idle heterodox thought.

[Malin]

22 hours ago, David Scott said:

Don't forget it's an opposed roll Sense Chaos vs. Illumination ability. Immunity to Sense Chaos/Law Skills or Spells just lets the illuminate attempt the roll (and they can augment)

Is that an official rule (from where?) or is it a YGMV one?

[David Scott]

9 minutes ago, Malin said:

Is that an official rule (from where?) or is it a YGMV one?

Lunar Way, page 96, Benefits of Illumination:  An Illuminate may actively use their Illumination skill to attempt any of powers they have received from Illumination.

Edited Thursday at 01:45 PM by David Scott

[mfbrandi]

21 hours ago, David Scott said:

Lunar Way, page 96, Benefits of Illumination

• Immunity to Sense Chaos/Law Skills or Spells
  With a successful skill roll, an Illuminate will not register to either type of sense or spell.
  — The Lunar Way: Nysalor/Gbaji (PDF, p. 96)
   
• Sense Chaos (Magic, Base 00%)
  The skill does not single out the source, but rather gives the Storm Bull cultist a sense of unease, or even pain, and the knowledge that Chaos is close at hand. The intensity of the feeling gives a rough estimate of the amount of Chaos present.
  — The Lightbringers: Storm Bull (PDF, p. 132)
   
• Opposed Rolls
  A simple success may not be enough to overcome the opponent … If both participants succeed, the winner is whoever achieved the better result … A tie (where both participants achieve the same type of success) means the situation is temporarily unresolved.
  — RQG: Opposed Rolls (PDF, pp. 142 & 144)

That one-liner from The Lunar Way doesn’t scream “opposed roll” to me. I appreciate that for the illuminate to add to the rough quantity of chaos detected, the Storm Bull would have to make their sense chaos roll, but that doesn’t mean that the opposed roll mechanic with its wrestling over a prize and its intermediate result of “temporarily unresolved” needs to be invoked, does it?

Why not independent rolls with the illuminates who made their rolls being deducted from the quantity of Chaos detected for any SBs who made theirs? I know the opposed roll spiel gives the example of hide vs. search, but is this case sufficiently similar, and would we say the hider–winner in that case was immune to the ability used to search?

I don’t pretend to know better — I am just confused.

[Aurelius]

On 9/5/2024 at 12:39 PM, mfbrandi said:

• Your animism will vary, but some items might be candidates for Chaos taints, anyway — malicious soul-drinking swords, for example.
  Mournblade might become illuminated, I guess.

I'd say all intelligent beings can become illuminated.

A sword is not intelligent even when an intelligent spirit is bound to it. The sword is not the body of a bound creature, so you have to consider the spirit and sword separately.

In some cases where a spirit is inhabiting a sword, then the sword might be considered its body, and if it is a body, then it might be protected with illumination. For instance, a clan wyter might be considered as "inhabiting" rather than "bound", and to me these might be metaphysically two different things? 

With chaos being chaotic, an odd case of just about anything might end up with intelligence. 

[David Scott]

On 9/6/2024 at 1:26 PM, mfbrandi said:

That one-liner from The Lunar Way doesn’t scream “opposed roll” to me.

Run it however you like.