Revision as of 08:08, 5 April 2010

Principles of Artifact Creation and the Velka System

It is widely known (to us, not to them) that Otakuchton was the first artificer, the very creator of the art of crafting artifacts. He shared his techniques with the first Meights, who were responsible for most, if not all, of the wonders of the Harem Age. Thanks to them, the other Bishonen could devote their time to being cool and surrounded by lots of cute girls. That is, until the Magical Girls complained. Not about the groping and flirting from the Bishonens, of course not. They complained on the qualities of the weapons created by the Meights and Otakuchton. They were weapons made by Bishonen, for Bishonen standards, and, as much as it hurt them to admit it, they weren’t kawaii enough to wield the most powerful ones (as reflected in their outrageous mote costs). A group of Magical Girls, led by Holy Thief Mela Velka, showed up before their Bishonen rulers and requested a new type of artifact that would grant them power comparable to that of the Bishonen without the excessive Moe expenses. First, the Bishonen laughed on their faces, to which the Magical Girls replied by taking off their clothes, revealing the skimpy swimsuits they were wearing under.

A special commission for the creation of these artifacts was created fifteen minutes later. It took that long because the Helping Goddesses had to mop away the “products” of the massive nosebleed that ensued.

For their immense intelligence, it took the Meights quite a while to figure out that an alternate, external source of Moe was necessary. This was already common in some artifacts, which absorbed the Moe of things as disparate as fields of pretty flowers, swarms of butterflies and the laughter of babies. However, the components necessary to draw Moe out of nature were (and still are) extremely complicated and massive, so they are limited to be used on the greatest structures. It was obvious that the only available, workable source were the Exalts themselves. That’s how the Moe Cartridge was born: a little cylindrical case for storing variable amounts of Moe, usually engraved with pretty motifs of flowers and ribbons. It didn’t take long before the first weapons compatible with the Moe Cartridges appeared, and the Magical Girls loved it. The Bishonen who created them named them Velka weapons, as a tribute to Mela Velka and her heavenly gorgeous body, which would be the main character of their dreams since that fateful, swimsuit-modeling moment. The old weapons, the “ordinary” ones, which didn’t require Moe Cartridges, were named Midchilda weapons, a name proposed by Otakuchton, after his favorite custom plastic nekomimi magical maid figurine. Everyone laughed for a very long time, and then they agreed.

Of course, the Bishonen would come to curse their lack of temperance during the Magical Girls’ betrayal, when the Velka weapons slew so many of them. After the Bishonen and the Cat Girls were obliterated, the Helping Goddesses agreed that the Velka System was a little too much for the flighty Magical Girls. Should they discover the Goddesses’ manipulation, they, too, would easily be defeated by the sheer numbers of super-powered Magical Girls. So, they secretly disposed of every existent Velka weapon, and made sure every existent record on how to craft them disappeared from Creation. Needless to say, they kept the knowledge to themselves. The greedy little……ahem.

Anyway, the Velka System didn’t completely disappear for two reasons. First: everything that is destroyed from the Ultimate System’s records ends up, in one way or another, within the walls of the Uber-Scary Magical Labyrinth of the Underworld. There, they were eventually found by the Lords of Cute Angst, which are now transmitting this knowledge to their Gothic Lolitas.

Second: there was a Velka-Type weapon the Helping Goddesses couldn’t destroy: Echoes of Forgotten Promises, Urashima Keitaro’s magic staff. As long as Keitaro’s staff exists, there will be a record of its existence in the Ultimate System, and the chance of a glitch copying pieces of that record who knows where, randomly scattering the secret of the Velka System throughout Creation. A renegade Otome found a mysterious wall with ancient glyphs that suddenly, one day, actually made sense. The little excited Otome was this close to rediscovering the Velka System, when she remembered she was in Windbloom and, well, it was destroyed.

Currently, the few remaining Velka-Type weapons from the Harem Age are in the possession of the Helping Goddesses. Some Gothic Lolitas have grown fond of the Velka System and are crafting Soulsteel Velka weapons that will probably make Creation tremble. Of course, Otakuchton took the Velka System with him to what would become Otaconia, and it is widely used by the Robot Girls. There are, of course, a few stray weapons that travel from hand to hand. The Helping Goddesses actively track and try to seize these. Finally, of course, there’s Keitaro, who, aside from his trusty old staff, also keeps a few more Velka weapons in Pararakerusu, including the trademark weapons of his partners Shinobu and Kaolla, which he always gives to their rightful owners every single time they reincarnate (not before teaching them how to use them properly, of course).

The Velka System

• As it should become obvious from the text above, the Velka System is limited to weapons. There is no Velka-Type armor, or Velka-Type transports, or whatever. Magical Girls wanted weapons of cute destruction, and that’s what they got.
• Velka weapons have an attunement cost, as Midchilda weapons and most artifacts. The point of the Velka System is allowing a weapon to possess additional, much more powerful abilities without the additional costs they would normally imply. In other words, any Velka-Type Artifact Rating 3 weapon is far more powerful and versatile than any Midchilda-Type weapon.
• Moe Cartridges replace the wielder’s Moe Pool as payment to activate the weapon’s abilities. Artifact Rating defines the amount of Moe each cartridge can store. Rating 1 cartridges store 2 motes (these are the most popular). Rating 2 cartridges store 4 motes, rating 3 store 8 motes, rating 4 store 12 and rating 5 cartridges store 20. Rating 3 cartridges and higher are mostly used on high-power artifacts such as siege weaponry, weapons of mass destruction or non-weapon artifacts which demand great amounts of Moe. These artifacts are not considered Velka-Type, even if they use Moe Cartridges.
• If the weapon’s wielder does not have cartridges available, he may use his own Moe pool to use the weapon. However, Velka-Type weapons weren’t designed for this method of use, which results in inefficiency: all Moe costs other than attunement costs are doubled when the Moe source is not a cartridge. This means Moe pools are quickly depleted by a Velka weapon.
• Every single Velka weapon has both the attunement cost and an operation cost, always expressed in cartridges per minute. This amount is rarely larger than four. Most of a Velka weapon’s special abilities are only available if the operation cost for that minute has been spent.
• The possibility of disposing of great amounts of Moe to power a Velka weapon is the secret of their versatility. Most Velka weapons are adaptive: which means that they supply more than one offensive (or defensive) option. This is translated in terms of Weapon Modes. Most popular arrangements are a hand-to-hand and a ranged combat mode, or offensive and defensive modes, or slashing and piercing damage modes, or even two apparently identical combat modes that support the wielder in different ways (Charm support and spell support, soak support and physical attribute support, etc.).
• Weapon AIs are more common in Velka-Type weapons than Midchilda weapons, obviously because it’s much easier for them to support the additional cost of maintaining an AI. Weapon AIs will be discussed in a further document, using the example of Keitaro’s weapon’s AI: Kanako, named after his lost sister, of course.

Comments

Oooh, cool. We'll need some design guidelines for this. --JohnBiles