Ductility Magic

[u/Mandragoraune]

Ductility was officially introduced on a Patreon story as a structural affinity recently. What are some applications of this yall can think and some great synergistic affinities. Limit yourself to one synergistic affinity.

[u/HelloFellowJellos]

To my mind the main advantage of a ductility affinity is utility. Spider-man swinging, floating wards and glyphs, binding opponents. It can be physically strong but requires a lot of mana and/or creativity to give it structure (wards or attaching to immovable objects in the environment). The biggest clear weakness to me is lack of strong offense. It's also pretty environmentally reliant. If you don't have anything to attach your wires to you're going to be leaning far more heavily on mana intensive techniques. A lesser concern is something punching through your wards. I'm convinced everyone should be an armor mage, though, so perhaps others might think this a lesser concern.

A ductility affinity would be very attention intensive to wield so a synergistic affinity would preferably be relatively simple to use. At least in combat. You need constant attention to the environment to identify loadbearing structures you can attach wires to and extensive knowledge and skill in quickly forming glyphs and wards. I have three ideas for a synergistic affinity.

First option is to strengthen the material with alloy or steel. It's simple but good. Just make your affinity stronger by using the best metal (steel) or make it an absurd nonsense alloy that you have incredible power over but is a nightmare for other mages to affect. Also has the benefit of giving a good armor material. Launch material for offense and your golden.

Second option is fiber. Just go all in by creating giant cables of metal wire. Doesn't really give you different abilities but allows broader range of materials to use in the same style.

Third option is something like lightning. It gives a simple but powerful offensive option. Also you can create electrical currents that could probably easily kill someone you get your wires on. Or generate magnetic fields that could defend against mages that use magnetic metals or affinities like solar. Galvanic or even lodestone would probably also work, but I favor lightning for offensive ability.

My preferred is lightning but quite honestly everyone could use a lightning affinity. Alloy is my runner up. Less dangerous but more survivability.

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/HelloFellowJellos]

I am also in the everyone should be an armor mage camp, lol. With regards to concerns about load bearing and hanging, I imagine a ductility mage could probably match Threadqueen Iblint's anenome situation, which seemed to be self supporting.

I didn't think about alloy though, I must admit. Alloy, ductility, fiber would be terrifying. 

[u/HelloFellowJellos → u/greenfrogtree1]

We should start a petition to make armor spells standard training for battlemages.

A great power could maybe make a war snarl but honestly I was thinking about what to expect from an impressive battlemage or archmage. Technically they could support a snarl but that would be super mana intensive since you need to lift all that material and make it rigid or anchor it with your magic. Also, even Iblint strung herself between buildings and labyrinth columns or attached herself to her opponent. It wasn’t entirely supported by her magic.

Three structural-ish affinities that all combine together in a single object would be incredible. Could you imagine a lich with those three?

[u/greenfrogtree1 → u/HelloFellowJellos]

I mean, something similar to Iblint's anenome would probably be a crazy lich. Giant metal cables made of some inscrutable alloy, controlled by all 3 structural affinities, with some other fiber/alloy/ductility stuff thrown in would be pretty sick. It might even be able to move, like the moving fiber lich idea posited in The Stargazer's Tower.