Rites and Weaving

What is Wyrd and Menhir?

Wyrd is the name of wild magic; it is everywhere. Many centuries ago, the gods twisted and honed a portion of Wyrd and in so doing created Menhir, a vast sentience of Wyrd, which settled deep beneath the surface of the land. Menhir reaches out to the land’s surface through places known as the Fragments, and it is here that Wyrd Weavers may join with Menhir to create great and powerful Weavings of Wyrd.

Guardians

In Menhirs Fate, Guardians are all full time members of Menhirs Fate staff and here to help facilitate Weaving. All Weavers may seek advice on ideas that they would like to try and achieve with Menhir from a Guardian who will be available throughout the event at the Circle of Weavers or at the Fragment.

In the game: The Guardians are people who have spiritually joined with Menhir. They were all once Elandrians many years ago, but after Menhir’s creation, Shards were placed within them and the Guardians were born; living embodiments of Menhir. They have the ability to understand Menhir and help represent its desires to other people. They are also Menhirs protectors and will guard it at all costs from damage or destruction. Politically, the Guardians are neutral and have no strong feelings about what variety of Weaving is worked in Menhir, as long as no damage is done to its Fragments.

Rites and Weavings

Weaving is the commonly used name for a large and unique working of magic. Rites are small specific Weavings that can be done anywhere and anytime because they are smaller and more common workings.

Weaving

What can I do with a Weaving?

Weavings can make great and varied workings of power. None of them are pre-prescribed and so are unique to the individual needs and wants of the Weaving team. Broadly speaking, the range of things that can be achieved by Weavings are as follows

Enchantments – Items may be enchanted up to one year duration with specialist enchantments that are not covered by basic enchantments.
Hexes – These will always require a sympathetic link to the individual or location that you want to hex. It will also require deployment in some form. Until deployment, the Weaving will be held either in a Weaver or item. Please note, the longer you wish to hold onto this Weaving before deployment, the harder it will be to achieve.
Enhancements – Characters may be enhanced for up to one year. Please note, characters may only hold one Weaving enhancement at a time.
Area effects – This may be an area that provides a short term boost to those within the area, or it may cause damage to those within the area. The difficulty of this will be determined by the effect, its duration, and how long you wish to keep it before deployment.
Divination – Characters may use menhir to discover truths within the game, however some secrets are well hidden and the better the secret, the harder the divination.

The list above is not exhaustive, so feel free to come up with thematic ideas for Weavings that fit your Weaving sphere.

At the start of Menhir’s Fate, the Haven Fragment of Menhir, while powerful, is not at its full strength. You may find that there are some Weavings that are simply unattainable at present that may become easier in the future depending on player action…or harder.

What cannot be achieved with a Weaving?:

Power aside, there are some things that Menhir simply cannot do, as listed below

Resurrect the dead – Although there is great Athrian power that can certainly be utilised with Menhir, it stops just short of returning a character to life in their original state.
Flying – You may gain wings a plenty but sadly, no power in this world will give you flight.
Immediate total annihilation – You can do some awful stuff if you put your mind to it, but deployment is the crucial factor here. You cannot simply do a Weaving to destroy a target. That Weaving has to be delivered either in-game for characters, NPCs, monsters etc, or through downtime if the target is a homeland or distant affair.
Heal real world ailments – This is a role play game and unfortunately its limits only affect in game afflictions.
Time Travel – Although some Weavings may allow you insight into both the future and the past, they cannot ever take you forward or back to those moments in a way that could allow you to interact with or change the outcome of those events.
Turn a character into a God – Not even Menhir is this powerful, if you seek Godhood, you must look elsewhere.

So what do I need to do to create a Weaving?

As a brief overview, a Weaving consists of 4 necessary parts:

The Handsels – These are gifts and offerings to Menhir which have a sympathetic link to the Weaving being woven. In order to determine the Handsels needed, the Weaver must first enact a Rite called “Handsel Augury” to commune with Menhir and discover its “price”. The Weaving does not require all of the Handsels requested to succeed, but a larger Handsel is better and a Handsel too small may make the Weaving outright impossible to control.
The place and time – Unlike Rites, Weavings may only be done inside a Fragment. Weavings will have no effect outside of the Fragment. As the great power of Menhir is often in high demand, Guardians have created a system of dedicated time slots which Weavers can book for their Weaving. Once a Weaving team feels confident that they have the required Handsels, they may now visit the Guardians at the Circle of Weavers and book a time slot for their Weaving. If there are no available slots at this gathering, your weaving will be transferred to a following event and the Guardian team will work with you to make sure this works for you and your team.
The Weavers – A Weaving requires Weavers to do their work. Some Weavers are more powerful than others, and all Weavers are aligned to at least one sphere of magic. Weavers whose alignment matches that of the Weaving will be able to use their full power level within that sphere, while those outside their alignment will only be able to contribute one point of their power to the Weaving, but can still assist. While the power of the Weavers is important and it will certainly help in some situations to have more Weaving power, it is certainly not the only factor. If you require guidance on how much power it is appropriate to bring to a Weaving, please speak to one of the Guardians for guidance.
The Weave – No amount of Handsels or Power will cause things to just happen. No crowd of Weavers standing motionless can shift a pebble. Once the right Handsels are gathered in the right place at the right time with the right group of Weavers, they will be able to commune with Menhir, combine all these elements together, and actually work to Weave their wonder.

Handsels

The Handsel requested can be anything from readily available ingredients like Flicker and Essence all the way to extremely rare relics and anything in between. They can be acquired through trade, thievery, battle spoils, quests,etc. As a general rule, the harder they are to acquire, the more favourably they will be seen by Menhir.

Only the Handsel that has been requested by the Menhir may be used to perform the Weaving, no substitutes are allowed. However, the Weaving does not require all of the Handsel requested to succeed. The Handsel is a suitable offering to be made, not a price demanded. A Handsel offering too small or only consisting of the most abundant of ingredients might make the Weaving impossible to work, but it can still be done without the full amount. Frugal Weavers should bear in mind that fulfilling a larger portion of the request will make the Weave easier.

Only one Handsel Augury may be in progress per person at a time. The Guardians will try to get back to you expediently but please be patient and try to limit your Auguries for Weaves you genuinely intend to perform.

Timeslots

If you wish to book a time slot during an event, pay a visit to the Circle of Weavers and speak to a Guardian. If there are time slots available they will book your team in. Please inform a Guardian as soon as possible if your team can no longer make that time slot as they are precious and may prevent others from having a chance to do a Weaving.

If there are no slots available for this event, then you can book for the following event and the Guardian team will do their best to help facilitate this for you.

Between events, you may request a time slot for the following event via your nation support staff. Every nation will have an allotment of time slots for each event, however if these are not booked prior to the event then they will become available for people to use during the event.

Alignment of a Weave

All Weavers have a type of magic that defines how they reflect onto Menhir. This doesn’t prevent them from doing anything specific but does determine the way in which they achieve their weaving in terms of both style and rational, for example:

A Water Weaver may wish to stop an encroaching army. They can call up floods or magnificent storms, but they cannot call a great wall of Fire; that would be how a Fire Weaver does it. Both may achieve the same end goal, but they must use their personal aspects to do so. Weavers should take care to stick to their alignment while doing a Weave or this can cause the weave to fail.

Weaving Process

Weavers must first check in with the Guardian on duty for their slot who can always be found at the Menhir Fragment. If for whatever reason a guardian is not present on arrival, please wait for them or ask another staff member for assistance on getting them; your Weaving cannot work without a Guardian present! The Guardian will check what Weaving you are performing, each team member’s alignment and level and also check which Handsels you are using in your Weaving. Once this is done, you will be given the go ahead to begin, or told if some element is totally insufficient for the Weaving to work.

Each Weaving is unique based on the participants, their alignments and what they wish to achieve, however there is a general guideline for how to go about doing one as follows:

Say what you are doing – Tell Menhir what you want to achieve and how you intend to do it. There are no rules on how to do this, only that you must do it and that if understanding is not achieved, you will not succeed.
Present your offering – Handsels have been gathered and they should form a function within your Weaving. This can be as part of a narrative, as a ceremonial offering or any other way that is fitting to the Weaving.
Do some Magic! – Wyrd Weaving is a work of magic and it should feel like one. At some point in the Weaving there should be an indication of this. This can be through chanting, the use of props, dance or whatever you fancy, but you must attempt to portray that a magical element is occurring.
Use all participants – In Wyrd Weaving, there is no such thing as a bystander. It is not enough for one Weaver to do all the work while the rest stand around and watch. They must be proactively participating. This doesn’t mean everyone should be shouting spells and chants at all times, it may be as simple as placing items in specific areas, or drawing runes or humming in harmony with another singer. Whatever it is, all Weavers must contribute to the Weaving or their power will not count.

The Marking of Weaving

All Weaving’s overall success will be marked by a dedicated member of Menhirs Fate staff known as Guardians. The performance of a weaving is assessed on three categories; expression, structure and cohesion.

Expression – The emphasis in this area is not about how well a player can roleplay, but rather how well they express their intent and will within the Weaving. In short, they need to make us believe they are doing a work of magic and that their will is directed within the theme of the Weaving.

Structure – In this area, players will be marked on the overall structure of the Weaving. Have they explained what they want to achieve? Have they kept to a specific narrative and is there a logic to the method of their Weaving? Are all the elements of the Weaving relevant to the work of magic they wish to perform?

Cohesion – In this area, players will be marked on how well they work as a team. Are they working well together? Is everyone in the Menhir contributing to the Weaving? And lastly, how smoothly have things gone?

As some additional general advice and tips to help your work achieve greater results:

The audience was not in your planning meeting – A dance may be beautiful, but the same dance will get far more applause if an audience can understand what it means and how it fits into the work of magic being created.
Remember who you are – There are no leaders in a Wyrd Weaving, however, the amount any Weaver contributes to a Weaving should be consistent with the power level and alignment they are bringing. A level 5 Weaver should not be standing in the background doing nothing while a level 1 Weaver does all the work. Similarly, a Weaving aligned with water should have water aligned Weavers taking some spotlight, they are the experts after all.

What to Avoid doing?

While there are many styles of Weaving that are great, there are certain things that you should try to avoid, as they may count against your working if not:

Disrespecting Menhir – Menhir is an ancient and powerful sentient spirit. If you are rude to it or to its Guardians, you will feel its wrath… and it’s highly unlikely your Weaving will succeed.
Changing the nature of your Weaving – It is highly important that you do the Weaving you set out to do, as negotiated with the guardians prior to starting. If your Weaving appears to deviate from this brief, your Weaving will fail.
Exceeding the allotted time slot – Menhir Weavings should take roughly five to eight minutes per Weaving. The Fragment will have lighting that will warn the players when five minutes have passed. Taking up more of Menhirs precious time will cost you dearly and may mean that your Weaving fails or that you get expelled from the Fragment before even completing your weave. Take care to limit your Weavings accordingly.
Making modern or real world references in your Weaving – this should go without saying as we encourage all players to fully immerse themselves in the Live role play experience as a general rule. However, doing so in Menhir is particularly bad and will definitely count against your Weaving. Please refrain from things like singing obviously modern songs, bringing your phones to the Fragment. This doesn’t include the use of accessibility aids such as glasses, wheelchairs, crutches or walking aids, although we will always celebrate attempts to blend them into the environment, you will not get penalised for having them.
Active rebellion against the working – This is a Weaving of will and intent. Any Weaver in the Fragment that openly expresses dissent (for example, saying “i don’t want to do this!” or actively looking bored or disinterested in the Weaving) will have a negative effect on the Weaving which can in turn lead to an overall failure.

The Result

During each Weaving, a guardian will be watching. They will assess the Weaving and determine the result. This is a judgement based on several key criteria reflecting such as the relevance of the performance to the magic worked, and is NEVER a judgement on the Weavers themselves. There are 5 possible results:

Exceptional success – Your Weaving went incredibly well! Not only have you managed to achieve your intended goal, but you may also receive a further beneficial effect that may benefit the Weavers themselves, their intended targets or their nation!
Success – Your Weaving succeeded! You will get the desired and intended effect that you asked for.
Partial success – While this was a close attempt, you have not quite managed to achieve the desired result. You may get a limited or smaller effect than intended or you may get the full effect but with some unexpected negative effects as well.
Failure – Your Weaving has not worked. There will be no positive or negative effects to this outcome. The Handsels you used will now be gone; however, you can attempt to gather more and try the Weaving again at a later time.
Catastrophic failure – Your Weaving has failed very badly. Not only have you not succeeded in the intended outcome but there will likely be some major negative effects that can cause trouble for either the Weavers themselves, their intended targets, or their nation! Depending on the severity this may even include death.

After each Weaving, the Guardian will also deliver feedback to the team. This feedback will follow a set guideline and will be directed towards providing constructive advice on future Weavings, not on subjective critique.

Fragment Wards

All Menhir Fragments are places of great power that are warded to keep others out while working your Weaving. To begin, the Weaver must open the Fragment by simply expressing to Menhir that this is their will. Once the Weaving team is inside, they may choose to either raise the wards or leave them open.

When the Fragments wards are raised, it will prevent all characters from passing into or out of the Fragment unless the Weaving team inside opens them again. The wards are a transparent barrier of Wyrd and while the wards are not themselves visible, when they are raised, there will be several props and cues to represent this (the Fragment tokens lighting up, a line of crystalline dust that lights up to show the boundary of the wards, etc)

If for whatever reason, another Weaving team wishes to break into the Fragment to prevent the Weaving from completing that must meet the following requirements to breach the wards:

They must make a consistent 30 second Rite that is uninterrupted while the team makes contact with the Menhir Fragment (one of the standing geode tokens that form part of the boundary of the Fragment). This may be performed by any weaver regardless of their sphere and is an ad lib Rite.
All Weavers attempting to break the wards must be working together as a cohesive team.
There must be at least double the number of Weavers attempting to break the ward then there are Weavers within the Fragment.
At least one of the Weavers outside the Fragment must match or better the weaving level of the greatest Weaver within the Fragment. That Weaver MUST present themselves as the leader(s) of the effort, and get the attention of the presiding Guardian.

If the ward breaking is successful, then the wards will drop. Either the Weavers inside the Fragment will leave of their own accord or if this has not happened within the next 30 seconds, Menhir will expel all characters from the Fragment, repelling them away. Fighting and non-Weaving will not be tolerated within the Fragment.

Please note, this is mostly for safety reasons as there are many obstacles and props within the Fragment that we do not wish to be damaged by fighting.

Rites

What are Rites?

Whilst Weavers may wield great power within Menhir, they also have the ability to channel a little Wyrd of their own which they may use outside of the Fragments in independent or small group workings known as Rites. Rites are specific spells that take a brief moment to enact, and then provide a result more complex and/or powerful than a much quicker cantrip.

All wyrd contains an element of chaos and risk, and Rites are no exception. A successful Rite can cause great impact and turn the tide of battle. But all Rites can fail, causing devastating or even fatal harm.

Rites Step by Step

All Rites are enacted by following the same simple process:

Choose a Rite the Weaver (or group of Weavers) wish to weave.
Weave the Rite for the casting duration required, and choose any Flickers you wish to spend.
Perform the Wyrd Draw to determine if the Rite is a success or a fail.
If the Rite fails, either Tempt Fate or suffer Overload.
If the Rite is successful, choose targets and call any effects.

Choose Sphere

Each Weaver is aligned to at least one sphere of magic, and may only Weave Rites from the spheres they are aligned with. If the Rite has a level equal to or lower than their Weaving level then they have a chance of Weaving it successfully on their own. If the Rite is of a higher level, then they will need to perform the Weaving as a group.

Weave

To perform a Rite there are no set rules but as a general guide,

Work together if you are in a team
Reference the rite name that you are performing
Reference the specific sphere of Wyrd that you are using
Make the Flicker or Essence part of the Rite if they are required.
Wake sure your Rite lasts the specified duration

In Menhirs Fate we would like to encourage our players to make Rites expressive and interesting works of magic.

The Weaver may choose to contribute Flickers of power to make the Weaving stronger or extend its effect. The result of any extension, and if one is possible, is in the Rite description. Each Flicker used also increases the Rite level by 2. If the Rite level becomes higher than the Weaver’s Weaving level, then the Rite automatically fails and always results in Overload. You can not Tempt Fate to avoid this outcome.

Wyrd Draw

All Weavers carry with them a small draw bag containing several tokens. The bag must not be transparent and must obscure the tokens within. To begin with, this will contain (3 + Weaving level) tokens of a colour of their choice (we recommend the colour of your Weaving sphere but any will do) and 1 additional token which MUST be white. All tokens must be of a similar shape and size. Players may decorate or embellish these however they wish, but these are an OOC tool.

The coloured tokens are the success tokens and the white token is the failure token. Players should also have access to an additional 4 white tokens. Although the standard draw bag will only have 1 fail token, there will be situations where more are required.

Once the Rite has been woven for the required time, the Weaver reaches into the bag and draws 1 token without looking. If they draw a coloured token the Rite has succeeded. If they draw a white token, they have now failed.

Tempt Fate

If the Weaver draws a Failure token, they may choose to change the outcome to a Success token. This is called ‘Tempting Fate’, and Weavers should inform a ref as soon as possible whenever they do so. Each Weaver may only Tempt Fate a maximum of 3 times per day. After the 3rd time, they may no longer do so but can still Weave more Rites.

Each time you Tempt Fate you gain 1 point of Corruption. As a character in Menhir’s Fate gains more corruption throughout the events that they attend they will become increasingly closer to Wyrd and discover the trials and perils thereof along the way. Please note, too much Corruption may result in a variety of unfortunate circumstances that may include death.

If a Weaver fails and does not Tempt Fate, then they suffer Overload. The Rite does not have its intended effect. The Weaver loses all their hits and enters their critical state. They also suffer an additional roleplay effect of their choosing based on the sphere of Weaving. Some examples are provided with each sphere’s Rites.

Success

If a Success token is drawn then the Rite is successful. The Weaver may choose targets as described by their chosen Rite and carry out the effect. A Rite with range ‘touch through foci’ is deployed on the next possible target the Weaver touches with their foci (or themself), which must be done within the duration time of the Rite (either five minutes or instantaneous), or the Rite effect is lost.

**Example: Jess Bobbins would like to perform the Rite “Rise my Friends”.

Jess Is a Lvl 2 Athrian Weaver and a lvl 1 Water Weaver. As Lvl 2 is their strongest sphere their token bag should include 4 success tokens, and one failure token. Jess begins the Rite. During the 30 second cast time, Jess will perform a Wryd draw. They produce the white token! Jess must now ethier take the Overload effect or Tempt Fate. Jess chooses to Tempt Fate so their Rite is a success! Jess will need to inform a referee that they have gained one Corruption**

Group Rites

A Rite can also be woven by a group of Weavers instead of a lone individual. This follows the same basic process with the following clarifications:

All Weavers must be aligned with the same sphere as the Rite. It should be clear to all Weavers before starting the Rite which Rite they are Weaving.
Use the combined Weaving level in the rite’s sphere of all members of the group as the Weaving level when determining if the Rite can be woven and how many Flickers it can be successfully extended by.
A single Weaver should be decided upon to perform the Wyrd Draw before beginning. This Weaver must have the highest weaving Level of the group in the sphere of Wyrd that the Rite is being cast from. If there are multiple Weavers of the same level in that sphere then they may choose.
Any member of the group may contribute any amount of Flickers to extend the Rite. They must make it clear to all the group when they do so.
If the Weaver who performs the Wyrd Draw draws a White token, they alone decide whether to Tempt Fate. They must make it clear to the group if they do so, and ALL Weavers in the group should inform a ref as soon as convenient that they tempted fate. In group Rites, if one Weaver has already Tempted Fate three times that day, they alone will take an overload effect while the other Weavers take the Corruption, however the Rite is still a success.
If the Rite has a range of 5 metres or more, the Weaver who performs the Wyrd draw selects any/all targets. If the Rite has a range of ‘Self’, then only the Weaver who performs the Wyrd Draw takes its effect. If the Rite has a range of ‘Touch through foci’, the Weaver who performs the Wyrd Draw may distribute targeting amongst any/all foci present as they choose.

Rites lists

Earth
Air
Fire
Water
Forge
Fable
Athria
Oracle

Handsel Augury

All Weavers in Menhir’s fate have access to the following rite:

Name: Handsel Augury

Cast time: 2 minutes

Level: 10 – The team must spend 1 Essence of the Sphere they will be attempting to Weave

Duration: Instantaneous

Extension: N/A

Range: N/A

Effect: To perform this Rite, please inform a referee before you begin. The characters performing this rite will need to complete the Weaving form within the camp. A member of the weaving team will come and collect that form. After which a member of the Weaving team will come and give the participants the list of resources needed to complete the weaving requested.

**Please note: While you are waiting for a response from this rite, you are unable to perform this Rite again**

Menhirs Fate Wiki