Current Guises

A Spring tincture makes you its current for three minutes: Gale jumps two blocks high and glides, Ember does not burn and swims in lava, Strata cannot be moved, Tide swims and breathes underwater. Each guise has its own weakness. A Crucible brews the tincture over gentle heat: Brew 2, the Spring 4 and Soul 2, a glass bottle last.

GaleEmberStrataTideBrewSoul

Gale: almost half your weight is gone — you jump two blocks high and, running, twice as far; you fall softly and take no damage (crouch to drop fast); your blows throw enemies farther. The weakness: you are blown back harder yourself. Gale is kindred on peaks under the open sky and foreign underground.

Ember: fire and lava do no harm, burning goes out by itself, in lava you see as with fire resistance and swim as in water; your blow sets an enemy alight for 4 seconds. The weakness: water quenches you — in water and rain you take damage every second. Ember is kindred in the Nether, in deserts and in lava, foreign in the rain.

Strata: no blow or blast can move you, you dig half again as fast, your skin is like stone (+4 armor). The weakness: weight — 15% slower, and you sink in water: you cannot swim up, so walk out along the bottom and the shore. Strata is kindred in caves, mountains and underground, foreign high in the sky.

Tide: you swim like a dolphin, your air does not run out underwater, water does not cloud your sight, and you dig there unhindered. The weakness: on dry land you are a quarter slower, unless you are in water or rain. Tide is kindred by rivers and seas, in water and rain, foreign in deserts and the Nether.

Drink a tincture while a guise lasts and the currents meet on the Wheel. Neighbors blend: Gale and Tide make Drift (a quarter faster, steps up a block, swims like a dolphin; but slides as on ice), Strata and Ember make Alloy (+8 armor, does not burn, cannot be moved; heavy and sinks), Ember and Gale make Spark (+3 to blows, quicker strikes, faster running; but burns out twice as fast).

DriftAlloySpark

Tide and Strata are neighbors with no blended current: the guise simply changes. Opposites — Tide and Ember, Strata and Gale — clash as they do in a Crucible: the guise tears apart in steam or dust, the tincture is lost, murk sinks into the ground and your sight ripples. A blended guise holds only its own two tinctures: any third Spring is opposite to one of them.

TideStrataEmberGale

A guise grows stronger where its current is the current of the place: in a kindred place it is half again as strong and lasts twice as long, in a foreign one it is weaker and wanes twice as fast. The place is what the Loupe reads in the air and what you stand in: water and rain are Tide, lava and fire are Ember, stone overhead is Strata, height is Gale. The guise medallion in the corner shows the time and the place.

While a guise lasts it takes a little flux from the chunk; where flux is below a quarter of the riverbed, the guise has nothing to breathe and wanes. A guise ends by itself, by another tincture or with the Shed Guise key. After it, for half a minute, no tincture can be drunk: the current in you must settle. Six minutes in a row in a guise and your sight begins to ripple.

The Reckoners argued whether a fluxionist flows himself. One of them drank Gale and walked a stair of wind for half a day; the records say he came back heavier than he left, and never drank Strata again.