Lately I've been imagining what player-minted NFT spell and items might be like. Today's post features a spell called ICYCLES. This is a dual splinter water/death spell cast during the tactics stage for 4 mana, allowing the caster to put either SHIELD or THORNS on 2 units. Similar to the PELACOR FIRETORCH which was a magical item with an epic rarity, ICYCLES is a magical spell with epic rarity. Rare and commmon spells will be single splinter, less powerful, and cost less mana to cast. Legendary spells will be the most powerful, with splinter(s) and mana costs than can vary from low to high.
A lot of the points discussed previously for items would apply equally to spells. In other words, they are NFTs on the Hive blockhain. They look like typical #splinterlands cards. They have a mana cost and a splinter (or splinters). They're applied like tactics during the tactics screen. They do not combine or level, and THEY DO NOT LAST MORE THAN ONE BATTLE. Every item and spell cast by its owner is burned after its battle. See my previous posts for the rationale why this model seems like the simplest and most seamless way to incorporate player minted NFTs into our decentralized gaming metaverse. Have a better idea? Explain it in the comments 🙏
Staying within the SPL meta for water and death, I tend to think of ICE CREATURES (water) and SKELETON CREATURES (death). Although these cretaure categories are appearing less frequently lately in the newer card sets (I'm not even sure if there are any in Chaos Legion or Rebellion?) regardless, there is a long history for those creature types in earlier sets like Beta and Untamed.
As shown in the images below, the game features many ICE CREATURES within the water splinter and SKELETON CREATURES in the death splinter. Both have some SPIKED CREATURES too, like SPINEBACK TURTLE and SPINEBACK WOLF. Various of these creatures have SHIELD and THORNS. This theme is generally where ICYCLES fits. Also, spreading the thorns ability around a bit, so it's not so dominated by Tofu and the earth splinter, seems like a good secondary goal for this spell here.
ICE CREATURES from the water splinter (+ 1 spikey turtle!):
SKELETON CREATURES from the death splinter (+1 spikey wolf!):
ICYCLES is a dual splinter water/death spell. Similar to item cards, I like the idea of spell cards having an "action shot" of the spell being cast. Here I imagined ICYCLES forming on skeletons to either to protect them from damage (SHIELD) or inflict return damage on attacking units (THORNS). The art here is a little scarier than I usually do and I'm worried it would be over the top for SPL, but this is water and death 💀 and yeah, also imaginary so ... going with it 💪
It has a similar look in some ways to gem meteor. Similar-ish at least.
And it's not like Cryptic looks like a friendly looking dude himself. Those four skeletons enahnced with ICYCLES look like they could be Cryptic's favorite bumbling henchmen or something.
There are a few ways to imagine how spells and items will work, but the simplest would be giving them their own mana cost. Just like units and summoners now. Except you'll be spending "spell and item mana" in the tactics screen, not in the pre-battle screeen. This means that when you select the summoner and units for your lineup in the pre-battle screen, you'd need to LEAVE SOME MANA TO SPEND IN THE TACTICS SCREEN.
For example, if you wanted to use ICYCLES in a 50 mana battle, you would only be able to spend 46 mana on a summoner and units during the pre-battle screen, and then use the remaining 4 mana to summon ICYCLES during the tactics screen. On the other hand, if you used all 50 of your mana on a summoner and units during the pre-battle screen, you wouldn't be able to cast ICYCLES (or any other spells or summon any items) in the tactics screen.
The WATER TOTEM used to conjure an ICYCLE SHIELD shield is shown in blue below:
The TRIFOIL DEATH RUNE CHAIN used to conjure ICYCLE THORNS is show in purple below:
Please use the comments below to tell me what you think? Is this how you see spells and items working? Or do you have better ideas?
