Extended Disciplines

Once one has grasped the elementary doctrines of weaving chalk and controlling space, it is possible to take these disciplines and expand them in novel ways, to perform more complex feats. These ‘schools’ of techniques stand distinct from each other, each providing a new facet of power to those ready to study them.

Reverse Unravelling Techniques

The Theory of Damage is greatly encouraged reading for this section.

The RUTs or ‘RUteks’ as they are commonly called, denotes a school of calcic disciplines that describe non-lattice-intrinsic methods of repairing lattice damage. Being ‘non-lattice-intrinsic’ describes them as relying on systems outside of the subjects own lattice or straits, even if the techniques rely on them to be performed.

As a note, the techniques that exist under here exist similar to various techniques that exist under individual arsenal cards; that being that they have been created by named or not characters in the Samsara canon. As such, this is a growing body of techniques that gets larger with time.

The Fel-Arcad The Fel-Arcad, some of the most prominent scholars of weave, have worked towards developing a variety of RUteks for usage in various contexts, perhaps their most popular being the ‘Three-Point Restoration’ technique, functioning by taking a ‘copy’ of the lattice blueprint from the memory strait and ‘caching’ it in the computational strait, allowing for significantly faster performance of the standard restoration algorithm. In addition to this, however, and why it bears the ‘Three-Points’ title, is that this copy of the lattice blueprint is only a slice of it, containing the head, hands and feet. Head for the sense, hands for chalkweaving and fighting, feet for escaping - often via striding. Maintenance of these prioritized regions of the lattice keeps a Strider longer in the fight, even while functioning on only passive regeneration.

The Spyndl Academy The Spyndl Academy has developed a variety of techniques, designed with the fact that the users of them will primarily be Operators; skilled chalkweavers by all metrics. As such, Spyndl has designed RUteks that function almost as gambits; a risky calcic play that - should it pay off - recover an enormous amount of inflicted damage.

One such example functions by the subject calcically stripping off the entire top-level lattice of their person - in a sense, unravelling themselves - and then - in a burst of immense focus - driving the Five Straits to the very edge of their operational ratings, compelling them to repair all damage done almost in a flash. Executed perfectly, a Spyndl Operator can go from nearly waving the flag of defeat to peak performance in an eyeblink. Executed poorly, however, and the Operator can be caught in a dire strait where they have no top-level lattice material to serve as insulation from the outside, aggressing terrors of the Switchboard.

This technique taken further allows practitioners to expend part or all of their flashcharge to regenerate even broken or wholly maimed limbs, a skill that proves immensely useful out in the field in high-intensity environments.

The primary limitation of this technique is that it is predicated upon supreme calcic control, upper-echelon rated Five Straits, and a relatively high integrity of those Straits. Certain kinds of damage that target the Straits can inhibit the usage of the Spyndl Academy’s Gambit RUteks, and this damage must be healed from first before they can be executed.

Barrier Techniques

The vastness of the Switchboard means that in most cases, something that is meant to be hidden or inaccessible will be so without any additional input, as - statistically - the odds of finding nearly anything of note via random chance in the Switchboard are immensely slim. That being said, it is often the case that one means to protect these things either way, and it is far more often the case that many things in the Switchboard are valued by its denizens to want to protect them by any means possible.

The supreme means of doing so is via barrier techniques. Through various means, it is possible to create a construct in space that serves as an impassable wall, blocking off entry or access to anything within the bounds of the barrier. While there are various caveats in the construction, nature and operation of barriers, the general intent of all barriers it the prevent the free movement of something past the barrier, be it people, other entities or objects.

In practice, there are two major classes of barrier;

• Weft Barriers
• Spatial Barriers

Weft barriers are constructed of chalk via the Weave Protocol. By expending chalk to form dense ribbon, weavers can form sheets of chalk ribbon, and then through further advanced chalkweaving, extend this ribbon outwards to form a persistent, enveloping structure. This physically-created structure prevents the passage of things through it by simply being a wall.

Spatial barriers are formed using the power of curvature manipulation granted to those possessing alignment with the depths. By constructing what is effectively similar to the great Veils that cordon off sections of the Switchboard, it is possible to construct a hollow three-dimensional bounded space that possesses immense fourth-dimensional depth along its surface, such that anything attempting to pass through the faces of the space is dragged into the depths of the Void. Effectively, it is harnessing spatial distortion to cordon off a region of space.

Each class of barrier is with benefits and drawbacks.

Weft barriers benefit from the complexity that is achievable via chalk. A chalkweaver can construct barriers in nearly unlimited shapes, suffuse equations, Teks and ritualism within them, weave elementary and complex logic for their responses to internal and external occurrences, and far more. Weft barriers, however, suffer from much of the same phenomena chalk does. Depthstriders with their curvature manipulation can make quick work of chalk barriers via siphoning the chalk of its making, or moving past them by diving into the deep and moving across the fourth spatial axis, where chalk barriers cannot cover. Additionally, weft barriers can be broken with straight brute force, either through physical means or calcic ones.

Spatial barriers - as pure barriers in the sense of blocking or restricting passage - are supremely more capable than weft barriers. Being distortions in space, they are immensely difficult to meaningfully interact with, and the fact they span the fourth spatial axis means that it is far more difficult to simply phase past them by diving into the deep. However, spatial barriers are really only ever that; distortions in space, and the toolbox for opposing the works of depthstriders - Antamaran techniques - is a considerably large one. Additionally, it is difficult for most depthstriders to form particularly complex shapes for their barriers, and thus most of them are only spheres, with the distortion distributed uniformly across their surface. The largest drawback of them all for spatial barriers is that unlike weft barriers, the erector of the barrier must maintain the distortion in space, else the barrier collapses. Without a depthstrider to maintain the barrier, the maintenance of the distortion must be outsourced to some other means.

Depthstriders having more simple barriers does benefit them in one key way though; the ability to dynamically alter the parameters of their barrier on the fly. If a subject were trying to invade a spatial barrier maintained by a depthstrider, they are able to skew the fourth spatial dimensions of a section of the barrier to more greatly resist attack. Chalkweavers are far less capable of dynamically altering the parameters of their barriers, due to the complexity with which they are erected to begin with. Adding more weft in one area to shield against attack will almost certainly be done haphazardly, and thus introduce exploitable faults elsewhere.

Pale Amarans, interestingly, are uniquely outfitted for the making of barriers, due to being able to both weave chalk and manipulate local curvature. They thus use the strengths of each to cover for the weaknesses of the other, erecting barriers that are nigh impassable, conferred with complex logics and powers, self-sustaining, shaped in any form of choice, and more.

When forming a barrier, there are two major methods employed, depending on the caster’s skill. The simplest means of doing so is by expansion, in which the barrier begins as a small sphere or other solid shape at a point, and its parameters are gradually altered to make it larger up until the point the caster is satisfied. When barriers are being expanded, even those not particularly gifted in any Switchboard power discipline can tell. Spatial barrier expansions cause information-massive objects - such as Kin - to ‘dip’ briefly into the fourth spatial dimension, suddenly losing a few inches of altitude before being pushed back upwards, as though the ground suddenly became soft clay. This is a result of the barrier’s ‘front’ phasing through them, causing a momentary shrinking of the gap between the Dancirah and the Challenger Dark. Weft/calcic barriers on the other hand, feel as though you were slammed from the front as they expand, as a semi-permeable wall of weft is indeed slamming into you as it expands outwards.

The second methodology - erection - entails constructing the barrier at its final size, rather than starting small and growing it outwards and larger. This is expectedly decidedly difficult as it requires near-perfect visualization of the final shape of the barrier, and leaves no room for error, such as if an object suddenly occludes on the barrier’s space. The advantage it has, however, is that barriers can be erected in this regard without others knowing, as it does not interact with their person in any way, unlike expanded barriers. By the time they do notice, barrier techniques could’ve already taken hold, and it might very well be too late.

When talking about barriers, often what is meant is the physical barrier structure itself. A space enclosed by a barrier is often called a boundary, and boundaries are used for a number of even more advanced techniques; primarily, the erection of ledgerial spaces. Barriers can also refer to non-wholly-enclosed spaces, such as shields of space or material. Boundaries, however, always refer to an enclosed space.

Ledgerial Space Formation

By erecting a bounded space through various means, writing a ledger, and exerting the writ of that ledger throughout the bounded space, it is possible to make another kind of ledgerial space in the Switchboard. This second type of space takes various names, based primarily on the erector of the space, such as hollow, territory, space, bounded-space, domain, the like.

The hard part of this is primarily writing ledgers. Much like the ritual schema under the chalk ritualism, the writ of a ledger must be painstakingly defined in chalk, and then the writ of that ledger exerted upon ever single coherent calcic entity within the confines of the boundary. It is an immensely taxing feat to pull off, and is often constrained to the most powerful beings in the Switchboard.

Ledgers being writable via the Weave Protocol means that chalkweavers are able to write ledgers, but the task of doing so as is immensely difficult. When coupled with erecting a barrier, weaving the writ of the ledger into that barrier, exerting the writ of the ledger over everything in the space, and then supplying the chalk needed for the entire construct to run, constructing a ledgerial space remains the domain of the strongest and most skilled chalkstriders. The fact most chalkweavers and Striders can’t make particularly powerful ledgers mean their ledgerial spaces have to be used in other means, such as physically restraining a target, or having a concretely mathematically-defined space for the pinpoint deployment of techniques.

Depthstriders can’t write ledgers at all due to being unable to weave chalk. Depthstriders who hope to construct a ledgerial space must make use of other avenues of obtaining written ledgers, this primarily being through impositions made with the first Amaranth Sultan. Depthstriders erect a boundary via cordoning off a region of space via curvature manipulation, and then the Amaranth Sultan - a legendary chalkweaver in his own right - writes and deploys the ledgers throughout the space as requested by the depthstrider. This is the primary operating principle of the Deep Hollow technique used by depthstriders and Vahnic faithful.

The Depthstrider Deep and Crescent Hollow techniques are the most formalized application of this discipline.

As a note, chalkweavers can write decent ledgers due to having the Weave Protocol, but erect poor boundaries. Depthstriders can erect solid boundaries via their powerful curvature manipulation, but cannot write ledgers themselves, and rely on pacts made with the Amaranth Sultan to do so.

The Pale Amaran, however, being able to both weave chalk and manipulate the depths, is thus uniquely outfitted for the erection of the most solid class of barriers, as well as the writing and deployment of ledgers within them, making them the absolute most capable at constructing ledgerial spaces. However, this is still constrained to the upper echelons of Pale Amaran practitioners, but it does mean that a truly skilled Pale Amaran space-builder is capable of erecting spaces with none of the conventional weaknesses that come with leaning exclusively towards either white or black.

Space Clashing

What happens when ledgerial spaces intersect? There are two kinds of ledgerial space interaction in this regard;

• When the barriers of two ledgerial spaces crash into each other while they are being formed.
• When a ledgerial space is expanded within another ledgerial space, resulting in one barrier enveloping another.
• When two sets of ledgerial space rules occupy the same barrier.

In the first instance, it comes down to the nature of the barriers at play. Refer to the table below for the interactions between clashing barriers;

	Weave Barrier	Spatial Barrier
Weave Barrier	Barrier clash; the barrier with superior construction wins.	Spatial barriers ignore weave and subsume it into themselves, annihilating it.
Spatial Barrier	Spatial barriers ignore weave and subsume it into themselves, annihilating it.	The spatial distortion caused by both cancel each other out, and the barrier collapses.

In the second instance, the phenomena of ledgerial suspension takes place, where the writ of the enveloping barrier’s ledgers are suspended within the space of the enveloped barrier. This is an effective tactic for shielding against certain dangerous ledgerial space attacks, such as a depthstrider’s Hollow technique, as expanding even a simple weft barrier would cancel the depthstrider’s sultanic strike techniques against anyone within the boundary.

However, the walls of the enveloped boundary are still at the mercy of the enveloping boundary, and the writ of the enveloping boundary’s ledgers still applies to the enveloped boundary within it. As such, the master of the outermost boundary is tasked with dismantling the walls of the inner one, such that they can once again impose their ledgerial writ throughout the entire space. Weft barriers caught within spatial ones are particularly susceptible to this, as the chalk-draining power of even the weakest depthstrider Hollows means the walls of a weft boundary will be passively ‘melted’ even without the depthstrider within doing anything.

The third instance is incredibly rare, but still happens; the rare occasion where the structural parameters of two barriers are perfectly or even nearly identical - such as in an instance where a combatant expands a boundary as a response to another, while ‘dubbing’ their structural metrics - causing two sets of ledgerial writ to occupy the same space. Ledgerial suspension occurs in this instance as with the second instance above, but in a mildly different manner; bits and pieces of the ledgerial writ in action are canceled out by each other, resulting in a mix of rules being imposed in the space, and resulting - usually - in utter chaos.

In some instances, the instability of super-imposed barriers and conflicting ledgerial writ is enough to collapse both boundaries, and among those who frequently battle with ledgerial spaces, this is referred to as ‘parrying a boundary’. It goes without saying that executing this maneuver is immensely difficult, requiring pinnacle control of barrier techniques and knowledge of how ledgers function.

A final note, many ledgerial spaces are subject to ledger inheritance, where a boundary within another boundary inherits the ledgers in effect in the boundary above it. For this reason, the writ in astrolabic ledgers - such as the Strider Protocol - still function in sub-ledgerial spaces more often than not.

Ledger Acquisition

Ledgers when applied in battle are among the highest techniques in the verse with regards to their ceiling for potency. For this reason, they are incredibly difficult to acquire normally, and typically must be sourced from external means. While it is indeed possible for chalkweavers to concoct ledgers via pure feat of chalk folding, this requires a level of potency and proficiency that vastly exceeds what is narratively justifiable in the verse. Beings such as this are either personifications of ultimate conflict, or ultimate conflict mitigation, and thus cannot meaningfully exist in a story in most cases - not without adverse effects on everything else.

Ledgers can be viewed as ‘slots’. When a ledger is acquired, it is blank, and must be filled with calcic writ. The sources of ledgerial slots are as follows;

Conventional

• Depthstriders via their Hollow techniques
• Chalkweavers via rare teks
• Chalkweavers after hitting Weftcrash

Esoteric

• Immensely complex praxis impositions

Wielding Praximechanics

The most robust means of wielding the praximechanics is found under Praxis Impositions.

However, some useful terminologies are described as such;

• Praxis Powers The result of faith, conviction or association with a doctrine. The bearer reaps doctrine-relevant boons through the collective reservoir of chalk created by all who share their belief in that doctrine. These boons are usually passive ‘buffs’ that round out an arsenal and add character to the subject in question.

• Titular Powers The result of evolutions in the doctrine of the self, that sees the arcane mechanics of the Switchboard and the mundane ones of its denizens combine to confer a subject with a title, and empower them by virtue of bearing it.

The Advanced Playbooks

Weave and Warfare is critical preliminary literature for this section.

Expanding upon the various arsenals for Chalkweavers, Depthstriders and Pale Amarans, this sections discusses the advanced playbooks; ways of expanding upon the strengths of each superclass to subtly and even massively enhance one’s overall proficiency with their superclass. These advanced playbooks make use of existing mechanics elsewhere, ranging from the mechanics of the verse to the existing extended disciplines above. Mastery over the advanced playbooks is necessary for one to reach the upper echelons of the reckon-worthy forces in the Switchboard.

Advanced Chalkweaving Techniques

By some metrics, the Chalkweaver’s ability to form nearly anything they desire from chalk solidifies their position as the strongest superclass. While the other superclasses are no slouches, the near bottomless versatility and potency of chalkweaving and extended disciplines of it - such as the calcic ritualism - make the school of white the bearer of the foremost forces in the Switchboard.

Dedicom Technique Loading

Main literature worth perusing; The Flash Protocol The Stride-Dedicom

The bearers of the Strider Protocol come blessed with a mechanism of chalkweaving that - in a sense - allows them to cheat. The stride-dedicom strait is a highly-specialized computational strait and the sixth strait in those born with the Strider Protocol. The dedicom is different from the conventional computational as it sacrifices its generalist competence for instead highly-targeted mastery, dedicating its entire computational bandwidth to a select few calcic equations that are loaded on to its own memory strait.

Intrinsically, the dedicom has the Strider Protocol loaded on it, and this enables the strider subject to stride across the expanse of the Switchboard. In those truly proficient with chalk, they additionally load the flash protocol on it, their most powerful technique that has the power to reshape the Switchboard around it when deployed. Lurking just beneath these two grand displays of the dedicom’s capabilities, is a practice demanding of equal skill; loading equations in the dedicom strait.

Traditionally, when chalkweavers want to deploy weave, chalk must pass into the computational strait and be woven by the equations of that pattern to yield the weave, which is then emanated out of the lattice - through the hands primarily. While this is the conventional means of doing things, truly proficient weavers desired a means to expedite this process; make the weaving of patterns into an effortless gesture much like striding.

The stride-dedicom strait allows for handling a select few equations immensely capably, by a passive tuning of the strait itself to better fold the equations ‘loaded’ into it. Much like cache in conventional computer systems are used to speed up processes by keeping frequently-accessed data in incredibly fast storage, the stride-dedicom can have a number of frequently-used equations ‘loaded’ onto its own internal memory, and it can fold along those equations with multiple times the speed and accuracy of the conventional computational strait. In a sense, it serves as a secondary computational strait, where it handles mission-critical, yet frequently-used equations, while the conventional compute strait handles all else.

The stride-dedicom has a number of limits, however. For one, the equations that are loaded onto it occupy ‘space’, which can be better viewed as taking up space on the stride-dedicom’s own memory-strait-provided sub-memory strait. Considering the straits aren’t complex enough to weave more of themselves, this memory bank remains fairly unchanged throughout a Strider’s lifetime. More complex equations take more space in this bank, and limits the number of equations that can be folded with the stride-dedicom’s immense capability. Additional variations from strider to strider exist as well, such as the overall speed of the stride-dedicom in loading equations, folding and deploying them, as well as the accuracy of the woven product.

In particular, the capabilities of the stride-dedicom are very valued in combat. Loading the fold equations for frequently used abilities and techniques - such as their T2 techniques - or even just for spare ammunition or elementary weaponry to use in times of needs - gives access to these things in the space of a finger snap, this snappy response speed being immensely valued in the high-pressure environment of Switchboard Combat. Those blessed with even larger dedicated memory banks can load T3s and even T4s, enabling casting full-size chalk ritualism at quiK speed.

The true power of the stride-dedicom in advanced chalkweaving, however, is the Flash Protocol, the pinnacle chalkstrider technique and the realization of their true capabilities as weavers of chalk and the bearers of wings made of it. By clearing the entire queue and dedicating the whole bandwidth of the stride-dedicom to a single pattern - much like when striding - a chalkstrider is able to fold immensely complex weave in a second and output it with legendary force. However, when doing this, the sheer complexity and output with which the pattern is woven and the speed at which it is done results in the stride-dedicom become scrambled and disorganized - unraveled - and it needs time for the passive reverse-unraveling of the Strider’s lattice to reorganize it, inflicting a sort of ‘cooldown’ period before it can be used again.

Hyperweave Weaving

Essential literature; Hyperweave

One of the more advanced chalkweaving techniques, it was theorized and later proven that it was possible to perform chalkweaving using hyperweave.

For one, this is unfathomably dangerous to do, and requires a subject of both highest percentile-grade skill and constitution. Merely being struck by hyperweave inflicts critical lattice damage in the form of unravelling that requires the appropriate techniques to repair, as it is - in a very literal sense - getting struck by a star. Despite being the case however, it is still possible to channel hyperweave through the straits, though the slightest mistake can be immensely fatal.

The incentive for doing so, however, are not trivial. For one, hyperweave is chalk in a state with an inclination to become complex pattern already, meaning that - minus it’s destructiveness - it is actually easier to weave a calcic construct out of hyperweave. Coupled with that is the potency of the output; hyperweave being quite literally immensely packed chalk. Done correctly and quickly enough, one can push hyperweave through the equations meant for regular chalk, and produce weave that is unstable, exponentially more powerful and dos so at speeds considerably quicker than regular chalkweaving.

It however remains that weaving with hyperweave demands immense calcic skill and control, as well as constitution. Hyperweave rips through the straits, tearing apart all it touches as it lashes out in mathematical desperation to come undone and reform into complex shapes. This damage to the lattice and straits manifests as unravelling, and must be repaired either through passive reverse-unravelling or dedicated reverse unravelling techniques. That is, however, if one even survives making it that far; it is entirely possible that the damage done is too great, and that there isn’t any amount or speed of healing that can be done to prevent outright death.

The general methodology of doing this is to only employ hyperweave weaving on equations loaded in the dedicom strait, as using the conventional computational strait runs the risk of hyperweave staying within the lattice long enough to cause damage that cannot be repaired by passive reverse-unravelling. Using hyperweave through the stride-dedicom in this manner though, does lead to burning out the strait even faster than usual, and as such using hyperweave in chalkweaving remains the domain of the truly gifted - or the truly audacious.

Barrier-Dependent Techniques

Essential literature; Ledgerial Spaces

While not necessarily an ‘advanced technique’ per se, there are reasons why one might choose to introduce the erection of a barrier into the workings of more complex chalkweaving, and additionally, there are means of chalkweaving such as teks that demand the formation of one for their workings.

While calcic barriers and barrier techniques in general are used primarily defensively, in more advanced applications they are useful tools for gaining spatial command. Dominance over space itself is an immensely valuable tool in a combatant’s arsenal, especially if couple with restriction of an opponent’s command of space as well. Off the pure metric of it being ideal to increase the options available to oneself while reducing those available to an enemy, barrier techniques are already undeniably useful tools to have in ones arsenal.

With regards to usage, the primary offensive usage of barriers is in targeting. In the forming of a barrier, a chalkweaver must define its build parameters, an essential variable of this being its spatial dimensions. In doing this, the exact dimensions of the barrier are known - and in turn, the exact position of anything within that barrier. For maneuvers and strategies that benefit immensely from pinpoint precision, expanding a barrier before using them is often a solid strategy where possible.

Barriers are also useful when used as clauses in impositions. Constraining the effective area of a technique for example, will in turn - via impositions - empower it beyond the efficacy written on the tin. By constraining the technique to a barrier and then making that barrier permeable - that is able to be escaped from - the technique can be empowered even further. Using barriers in this way, especially when coupled with the other complexities of chalkweaving, elevates one’s potential in combat.

Chalkweaver barrier techniques however, do indeed suffer when compared to the majestic works of barrier weaponization that are the depthstrider Deep Hollows. This is primarily due to Deep Hollows being - more accurately put - ledgerial spaces. The introduction of ledgers to the boundary enclosed by the barrier gives depthstriders access to the immensely powerful sultanic strike clause upon their techniques, allowing them to make guaranteed hits against targets occupying their Hollow. Chalkstriders simply cannot weave chalk and form ledgers to the extent of the Amaranth Sultan, widely regarded as one of the greatest Weavers to have ever placed hallowed foot on the soils of Danciran worlds. Chalkweavers simply fail to measure up, and the ability to weave ledgers is really only possessed by perhaps the 1st percentile of weavers to walk the Switchboard.

That doesn’t lock adherents to the school of white out of ledgerial techniques entirely, however. By pure luck, a chalkweaver may stumble upon a tek that has - as a usage clause - the expansion of a barrier followed by the suffusion of ledgerial writ throughout the boundary, before the tek can truly perform what its weft dictates. Often this ledgerial writ is encoded in the very pattern of the tek itself, and deployed when a barrier is opened and the wielder wills it. While the weaver can modify the parameters of the barrier and weave triggers and additional clauses and ritualism around the ledgerial writ, attempting to modify it will almost always result in the destruction of the writ, and the reduction of the tek into nigh-useless weave.

Self-Impositions

Essential reading; Praxis Impositions Handsigns

Self-impositions are a powerful tool in any weaver’s arsenal, as they draw upon the praximechanics to empower one’s own chalkweaving capability. At the very fundamental, self-impositions are imposed clauses upon the self to endure a malus in exchange for a boon. Before releasing a technique, there are certain options available for the caster to empower that technique beyond its traditional potency.

The most commonly used are auxiliary gestures. More properly put, these are practices borrowed from the calcic ritualism. By employing verbal and somatic components in the workings of a technique - or rather, by taking on the imposition to endure the maluses that come with employing those components - one can empower their technique on the way out, praximechanics doing the heavy lifting of producing this result in the background. Where traditionally one would have to concoct an entirely new equation to elevate a preexisting technique to higher bounds, self-impositions and praximechanics allow for doing this on the metaphorical ‘front end’, expediting - or even facilitating it at all - the process.

What are the maluses imposed then? The primary ones are delay and forewarning. The usage of verbal components (saying the name of the technique, or using incantations) or somatic ones (the many handsigns used in the traditional chalk ritualism) introduces an amount of delay before a technique can be deployed, which is in turn stacked upon any inherent delays in the preparation of the technique. In combat environments, this is a non-trivial risk, and it is entirely possible that - where a technique trying to be empowered by an imposition might be interrupted before it resolves - a regular one would have resolved fast enough to strike a target. Forewarning is another, in that by having clear cues for when you are firing off a technique and what technique that might be, you are giving an opponent the opportunity to prepare a response. As such, it is entirely possible that a regular technique would have struck an opponent, but in the process of empowering it with an imposition, the opponent can glean what’s coming (such as if it was used previously) and prepare a solid defense that wholly nullifies the efficacy.

It is important to rectify the disconnect that might arise if you read the writ on Handsigns before this section, as this section seems to imply that there are situations where it is preferable to use the cat’s cradle style of weaving over handsigns. This is not entirely the case, as using handsigns in self-impositions is entirely for the sake of empowering one’s technique above baseline. Better put, the cat’s cradle weaving is slow, and using handsigns to replace that makes weaving faster. But going the extra step and using handsigns to empower the technique can make it take as long as the cat’s cradle, or even longer. It is this introduced length of time that makes up the delay malus incurred, and incurring this malus is what facilitates the empowerment.

Self-impositions then, are gambits. All the same, as they are reliant on one’s own core doctrines - their doctrine of the self - they can nonetheless be considerably powerful. It’s fairly common practice in this regard to use impositions to empower the lower echelons - the T1s to T3s - of a weavers arsenal, raising the floor of their minimum destructiveness.

Additionally, the usage of self-impositions contributes to the passive calcic dividends paid by the cultivation of infamy. Pondering what self-impositions - or impositions in general - one has acting over them plays into the praximechanics of infamy, likewise does pondering the handsigns one might have utilize in the deployment or empowerment of their techniques.

Apex Weaving

Chalkweavers suffer from a rather unique problem that stems from the fact that woven techniques are physical structures, and thus subject to a number of macroscopic rules such as gravity and structural integrity. A poorly-woven sample of weave, for example, can collapse under its own weight, rendering a technique utterly ineffective.

Avoiding this problem is done by crafting schema for woven techniques, whereas a weaver beforehand prepares the weft they will use in combat via trial and error to find the balance between potency and structural integrity. Generally speaking, as a technique’s potency scales upwards, it’s structural integrity scales in reverse, but this isn’t a hard and fast rule as some technique weft constructs by their very nature are more stable or unstable than others. Weave that factors in hyperweave, for example, is far more unstable beyond the actual complexity of how it is being used, while techniques that imbue the lattice with inductive buffs tend to be more stable as a product of how they are to be used.

Preparing offensive weft constructs in advance - or rather that that is something that needs to be done at all - presents something of an issue for chalkweavers in that they are unable to empower their abilities on the fly by altering their physical structure from the onset. Doing so carelessly can destabilize the technique, which can trigger backlash under some conditions and harm the weaver. Irrespective of this fact or not, in a combat situation, it is a thoroughly undesirable outcome to one’s weft fail unpredictably.

But in a combat situation, a weft-wielding combatant still wants to extract maximal potency from every bit of chalk they are using. A weft-based attack that entails weaving a physical construct colloquially has an apex pattern, which is the maximum potency that a woven pattern can possess before the structural weft meant to contain it exceeds four times the weft expended in potency. Why this is relevant is that units of potency generally demand much larger units of structure to contain them within the scope of the application of the weaver. More simply put, the weft required to yield potency scales linearly, while the weft required to contain that potency is exponential. After attaining 50% of a technique’s apex pattern, the originally one-to-one ratio of weft expended on potency to weft expended on structure ceases to be the case, and more weft needs to be spent on structure for every unit of potency, effectively enforcing diminishing returns on how much weft is spent overall in a technique versus how much potency is gotten out of it.

Let’s express this mathematically;

Potency (uP)	Containment Multiplier	Structure (uS)	Total Unit Cost	uP per Total Cost	Remarks
10	0.2	2	12	0.83
20	0.4	8	28	0.71
30	0.6	18	48	0.63
40	0.8	32	72	0.56
50	1	50	100	0.5	Half-Efficieny Breakpoint
60	1.2	72	132	0.45
70	1.4	98	168	0.42
80	1.6	128	208	0.38
90	1.8	162	252	0.36
100	2	200	300	0.33	Third-Efficiency Breakpoint
110	2.2	242	352	0.31
120	2.4	288	408	0.29
130	2.6	338	468	0.28
140	2.8	392	532	0.26
150	3	450	600	0.25	Quarter-Efficiency Breakpoint
160	3.2	512	672	0.24
170	3.4	578	748	0.23
180	3.6	648	828	0.22
190	3.8	722	912	0.21
200	4	800	1000	0.2	Apex Pattern
210	4.2	882	1092	0.19	Hard Structural Breakpoint
This table measures a hypothetical technique that has its containment multiplier - how much more or less structural weft is needed to contain a given amount of potency - increase by 0.2 for every 10 units of potency. The result is that to attain 50 units of potency, the caster must allocate just as much weft to structure. This is the first major breakpoint, as it is when only half as much weft being put into a technique is actually being used to produce raw damage. The next major breakpoint is when more than three times as much weft needs to put in to yield a given amount of potency, meaning that less than 2/3rds of the overall budget expended on a technique is being expended in its ‘payload’, per se.

The third major breakpoint, the quarter-break, is when only 25% of the expended weft makes up the damaging payload of the technique. As a general practice in the trade, most chalkweavers concoct their techniques to lurk in the range of the first and third breakpoints, as it is generally agreed that any further is simply far too much weft expended for far too little payoff. The calcic reserves of a weaver are a concern as well, as trying to cast high-potency techniques can swiftly drain their reserves while giving little by way of effective damage.

The apex pattern of a technique is when, as mentioned above, four times the weft spent on potency is spent on the structural weft to contain it. After that is the hard structural breakpoint, where the structural weft begins to - ironically - collapse under its own weight, and preventing this requires building sub-structure in the pattern at indefensible rates, guaranteeing even greater calcic expenditure. More often than not however, the pattern simply collapses.

But weavers still desire maximum potency. They still wish to attain a technique’s apex pattern, even if it is massively expensive. Beyond even attaining the hard maximum that a technique can yield, there is still a solid argument to be made for making techniques as cheap as possible to deploy, conserving calcic reserves and allowing the subject to use more techniques and fight for longer. What then, is the solution to this problem?

It all comes down to tricks; effectively, cheating.

The problem above affects techniques that are woven purely from calcic ribbon using the play of the hands. This can be viewed as the backend of the technique. The ‘frontend’ can be perceived as when the weft construct is prepared to the extent of the backend preparation performed. So, how can the front and backend be ‘cheated’, per se?

Among the most popular are handsigns for cheating on the backend, and self-impositions for cheating on the frontend. In a much broader sense, all cheating involves harnessing the meta-mechanics above the base mechanics; the praximechanics. The praximechanics allows for compelling chalk to function in manners that somewhat defy the rules it’s constrained by, allowing for reaping otherwise impossible results under certain conditions. The general practice in calcic combat then, is to prepare a technique up to a point, and then massively empower it beyond the mathematics of potency and structure using praximechanics-reliant methods. Handsigns allow for weaving potency and structural weave on the backend more cheaply and thus efficiently, and frontend self-impositions bolster a technique on the frontend once it’s prepared, utterly bypassing the constraints of structure that would have otherwise been inflicted if the empowerment of the technique was done with raw backend weaving alone.

With reference to the arsenal cards, should a technique be empowered up to and even beyond it’s apex pattern, it is given the affix of ‘Apex’ or ‘Apical’ somewhere in the technique’s name, denoting that it has been empowered beyond the usual state to it’s fullest extent and beyond.

Collapse Function

Teks is recommended reading for this section.

“Now this, this is simply too much. We’ve known for the longest time that the scales were unbalanced in favor of the Children of the Sky, but this is a transgression even upon their own rules. The impositions I’ve taken under the Astrolabe so that my own kin may thrive are plentiful enough already, and I will forever be denied so much as a result - and yet this is still an end that I cannot reach. I must find a means to put the gold to use.”

An incredibly high-level ability under chalkweaving that truly allows for playing fast and loose with the rules of the verse. Should certain criteria be met, a chalkweaver is able to ‘collapse’ the equation that makes up the pivotal mechanism of a technique - such as tek - which yields a modification of that equation - and the technique that is dependent on it - as an iteration of itself that is more free to use. This ‘collapsing’ is the elimination of either a launch criteria or target constraint of the equation, allowing that equation to weave chalk under immensely slackened governing rules.

Most commonly used on teks, collapsing a tek can be viewed as metaphorically eliminating the scaffolding that upholds the functionality of that tek, while simultaneously ensuring that it not only continues to function, but functions in a manner that allows for more freely utilizing it, having eliminated either a condition for its deployment or a constraint upon what it can act upon. While eliminating conditionals and constraints is the broad description of the result of technique collapse, the more skilled when using collapse are generally allowing their techniques to operate with slackened rules, allowing them to manifest in new - typically more powerful - forms.

Typically, collapsing a technique’s otherwise inviolable operating laws is achievable only via Weftcrash, the space of lucidity where dreams can be realized in crystal clarity within reality, forged in the bolts and flames of Astrolabic gold. Particularly powerful combatants preemptively prepare collapsed iterations of their techniques beforehand, such that they are able to utilize them the moment they trigger the cascading auric backlash.

Considering the fact that the Astrolabe and the mechanics of Weftcrash are what facilitate this technique, the ability to Collapse an equation is downstream of the Flash Protocol in its workings, making Function Collapse a protocol-level permission, allowing it to bypass the conventional functionality of chalkweave. That being said, many are disinclined to call it the ‘Collapse Protocol’ as it suffers from a distinct lack of universality in what it can be used upon; there are a wide range of equations that control the workings of the Switchboard that simply cannot be subjected to the Collapse Function, and thus it is viewed as not being a ‘true’ protocol. This limited scope of equations that the Collapse Protocol is believed to be a deliberate check on its powers imposed by the Astrolabe, for the sake of preventing the various flavors of catastrophe that might follow tampering too loosely with Switchboard mechanics.

An Example

The following writ is taken from Adven Ventura’s arsenal card, as well as from background documents that aren’t publicly available.

Adven Ventura’s tek - the Trajectory Calculator - is an immensely simple calcic ability that hooks into his Weavesight, and grants him the uncanny ability to track and thus plot and predict the movements of projectiles - and bodies in general - in space.

When an object such as a projectile enters the view of the bearer of the Tek, lines are drawn emanating from it, indicating its vector components in three-dimensional space and their resultant; the path it it is currently taking. This path is represented by a line that is drawn from the projectile to a range of places where it is likely to strike, represented as a flaring of the end of the line into a cone. These cones are deliberately employed to reduce the computational overhead of the Tek when in use, and thus the unravelling it inflicts on the caster.

Though simple, the tek lends him considerable utility, such as being able to see whether he is in the path of projectile-based attacks, while also greatly enhancing the accuracy of his own ranged weaponry due to being able to map the projectile behaviors on to the perceptive layer that his tek grants him.

Additionally, it can anticipate projectiles before they are even fired. Knowledge of a firearm’s make and the rounds it uses allows the Tek to draw an extended cone from the gun’s barrel to where a projectile fired from it might strike. Even if the details of a projectile weapon are not known, observation of the weapon in action allows for forming a model of its firing behavior, enabling computation towards anticipating where fired projectiles might strike.

Taken further, knowledge of the various projectile weapons within his perceptive range allows him to prepare advanced strategies to counter them.

Where the Tek sees considerable utility is in calculating interceptions and rebounds. If a projectile is able to rebound, such as a rubber ball or hard-metal bullet, the path it will take after rebounding can be calculated. If a known weapon is readied, or parameters of some other launch system such as a device or even the arms are fed to the Tek, it can deduce the parameters needed to intercept another body midflight. If a projectile is in motion and a firearm is readied, the slide rules can indicate where the bearer of the Tek must aim to obtain a maximal chance of intercepting the projectile with a fired shot.

Ventura’s tek does suffer a limit - though it is not entirely accurate to call it such, as it is simply not designed to be used in this way - that it can only read and thus track the various metrics of motion for bodies moving in Ventura’s perceptive range. He cannot alter these projectiles in any way that is based solely on the tek.

Normally, anyway. By attaining the lucidity of Weftcrash, Ventura becomes suffused with gold, and his tek responds accordingly, having the scope of its utility massively broadened as the limits of its initial workings are collapsed;

Trajectory Calculator: Collapse - Cado Axle: Tek | Trajectory Calculator “Nine-Spoked Wheelstrider Ceraun Hatria gave me a charge; to cultivate strength and restore glory to the Kin. This is the power I realize as a didact.” A truly divine technique. While Ventura’s tek does indeed function via using intangible calcic slide rules to dexterously measure the movement of bodies in space, allowing him to uncannily track and thus calculate their trajectories, this is hardly the limit of this tek. Empowered by the backflow of gold flames, Ventura can expand a cubical weft boundary and utilize the entire woven cube as a slide rule, and instead manifest his intangible graduated gossamer strings as solid, tangible, calcic matter in space. All things within the boundary are pierced by Ventura’s slide rules, and he thus obtains total control of their movement. If bullets are fired in his direction, he can pierce them with slide rules and drag them off-course. If a fist is swung towards him, he can yank it away and send the thrower spinning like a top. If objects are in motion or at rest, he can reverse this state as he sees fit. In the presence of this technique, all trajectories collapse under the will of the Wheelstrider.

When collapsed, Trajectory Calculator now allows for controlling the movements of objects in space, rather than merely tracking them, considerably expanding the utility it lends to Adven Ventura. Under the effects of the collapsed calculator, all matter within Ventura’s perception is subject to his will movement-wise, solidifying the power of the Collapse Function as one of the school of white’s greatest techs.

As a final note with reference to arsenal cards, the fact that collapsing a technique is conditional upon Weftcrash means that many baseline techniques that are T2s or T3s are empowered to the virtual category of T6, under the Epi-Break system, even above the T5 Flash Protocol. This shouldn’t much of a surprise, as the Flash Protocol still operates under bounds; the Collapse Function is a temporary suspension of those very bounds, which is what makes it as powerful a technique as it is.

pNarrat: Spyndl’s Tomic Stomp

A holdover from Old Danseer custom, brought forth into the modern Switchboard by the Wheelhouse of the Spyndl Academy.

In the early Switchboard, the expansion of chalkweaving and striding as practices was left in the hands of two major factions; the Arcad, who treated it as a science and sought to discover the finer intricacies of it, and the Danseers, who were content to wield those discoveries - and the unknown - as swords and cudgels, reveling in the fact that the power they possessed was inherent to the third kin, and uniquely inherent in its most powerful forms to the Danseers.

A strange research pipeline emerged, where the Danseers would perform some calcic feat as a product of elementary experimentation driven by instinct, and the Arcad’s inquiry into it would reveal it as an immensely complex facet of the way the calcic behaved, shedding light on previously discovered conundrums and opening up new paths of inquiry to explore. One such instance of this - and perhaps the most prominent - was the Danseer’s ability to assert their strength with a mere stomp of the foot. Beyond merely stomping the ground as if to squash an insect, the ‘Danseer stomp’ - as it came to be called - was inarguably purposeful - asserted so both by those who executed it and those who felt its effects; akin to being roared at by a mighty beast, combined with being hit over the head with a blunt, heavy object.

It came to be fairly useful in Danseer social custom, after it was realized that the power of the stomp was heightened not by training or technique, but by - seemingly - how great one was as a Chalkstrider. Travelling long distances, fighting powerful foes and emerging triumphant, leading bands of kin, discovering things hidden in the Dancirah; it became clear to all that much like the halos atop the Danseer’s heads, the Stomp’s power seemed to scale with merit. Being audacious and daring to do mighty things; this was what raised the power of one’s Stomp. As such, in social scenarios, the determining of who was the strongest and thus likely most capable - as Danseer custom tended to assert - was simply a matter of making a solid strike against the ground with the foot, and seeing who was staggered into submission, and who merely laughed off the mild wind across their face.

In this manner, meetings of Danseers ascertained who was the most deserving to speak and be listened to rather swiftly, as a single stomp to pose the question - and a following stomp by anyone left unperturbed by the first - was more than enough to determine the strongest of the lot, as they were - quite literally - the only ones left standing. All others - after two subjugating blasts - have their inadequacy made very clear to them.

The Arcad naturally looked into this power, and though it was unknown to them at the time, the ‘Danseer stomp’ in actuality was a power that hinged on the ledgerial. A power inherent to the third kin, but needing awakening by sufficient assertion of one’s own prominence in the Great Sky, a denizen of the Switchboard can muster up the entirety of their astrolabic ledger - all their desires and deeds, trials and triumphs, repute and infamy, the weight of their ideals, indeed, their very ontology - and levy it against local reality as a singular, concussive blast with the slam of a foot, immediately praximechanically subjugating all thinking weave around them to varying degrees conditional upon the writ of their own ledgers. Weaker beings can be outrightly killed by the levied weight of a being of prominence, while even strong ones are inflicted with powerful impairing effects from immense disruption of the function of their straits.

Coming to understand that the Stomp scaled off of what was quite literally the life one has led - coupled with a number of other disjointed bits of research - formed the preliminary body of inquiry that would mature into what the third kin know of the ledgers, praximechanics, and the Current today. It was perhaps the most important discovery of the calcic sciences.

Today, following the Refrain, those still capable of the now ‘Tomic Stomp’ - relating to ‘tomes’, or the written annals of history of those who perform it - are the Spyndl Academy’s Wheelstriders; Operators who have distinguished themselves in service and weftcraft, such that they’ve taken ‘spokes’ upon the wheel that is their halos - certifications of their authority manifested through an adaptation of Danseer custom. Spyndl’s most powerful Operators are thus known for their ability to effortlessly break the fighting resolve of all who stand against them by levying the tale of how they became what they are in the form of a subjugating blast from the stamped foot, and it is perhaps one of the most notorious and lauded powers that they posses. However, it is hardly exclusive to them, as the Tomic Stomp isn’t a product of climbing the ranks into the Wheelhouse. The Wheelhouse simply recognizes a threshold that has been crossed from mere chalkweaver to something more, and any wielder of weft - should they be so driven - can cultivate a mighty tale of their own, and levy it against all others as the stomp that breaks all who are lesser.

Consecration

The School of White should theoretically have the most liberal access to ledgers and ledgerial powers, as ledgers are chalk constructs and thus impossible to be formed by those without the Weave Protocol, such as the Vahnkin and the Depthstriders. In reality however, and perhaps terribly ironically, the weaving of ledgers is so violently, prohibitively and irreparably complex that most chalkstriders simply cannot even attempt to put together a ledger, much less erect a weft barrier to go with it and exert the ledger’s writ over bounded space.

The only means of accomplishing it is either by pure cosmic luck to have a tek that comes with a ledger, or to be exalted enough after the moment of Weftcrash to temporarily spin a ledger into being. Considering how rare regular teks already are, and the pure randomness that defines Weftcrash, ledgers acquired in this manner are still dreadfully rare, and thus the domain of ledgerial techniques is ruled overwhelmingly by the school of black, the depthstriders and their Deep Hollow line of techniques, all of them equipped with effortlessly deployed ledgerial effects, effects from writ that they can even alter on the fly.

Seeking to rectify this imbalance, seemingly, the Skydancers and their apostolics formulated their own highly-accessible ledgerial techniques that harnessed the immense calcic prominence of the Skydancers in their own right. It required the aspiring wielder to first take an imposition under the Skydancer, and should the Skydancer agree, the aspirant can be conferred a ledger. The problem arises from the fact the individual Skydancers aren’t nearly as powerful as the Amaranth Sultan, and thus they cannot actually bestow that many aspirants with ledgers. Thus, the impositions taken tend to be heavier depending on how powerful a ledger is requested, and that’s if an imposition is even made. If too many takes of impositions are using ledgerial techniques at a time, the Skydancer that fabricated their ledgers can be taxed beyond sustainability, resulting in existing, active ledgers failing, or requests for new ones being instantly denied.

Shamelessly pilfering the motif of the workings of the Deep Hollow being a cathedral built to the Amaranth Sultan Vahn, the Skydancer-based rival ledgerial technique bears the name Consecration; the making of something - such as a boundary - holy. In practice Consecration’s use is conditional upon fulfilling some aspect of the Skydancer imposition, and then erecting a barrier so the ledger can be applied. Depending on the imposition, the ledger might be restricted towards usage in certain ways, or free to be written as the wielder feels like. They are generally indistinguishable from ledgers provided by teks or woven in the aftermath of Weftcrash.

The limited availability of Skydancer ledgers means the wielders of Consecration are few, far between, and constantly changing. Generally, the only people one can reliably pen down as ‘users of Consecration’ are those who’ve found considerable favor in the eyes of the Skydancer, often one of their apostolics. The most favored tends to coincidentally be the chief apostolic, and thus Consecration is both a sword and a crown.

Advanced Depthstriding Techniques

The contest between the schools of white and black are often resolved in white’s favor. However, the curvature-wielding, space-folding wielders of black have a skillset outfitted with a variety of highly technical utilizations of verse mechanics. While the chalkweavers are more inclined to construct and fling increasingly more damaging and expensive barrages of harnessed material at each other, depthstriders and their usage of summoned boons, barriers and ledgerial techniques give them unexpected edges in combat scenarios.

Black Box Utilization

The Black Box is encouraged reading for this section.

The depthstrider’s black box is the source of their more advanced powers, as it grants them access to anti-information and the reversal of curvature. This in turn allows for eliminating conditions on their earlier abilities, and grants access to their more advanced ones. However, the black box has a number of nuances surrounding its use.

Primarily, the black box can either be opened or closed. While traditionally, transiting between states requires a verbal trigger - “Black box, open!” or “Close!” - more skilled depthstriders are capable of triggering open or close states wholly mentally. When the black box is open, the negative information within can be projected outwards into the world, and used in the performing of advanced techniques and casts. A helpful guide on what is and isn’t doable based on the state of the black box is as follows;

The following pulls from the depthstrider arsenal under Weave and Warfare.

Black Box Closed

• Curvature induction
• Limited Depthstride
• Limited Giving and Taking
  • This means Gifts and Possessions from the Void, the Draw Strike and Formshift
• Limited Storage and Retrieval of objects in the Void

Black Box Open

• All of the above without limits
• Reverse Curvature Induction
• Selective Action
• Paired Points
• The Deep Hollow
• Grand Summon
• The Crescent Hollow

In addition to the conferment of additional powers, black boxes have an additional quirk with regards to their operation, this being spatial backlash.

Backlash and Recoil-Riding

Mass compression of chalk down to a point to induce curvature is not without some consequence. When distorting space, the reversal of the direction of curvature is suffered by the black box when it is open. More simply put, negative curvature in space ‘unbalances’ the black box in the ‘direction’ of positive curvature. When inducing local curvature, the depthstrider suffers a backlash of reverse-curvature in their black box. Vice versa, inducing reverse-curvature causes a backlash of regular curvature.

This spatial backlash manifests as recoil, which is kinetic force that must be distributed in some manner in the lattice. Conventionally, it functions much like gravity. Positive curvature backlash causes a feeling of collapsing in upon the self, all of the lattice of the body being pulled taut by a force originating in the mind. Reverse-curvature backlash is the opposite, the body expanding as though being pushed apart from within. Depending on how much curvature in one direction was induced, the reversal of that suffered in the form of backlash scales proportionately. In certain instances, inducing large amounts of spatial distortion can greatly harm the user, and even kill them in some cases.

For light spatial distortion and the induced backlash, the passive unravelling reversal inherent to Third Kin lattices is sufficient for repairing the damage. In high intensity scenarios however, it is often necessary to mitigate spatial backlash and recoil in some way. Fortunately, this is quite doable in two ways;

• Paired distortion techniques
• Recoil-riding

Paired distortion is only usable in some instances, and it involves using both curvature and reverse-curvature simultaneously wherever possible. The backlash they generate cancels each other out, leaving the black box properly aligned. An example of this in practice is using giving and taking abilities when the black box is open. When closed, curvature can only be used, and as such the ability to receive or take implements from the Void is conditional upon the local altitude of the corresponding coordinates in the Void. In a sense, if a point in the Dancirah corresponds to a point in the Void that’s - say, below sea level - then curvature alone cannot be used to acquire things from the Void. Opening the black box and employing reverse-curvature fixes this, as curvature bridges a path between the Dancirah and the Dark through the Horizon, and reverse-curvature is induced in the desired implement within the Void, ‘repelling’ it upwards. The backlash of one part of the action is cancelled out by the other, and thus no recoil is suffered.

This really only works with some depth-based powers however, and assumes that the amount of curvature and reverse-curvature needed are equal, which is often not the case - summoning things from the Void, for example, uses immense reverse-curvature rather than curvature, as curvature is really only used to bridge the gap between the Dancirah and the Challenger Dark. At best, paired distortion is used to reduced suffered recoil rather than wholly eliminate it. There is also a fair bit of proficiency involved in using both curvature and reverse-curvature at the same time.

Recoil-riding is the far more preferred means of mitigating backlash, and it functions by actually allowing the backlash to hit fully - but then harnessing the recoil before it can course through the lattice and damage it. It can be imagined as sending a pendulum in one direction, then trying to stop it as it returns using a hand. The forward stroke is spatial distortion, the return stroke is the backlash, and upon hitting the hand, it suffers recoil. However, recoil-riding allows the pendulum to swing onwards in the opposite direction, expending all the generated recoil to generate spatial distortion in the opposite direction.

Consider this hypothetical; constructing spatial barriers is a feat of considerable curvature manipulation, taking more curvature than reverse-curvature to perform. After constructing a barrier, a depthstrider would conventionally suffer immense recoil from the generated backlash. However, chaining a barrier construction into summoning something massive from the Void exploits and expends the reverse-curvature backlash generated by the feat of curvature to then perform a feat of reverse-curvature, burning up the backlash and eliminating nearly all recoil, should they be matched as closely as possible. The summoning ‘rides the recoil’ of the barrier construction, allowing the depthstrider to perform both and suffer no consequences.

It thus then helps to categorize which depthstrider feats favor curvature or reverse-curvature;

Favors Curvature

• Attraction
• Barrier Construction
• Deep Hollow
• Grand Summon (Beast)

Favors Reverse-Curvature

• Repulsion
• Gifts from the Void
• Possessions from the Void
• Draw Strike
• Grand Summon (Treasure)

Intrinsically Balanced

• Selective Action
• Paired Points
• Formshift

Chaining the riding of recoil lets depthstriders summon and perform their powers very rapidly and at little cost to both mental and physical energies, keeping their memory and computational straits as well as unravelling reversal very unburdened. This makes them proportionately more efficient in combat, as they can focus on utilizing their powers rather than bringing them up to bear at all.

However, it does mean that depthstriders have a very major weakness that can be exploited; if a depthstrider performs a massive spatial distortion feat with the intent to ride the recoil out and nullify the backlash, preventing them from doing so means they suffer the full brunt of the backlash instead, which can stun, paralyze, injure, maim or outrightly kill them altogether. Depthstriders and opponents of depthstriders must thus be aware of how they use their abilities and when to exploit their usage of these abilities respectively.

Snap Inversion

A relatively simple depthstrider spatial control technique, with a fair bit of potency behind it based on how it’s applied. By creating a point of attraction or repulsion and keeping it in effect, the depthstrider gradually builds up backlash in that opposite direction. When sufficient backlash is accumulated, the parameters of that point can be immediately inverted, riding out the recoil to produce an immense pulse of either repulsion or attraction based on the initial state of the point.

It’s thus a very beloved depthstrider trick to convert low potency, long term exertion of attraction or repulsion into a high potency, short term exertion of the reverse. A shield of gentle repulsion that deflects oncoming projectiles can be inverted into a long range attraction that pulls the ranged target into melee proximity. And gentle attraction used to more strongly grip terrain can be flipped into blasts of repulsion that send targets flying away.

Immensely skilled depthstriders can maintain multiple points and invert them all simultaneously or in succession, to exert non-trivial command and control over battle. Simpler depthstriders, however, are far more inclined to use a repulsion point in the fist to send a head reeling back with a punch, and inverting that point into one of attraction, pulling it back in for another blow.

Advanced Boundary Control & Techniques

Spatial barriers - and more specifically, boundaries - are highly lauded in the Switchboard due to their immense efficacy. Unlike weft barriers that rely on physical durability to not be breached from inside or out, spatial barriers and boundaries stretch curvature over their entire surface, and anything incident upon a the shell - projectile, ability, melee strike, just about anything - is deflected and dragged down into the depths of the Challenger Dark.

But depthstriders have a number of tricks they can perform with their barriers to give them an edge in engagements. Most of these tricks are applied in depthstrider Deep Hollows, as they pair nicely in using the entire boundary and its rules to attack a target.

Local Gravity Manipulation A boundary traditionally inherits the gravitational conditions of the space outside it. A boundary constructed planet-side will thus have gravity act in the direction of the planet, and one constructed in deep space will have little to no effective gravity. However, constraining curvature manipulation to within the boundary allows for determining the gravity within it, be it made lighter, heavier or wholly nullified.

Dynamically altering gravitational conditions during battle can greatly trip up and frustrate an inexperienced opponent, especially when coupled with the ability for even more proficient depthstriders to constrain changes to the gravity to solely themselves, allowing for situations where an opponent is stuck floating in the boundary while the depthstrider runs along its internal circumference, making attacks, or the opponent is constrained to a small surface area of the boundary while the depthstrider is free to float and fly about, making attacks and proving troublesome to hit.

Boundary Mobility After constructing a boundary, it’s possible to move it. Altering the spatial parameters in real time can prove to be a very difficult task, as additional factors such as the changing plane of local curvature and Void altitude outside the boundary, as well as the momentum applied to things within it must be accounted for. It is ultimately a matter of skill, as is often the case.

Moving a boundary can allow for some fairly unique plays. A boundary can be constructed to capture a target and reposition them away from their allies or towards the depthstrider’s allies, greatly altering the conditions of battle. A boundary can be repositioned over dire geography - such as a raging deep ocean, or a volcano - and create a situation where both the depthstrider and the opponent are held ransom by the depthstrider, which might encourage negotiation - though the depthstrider holds a position of strength in all proceedings.

Space Translocation As a worldbuilding note, teleportation does not exist in the Switchboard. Beyond the fact that it isn’t mechanically justifiable how it would work, it would in turn narratively eclipse the need for the Strider Protocol. This hasn’t stopped the denizens of the Switchboard from conceptualizing such a thing, and attempting to realize it under the constraints of existing mechanics. They have not been successful.

The depthstriders with their intrinsic control of space have thus been uniquely poised towards achieving this. Ultimately, instantaneous travel is a matter of crossing a given amount of distance in zero time. If zero time isn’t achievable, then as minimal time as is possible.

Depthstriders achieve an approximation of instantaneous travel via exploiting much the same logic as wormholes in our world do. By folding three-dimensional space like a ribbon and piercing a hole through the ends, depthstriders are able to cheat distance itself, travelling little effective distance but considerable amounts of actual distance - in nearly zero time.

There are some limitations upon this power however; for one, it can only be performed by the highest echelons of depthstriders, the Void Drifters. Additionally, it can only be performed inside fully-enclosed spatial barriers or boundaries - though the one doing the spatial movement need not necessarily be the owner or builder of the barrier. As a final bit, if done improperly, the spatial backlash generated and recoil suffered can be immense, and is often distributed throughout the spatial boundary, which carries risk of collapsing it entirely. Even when done properly, space translocation still inflicts an amount of recoil on the traveler, stunning the inexperienced briefly as they emerge from the other side.

That being said, it does mean that - outside of the Strider Protocol and Depthstride - depthstriders have a much higher movement speed ceiling than chalkstriders, though conditional.

Black Geometrics

A somewhat crude but still markedly useful means of utilizing negative information. Making use of the fact that chalk and negative information have zero reaction with each other, it is possible to create utterly imperceptible elementary three-dimensional geometry in space, and move this geometry around via curvature manipulation. Walls of it can shield the depthstrider, blocks of slam into targets, and blades of accelerated to high enough velocities and honed to sufficiently wicked sharpness can tear through lattice with little consideration.

For many however, it isn’t a particularly favored way of using negative information, as it its effectiveness is highly conditional on the creativity of the wielder, while many depthstriders prefer to use their powers of curvature and the reverse as gateways to their stronger abilities. Much of its usage for this reason is found in esoteric void weaponry and armor that exist in utter defiance to many Switchboard logics, thus being immensely difficult to defend against or attack effectively.

Shaping

Giving, Taking, Forging and Shaping are four actions one can take to acquire more permanent power from the Void.

Giving and Taking exist in a sort of duality, where you can be given, and what can’t be given must be taken. Taking comes with specificity and thus increased clarity of want; things that are taken are more in line with what is desired by the taker. Giving leaves matters open, and so while one might not get exactly what they want, they are just as able to get much, much more.

Forging exists as somewhat to the side of these. The usage of various materials and components native to the Void - often even marinating the construction in the caustic stardrip - allows for forming a Void-empowered implement from the matter of the Dark. Even non-depthstriders are capable of doing this, and are thus capable of gaining access to equipment in the same vein as artificial relics, though bestowed with an oft-coveted amaranthine slant. Only depthstriders however, can forge relics of the Void that are bladed in negative information, as this is the sole purview of those who’ve gone under the knife of ablation and obtained the unknowable black box.

Shaping, however, is a highly advanced feat of depth powers. The projection of negative information outwards into an exact shape and marrying it - almost - with the Void itself can evoke a reaction between information and negative information, where chalk rushes in to fill the anti-chalk vacuum like a mold, and fully realize a complex feat of chalkweaving without ever weaving chalk. If one constructed a dagger out of anti-information, the Void would fill that hollow with a dagger assembled out of the stuff of the Switchboard’s graveyard.

The overall budget of anti-information available in the black box is reduced as a result, but a proficient Drifter - as Shaping is a privilege only afforded to those who’ve made pilgrimage - can acquire an implement from the Void built to exacting specification. In true fashion of the Dark, the more one is willing to give, the more the depths are willing to yield as a result, and even the weakest of shaped weapons rival relics built from parts assembled from Interdictory Vaults dating back to the First Praxis War.

It is rumored that the Amaranth Sultan himself does the carving of nothingness that yields shaped implements, though this does leave many to question what he needs all the negative information he has gathered for. Some believe it is to fill - unimaginably - the sultan’s own black box, and leads to a wholesale empowerment of all wielders of the Void in general. Some think he will use it all to shape a weapon of his own, one capable of feats straddling the lines between unthinkable and impossible.

The Esoteric Playbooks

When one is ready to leave the beaten path of the White and Black schools, there is quite a lot waiting for them.

For now, there isn’t.