Ah, very nice idea here Kaelh. I always pictured the meditation or advanced meditation to show the level of fire within the Barbarian. For example: if I were to have Rufhelous meditate about pie or blades or women (sadly in this order, heh :P), Viptorian wouldn't be able to see my personal meditation of what I'm trying to think.

<<A meditation on a chakrel stone (we'll call it, for lack of better terms, Meditate Light), should be introduced where the chakrel stones begin to radiate the Barbarian's inner fire throughout the room, providing a light source by which to illuminate dark areas. This would consume the inner fire, but at a slow rate, so as to give it an actual use.>>


The usage of the chakrel stone being a light source of some kind in the room that slowly consumes IF. This could be used in emergency situations where a Barb isn't prepared by having his light source and flint handy. Although, I don't know if a barb would be willing to use his IF for a light source since they might need it for dancing or berserking in battle. A good idea, nonetheless.

-Ruffles

Meditate light, like, trace glyph of light?

Use the light of your soul to light up the room?

I'm not against sharing abilities, but . . . just warning you. GOL has been around for a bit.

Higgs

>There are situations where I would most certainly use my IF to light a room.

Ugh, no. The name, Inner Fire, is metaphorical. You don't actually have a little fire going on inside. Channelling your soul/spirit/inner fire to make real light is... magic.

Ruhrik

Kill critter. Start fire. Roast critter. Eat critter. Drink brandy. Contemplate navel. Belch. Repeat.

That's the proper way to meditate.

This was my original meditation proposal when meditations were first being kicked around.

Meditations

I. Introduction

Meditations are a family of abilities unique to the Barbarian guild. At their simplest level, Meditations allow a Barbarian to manipulate their mind, body and spirit with the aid of their Inner Fire (SAF).

Because of the broad nature of Meditations, their individual applications are very diverse and will open the door for some non-combat, or more specifically, pre-combat oriented abilities. Some Meditations will be able to be performed simultaneously, while some will able to be performed in conjunction with a Dance or Berserk.

Although their end effects will diverge quite a bit from one another, all Meditations will be alike in that they will require a sacrifice to use. In most cases, this will be Inner Fire. In some instances, it may require vitality, spirit points, fatigue, or even large roundtimes. Additionally, most Meditations will also require certain conditions be met before the Meditation can be performed. For example, the first Meditation requires a Barbarian be kneeling or sitting and that the Barbarian hold a lit torch. In general, these conditions will be negated with enough circles. Finally, Meditations will focus exclusively on altering the Meditating Barbarian in some way. Meditations will not have any direct effect on other players or creatures.

Meditations will be learned by one of two ways. In the first manner, Meditations will be taught by guildleaders at set levels. In the second manner, the guildleaders will send the Barbarian on quests at set levels. These quests will reward the Barbarian with the Meditation.

III. Current Meditations

1. Meditation of Fire
This Meditation allows the Barbarian to judge his level of Inner Fire (SAF). It requires the Barbarian be kneeling, or sitting, and that the Barbarian be holding a lit torch. Meditation of Fire takes approximately 30 seconds to complete. This Meditation is open to all Barbarians regardless of circle. It is the basis for all the other Meditations and uses no Inner Fire. This Meditation is roughly equivalent in effect to the MANA verb.

IV. Proposed Meditations

1. Meditation of Fire
This current Meditation will be changed so that a Barbarian of at least 10th circle will no longer need to use a lit torch. At 20th circle, a Barbarian will no longer need to kneel or sit. Finally, at 30th circle, a Barbarian will be able to perform the Meditation in about half the time required previously.
2. Meditation of Flame
This Meditation will allow the Barbarian to use their vitality, spirit, and fatigue in order to raise their Inner Fire to a maximum of 0 SAF. This will be effect-driven, and each pulse will give diminishing returns. The Barbarian will be able to stop this Meditation any time after the first pulse. This Meditation will be learned at 5th circle and will not require a quest. This Meditation will take 30 seconds to initialize before the first pulse, each pulse thereafter coming at 10 seconds. There is no limit to the duration, as the Barbarian is more than welcome to kill himself from overexertion.
3. Meditation of Anti-Magic
This Meditation will increase a Barbarians MR while its in effect. This Meditation must be performed alone and will require a preparation time of 90 seconds and a large SAF cost. This Meditation will be learned at 10th circle and will require a quest. The Barbarian takes a minute or so and gathers his Inner Fire, pushing it out in a protective envelope. This has the effect of helping the Barbarian to ward off magical spells (both hostile and beneficial), but also prevents the Barbarian from using his Inner Fire for another ability. Its duration will be discipline/circle based.
4. Meditation of Voice
This Meditation will give a bonus to any Roars by the Barbarian while its in effect. Since Roars do not require Inner Fire, this Meditation will allow a Barbarian to boost the power of his Roars by using his Inner Fire. This Meditation requires a full voice and 30 seconds to prepare. Also, there will be a moderate Inner Fire cost when its prepared. After its prepared, each time the Barbarian Roars, there will be an Inner Fire deduction that corresponds to the Roar boost. The duration will be stamina/circle based and the Meditation will be learned at 15 circle with no quest.
5. Meditation of Fists
This Meditation will allow a Barbarian to use his Inner Fire in order to increase his skill in Brawling (a much underused weapon skill). The Barbarian concentrates on making his body a killing machine in itself. This unfortunately has the side effect of give a penalty to any wielded weapon. This Meditation will require a moderate Inner Fire cost for preparation, which will require 60 seconds. At that point, it will use Inner Fire in pulses and will last as long as the Inner Fire does (with a maximum time similar to Dances). This Meditation will be taught at 20th and will require a quest.

V. Meditations for Thought

Some Meditation ideas still on the drawing board.

Meditation of Heart
This Meditation would allow a Barbarian to slow their heartbeat. This would have the possible effects of slowing bleeding, the spread of poison, and allow a Barbarian to hold their breath longer. On the downside, this Meditation would also slow vitality and fatigue regeneration, slow metabolism of poison, and would require some sort of limit on actions, such as no combat and roundtimes for moving.

Meditation of Speed
This Meditation would be somewhat the reverse of Meditation of Heart. It would decrease a Barbarians combat RTs, Dance RTs, and give them a boost to reflexes. On the other side of the coin, it would greatly increase bleeding, the spread of poison, and would continually sap fatigue at a rate greater than recovery.

Meditation of Steel
This Meditation would give a Barbarian a bonus to Forging. It would require significant fatigue and Inner Fire to prepare and maintain this Meditation. The fatigue cost would increase Forging time, also offsetting the bonus. The Barbarian would infuse the weapon with his Inner Fire, making a better blade more easily.

First, I must say that Drakken stated things quite well. I will not change a word of what he said in defense of the concept, nor will I repeat. The only things not covered under his post are Ruhrik's point that Barbarians do not, in fact, have a FIRE inside themselves, and the fact that Glyph of Light has been around. In response to the first... this, of course, is quite obvious. However, our inner fire chooses to manifest itself in the form of a flame. Since this is the form it chooses, it should also be an available form to make use of. Hence, the ability to focus the fire, through a medium, for lighting up an area.
In response to the second, Glyph of Light does not, to my knowledge (I haven't read up on this, but I'm pretty sure) require a specific medium through which to project light. Barbarians, being non-magical, would need a portal of sorts through which to allow their IF to shine. Chakrel, as it can project the inner fire to the Barbarian, is the only plausible substance which could accomplish this which currently exists. Possibly another, better medium may come out, but for now, Chakrel is the only thing which would accomplish this Meditation.

-Kaelh

You act as if the fact that our IF, or our "power," as you aptly put it, manifets itself as a flame when we meditate is unimportant and metaphorical. I believe that this form is, in fact, significant. This is where the primary difference in our viewpoints can be seen, because I agree with the rest of your post. I suppose it's a matter of personal ideals.

-Kaelh

I'd have to agree with Ruhrik and Drakkenn as well. Our IF doesn't exactly manifest itself as a flame. We simply see a flame because A) that's how we were trained to see it, and B) we are actually focusing ourselves intently on a flame in order to see within ourselves.

In other words, we see ourselves within the flame, not the other way around.

-Steinn-

Hmm, very true. I guess I should explain my magic theory thing better. People who can use magic have something inside themselves which allows them to manipulate mana. Thus, they are using an internal mechanism to manipulate external forces to an effect. And really, everyone has mana inside them. The mana streams flow through everyone, and the mage manipulates the streams within the target in order to affect them with a spell, or set a targetting matrix on them. So, it still fits in with my theories. However, mages may see themselves differently. They might see themselves as....I dunno, gods or something crazy like that. Well, until we cut off their arms and legs anyhow. Hehe.

Drakkenn Rarenth, Toggish Minister

I somewhat agree with your ideas about mana...

>>However, mages may see themselves differently. They might see themselves as....I dunno, gods or something crazy like that. Well, until we cut off their arms and legs anyhow. Hehe.

...and I DEFINITELY agree with this.

-Kaelh

Let's not start Monday off with mage-bashing posts. They've got their own issues to deal with. We've got our own concerns as well. Let's try and keep this on-topic as much as possible.

On the matter of Chakrel and Meditations, I do like most of the ideas so far. I think the addition of the Chakrel Amulets has opened up a whole slew of possibilities for us and our guild. It would be nice to find ways of using this Amulets to focus ourselves. Some of my ideas follow.

1) A meditation to make us more resistant to stuns for a short time. Many of us training multi use Badger Dance. By dancing, we remove the possibility of a life-saving berserk when we get a stunning hit. Perhaps this meditation would make us stun-resistant, lessening the chances of a stun and reducing it's duration. Call it the Heart of Iron. :)

2) A meditation to increase our weapon skill with one specific weapon. As we focus all of our concentration upon the weapon in our hands, we get a small bonus to use it, while we take a penalty to use any other weapon while this meditation lasts. Call this the Bond of Steel.

Just a few random thoughts this morning.

~Kodiac

>Being weapon prime and already pretty much the undisputed masters of melee combat (and the more disputed, but still accurate, masters of ranged combat), any decision to boost a weapon with yet another skill would be met with derision by the other guilds.

Arguably so. While I'm not one to worry about another guild's derision, my intent was to find a way to make a tertiary (or worse) weapon more easily trained.

I agree, however, that it's not likely to happen. Between our dances and weapon primary power, we aren't likely to get anything to further tweak our ability to use a weapon.

In that case, I will ressurect the desire to meditate a Death Grip on my sword. Perhaps this can only affect one weapon at any time, and you can only change it once per circle, or something, but it sure would be nice not to have to fear for my 200 plat bastie every time I die.

~Kodiac