A Beginner’s Guide to Drucraft #29: Motion Sigls (I)

Slam

Type:  Triggered
Appearance: Pale yellow, faceted
Rank: D to D+

A basic self-defence sigl that compresses air into a cylinder before releasing it outwards in a concussive blast.  The effect is rather like firing an unloaded air gun, but much stronger.  Since the air immediately begins to disperse once no longer directed by the sigl’s essentia, the range is very short – a few feet at most.  Still, within that range, it’s effective enough at what it does, hitting with the force of a moderately strong punch.

Given its low rank and power, this is a surprisingly difficult sigl to make;  it requires far more finesse than most D-rank sigls and is correspondingly more expensive to buy.  However, despite this, it’s reasonably popular as an entry-level self defence sigl due to how safe it is for the wielder to use.  Motion sigls like knife and mighty blow can be just as dangerous to the wielder as their intended target, but with a slam sigl, it’s almost impossible to hurt yourself with it, making it a good choice for someone who you don’t really trust to carry around a lethal weapon.

Mighty Blow

Type:  Triggered
Appearance: Pale yellow, teardrop shape
Rank: D to C

Probably the easiest and most straightforward Motion sigl out there, this is widely believed to be the first Motion sigl ever created.  It boosts the kinetic energy in a strike, making it swing faster and hit harder.

This sigl is most effective when used on tools such as a hammer or axe, or on weapons such as a sword or club.  It can also be used to enhance a punch or a kick, but this is dangerous – the extra momentum means that the wielder’s hand or foot will strike with immense force and is quite likely to be injured in the process.  Even at D-rank this is likely to lead to broken bones unless the wielder is careful.

Can theoretically be made at any power, but in practice almost never made above C-rank due to the risk of self-damage to the wielder.

Jump

Type:  Triggered
Appearance: Pale yellow, teardrop shape
Rank: D to D+

Produces a surge of kinetic energy, allowing a wielder to throw themselves through the air.  The early models of jump sigl were designed as a pure telekinetic effect, but this tended to work rather badly, and modern designs are instead designed so as to enhance a high jump or long jump (hence the name), which drucrafters have found tends to lead to far fewer injuries.  It turns out that having someone jump and then boosting it (so that they fly 2x or 4x as far as their own muscles could take them) works much better than just telekinetically hurling them through the air.  Note however:  while this sigl lets you jump safely, it gives you no corresponding ability to land safely.  Injuries from use of this sigl are common.

Can be made at virtually any rank, but once you go above a rank of D+, the UK (as well as most other European countries) no longer permits you to call it a Jump sigl.  This is because at C-rank and up, this sigl lets a wielder jump so high and so far that they need a Featherfall sigl (or equivalent) to land without broken bones.  Any jumping sigl of rank C and above is legally required to be sold under a different name and with extensive safety warnings.

Featherfall

Type:  Triggered/Continuous
Appearance: Pale yellow, ovate
Rank: D+ to C

Slows down the wielder’s movement by transforming the kinetic energy of their momentum into free essentia.  The main use of this is to prevent damage from falls by reducing the wielder’s terminal velocity – a fall of five feet and a fall of five hundred feet both result in the same impact.

Comes in triggered and continuous models.  Triggered models are much more flexible, allowing the wielder to slow themselves to exactly the speed they want to, when they want to.  The problem is that this requires the wielder to realise that they’re in danger, stay calm enough to channel into the sigl, then maintain concentration and continue to channel into the sigl until they touch the ground – not necessarily an easy thing to do while in free-fall.  Many drucrafters have died due to not activating their featherfall sigls in time.

As such, continuous featherfall sigls are more popular.  Continuous featherfall works by ‘capping’ the wielder’s top speed, activating automatically if the wielder is moving sufficiently fast relative to their surroundings.  The exact size of the cap is chosen at time of creation, and there’s a long-running debate among Motion shapers as to the best figure to choose;  the higher the number, the less likely the sigl will activate when you don’t want it to, but the more a fall is going to hurt.

Continuous featherfall sigls have drawbacks.  First, they can’t tell the difference between moving fast by accident, and moving fast because you want to – as such, they have a habit of activating at the wrong time.  Second, they require a constant flow of essentia.  So long as the sigl is not actively working to slow the user, this flow is small, but even so, most wielders of featherfall sigls elect to take them off much of the time to avoid annoyances.