Who can do this?
Owners and co-authors with the right permissions create rules, edit them, move them to the trash and restore them. Guests only see rules once they are shared.
Magic and technology rules
A rule describes what is possible in your world and what the Illuminatio Engine measures scenes against.
What is it for?
A magic system only works if it has limits. Under “Rules” you record them: a description, the limitations and the cost or price. You can also add environmental conditions, such as a required location type like “Cave” or a cycle in world time, for example a lunar cycle.
The Illuminatio Engine uses these to check your scenes. If a scene uses a rule at a different location type or outside the cycle, the engine reports a violated environmental condition. Together with the abilities of your characters, it also detects when someone uses an ability too early or during a suspension.
Every change to a rule requires a point in time, either a scene or a world time. That way it stays clear when the rule changed in your story. The “Magic system” module must be switched on in the project settings for this.
How it works
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In the project settings, under “Modules”, switch on the “Magic system” module.
What you see afterwards: The “Rules” area is available in the project.
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In the “Rules” area, choose “New rule”, enter a name and save.
What you see afterwards: The detail view opens.
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Fill in “Description”, “Limitations” and “Cost”. If needed, enter the values under “Environmental conditions” in the “Required location type” and “Cycle length (world time)” fields.
What you see afterwards: The rule is described.
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Under “When did this change happen?”, enter a scene or a world time and choose “Save”.
What you see afterwards: “Saved.”
Your data
Rules and their changes with world time belong to the project and are backed up and exported with it. A rule in the trash is kept for 30 days.
Limits
By default, a project can hold at most 5 rules unless the project owner has a Studio subscription. The operators can change these values; Illumentis tells you the value that currently applies in the app once you reach the limit. The “Other conditions (free text)” field holds text that the engine does not check. Without the “Magic system” module switched on, the area cannot be used.
Frequently asked questions
When does the engine report “Environmental constraint violated”?
When a scene uses a rule and none of its locations has the required location type (ignoring upper and lower case), or when the world time of the scene does not fall on phase 0 of the cycle. Scenes without a location are not checked for the location type.
What does the cycle length mean?
The rule counts as met if the world time of the scene is a multiple of the cycle length, that is, it falls on phase 0 of a cycle. This is the only phase the field can derive.
Why does Illumentis ask for a scene or world time when saving?
Every change to a rule is logged with a point in time. The history is the basis for spotting changes to the canon later.