This week for Magic Mondays we bring you a defensive array that promises to always deliver right on time.
This week we show you the Steel Dragon array.
Notation: Transmute Copper, Gold, Iron, Lead, Silver, Tin and Wood into a disk of Iron with twice the area size of the array and with a depth 1/10th that of the array’s diameter. Pull this disk towards the array at a speed of 1m/s and Sustain this Pulling.
Description: “Protection when you need it, only when you need, every time you need it,” was the marketing phrase the Uttosians used when they brought the Steel Dragon across the eastern ocean to Alfresia. Using the runes to fashion this type of array was entirely unorthodox according the Alfresians, who preferred something more reliable and rather less tangible than steel plates protecting them from incoming musket fire. There is a reason why the Middelburg Standard is the most used defensive array in the city. After all, what can penetrate an impenetrable force field?
“Whatever the arrays do not specify,” was the Uttosians answer to that rhetorical question, and suddenly the Alfresians weren’t so stalwartly sure about their tried and true array. It is undoubtedly true that the Middelburg Standard, as all such arrays do, only stops materials which are specified by the runes in its array. Ice, for example is not specified and that is why, to this day, “ice knives” are (seldom) used in assassinations. What the array makes up for in simplicity, it loses out in flexibility.
“Dragons are as flexible as they are strong!” the Uttosians claimed when they heard of this revelation by the Alfresians, and there is some merit and truth in their propaganda. The Steel Dragon does create the steel disks (or Dragon Scales) only when confronted by the materials listed, similarly to the Middelburg Standard‘s force field it is true, but that scale is then held against the array by any lingering energy, ready to intercept any impact from any sort of material. Once it has been primed, it leaves behind a set of armour ready to defend its wearer.
To increase the flexibility of this array, the Uttosians who venture into Middelburg often carry pouches of gold dust with them. If ever confronted with an enemy, they simply have to reach into their pouch and cover themselves with the dust and like a parlour trick, they will suddenly have become encased in a set of dragon scale armour! There is a reason why the Middelburg footmen call the bodyguards of Uttosian diplomats Wyrms, because like the fabled creature they can suddenly appear in flash of golden light to rip apart the unwary.
If you want to get more arrays, check out our Journal of Array Design over on DriveThruRPG, now also available as a deck of magic cards.