Min Hajin‘s Research Notes #1
It is said that the author of Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent wishes to build a fully-integrated system that is not just a slap-on extension or interpretation codex of the known-world, but a foundational schema—one that allows for organic specialization, sustainable cross-discipline branching, and in rare, precisely-managed cases, min-maxing potential without systemic collapse.
One of the fundamental aspects of this system is the ability to branch out into distinct builds with the right customization. From a broad base of Tier 1 spells—each simple enough to grasp, but designed with extensibility in mind—a practitioner can gradually carve out a specialization tree, often unique to their experience, temperament, or even emotional tolerance.
This is where the genius (and cruelty) of the framework emerges: you can unlock everything. There are no hard-coded restrictions. But in practice, attempting to do so is an act of academic suicide. The system assumes you have neither unlimited time nor bottomless recalibration potential, and will quietly penalize jack-of-all-trades builds through inefficient progression costs and passive instability.
Each Tier 2 spell is tethered to certain combinations of Tier 1 foundations—some can be accessed with only a single prerequisite, others require synergistic blends from seemingly unrelated minor schools. A few notorious Tier 2s are trap branches: alluring in their description, but so resource-hungry and time-taxing to unlock that most realize too late they’ve sunk weeks into a glorified rune with a five-second uptime and catastrophic cooldown.
Say, we have the following Tier 1 Stone Thaumaturgy spells:
| Skill Name
| Type
| Tags
| Description
|
| Stonebind (Rank I)
| Active
| Combat / Utility
| Temporarily anchors an object (or creature’s foot) to the ground using localized pressure. Ineffective on flying or large targets. Great for delaying or trapping.
|
| Pebble Ward (Rank I)
| Active
| Defense / Reaction
| Instantly lifts small stones from your surroundings to intercept low-grade projectiles or magical flares. Limited to 1 use per short rest.
|
| Stonewhisper (Rank I)
| Utility
| Narrative / Detection
| Allows you to ‘listen’ for minute vibrations in a hand-held stone to detect movement, tunneling, or recent nearby footsteps. Doesn’t always give clear direction.
|
| Granule Drift (Rank I)
| Active
| Exploration / Mobility Requirements: Any Sediment Thaumaturgy Skill
| Disassembles compacted stone into loose sediment in a small area, allowing excavation or safe descent through walls and floors. Requires stable emotional focus.
|
| Slatecast (Rank I)
| Active
| Combat / Utility / Ranged
| A sharp-edged slate fragment forms from ambient grit and is launched forward. More accurate than Stupenstone Fling but lacks its emotional scaling.
|