Talk:Item Spell


 * /Archive - The vote about renaming from Ashes Ritual to Ashes Spell

Conjuring ghost/spirit?
It is my theory that by holding the ashes of the person in the skill name the ritualist conjures the ghost of the person, so the ghost will grant the ritualist a bidding. That's how I put it in the original version of the article. This was changed to a plain and strict "No spirits are involved in Ashes Rituals." Simple question: How do we know that no spirits are involved? Just because none is visible? Hmmm ... isn't it the nature of spirits that they are invisible most of the time? -- 02:18, 18 February 2006 (CST)
 * Sorry, it's "no spirits are involved", not "no siprits are involved". Subtle difference.  At the top of the spirit article, there is a disambig note: This article is about the creature type Spirit in the context of skill descriptions. For information on spirits of mortal creatures that have died, see Ghost.  Thus "no spirits are involved" does not conflict with your theory, though it does not mention your theory either.  It is neutral where your theory is concerned. -PanSola 13:31, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * This is at the link the disambig note leads to. 69.124.143.230 15:25, 18 February 2006 (CST)
 * "Fixed". It was a legacy artifact before we decided on how to handle the Spirit/Ghost issue. -PanSola 17:52, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * And for the record, I personally don't find it "obvious" that these skills in question involve the ghosts of the dead. Possible?  yes.  But unless the Chapter 2 PvE story or lore or whatever explicitly says it, I find it equally likely that boons came from the actual ashes themselves.  The flesh of a holy person, in Chinese culture, can attain holy attributes despite the fact that the "spirit" of the holy person has parted from it, and similariy with ashes. -PanSola 18:09, 18 February 2006 (CST)


 * PanSola: I thought there was a general agreement that ghosts are spirits?!! See Talk:Ghost. So if you say: No spirits are involved, that includes that no ghosts are involved! -- 20:16, 20 February 2006 (CST)


 * Well, there's the META spirits that is the superset of Ghosts and spirits created by rituals. In the above i was trying to use wikified spirits to mean the ones created by rituals only, whereas the non-wikified spirit refers to the META spirits.  In any case, changed the wording.  See if that makes it sufficiently neutral of your theory. -PanSola 01:27, 21 February 2006 (CST)


 * Hmm .... okay ... for now. I hope that Factions will come with a manual that explains a bit more about the background of the Ritualist and his rituals. Hopefully that manual will clarify some questions. -- 04:20, 28 February 2006 (CST)
 * This line... "Item spells do not create spirits" with a link to the spirits article is wrong, or at least very confusing, because there is Anguished Was Lingwah.  --Sami 22:52, 20 May 2006 (CDT)
 * That particular one summons rather than creates. Anyways, that sentence is left as a clarification back from the day when there are ppl who wnat to call item spells "Ashes Rituals" (at that time Item Spells are just classified as Spells in the game). - 23:59, 20 May 2006 (CDT)

"Was"
I've been trying to decipher for a while now...What is the exact meaning of the "Was" in Ritualist skillnames? For example, "Destructive Was Glaive". I see two distinctly different possibilities.

1) Mr. Glaive was a destructive person in life and so the skill was thus named.

2) His name is actually Was Glaive, and he is destructive.

The former seems more likely, as many characters seem to have interpreted it that way ("Uber Was I", etc). But I still find it puzzling because it's an unusual combination of past-present tense verbage. Kind of like Yoda speak. "Glaive was Destructive" -> "Destructive Was Glaive". It takes my mind a minute to process that kind of thing...

Or maybe I'm just totally missing something here?

According to Wikipedia, there is an ancient Egyption symbol called the Was, but it seems to have no relation whatsoever to the Ritualist skills.

-"Confused Was Entropy" Entropy 22:30, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Your second possibility was correct. Lady Glaive was a Corsair leader in ancient Elonian history and she was indeed destructive, bringing around the Second Great Corsair War. Therefore it is "yoda speak" like you said.