Arbormancy
Arbormancy is the Artisanal Magic focused on woodcraft and other projects involving plants. While typically used on lumber and other woods they are also effectively used on other plants and even vines to a creative artisan.
As a result these skills have use outside traditional carpentry as well. The House of Flowers utilizes arbormancy in training the living Sagewood to form the structural supports of the temple, and even Woodspell Diviners have been known to alter a tree's growth pattern to support structures of their Lumberjack crews.
Utility
Arbormancy is the Artisanal Magic of crafting with plants, particularly wood. It allows for the manipulation of material properties to allow for easier shaping and superior strength. The powers of arbormany can be split into three basic subcategories.
Woodbending
Woodbending involves changing the properties of the material in question, typically lumber although it could be any other plant material, growing or cut, such as the prolific Sagewood plants. As a result woodbending is also used on the live sagewood trained to form the structure of the House of Flowers in Rol'na. Typically wood is considered a brittle material due to its tendency to shatter and splinter, but with woodbending a flexibility can be added to allow the material to bend before fracturing without the loss of its original strength. This skill also allows for bending wood into shapes such as rocking chairs or boat hulls without the use of a steam box, or in conjunction with the box for a much faster process. More malleable materials such as vines can also be made stronger without losing their flexibility through the skilled use of woodbending. Targets of woodbending may also be changed to allow for greater strength against angled forces which do not follow the much stronger grain directions of the wood.Planer Manipulation
Planer manipulation allows the artisan to achieve a much smoother finish or more precise carving contour. This class of arbormancy eliminates the risk of carving out a greater area than intended and reduces time required to smooth a surface when sanding using traditional methods. Due to its usefulness most arbormancy students learn the basics of planer manipulation before learning any other arbormancy spells. This class may also be used to enchant woodworking tools with Runes to aid craftsmen not skilled in arbormancy.Chromatic Arbormancy
Chromatic arbormancy allows the user to alter the colors of their woods without changing their strengths and other properties, in conjunction with Chromamancy. The same methods can be used without chromamancy if an appropriate stain is used, although basic chromamancy knowledge is still recommended as it can not oy speed up the process but also allows for a more effective stain with precise coloration and material protection.
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Access & Availability
While mastery of the more difficult arbormancy abilities typically requires years of training and practice the simplest of arbormancy abilities are frequently intuitive to those gifted with a natural understanding of this class of magic. Individuals with a natural arbormancy gift will typically show an intuitive feeling for the qualities and uses of different wood types, or an innate understanding of the load distribution within wooden steuctures, or pick up any woodcarving-related skills quickly after exposure to the skill and frequently also at a rather young age.
Those without a natural talent can still be trained quite effectively, and may even achieve the highest levels of skill in arbormancy. They will simply require more training to learn each skill and more concentration and Imperium to cast them.
Complexity
Arbormancy in itself is fairly simple, relying more on the mind of the caster and their intentions than on any complicated processes or rituals. Those using arbormancy are free to determine their own hand motions for each casting, if they even wish to utilize their hands to help focus their concentration, and as a result the uninitiated frequently cannot see whether or not an individual is casting arbormancy spells when utilizing thread. Their steady movements of running a planer across a woodsurface, or their short quick strokes of a whittling knife, may be all that is required to use arbormancy if the caster is well-versed in its usage.
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