INTRODUCTION
Warding vs. Evil is a weave that I have often wondered may have more effects and potential benefits than has been known to the Tower. During a recent meeting with Sheriam Sedai, I found myself with some extra time on my hands for additional study sessions, so I took it upon myself to practice this weave and then explore its function. The primary goal of this self-guided project was to identify, replicate, and explore the effects of the Warding vs. Evil weave. If I were able to better understand and disseminate information about the weave, and if it proved significantly useful, then such a project could have the potential to revitalize use of this weave in the war against the Shadow.
The weave requires only a single thread of Spirit and 7 SPs to form, and it takes 10 pulses of time. It can be channeled upon oneself or another target, regardless of whether the channeler or her target are engaged in combat or not. Due to its relatively short timer, with skill, it can also be woven between rounds of combat. The weave will last for 4 hours (ticks) until it expires, making it a relatively shorter weave like most status ailments such as Blind.
When most people think of the Warding vs. Evil weave, they think of its modest benefit for masking one's presence against infamous Shadowspawn (PCs). Specifically, it creates a minor illusion such that when the target enters the immediate vicinity of a Shadowspawn, they will draw less attention to themselves, albeit only when entering the area. (OOCly, it removes the ** from around the target's name and reportedly removes the color, but only for the message about entering the room.) This effect is spoiled by the fact that any Shadowspawn looking in the room or more closely scrutinizing the target will perceive a shimmering blue aura around them. The weave also has no impact on a beast's ability to actually attack or target a specific human.
However, a closer scrutiny of some obscure references in historical records (e.g., viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5857) suggests that Warding vs. Evil has some more effects that may not be fully captured by the basic entry in the Tower encyclopedia (wiki). Liia Sedai mentioned that she had heard some rumors that perhaps the weave somehow interfered with Shadowspawn enemies from attacking, but this needed to be verified. Still, it gave me ideas on what to test first.
METHOD
For the first part of the study, I had to place myself in a variety of situations to see if I could find out what effect, if any, the Warding vs. Evil weave had against lesser Shadowspawn (mobs). There is a lean muscled Trolloc raider that reliably haunts the forest northwest of Whitebridge and hunts alone. First, to test the effect of the weave, I wove Warding vs. Evil upon myself and entered the Trolloc's room, and stood there to see if it reacted differently.
I found quickly that at a fairly frequent rate, rather than attacking, the Trolloc would glare at me but not engage in combat. Once it had already engaged me in combat, the weave had no apparent effect on the Trolloc's behavior. This confirmed the general effect and allowed me to design some parameters to test the limits of how the weave worked.
To date, I have collected data on the following creatures:
A lean muscled Trolloc raider
A muzzled Trolloc
A hideous Trolloc
A Fade
A myrddraal
A corpse
First, I tested the weave's affect against a single Trolloc, the lean muscled variety as noted above. However, I also quickly included some testing on various patrols, such as the fist of Trollocs that can be found by the apple orchard in the Black Hills southwest of Tar Valon. When I stood before this group, I observed that the weave's effect applied against each Trolloc individually rather than against them as a set. As a result, the weave could result in the first Trolloc attacking you, none of the Trollocs attacking you, or anywhere in between. Unfortunately, if even one of the Trollocs successfully ignored the weave's effect, then every other enemy in the room would assist them in combat and attack me, even the ones that had just moments ago ignored me due to the weave's effect. For example:
"A muzzled trolloc glares at Azareth.
A muzzled trolloc glares at Azareth.
Azareth swiftly dodges a muzzled trolloc's attempt to pound him.
A half-man joins a muzzled trolloc's fight!
You strike a half-man's left leg.
A muzzled trolloc joins a half-man's fight!
A muzzled trolloc joins a half-man's fight!
A half-man slashes your right leg into bloody fragments!
Azareth pierces a muzzled trolloc's body very hard.
Azareth swiftly dodges a muzzled trolloc's attempt to pound him."
In this situation, there were 3 muzzled Trollocs in the room, and we see that the first two ignored Lord Azareth while the third attacked him. As a result, the Fade and the other Trollocs immediately engaged. Had there been additional Trollocs in the room, we would not know if a fourth or fifth creature would glare or attack, so in samples like this, I counted it as 3 trials but only 2 successes for the Warding vs. Evil's effect.
One other brief study that I conducted before testing against these creatures more extensively was to see whether Warding vs. Evil blocks "Shadoweyes" (i.e., ravens, crows, and rats) from following humans. Unfortunately, the weave appeared to have no effect whatsoever on this effect.
Having isolated the primary effect of the weave, the primary data collection process thus turned to standing in front of the creatures listed above and counting how many total times they had the chance to attack, and how many times the weave successfully caused the creature to delay its attack.
RESULTS
To date, I have completed the following number of trials of Warding vs. Evil's effect, with the following number of successful attempts to prevent combat. I also have included the level of worldly experience for each creature, which I will discuss briefly below.
A lean muscled Trolloc raider: Level = 50, Trials = 100, Successes = 44, Success Rate = 44.00%
A muzzled Trolloc: Level = 15, Trials = 101, Successes = 46, Success Rate = 45.54%
A hideous Trolloc: Level = 25, Trials = 117, Successes = 61, Success Rate = 52.14%
A Fade: Level = 45, Trials = 102, Successes = 7, Success Rate = 6.86%
A myrddraal: Level = 45, Trials = 100, Successes = 5, Success Rate = 5.00%
A corpse: Level = 20, Trials = 27, Successes = 10, Success Rate = 37.04%
An important note is that my trials against the lean muscled Trolloc raider, the Fade, and the myrddraal were all completed by myself alone in the room. Approximately one-third of the trials for the muzzled Trolloc and the hideous Trolloc were completed with a second ally in the room, whom I also protected with the Warding vs. Evil weave. Although I did not formally track my results and test whether there were any differences in the outcome between when I was alone in the room versus present with an ally, a potential limitation of my findings, there did not appear to be any differences in the success rate of the weave based on how many people were present.
Because I observed that there appeared to be a roughly similar success rate for four of the creatures (i.e., the three Trollocs and the Fade/myrddraal corpse), I mathematically tested whether these four creatures and success rate for the Warding vs. Evil weave was statistically diferent or not across the creatures (https://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/ ... ault2.aspx). My results indicated that there was no significant difference across these four creatures, and that the weave was approximately 44.68% successful for each of them, X^2 (3, 345) = 2.75, p = 0.43. Similarly, the Fade type creatures both had a similar success rate averaging 5.93%, X^2 (1, 202) = 0.31, p = 0.58.
Of note, the level of the creature did not have any direct impact on the success rate of the weave's ability to prevent attacks. For example, the success rate was virtually identical between the lean muscled Trolloc raider (44.00% success rate, level 50) and a muzzled Trolloc (45.54% success rate, level 15), X^2 (1, 201) = 0.049, p = 0.83.
DISCUSSION
Beyond the publicly known effect of the Warding vs. Evil weave, this study confirmed that the weave has a primary effect to impede the ability for certain Shadowspawn creatures to attack humans. There are a number of creatures that may be prevented from this weave, so far including a variety of Trolloc and Fade enemies. Interestingly, the type of Shadowspawn seems to have a direct impact on the success rate of the weave, with at least two "classes" of success: Trollocs and weaker Shadowspawn creatures appear to be blocked somewhere around 45-50% of the time, while stronger Shadowspawn such as Fades are much more resistant to the effect and likely only successfully blocked around 5-6% of the time.
When multiple allies are Warded and present in the room, the enemies first seemed to be aggressive towards the last person grouped with the leader. Against a larger patrol, this means that Warding the person in that position (i.e., colloquially known as the "buff spot") has the highest chance of leading the group to successfully evade attacks from Shadowspawn creatures and patrols.
The unfortunate restrictions of this weave, which significantly limit its overall utility, is that the percent chance of preventing attacks from Shadowspawn appears to be calculated independently for every enemy in the room, and as soon as one of those enemies resists the effect and breaks through it to attack their intended target, the rest of the Shadowspawn quickly shake off the effect and will assist their Shadowspawn brethren. This weave was also significantly less likely to prevent attacks from Fades, which is noteworthy because even brief attacks from Fades can result in status ailments such as Poison and Fear. The effect also checks every few seconds (i.e., on "aggro pulses") against Shadowspawn, so even if it prevented them from attacking you once, it may lead them to still attack you a few moments later.
The weave's success rate is fairly high against Trollocs, high enough to be noteworthy but low enough that it is still limited in scope. The greatest utility of this weave would be for channelers who frequently enter areas where they might encounter small but frequent groups of Trollocs, whether they are on the offensive (to avoid taking hostile attacks while chasing an opponent) or defensive (to avoid being hit by aggressive Trollocs while fleeing to safety). The Blight is an obvious place where one might consider using this weave, but Blodfest's movable Trolloc camp is another such area where the Warding vs. Evil weave may have some benefit.
Should channelers learn this weave more often? Its utility is arguably too weak to endorse it for everyone. If the weave lasted longer, like Armor or Strength, or if its success rate were significantly higher and closer to 75%, I would be much more likely to widely endorse its use. Although the weave is easy to use with such low Element requirements, the weave itself is fairly practice intensive, needing 10-11 practice sessions to achieve about 90% training versus some of the easier weaves to learn, such as 5-6 sessions for about 90% in Cure Poison. Still, for channelers who are much more likely to spend time in the Blight or supporting allied soldiers who fight against the Dark regularly, Warding vs. Evil appears to be a fairly decent weave that may be occasionally helpful even before you consider how it impacts combat with infamous Shadowspawn (players). For example, a human rogue might find the benefit of the illusory effect much more useful if their Sneak fails when attempting to backstab a Trolloc or Fade.
Additional study of this weave is needed to determine the broader list of which creatures are impacted by the Warding. For example, I have not yet tested whether Warding vs. Evil has an effect on darkhounds or Blighted creatures, such as Blight bears or trees found around the Blighted stedding. Additionally, although anecdotal evidence seemed to indicate that the success rate of Fades' supernatural fear effect was not directly impacted by the Warding, I did not formally test that effect. I would rank the Warding vs. Evil weave higher if evidence later revealed that this weave could limit the impact of Fear or other effects the Fades wield.
Overall, although my preliminary findings do not necessary support a glowing review of the Warding vs. Evil weave, I was pleased to discover more information about the weave's effect and will endeavor to share this information broadly. I have already updated the Tower encylopedia (wiki) with details from my research to raise awareness about this weave (https://wotmud.fandom.com/wiki/Warding_vs_Evil). I hope that you found this report thorough and informative. Thank you.
Amarea Helsen
Tower Accepted
Brown Ajah Apprentice