Manipulation of earth, metals, magnetic fields, and gravitational forces. Terraduct practitioners reshape solid matter, control magnetic attraction, and influence the fundamental forces that govern mass and structure.

Terraducts resonates with the dense, stable patterns of the Weave—the quantum signatures of heavy atoms, metallic bonds, and gravitational fields. Practitioners perceive reality as layered strata of matter that can be compressed, shifted, or restructured.

Terraducts was likely discovered late in the timeline (discipline 8 of 8), being the most complex and requiring synthesis of earlier disciplines' principles. As post-collapse settlements stabilized, survivors needed construction, mining, agriculture, and defense capabilities.

Discovery Pattern

Early practitioners probably discovered earth manipulation first (moving soil, shaping stone), then metal control (extracting ore, shaping tools), finally magnetic and gravitational effects (most exotic, hardest to achieve).

Cultural Significance

In Weaver culture, Terraducts practitioners are called "Groundshapers" (respectful), "Earthbinders" (common), "Stonemasons" (construction-focused), "Gravitors" (rare practitioners who can manipulate gravity), or "Planetary Engineers" (Quantum Scholars term).

Traditional sayings:

• "Stone is patient; stone is eternal."
• "The earth provides foundation for all things."
• "To move a mountain, become the mountain."
• "Gravity is not chains—it is the web holding reality together."

The Density Paradox: Terraducts requires physical strength (discipline is exhausting), patient persistence (earth moves slowly), spatial awareness (three-dimensional underground thinking), and respect for scale (moving too much too fast causes disasters). This creates practitioners who are strong-willed, patient, physically robust, and methodical—"solid" personalities.

• Thread Color: Deep brown, metallic grey, or magnetic field shimmer
• Glyph Patterns: Layered strata, crystalline lattices, magnetic field lines, gravitational wells
• Manifestation: Stone flowing like liquid, metal reshaping, gravitational distortion, earth rising or sinking
• Emblem Style: Inverted pyramid hovering above a singularity (Gravitasys variant)

• Geokinesis: Moving, shaping, or liquefying earth and stone
• Metalwork: Shaping metals without heat, creating alloys, extracting ore
• Magnetic Manipulation: Controlling ferromagnetic materials through field generation
• Structural Engineering: Building or demolishing stone/metal structures
• Gravitational Influence: Increasing or decreasing effective weight of objects
• Seismic Sensing: Detecting vibrations and movement through solid matter
• Mineral Detection: Locating valuable resources underground

Terraducts manipulates the quantum interactions governing dense matter—electron density distributions in metallic bonds, magnetic spin alignment, and potentially even spacetime curvature. Threads create plasmonic cavities in metals and semiconductors, enabling direct control of electron sea dynamics and bond reconfiguration.

Magnetic manipulation works through quantum spin control—threads bias spin states to create macroscopic magnetization. Gravitational effects (if genuine) may involve vacuum energy manipulation or quantum field perturbations at scales approaching the Planck length, though this remains the least understood aspect even from the ancient civilization's perspective.

Function: Detects and analyzes earth, stone, metal, and underground structures through seismic/magnetic sensing. Provides three-dimensional underground awareness.

Duration: Active sensing (typically 5-20 minutes)

Thread Cost: Low (6-10% reserves for thorough area scan)

Applications:

• Mining (locating ore, gems, valuable minerals)
• Construction (assessing ground stability, finding bedrock)
• Archaeology (locating buried structures, artifacts)
• Water finding (locating aquifers, underground rivers)

Range: ~50 meters radius and ~50 meters depth for detailed sensing.

Function: Reshapes earth, soil, sand, or soft stone by temporarily liquefying and reforming. Can create holes, walls, trenches, or earthworks.

Duration: Permanent reshaping (earth retains new configuration when solidified)

Thread Cost: Moderate (15-25% reserves for person-sized volume of earth)

Applications:

• Construction (digging foundations, creating earthworks)
• Agriculture (tilling soil, creating irrigation channels)
• Defense (building earthen walls, trenches)
• Mining (moving overburden, accessing ore)

Function: Reduces effective weight of objects by decreasing gravitational force acting on them. Can make heavy objects light enough to carry, enable jumping higher, or allow flight if weight reduced to zero/negative.

Duration: Temporary (sustained concentration, typically 1-10 minutes)

Thread Cost: High (25-40% reserves depending on object mass and duration)

Applications:

• Heavy lifting (construction, moving large objects)
• Transportation (floating cargo)
• Combat (lightening self for enhanced mobility, jumping)
• Flight (reducing weight to zero or negative—advanced technique)

Note: Gravitational manipulation remains the least understood aspect of QW magic—mechanism unclear even from pre-collapse perspective.

Function: Generates and controls magnetic fields to attract or repel ferromagnetic materials (iron, steel, nickel, cobalt). Can pull metal objects, hold them suspended, or launch projectiles.

Duration: Temporary (sustained concentration or brief pulse)

Thread Cost: Moderate (12-20% reserves depending on field strength)

Applications:

• Retrieval (pulling metal objects from distance)
• Disarmament (pulling weapons from enemy hands)
• Defense (magnetic shield deflecting metal projectiles)
• Combat (launching metal projectiles)

Limitations: Only works on ferromagnetic materials. Range limited to ~20 meters.

Function: Increases strength, density, and durability of stone, concrete, or earth materials. Can turn soft sandstone into granite-hard rock. Enhancement is permanent.

Duration: Permanent (material properties changed at molecular level)

Thread Cost: Moderate-High (20-30% reserves for person-sized stone enhancement)

Applications:

• Construction (strengthening foundations, walls)
• Fortification (creating harder defensive walls)
• Tools (creating stone tools with metal-like hardness)
• Repair (reinforcing damaged structures)

Permanence Note: Harden achieves true permanent effects reliably—strengthened stone remains strong indefinitely.

Function: Separates and purifies metal from ore, soil, or composite materials. Can pull iron from earth, extract gold from ore, or separate metal alloys into pure components.

Duration: Active separation (sustained as separation proceeds, typically minutes)

Thread Cost: Moderate-High (20-35% reserves depending on ore richness)

Applications:

• Mining (extracting ore without smelting)
• Refining (purifying raw metal)
• Recycling (recovering metal from composite materials)
• Jewelry (creating pure precious metals)

Economic Impact: Extract threatens traditional mining/smelting industries. Many jurisdictions regulate or tax Terraduct extraction.

Function: Generates localized earthquake—ground shaking, structural damage, disorientation. Can be subtle vibration or violent shaking depending on power.

Duration: Brief seismic event (2-10 seconds of shaking)

Thread Cost: Moderate-High (15-30% depending on intensity and area)

Applications:

• Combat (knocking down enemies, disrupting formations)
• Demolition (controlled building collapse)
• Siege warfare (damaging walls, fortifications)

Ethical/Legal Status: Tremor is heavily regulated as weapon of mass destruction. Prohibited in civilian areas, requires military authorization.

Danger: Can trigger cascading failures—building collapse, landslides, avalanches.

Function: Reshapes metal without heat by manipulating metallic bonds at quantum level. Can forge tools, weapons, armor, or artistic works from raw metal.

Duration: Permanent reshaping (metal retains new form)

Thread Cost: High (35-50% reserves for weapon-sized forging)

Applications:

• Weaponsmithing (creating swords, spearheads, arrowheads)
• Armor crafting (custom-fitted metal armor)
• Jewelry (fine metalwork, artistic pieces)
• Repair (reshaping damaged metal)

Forge Masters Specialty: The school combines Terraducts Forge with Pyrosonics and Fabricurgy for legendary craftsmanship.

Function: Reduces gravitational effect on target object or person, making them lighter or even weightless. Can enable lifting heavy objects, assisted jumping, or even brief levitation. Advanced version of Lift I with sustained control and larger mass capacity.

Duration: Sustained (seconds to minutes depending on mass)

Thread Cost: Moderate-High (25-45% scaling with mass and duration)

Applications:

• Construction (lifting heavy materials)
• Rescue (moving debris)
• Assisted mobility
• Tactical advantage (jumping higher)

Limitations: Cannot achieve true flight (requires constant thread investment), massive objects exceed capability, thread cost increases exponentially with mass.

Function: Increases gravitational effect on target, making them heavier or completely immobile. Can pin enemies, stabilize structures, or create crushing weight.

Duration: Sustained (seconds to minutes)

Thread Cost: Moderate-High (25-45%)

Applications: Combat (immobilizing enemies), preventing escape, stabilizing structures in earthquakes.

Ethical/Legal: Classified as restraint/weapon, regulated.

Function: Reshapes stone, rock, or earth into desired forms—carving, molding, or restructuring without breaking. Can create sculptures, tools, architectural elements.

Duration: Reshaping permanent

Thread Cost: Moderate-High (25-40% depending on volume and detail)

Applications: Architecture, sculpture, creating tools/weapons from stone, modifying terrain.

Function: Detects metal deposits, ores, or metallic objects within ~100-meter radius. Can identify metal type, purity, approximate quantity, and depth.

Duration: Active sensing (sustained minutes)

Thread Cost: Low-Moderate (15-25%)

Applications: Mining, treasure hunting, finding hidden weapons/objects, geological survey.

Function: Rapidly raises defensive wall of compacted earth or stone from ground. Can create fortifications, barriers, or protective structures in seconds.

Duration: Wall persists until destroyed or erodes naturally

Thread Cost: Moderate-High (30-50% depending on wall size)

Applications: Defensive fortifications, flood barriers, crowd control, protecting from attacks.

Function: Creates localized earthquake or seismic shockwave. Can destabilize structures, knock down enemies, trigger avalanches, or cause targeted destruction. Advanced version of Tremor I with larger radius (50m) and resonance tuning capability.

Duration: Shaking lasts seconds, effects persist

Range: Up to 50-meter radius

Thread Cost: Moderate-High (30-50% depending on intensity)

Applications:

• Demolition
• Warfare
• Avalanche triggering
• Destabilizing structures

Ethical/Legal: Classified as weapon of mass destruction in urban areas, heavily regulated.

Function: Generates true earthquake by manipulating tectonic stress—releases accumulated geological energy in controlled (or uncontrolled) burst. Can create localized quakes (single building) or regional disasters (entire cities). Magnitude scales with thread investment and geological conditions.

Thread Cost: Extreme (70-95% depending on magnitude and area, 5.0+ magnitude earthquakes require near-total depletion)

Applications: Siege warfare (collapsing fortifications, destroying cities), mining (triggering rockslides to expose ore), geological research (studying fault mechanics), controlled demolition, terraforming.

Magnitude Scale: 3.0-4.0 (building damage, 40-60% reserves), 5.0-6.0 (widespread destruction, 70-85% reserves), 7.0+ (regional catastrophe, 90-100% reserves, high failure rate).

Historical Disasters: The Capital Quake (7.2 magnitude, 18,000 dead, entire district destroyed), The Fortress Collapse (6.4 magnitude, siege-breaking earthquake killed 3,000), The Mining Disaster (uncontrolled 5.8 quake, 450 casualties).

Legal Status: Absolutely Forbidden—classified as weapon of mass destruction, attempting Earthquake = war crime/terrorism, immediate kill order, knowledge heavily suppressed, teaching forbidden.

Limitation: Cannot control fully (once triggered, earthquake follows geological fault lines unpredictably), massive collateral damage (affects far beyond intended target), practitioner often caught in own earthquake, thread depletion leaves caster helpless, aftershocks unpredictable, can trigger secondary disasters (tsunamis, landslides, fires), morally catastrophic, forbidden globally.

Function: Creates arbitrarily powerful magnetic fields—strong enough to levitate objects, deflect metal projectiles, disrupt electronics from kilometers away, or rip iron from blood. Ultimate magnetic manipulation.

Thread Cost: Very High (55-75%, scales with field strength)

Applications:

• Metal manipulation
• Defensive barriers (deflecting metal weapons)
• Levitation (magnetic materials)
• Electronic warfare
• Anti-armor weapons

Ethical Note: Blood iron manipulation considered inhumane weapon.

Limitations: Affects only ferromagnetic materials (iron, nickel, cobalt), extreme fields affect practitioner.

Function: Animates earth, stone, or metal into autonomous constructs—golems, guardians, or servants that follow commands. Creates earth-elementals that move, fight, build, or guard according to programmed instructions.

Thread Cost: Very High ongoing (50-70% initial, 10-15% per hour maintenance)

Applications:

• Construction (tireless workers)
• Security (permanent guardians)
• Warfare (earth-soldiers)
• Mining (autonomous excavation)

Golem Capabilities: Far beyond human strength, nearly indestructible, limited intelligence, follow simple commands only.

Limitations: Golems are not intelligent (literal command interpretation), require continuous thread maintenance, vulnerable to Weave disruption.

Function: Alters matter density arbitrarily—making stone light as foam or compressing air to solid density. Can create ultra-dense weapons, weightless boulders, or compressed matter states.

Thread Cost: High-Extreme (45-85%, proportional to density change magnitude)

Applications:

• Weightless construction materials (floating stone)
• Ultra-dense weapons
• Matter compression (storage)
• Exotic physics research

Limitations: Extreme density changes unstable (revert without maintenance), compressed matter stores enormous energy (explosive if released), thread cost scales rapidly with magnitude.

Function: Creates actual black hole—gravitational singularity where spacetime curvature becomes infinite. Theoretical ultimate Terraducts technique, compressing matter beyond neutron degeneracy to point of no return.

Thread Cost: Theoretical maximum (100% reserves, likely fatal to practitioner)

Warning: Globally Forbidden—attempting singularity creation illegal under reality-threatening technology laws, potential extinction-level event.

Limitations: Theoretical only (no confirmed successes), attempts fatal, may be fundamentally impossible, risks planetary destruction.

• Lithic Backlash: Stone or metal forming inside the practitioner's body
• Magnetic Overload: Uncontrolled ferromagnetic attraction drawing all metal violently
• Gravitational Collapse: Creating localized gravity wells that can't be released
• Structural Cascade: Buildings or terrain collapsing beyond intended scope
• Seismic Ripple: Earth manipulation causing earthquakes or landslides
• Density Lock: Matter becoming impossibly dense and unmovable

• Understanding of geology, mineralogy, and materials science
• Physical strength and endurance (the discipline demands stamina)
• Spatial awareness for three-dimensional earth manipulation
• Patience for slow, gradual reshaping
• Mathematical understanding of gravitational and magnetic forces

Thread Economy

Terraducts is the most thread-intensive discipline. The density of matter being manipulated directly correlates to thread cost—moving gold requires far more threads than moving sand. Large-scale manipulations require enormous energy expenditure.

The Gravity Question

Terraducts' gravitational manipulation remains the QW system's greatest mystery. Possible theories include momentum transfer, spacetime curvature manipulation, inertial mass modification, or lost technology. Practitioners don't need to understand mechanism to use Lift effectively, but theoretical understanding might unlock far greater gravitational mastery—or prevent catastrophic failures.

Relationship to Other Schools

Complements: Cryoarchitectonics (ice-stone composites), Fabricurgy (fiber-metal composites), Pyrosonics (traditional metalworking), Corpus (bone strengthening)
Potential conflicts: Spectra or Luxomancy (heavy, solid nature opposes more subtle disciplines)