Fields, traps, delayed bombs, auras, walls and tethers — abilities that leave something behind.

Ground Areas

Some abilities leave something on the ground that lasts: a burning patch that hurts whoever stands in it, a healing circle, a trap that snaps when someone steps on it, a bomb that goes off after a fuse, an aura that walks with you, a wall nobody can cross, or a tether between you and an enemy that punishes them for running. They are all one thing — a ground area — built from the Spawn area action.

Where to author it#

**Database → Abilities → (pick an ability) → Costs & Effects → World-action primitives → + Add action → Spawn area.**

An area never deals damage by itself. What it does is always **another ability**: its pulse, its trap trigger, its last blast and its snap each pick a whole ability, which is fired from the area with you as the caster — your stats scale it, your kills and XP come from it, and its damage, heal, status effects and actions all apply. So you build an area in two steps: first the ability it fires, then the ability that places it.

Set up a burning field#

Create the ability the field fires — say Scorch: Base Damage 12, Damage
Type Magic, Target Mode Enemies, a Burn status if you like. Its range, cost and cooldown don't matter when an area fires it.
Create the ability players cast — say Firepatch — with Base Damage 0, a
Range of 8, and a cooldown.
On Firepatch's Costs & Effects, pick + Add action → Spawn area.
Set Appears at: The cursor, Fixed to: The ground, Affects: Enemies,
Shape: Circle, Size: 2, Lasts: 5000.
Under What it does, set Pulse to Scorch and Pulse every to 1000.
Save. Casting Firepatch now leaves a 2-tile patch that burns every enemy in it
once a second, five times.

Other recipes#

You want	Set
Healing circle	A heal ability (negative Base Damage, Target Mode Allies) as the Pulse; Affects: Allies.
Trap	When someone walks in = the snare ability, tick Used up when triggered, tick Hidden from enemies, Arms after 1000 so it can't be dropped on someone's head.
Delayed bomb	Lasts 2000, When it runs out = an explosion ability with an AoE radius of its own (the blast uses that radius).
Aura	Appears at: Under me, Fixed to: Me (aura), a Pulse. It walks with you.
Wall	Shape: Line / wall, Laid: Across my aim, Length 5, Thickness 1, tick Blocks movement and Blocks projectiles.
Tether	Fixed to: Tether to my target, Snaps past 6 tiles, a Pulse on the linked unit, and When it snaps = a stun. Cast it with an enemy selected.
Knockback bomb / vortex	An ability whose only action is Knockback / pull as the blast or pulse — fired from an area, a knockback pushes away from the area and a pull draws toward it.

Fields#

Field	What it does
Appears at	The cursor (clamped to the ability's Range), Under me, Under my target (the cursor when nothing is selected), or Where it lands — the exact spot the ability was cast at, for an area spawned by another area's pulse or blast.
Fixed to	The ground keeps it where it appeared. Me (aura) moves it with you. My target follows the selected unit (and stays put if they die). Tether to my target links you to the selected unit.
Affects	Who its pulse, trigger and blast land on. Enemies are only units you could attack right now — safe zones, protected NPCs and duel rules still apply. Allies are you, your party and your minions. Everyone is both, but damage never lands on your own side.
Max at once (per caster)	How many of this ability's areas one caster can have. Casting past it removes the oldest. Blank = 3, up to 10.
Shape	Circle, Cone, Line / wall, Rectangle, Ring, Cross, Nova or Wave — the same shapes (and the same hit test) as an ability's AoE.
Size / Length (tiles)	A circle's radius, a cone's reach, a band's full length. 0.5–15.
Laid	Line and Rectangle only: Across my aim (a wall facing you) or Along my aim (a trail running away from you).
Thickness / Cone angle / Hole size / Arm width	The shape's proportions, only shown for the shapes that use them. Blank = the engine default.
Lasts (ms)	How long it stays, 250–120000.
Arms after (ms)	A delay before it does anything. Must be shorter than Lasts.
Pulse + Pulse every (ms)	The ability fired again and again at everyone inside (a tether: at the linked unit). One pulse per interval of armed time — a 5000 ms area pulsing every 1000 ms pulses five times, the last one as it ends. 250–10000 ms.
When someone walks in	The trap trigger, fired at the unit that stepped in — or, if that ability has an AoE of its own, at everyone in that AoE around the area. Once per unit per entry.
Used up when triggered	The area disappears after its last trigger. Off: it stays for its whole duration.
Triggers	How many times it can go off. Blank = once when used up, otherwise no limit. Up to 50.
Hidden from enemies	Enemies are never told the area exists — they see nothing until it fires. You and your allies see it, drawn faint.
When it runs out	Fired once when its time is up — at everyone inside, or at everyone in the ability's own AoE when it has one.
Blocks movement (wall)	Nobody can walk, path, dash or be knocked into its tiles — you included. Units already inside can step out.
Blocks projectiles	Shots and thrown bursts stop at its edge.
Snaps past (tiles)	Tether only. The link breaks when you and your target are further apart than this, 1–30. It won't start if they are already further.
When it snaps	Tether only. Fired at the linked unit when the link breaks by range.
Looping visual	A VFX played on the area while it lasts, on top of the ground outline every player sees.

What players see#

Every area draws its outline on the ground — the exact shape the server tests. Your own fields are amber, enemies' red, healing areas green and walls grey; an area that hasn't armed yet blinks. A tether is a line between the two units. A trap hidden from enemies is only ever sent to its owner and their allies.

Gotchas#

An area ends with its owner. Dying, logging out or changing map removes
every area you have.
A pulse needs a Pulse every. The save refuses a pulse with no interval, a
tether with no Snaps past, and an area that does nothing at all.
No loops. An area whose pulse, trigger, blast or snap leads back to an
ability that spawns it is refused on save, naming the chain (Ability loop: Firepatch → Scorch → Firepatch). Areas spawned by areas are also capped at two levels deep in game, whatever the data says.
The fired ability's own cost, cooldown and range don't apply when an area
fires it, and it earns no cast XP — the cast that placed the area already paid.
A pulse ignores the fired ability's own AoE — the area's shape decides who
is inside. Triggers, blasts and snaps use the fired ability's AoE when it has one.
Walls block everyone, you included, and homing shots at a selected target
are not stopped by them (aimed shots and thrown bursts are).
Limits. Each map holds at most 200 live areas; the oldest goes first.
Feature flag. Everything here sits behind **World → Features → Ground
Areas** (on by default). Off, the Spawn area action does nothing and live areas vanish; the rest of the ability still works.

Ground Areas

Where to author it#

**Database → Abilities → (pick an ability) → Costs & Effects → World-action primitives → + Add action → Spawn area.**

Set up a burning field#

Create the ability the field fires — say Scorch: Base Damage 12, Damage

Type Magic, Target Mode Enemies, a Burn status if you like. Its range, cost and cooldown don't matter when an area fires it.

Create the ability players cast — say Firepatch — with Base Damage 0, a

Range of 8, and a cooldown.

On Firepatch's Costs & Effects, pick + Add action → Spawn area.

Set Appears at: The cursor, Fixed to: The ground, Affects: Enemies,

Shape: Circle, Size: 2, Lasts: 5000.

Under What it does, set Pulse to Scorch and Pulse every to 1000.

Save. Casting Firepatch now leaves a 2-tile patch that burns every enemy in it

once a second, five times.

Other recipes#

You want	Set
Healing circle	A heal ability (negative Base Damage, Target Mode Allies) as the Pulse; Affects: Allies.
Trap	When someone walks in = the snare ability, tick Used up when triggered, tick Hidden from enemies, Arms after 1000 so it can't be dropped on someone's head.
Delayed bomb	Lasts 2000, When it runs out = an explosion ability with an AoE radius of its own (the blast uses that radius).
Aura	Appears at: Under me, Fixed to: Me (aura), a Pulse. It walks with you.
Wall	Shape: Line / wall, Laid: Across my aim, Length 5, Thickness 1, tick Blocks movement and Blocks projectiles.
Tether	Fixed to: Tether to my target, Snaps past 6 tiles, a Pulse on the linked unit, and When it snaps = a stun. Cast it with an enemy selected.
Knockback bomb / vortex	An ability whose only action is Knockback / pull as the blast or pulse — fired from an area, a knockback pushes away from the area and a pull draws toward it.

Fields#

Field	What it does
Appears at	The cursor (clamped to the ability's Range), Under me, Under my target (the cursor when nothing is selected), or Where it lands — the exact spot the ability was cast at, for an area spawned by another area's pulse or blast.
Fixed to	The ground keeps it where it appeared. Me (aura) moves it with you. My target follows the selected unit (and stays put if they die). Tether to my target links you to the selected unit.
Affects	Who its pulse, trigger and blast land on. Enemies are only units you could attack right now — safe zones, protected NPCs and duel rules still apply. Allies are you, your party and your minions. Everyone is both, but damage never lands on your own side.
Max at once (per caster)	How many of this ability's areas one caster can have. Casting past it removes the oldest. Blank = 3, up to 10.
Shape	Circle, Cone, Line / wall, Rectangle, Ring, Cross, Nova or Wave — the same shapes (and the same hit test) as an ability's AoE.
Size / Length (tiles)	A circle's radius, a cone's reach, a band's full length. 0.5–15.
Laid	Line and Rectangle only: Across my aim (a wall facing you) or Along my aim (a trail running away from you).
Thickness / Cone angle / Hole size / Arm width	The shape's proportions, only shown for the shapes that use them. Blank = the engine default.
Lasts (ms)	How long it stays, 250–120000.
Arms after (ms)	A delay before it does anything. Must be shorter than Lasts.
Pulse + Pulse every (ms)	The ability fired again and again at everyone inside (a tether: at the linked unit). One pulse per interval of armed time — a 5000 ms area pulsing every 1000 ms pulses five times, the last one as it ends. 250–10000 ms.
When someone walks in	The trap trigger, fired at the unit that stepped in — or, if that ability has an AoE of its own, at everyone in that AoE around the area. Once per unit per entry.
Used up when triggered	The area disappears after its last trigger. Off: it stays for its whole duration.
Triggers	How many times it can go off. Blank = once when used up, otherwise no limit. Up to 50.
Hidden from enemies	Enemies are never told the area exists — they see nothing until it fires. You and your allies see it, drawn faint.
When it runs out	Fired once when its time is up — at everyone inside, or at everyone in the ability's own AoE when it has one.
Blocks movement (wall)	Nobody can walk, path, dash or be knocked into its tiles — you included. Units already inside can step out.
Blocks projectiles	Shots and thrown bursts stop at its edge.
Snaps past (tiles)	Tether only. The link breaks when you and your target are further apart than this, 1–30. It won't start if they are already further.
When it snaps	Tether only. Fired at the linked unit when the link breaks by range.
Looping visual	A VFX played on the area while it lasts, on top of the ground outline every player sees.

What players see#

Gotchas#

An area ends with its owner. Dying, logging out or changing map removes

every area you have.

A pulse needs a Pulse every. The save refuses a pulse with no interval, a

tether with no Snaps past, and an area that does nothing at all.

No loops. An area whose pulse, trigger, blast or snap leads back to an

ability that spawns it is refused on save, naming the chain (Ability loop: Firepatch → Scorch → Firepatch). Areas spawned by areas are also capped at two levels deep in game, whatever the data says.

The fired ability's own cost, cooldown and range don't apply when an area

fires it, and it earns no cast XP — the cast that placed the area already paid.

A pulse ignores the fired ability's own AoE — the area's shape decides who

is inside. Triggers, blasts and snaps use the fired ability's AoE when it has one.

Walls block everyone, you included, and homing shots at a selected target

are not stopped by them (aimed shots and thrown bursts are).

Limits. Each map holds at most 200 live areas; the oldest goes first.

Feature flag. Everything here sits behind **World → Features → Ground

Areas** (on by default). Off, the Spawn area action does nothing and live areas vanish; the rest of the ability still works.