This isn't really about balance at all, so much as about flavor and fantasy.
Most magic affinities have some kind of fantasy associated with them. Order makes you feel like a kind of god, while Chaos makes you a devil. With Nature, you're an great druid or archfey. With dark, you're an evil sorcerer and necromancer. And with Astral, you're the quintessential archmage delving into the eldritch and unknowable.
And with Materium you're... a dwarf a guess? Sort of? It's kind of all over the place, which is kind of frustrating because I feel that the central fantasy that could be behind it is staring me in the face in the form of the item forge, yet Materium only has a couple of nods towards it instead of being built more around it. Because I think the great fantasy around Materium is (or at least ought to be) being the sort of great, legendary smith who forged the many magical items in the world. You're Vulcan, Hephaestus, Aulë the Smith, Fëanor and Celebrimbor, so on and so forth. Even with the dwarf theme, I'd argue that the forging of magical items is central to their identity. Not only were dwarves known to smith many magical items in Norse mythology, but its also an important part of their lore in Tolkien. If you remember,
Once again, I'd like to reiterate that I'm not making any claim about Materium in a balance sense. I'm not saying that their tomes, buildings, cultures, etc are good or bad in a balance sense. I just wish they had more of that central theme and fantasy like you have with other affinities.
Most magic affinities have some kind of fantasy associated with them. Order makes you feel like a kind of god, while Chaos makes you a devil. With Nature, you're an great druid or archfey. With dark, you're an evil sorcerer and necromancer. And with Astral, you're the quintessential archmage delving into the eldritch and unknowable.
And with Materium you're... a dwarf a guess? Sort of? It's kind of all over the place, which is kind of frustrating because I feel that the central fantasy that could be behind it is staring me in the face in the form of the item forge, yet Materium only has a couple of nods towards it instead of being built more around it. Because I think the great fantasy around Materium is (or at least ought to be) being the sort of great, legendary smith who forged the many magical items in the world. You're Vulcan, Hephaestus, Aulë the Smith, Fëanor and Celebrimbor, so on and so forth. Even with the dwarf theme, I'd argue that the forging of magical items is central to their identity. Not only were dwarves known to smith many magical items in Norse mythology, but its also an important part of their lore in Tolkien. If you remember,
Which makes me kind of wish that Materium tomes could come with item forge effects, or ways of gaining binding essence/fragments, as a way of centering Materium around the concept of being this great magical craftsman and sorcerer smith.
Once again, I'd like to reiterate that I'm not making any claim about Materium in a balance sense. I'm not saying that their tomes, buildings, cultures, etc are good or bad in a balance sense. I just wish they had more of that central theme and fantasy like you have with other affinities.
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