Gift of Lumnis
The Gift of Lumnis is a mechanic that was implemented to increase the rate at which characters can advance through the levels in GemStone; in particular, is has decreased the experience disparity between those who played a short time each week and those who played more frequently. While under the effects of the Gift of Lumnis, the rate of experience (exp) absorption is increased.
Effects of the of Gift of Lumnis
The weekly Gift of Lumnis has two phases; during the first phase, (the first three hours of its effects) experience gaining is tripled, whereas during the second phase, (the second three hours of its effects) experience gaining is doubled. For the remainder of this discussion, only the first phase (the tripling phase) will be considered, and deducing the effects of the second phase is left to the reader.
Experience absorption
While under the effects of the Gift, the mount of experience converted from your mind to your total experience pool is increased by a factor of two or three. How much experience a character's mind can hold in their "unabsorbed experience pool" remains unchanged and how much is lost from this pool per experience pulse is the same. However, the amount added to the character's experience total is doubled or tripled, depending on how long they've had experience while receiving the Gift in a given week. If, for example, a character with a 100 discipline and a 100 logic stat is completely fried (1000 experience in the pool) and they're sitting on a node: in a normal pulse, that character may see 33 experience points converted from their unabsorbed experience pool; however, while under the effects of a fresh Gift of Lumnis, the character under the same conditions would instead see 99 experience added to their experience total, however, only 33 experience is subtracted from their unabsorbed experience pool. Thus, this character, if under the effects of the Gift of Lumnis the entire time they're resting from completely fried to clear as a bell, they will see a total of 3000 experience added to their experience total. If at any point during this absorption the Gift degrades to 2x, they'll see less experience. If the character is fried, absorbs 200 experience from their unabsorbed experience pool (with a gain of 600 experience to their experience total) then the Gift degrades to 2x, the remaining experience will be simply doubled instead of tripled -- the remaining 800 experience in the experience pool will add 1600 experience to the character's total experience, for a total of 2400 experience. If the character goes to get fried again, and absorbs 500 experience before the Gift fades away (gaining 1000 experience to their total) the remaining 500 experience will be absorbed normally.
Gift of Lumnis and role-playing awards
The effects of a multiplier role-playing award (RPA) and the Gift of Lumnis are additive, such that if one is under the effects of the triple experience phase of their Gift of Lumnis and have also been awarded a 3x multiplier RPA, then all aspects of their experience gaining will be multiplied by 6. The above character would be able to hold 6000 exp in their head, gain 600 exp for killing a greater burrow orc, and absorb their exp at 198 per pulse.
Timing
The Gift of Lumnis is awarded on the first pulse that a character has unabsorbed experience in their head. As long as that character has unabsorbed experience in their head, the timer on their Gift of Lumnis is running. The first phase of the Gift of Lumnis (the triple experience gaining phase) lasts for the first three hours that a character has unabsorbed experience in their head. The second phase (the double phase) lasts the second three hours during which a character has unabsorbed experience. Note that because the timer is only running while a character has unabsorbed experience, the Gift cannot be 'wasted' by spending time without unabsorbed experience.
168 hours (one week) after the initiation of each Gift of Lumnis cycle it is completed and will begin again on the next pulse that the character has unabsorbed experience. Because the actual beginning of the Gift requires one to have unabsorbed experience, if a character spends several weeks without gaining any experience to absorb, their Gift will not start until they do.
Messaging
At the beginning of the Gift of Lumnis, the character receives this message:
A soft feeling of serenity touches your mind, providing you with a clearer understanding of recent events.
At the conclusion of the Gift of Lumnis, the character receives this message:
The soft feeling of serenity slowly dissipates from your mind.
While under the effects of the Gift of Lumnis, when a character uses the EXPERIENCE (verb) command, the following message is appended to the end of the normal messaging:
You feel a strange sense of serenity, and find you are able to reflect on recent events with uncommon clarity and understanding.