After the the Tau'va manifests in early M42 a narrow slice of the population of T'au plus their populations of non T’au who are faithful to the emerging Tau’va religion. find themselves able to control the elements that the four T’au Castes are named for. This control being identical to the Bending arts of Avatar. T'au castes are locked to only being able to manifest their associated element whilst the non-tau followers of the Tau‘va are able to manifest as any kind of bender though it is slanted toward people who most strongly resonate with a given Element's spiritual affiliation.The number of people in Avatar itself who actually 'have' Bending and what makes a person get it or not is a bit loosie goosey as is so just go along with the number I’m laying out being a clean 1% of the population. Training of the bending arts takes the same martial art & fitness regimes as in Avatar though information sharing and media does canonically make the rarer techniques more widely avalible by the time of Korra so assume bending specializations are as common as they are were in that time.Ethereal are benderless but there is a single reincarnating Tauvatar Ethereal who in on a hotline to Tau'va and able to consult their past lives when and if they’ve accumulated any. If Tauvatar perishes Tau'va will just cook up a new Tauvatar but always starting over from scratch on the reincarnation cycle. Bending is to be treated like a Psyker power in terms of there being forces which dampen or prevent it’s use but the act of doing a Bending art in of itself is to be treated as 'safe' insofar as it‘s having nothing in the way of perils to using it.
Spirit bending, Astral projection,Energy bending and whatever else I missed just now that is op partof the more mystic aspects to bending are also not ever dangerous to us on their own but do try not to get your soul shredded in a daemon incursion. If all this spiritual stuff is to vague to work with that is probably fine being super rare as is.All this freely provided Bending magic to the lucky 1% is ‘not’ generated at any expense of the Tau’va’s power. She/it is still in manifesting in other ways as normal like how she wards shrinesor patrons shadowsun.Anyway the question really being asked is how much of a boon does bending end up being to the benefit of T’au as a faction?
>>97204624GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
>>97204624It’s a minor that the fire caste would be so irritatingly stuck with maybe the least useful element to have for an army already awash in powerful ranged weapons they can use over the basicbitch open flames of a fire bender and even there I cannot completely dismiss the sheer blatant utility that would come from having a weightless infinite fuel blowtorch, flamethrower and lighter on your person at all times. Even if it cannot serve as a replacement for your gun, it damn well is better then a trench knife.If nothing else the Auxilaries who end up in the fight will be much empowered for their having that precious variety that the castes don’t. A Vespa’s airbender is just strait up going to be zipping in the air like he’s on rocket boots. I don’t have much room to talk about airbending or water being that they are a bit cut off from violence and all but I think Water’ healing & destilination & defence/escape potentials all can compliment Water caste’s diplo-espionage deal alright. Nonlethal ice blocking or blood ending of a guy who pulls the knife, fog cloud smokescreens to run away from ambushes into a stream, torture guys with blood bendin, offer up the carrot of free use of the magic healing hands when angling for good favour in a community you’re trying to make defect to you. I’mpve got less thoughts swings around air caste since they’re well…stuck in aircraft and spaceship but if nothing else pilots can bail better. When the subject of Avatar’s elements comes up it’s almost always immediately pointed out that Earth is by far the most practical element to bend IRL. Need a well drilled? Earth Bender can punch a hole to groundwater in seconds. Need a footing dug? Again, seconds. the military applications of being able to make rock shields, dig trenches, bury landmines, and disable enemy vehicles, all with just one goofy little dance is just a gross multiplier of force. Earth would be an insanely useful element.
Just a reminder that this already exists in Star Wars.I'm referring to the Shapers of Kro'var; they're only mentioned once or twice in the footnotes of some Star Wars role-playing game books. They can shape the elements, but since it's a Force ability, any Force user who isn't a native of Kro'var can learn it.It seems that the only important thing they've done is fight against the separatists before the events of The Phantom Menace.
A reminder that Shadow Bending also exists.
>>97204624Energy reading from shaman firebenders could be a way to root out Chaos cultists and Genestealers.Airbenders have special self-temperature control so they can bypass a lot of environment threats over ambient cold and heat. Firebenders can also do this to an extent but only for warming themselves.(They’re just inventing new powers and shit on the fly all the time now, poor Avatar should have been allowed to retire after the show ended) The 4 elements as a motif predate the printing press, Avatar didn’t stumble it that out of nowhere after all.>>97205751So this *is* actually a real character but no there isn’t such a thing a shadowbending, not in practice at least. She was from an OC contest back in 2006. (Season 1 started in 2005 & the show finessed in 08) This is ooooold af from a time iirc the show didn’t even know dragons or badger moles were a thing and the Canon has absolutely left this behind.
>>97204624https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Agt6O093uo Tau'va religion is by default an underminer to their authority. One avatar who is probs inclined to be loyal to the goddess' commandments anyway is 'not' a fair exchange for the buff to Tau religion that comes by litteral tau goddess blessings being a known factor. Ethereals are going to lose the schism war HARD.Bending hurts the caste interreliance as well. Air/Water/Earth are now that much better equipped to defend themselves in a pinch with bending then without. Firec can do a bit of kitbashed mechanics now that there are guys who''ll power a generator with lightning or smelt by hand and coming at it from the other non-religious schism arguments. Ethereals being useless/puppetmasters is why the farsight exists and that line or reasoning only gets stronger when already useless ethereals are the only guys without the bending.
