Magic with a shape.
A beating relic, a hollow figure and a branching strike give the patrons’ magic more recognisable shapes.
The new previews made the remaining placeholders conspicuous. This pass gives Covenant its existing heart artwork, Misstep a violet edge silhouette, Heavenfall a readable vertical branch, and each flock its own wing shape and call.
The heart and the outline
Covenant now uses the existing heart model, floating above the creatures rather than hidden among them. Its scale contracts after the same four healing beats. Smaller flares and fewer motes keep the relic visible. Misstep uses a translucent edge material and patron-coloured fragments; repeated casts reuse two meshes and cached materials.
The presentation checks also exposed an independent expiry timer on several spells. These effects now expire with their own paused spell clock, so the heart and flock cannot vanish while their rules are held.
A strike that branches
A vertical lightning bolt had no sideways basis for its jagged geometry, leaving Heavenfall almost straight. That basis is now stable even when the strike is vertical. Brief visual restrikes and lower branches hold the shape in view without another damage event. Sparks and smoke are reduced to keep the addition bounded.
Carrion Crows have narrower wings, a pointed tail and quicker wing beats. Buzzards retain their broad soaring profile. Original synthetic caws and a longer descending buzzard call distinguish their summons. Both spells retain fourteen visible birds and the same dive and damage rules.
Checks and limits
The exact Mac app passes 172 rule checks on the Passes, 140 on the open island and 21 native input checks. New cases cover relic presence, contraction, paused expiry, afterimage reuse and cleanup, flock assets and a branching vertical strike. Twenty-eight fresh packaged captures cover the ordinary camera in daylight and at night.
Four alternating ninety-second packaged samples compare the preserved preview app and this build at 1280 × 720 High on the night map. The repeated-spell phase uses Ilveth’s Covenant despite an older benchmark phase label. These short runs include live AI and capture overhead; they do not isolate each effect’s cost or establish a reliable performance gain. The separate collapse hitch remains open.
This is still an offline build. Independent squads and font objectives are the next gameplay slice; Internet multiplayer follows separately. Human judgement of the revised visuals and synthetic calls remains part of playtesting.