I think shadow/materium is good for Pirate, actually. It oddly feels appropriate to have continuity with Shades, as well, what with Restless Raider being a skirmisher who benefits greatly from it.

I'd honestly pretty happily take pure nature, that makes sense to me and leaves more room to sneak in shadow or astral as well. That said, nothing wrong with respecting the former author's vision.

Although the turtles do kinda fit materium, lol. And Tome of Drowned Goddess giving Elemental does mean you actually have good reason to want to end at Creator. Actually, on a strategy layer perspective, the affinites make really good sense. The tome series winds up doing a lot to give additional defense when in your domain, and nature/materium really wants to grow domains. So in practice, it all works out.

@replanttrees @Daverin2112
I don't decide affinities of tomes based on its synergy with other tomes. Stormborne is a storm tome which there is a distinction to be made about water tomes vs storm tomes.

I personally would do Pure Nature for many of these but it was Nature/Materium originally by Timber (the original author), so I made a call to keep it as-is. As per Timber, he made them materium because water is of the earth. I don't agree but about the time this tome was originally made, Tome modders were making up reasons to do dual-affinities.

Astral doesn't make sense unless you're just looking at the color of the astral icon. As for Pirate Tome, its shadow because undead/souls and its materium due to it's focus on gold and treasure.

I'm with you, if only because, as you say, it leaves it very oddly less than happy working with a storm or frost theme, the two most obvious choices for companion tome types, but on the whole, it can work just fine, and I am sure Vectra has their reasons.

First off, these tomes are nice and I have always felt that the game could use a few more water synergy tomes.

My question is, why materium? Unless I am remembering things wrong every water effect in the game is nature, and the "water tome" is astral/nature. Shouldn't these tomes be astral/nature instead of nature/materium.

I also feel a little weird about the last tome being shadow/materium, but I dont't have any suggestions for how to fix it while keeping the undead pirate theme. Maybe astral/shadow could work?

I'm happy to hear you are still working on it!

Also, Also, I have found a fix for the hair, but this mod will not be updated for a bit until I get the terraform thing situated.

That's because there was code I had in the mod, but I didn't realize the collateral damage it would cause. You would need to start a new game to put SPIs in water again. As for Hand of the Ocean, as per my last reply, it has been temporarily disabled.

I am certain that all buildings that must be built in the province for this mod cannot be constructed. And there is the spell of the Ocean Hand, but it is gray and cannot be used.I am using the Conflict Oath Storm Giant.How can I send you a screenshot?

Ahh, a shame. I was looking through the comments to see how I had missed the terraform spell. A shame it's been cut.

I love the mod. I used it over the last couple of days to beat the last AP story level as Astral focused Architects with a whole Poseidon/Hoplite vibe. This mod was crucial to landing that flavor. Thanks so much! The yield on my water tiles were bonkers by the end.

(8/27/25)
Deleted some left-over code that was accidentally left enabled

Idk ur name, but I actually can't replicate your bug (even before the update just now). Are you sure its mine? What SPIs are you trying to build? I have a long game with this enabled and I can build SPIs just fine.

hmmm, lemme check. HOTO was disabled as per last update due to a bug i dont have time to fix atm

all Special Province improvement can't be build。hand of ocean can't be use

@Kazeck
Thanks for the compliments! ^^

Perfectly understandable, thank you for all your effort Vectra, just played with a friend today and I appreciate all the tomes you've kept alive.

I'll have to decline. I don't do submods.

Honestly having a water terraform would be nice, perhaps as a submod?

I feel like, Storm Giants and mariner cultures would benefit immensely from it.

Hopefully Triumph will help fix this.

@Lord Vectra
I was going to say it's absolutely up to you, at this point the mod is your work rather than Timber's.

I would ask Triumph to make modding in custom terraforming a thing without interacting with vanilla mechanics. I'm not sure how well Triumph has been with modding updates, but I remember they were down with talking to modders before. It seems like it even may be a bug since the temples aren't affected by Umbral terraforming.

UPDATE(8/16/25)
Hand of the Ocean spell has been disabled, and thus, water can no longer be terraformed.

Yes please.

@Morsrealm
I mean, we're having a vote right now. So you want it to be disabled?

I'm just gonna remove ¨Hand Of The Ocean¨ tables from this mod.
Primal culture is my favorite and I like this mod, so.

I mean, is Primal Culture really terraforming enough to become an issue if it's only the totems that do it?

As a personnal opinion, if it only disable one spell, I guess I would rather not have water terraforming than an entire culture not working.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm fine with just not having primal cultures in my games (until you find a solution eventually). The cultural variety is big enough even without them. So, no pressure.

Unless you guys want me to disable water terraforming in the meantime. That is also an option.

Guess I'll have to ban primal culture from all my realms for the time being.

I'm not disabling the mod again. Adjusting all factions that depend on it is just too much work.

Sorry, meant "uninhabitable" lol

@Merethys
Only option is to either disable Hand of the Ocean or edit every terraform spell effect in the game (and there are a lot more than you'd think). Each terraform spell have different "forbidden" areas. Right now, the mod treats all water hexes as "inhabitable" which catches majority of the terraform spells (i.e. Restore the Land).

Primal Culture is more controlled. It's not in the form of a spell and has a certain radius which is why I'm willing to let it slide. I might go and change every terraform effect but it's not going to be anytime soon.

I just tested with Giant King Runesteles before i did the last update. Have u tried unsubbing and resubbing?

Same with giant king runesteles, really funny when storm giants turn coast into river and only river.

@Morsrealm That's really bad. That island will become a hexigon continent.

I'm sure you will find a way to do it. I believe in you!

@Morsrealm
Not something I seem to be able to fix without disabling Hand of the Ocean altogether, so this will have to be allowed.

@Lord Vectra
Hey, similar problem as Laolir.
Primal culture temples ( maybe all of them ) changes coastal tiles.

https://ibb.co/Gf0dCzLs
https://ibb.co/9mrWFd85

Doesn't happen if this mod is turned off.

@Laolir
No problem!

Thanks for the quick update. The Runestele still tries to terraform the sea and the terraforming fails (so no change on the sea hex). Not sure if it's supposed to even try but it's clearly good enough and usable that way, thanks a lot!

@Laolir
Thank you for the extra information, that did help! I just updated it, so it is fixed now.

I tried it again right now after unsubbing and resubbing, I still have the same problem. To be clearer, the runestele isn't a spell that target an hex, it's something that you put on an hex and it terraform nearby hexes. With this mod activated it terraforms ocean, and when I don't have it it doesnt so I'm sure it's from this mod. The fix you did work for spells that target hexes, I indeed can't target ocean with spells. But it doesn't work with the Runestele.

Hope it helps.

@Laolir
It's working on my end. Unsub and resub.

Hey, does not looks like your modification on terraforming worked. I started a new campaign today and the Giant King Storm runestele still change ocean into grassland.

@Capricorn
Tome of the Swamp is it's own separate mod. What about Swamp tome is broken? If it's solely because of the terraform spell, it is already weaker than the one in ice. We have terraform spells in other T2 tomes like Fertility and Glades except their econ from that comes from the SPI instead.

As for the Army Summon in Drowned Goddess, you already pay extra mana for the Deep-Sea Nimue and Penguin so that initial cost is deceiving. The Kraken is water-only, so I can't treat him the same as any other T4/T5 on the basis he can't traverse land innately. Sure, he can if you also grab Scourge Captain, but even if you do, Kraken is still weaker on land because he can't use his insta-kill ability since it requires specifically embarked units.

Hey these tomes are great but they're just a bit too powerful in some places. Could use some small balance tweaks. Like the Swamp Tome should probably be T3 instead of T2 to match up with the frozen tome that gives frostlings/ice terraforming. The Army summon in Drowned Goddess is a good bit cheaper than the other T4 army summons at 200 mana, should be increased to 300-400.

UPDATE(8/14/25) (If you're seeing multiple notifs, im fusing some of my messages together)

Hand of the Ocean spell is back online. Water Hexes can be terraformed into (via this spell) and other terraform spells cannot terraform OUT of water hexes.

If you are mid-game, water will be terraformable until you pass turn

Storm Siren
>Her abilities are back

@Kim Bosong
Just look right below LineArck

I have to go and don't have time, but I did a quick update which disables it. This means water terraforming is also turned off as well as terraforming water.

I hope to see patch notes

Bad news. Your latest changes seem to have broken terraforming in general. I just ran into Artica casually freezing the entire ocean.

I tested it with my own terraform spell and I could also turn ocean into land. Without your mod the ocean is an invalid target, as it should be.

not sure if it's coming from an incompatibility but the storm siren seem to be bug her stats are correct but she does not have any ability (only tested from in game wiki)

-[Tome of the Drowned Goddess]-
Undine
>Gains Elemental Tag

Touch of the Drowned
>Gains Amphibious
>Gains Elemental Tag
>Gains Fleeting (is not impeded by enemy ZOC)

Goddess' Tears
>Inflicts 2x Curse of Drowning on enemy units

Rough Waters (NEW SPELL - Sustained World Spell)
>Makes water provinces in all friendly territory harder to move through for enemies
>Friendly Water-only units gain hastened while in those provinces
>Enemy units, except Water-only units, suffer a passive Curse of the Drowning during battles

Hand of the Ocean
>Terraformed water now looks normal
>The terraformed hex is now properly treated as a hex that is water (but will still also be treated as a land hex)

-[Scourge Captain]-
Sea Ghost Lord (NEW TOME PASSIVE)
>All water-only units gain Ethereal and Floating so they can traverse land

Wailing Call (NEW SPELL - Combat Summon)
>Summon a Banshee in target hex with 1 AP

Curse of Drowning
>Has no affect on Amphibious and Water-only units

UPDATE(8/9/25)
Due to feedback and figuring out some things, here is another update:
DISCLAIMER: By water-only units, I mean unit who cannot traverse on land
-[Overall]-
Hand of the Ocean is only given to Tome of the Drowned Goddess. Additional changes to the spell is under that tome

-[Tome of the Sea]-
Siren's Cove
>Fixed a bug if it not showing
>Now can ALSO act as a Teleporter
Note: Purpose of his is so water-only units have a way to get from one body of water to another.
>Now has a "Siren's Growth" passive that grants +4 XP per turn to water-only units

@Merethys
After some digging, I can do water teleporters. Main point was that the terraform spell would allow you to connect bodies of water. Water Teleporters might be able to substitute for that. As for the Stormborne vs Drowned Goddess argument, i would rather buff the tome itself if it feels it doesn't live up to it's intended design.