Talk:Goldfin/@comment-24346726-20150408232832/@comment-7345250-20150409002855

[1] Goldfin's power boost depends on three things: depth, purity, and fluidity.

Depth results in increased water pressure, which means that the water at the lower reaches has the water from the upper reaches resting on it. Now, water is hard to compress, but the pull of gravity on the surface does work to her advantage. The deeper Goldfin is, the more magic she can draw upon.

Purity is what was addressed recently in the role play and—in part—why she has a weakness to common mud. Just as sunlight easily passes through clean air, magic easily passes through clean water. However, when the water is murky, it is as though a screen or a pall is blocking that sunlight. Dirt is a debilitating filter against Goldfin's magic, not to mention that it messes with her gills too.

Fluidity is another concern because it affects how effectively Goldfin can use her powers. She is weak to mud and ice because both of these drastically affect how well she can draw upon her magic and use it. Thick or frozen water is unusable to her, and creatures that live in slimy or icy environments are immune to her influence. Furthermore, she cannot move in thick or frozen water, so even the little power she draws is rendered insignificant.

Thus, Goldfin can be instantaneously weakened and/or defeated by returning her to the surface, polluting the water, or flash-freezing the environment. Nevertheless, she is at her strongest in the open ocean, where the filth has nowhere to settle and where the water is deep and in flow.

The boost itself applies to her reflexes, speed, stamina, durability, telepathy, healing factor, and magical power. Although it has never been tested, she may actually be bulletproof at a great enough depth. However, she rarely ever has to perform under such conditions, she is rather testy on the topic.

[2] Goldfin's telepathy is unusual because she can only influence certain creatures.

The idea is that all water contains insignificant traces of magic, but creatures that spend their entire lives in water acquire some of this magic over the years. For this reason, Goldfin is able to establish a telepathic bond via Deep magic and command such creatures to do as she says. Few aquatic creatures are safe.

Beings that are not saturated with Deep magic are telepathically invisible to Goldfin. She cannot sense, nor command, nor converse with the Obscure Acolyte because he has none of this magic in his person. She is a skilled telepath, but her abilities normally cannot affect non-aquatic creatures.

The exception is when someone else establishes a bond or attunes her to another mind. This is why Goldfin wanted Hell Phoenix to open his mind to her when he was being mentally attacked by Last Laugh. Although Last Laugh was psychically invisible to her, Phoenix could still link her mind to his, enabling her to use her telepathy against him.

So, here's the big metaphor—Goldfin's mind can be seen as a psychic telephone. She can call other minds, and she can receive calls from other minds. However, she only has the numbers for the denizens of the sea. Ergo, she can call fish and such, but she cannot call anything else.

[3] Goldfin's mental defense comes from two things—raw magical power and training.

The first is rather self-explanatory. Being a unicorn with an attunement to Deep magic, she knows how telepathy works and possesses enough power to enhance the magnitude of her thoughts.

The seconds happens largely offstage. Goldfin hones her telepathy by investigating the darkness around R'lyeh and other horrific sites. Remember how Hokum trained Amelia? Goldfin trained herself similary via short peeks into the minds of Coltulhu and the souls of sunken civilizations.

[4] Goldfin draws power only from a certain area of water.

Goldfin cannot reach the fullest extent of her power on the surface, so it is evident that she can only take advantage of what is readily at hand/hoof. More specifically, she can only take advantage of what is around her and above her.

At any depth, Goldfin draws strength from the magic in her immediate vicinity and from the magic in the water weighing down on wherever she may be. For an exact idea of this "AoE," think of a cone pointing downward with Goldfin at the vertex.

[5] But that would be telling...

This one is supposed to be ambiguous. It might be an inherent property of water, extant ever since the dawn of time. It might be an efflux from beings of an age the world forgot long ago, sprean thin across the oceans of the world. It might even be the work of midi-chlorians. All Goldfin knows is that water has a fascinating magic and that she can use it as she pleases.

[6] The beast returned to the darkness whence it came.

If my understanding of the context of this question is correct, this one arose because of the admittedly bizarre wording about Goldfin's collapse. I said that its very presence in the ocean overhwlemed her mind, implying that it was not from the ocean to begin with.

In a manner of speaking, this is true. It arose from the unfathomable deep, at the surface of which Folderol built his citadel. By its "presence in the ocean," I was referring to its return to the world we know. It emerged from the primordial abyss, from its "sub-ocean," for the first time in the history of Equestria, and that alone was enough to reduce Goldfin to a vegetative state, so great was the power it unwittingly radiated.

The nameless horror is implied to be a fossil from an era lost to history.