Glossary / Formations and Talismans
Formations and Talismans in Chinese: 82 Terms and Their English Renderings
Set-piece magic drawn on the ground or on paper: barriers, killing arrays, teleport circles, talismans.
82 terms
| Chinese | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 阵法 | Formation | A pattern that turns terrain into a trap, a shield, or a weapon. |
| 阵眼 | Formation Eye | The core of a formation. Find it and the whole thing collapses. |
| 阵旗 | Formation Flag | A physical anchor holding a formation up. Pull them out to weaken it. |
| 阵盘 | Formation Plate | A pre-carved portable formation. Expensive, and usually one use only. |
| 布阵 | Set Up a Formation | Laying one out in advance. The reason nobody attacks a prepared cultivator. |
| 破阵 | Break a Formation | Dismantling one, by force or by finding the eye first. |
| 困阵 | Trapping Formation | Keeps people in. The standard opening move of an ambush. |
| 杀阵 | Killing Formation | Built to kill rather than to hold. Usually the second layer of a trap. |
| 幻阵 | Illusion Formation | Makes people see and fight things that are not there. |
| 传送阵 | Teleportation Formation | Moves people across distance instantly. Fixed points, not free travel. |
| 护山大阵 | Mountain-Protecting Formation | A sect's last defence, powered by the spirit vein under the mountain. |
| 符箓 | Talisman | A paper charm with one stored effect. Crumbles the moment it is used. |
| 符纸 | Talisman Paper | The blank. Cheap paper fails; proper paper costs as much as a pill. |
| 符笔 | Talisman Brush | The brush used to draw talismans, made from beast hair. |
| 朱砂 | Cinnabar | The red ink that carries the effect. Never substitutable. |
| 遁符 | Escape Talisman | Moves the user a short distance instantly. The standard way out of a losing fight. |
| 符师 | Talisman Master | A cultivator who draws talismans. Respected, and rarely good in a straight fight. |
| 阵基 | Formation Base | The anchor stones under a formation. Break them and the whole array collapses, however elegant the pattern. |
| 阵纹 | Formation Pattern | The engraved lines that carry a formation's logic. Readable, copyable, and worth killing over. |
| 符宝 | Talisman Treasure | A talisman with artifact-level power and a single use. Carried for one emergency, spent once. |
| 攻击阵 | Attack Formation | A formation built to kill whoever walks in. Cheap, obvious, and still effective. |
| 防御阵 | Defense Formation | A formation built to keep people out. Every sect gate has one; most are older than the sect. |
| 迷阵 | Maze Formation | A formation that does not hurt you, only refuses to let you leave. The cruelty is the patience. |
| 锁灵阵 | Qi-Sealing Formation | Seals the qi inside a person. A cultivator who steps in becomes a mortal with better posture. |
| 隔音阵 | Sound-Blocking Formation | Keeps a conversation private. Installed in every meeting room worth scheming in. |
| 五行阵 | Five-Element Formation | Built on the five phases. Balanced, stable, and hard to break without understanding it. |
| 阴阳阵 | Yin-Yang Formation | Two halves that feed each other. Break one and the other takes the damage. |
| 周天阵 | Circulation Formation | A formation that runs itself. Set it once and it works for centuries. |
| 复合阵 | Composite Formation | Several formations stacked in one place. Break the outer layer and you have only started. |
| 阵眼移位 | Shifting Formation Eye | The formation's weak point moves. The reason breaking one can take days. |
| 阵灵 | Formation Spirit | A formation that has developed awareness. It reacts, adapts, and remembers who attacked it. |
| 阵图 | Formation Diagram | The blueprint of an array. Leak one page and the sect loses a war. |
| 阵法反噬 | Formation Backlash | A mistake in the array turning on the caster. Often fatal, always embarrassing. |
| 阵师 | Formation Master | Someone who specialises in arrays. Rarer than alchemists, and priced accordingly. |
| 阵旗手 | Flag Bearer | The disciple who carries and plants the flags. Strategically, a casualty. |
| 引雷阵 | Lightning-Drawing Formation | Pulls lightning down. Used to attack, and used to give a disciple a controlled tribulation. |
| 噬灵阵 | Qi-Devouring Formation | Eats the qi of anyone inside. A demonic design that everyone pretends not to know. |
| 血阵 | Blood Formation | Drawn in blood instead of ink. Stronger, cheaper, and it takes something back. |
| 山门阵 | Gate Formation | The first line at the mountain gate. Usually decorative until the day it is not. |
| 禁空阵 | No-Fly Formation | Forbids flight inside its range. Turns an aerial chase into a ground fight. |
| 移山阵 | Mountain-Shifting Formation | Moves earth on a scale that rearranges maps. Takes a sect to power. |
| 缩地阵 | Earth-Shrinking Formation | A short-range transport array. The poor relative of a teleportation formation. |
| 困兽阵 | Beast-Trapping Formation | Built to hold something large and angry. Usually installed badly, and usually late. |
| 锁魂阵 | Soul-Locking Formation | Keeps a soul from leaving the body or the place. Used in interrogation, and in prisons. |
| 符阵 | Talisman Formation | An array laid out with talismans instead of flags. Fast to set up, gone in a day. |
| 阵纹师 | Pattern Scribe | The craftsman who engraves array patterns. Never famous, always indispensable. |
| 传送符 | Teleport Talisman | A talisman that moves you to a fixed point. One use, and it only goes where it was made for. |
| 神行符 | Speed Talisman | Stuck to the leg for a burst of speed. The standard escape tool of the underpowered. |
| 金刚符 | Diamond Talisman | Temporary body protection. Lasts one hit, which is usually the hit that mattered. |
| 火焰符 | Flame Talisman | A thrown talisman that becomes a wall of fire. Cheap, common, and still frightening. |
| 冰锥符 | Ice Shard Talisman | Fires a volley of ice. Popular against crowds and wooden doors. |
| 雷符 | Lightning Talisman | Calls a single bolt. Expensive, and the only talisman that reliably hurts a body cultivator. |
| 隐匿符 | Concealment Talisman | Hides a presence. Works on the eye, not on divine sense, which is why it fails at the worst moment. |
| 破禁符 | Restriction-Breaking Talisman | Dissolves a seal or a barrier. Thieves consider it a professional expense. |
| 镇魂符 | Soul-Calming Talisman | Settles a soul that will not stay put. Used on the dying and on the possessed. |
| 傀儡符 | Puppet Talisman | Drives a body that has no will left in it. Forbidden for the obvious reason. |
| 血符 | Blood Talisman | Drawn with the caster's own blood. Twice the power, and it shortens the life that drew it. |
| 符胆 | Talisman Core | The central stroke of a talisman. Get it wrong and the whole thing is paper. |
| 画符 | Inscribe a Talisman | Writing a talisman in one unbroken motion. Hesitate once and it is spoiled. |
| 符成 | Talisman Complete | The faint glow when a talisman takes. The only feedback a talisman master ever gets. |
| 灵砂 | Spirit Sand | Sand ground from spirit stone, used instead of cinnabar on serious work. |
| 妖血墨 | Beast Blood Ink | Ink mixed with demon beast blood. Holds power longer, and smells like a butchery. |
| 连环阵 | Linked Array | Several formations working as one. The standard defence of any serious sect. |
| 封印阵 | Sealing Array | Holds something in rather than out. Older sects are usually built around one. |
| 封印松动 | The Seal Is Weakening | The sentence that starts the third act. |
| 血祭阵 | Blood Sacrifice Array | Powers something by killing inside it. Demon path material, and the reason a village disappears. |
| 四象阵 | Four Symbols Array | Four beasts, four quarters. Defensive, balanced, and slow to break. |
| 八卦阵 | Eight Trigrams Array | Eight positions, rotating. The reference design that every later array copies. |
| 九宫阵 | Nine Palaces Array | Nine cells, one of them false. Solving it is a puzzle, not a fight. |
| 周天星斗阵 | Star Circuit Array | Mapped onto the sky. Its scope is a province, and its cost is a war. |
| 入阵 | Enter the Array | Walking in on purpose. Every such scene begins with the character knowing it is a trap. |
| 阵中阵 | Array Within an Array | A hidden second layer. The classic twist in a boundary arc. |
| 阵心 | Array Heart | The centre. Sometimes the source, sometimes the exit. |
| 困阵之内 | Inside the Trap | The state of being sealed. Used as a scene heading in some translations. |
| 禁地阵法 | Forbidden Zone Array | A boundary nobody is meant to cross. The protagonist crosses it in the first ten chapters. |
| 转换阵 | Conversion Array | Changes one kind of energy into another. Rare, and the basis of a lot of cheating. |
| 符咒 | Incantation Talisman | A talisman that has to be read aloud. Speech makes it slower and more precise. |
| 爆炎符 | Flame Burst Talisman | The cheap offensive option. Thrown, not aimed. |
| 遁地符 | Earth Escape Talisman | Sinks the user and moves them below ground. The standard escape for anyone outmatched. |
| 定身符 | Holding Talisman | Freezes a target for a few seconds. Short duration, decisive timing. |
| 镇尸符 | Corpse-Restraining Talisman | Sticks to a forehead and keeps the body still. The first tool of anyone dealing with the undead. |
| 符墨 | Talisman Ink | Ink mixed with a specific material, usually blood or cinnabar. The recipe is the trade secret. |
Formation scenes are the hardest to translate because the geometry is often described in classical phrasing. Terms follow the free cultivation novels at cultivationnovel.com.
Where these words turn up
Stories on this site that use them the way the notes describe.
Killing the Junior Sister of the Immortal SectThe sect’s favourite disciple is the one person a killer was told not to touch.阵法 Senior Brother Leaves the Mountain, Sending the Junior Sisters into a PanicThe sect’s most reliable senior brother goes down the mountain for a while.阵法 I Guarded the Demon Abyss for 1,000 Years. Forgot Me? Fine.A thousand years on guard duty, and the reward goes to everyone else.封印阵Source: cultivationnovel.com · Cultivation Glossary