EDIT:
First Story Chapter has posted if you want to skip the Pre-Game Info Posts
Hello Questers.
Welcome to the Pre-game.
The major world-building is mostly done as well as the starting premise (to be fully revealed at game-start), but I am looking for a some fun ideas to build into the chaotic mess that is the conflicting magic systems of the Nexus.
Over the next few {unknown time units} I'll be putting up information on how the PC's system will work, other than general comments (which are always appreciated) there are two ways you can participate in the pre-game.
1) Suggest additional skills to be added to the existing list.
* May lead parts of or even your entire idea being added into the quest.
2) Discuss possible synergies between skills and what bonuses they may activate.
* I will confirm the existence of any synergy that is described mostly correctly during the discussions, allowing you to make more informed decisions during statgen.
Free Example:
(Afn) Pyromancy, (Afn) Sun, (Sem) Fire Magic do unlock bonus perks when leveled together. This is a pretty basic one though, you can do better.
Before getting to the current list, an explanation of the categories;
(Rev) Revelations:
What would be considered generic talents or learnable proficiencies. Within the Nexus, even mundane skill slowly transforms into substantial meta-physical applications the further it is pushed (for lucky people, not for most) eventually starting to bend reality into what is pragmatically a superpower. People describe this shift of when a
skill becomes a
Skill as a Revelation.
(Afn) Affinities:
Inborn potential that exists to some degree within everyone. Most do not have sufficient affinity to ever learn or do anything useful with it.
Affinities are known for having a clear progression pathway that resembles learning an ordinary skill. Study, practice and experience all improving them. They are also known for being holistic in application, with many instinctive safeguards making them much less dangerous for a practitioner than would otherwise be the case.
They are divided into Internalisms and Esotericisms. Internalisms can be measured from birth and tend to start subtle and abstract, becoming more potent and concrete with time. Esotericisms must be achieved similiar to a Revelation, but tend to be far easier for someone with a matching Internalism. Esotericisms tend to be blunt and basic instruments in the beginning, gaining more finesse and metaphorical applications with time.
(Sem) Semblances:
While a person may have more talent for learning, semblances are unique in that anyone has an equal opportunity to gain them. All Semblances normally have an unlock condition (not for you) to begin progressing in them, afterwards typically requiring nothing more than study and practice to continue. Sometimes they require for specific conditions to progress as well.
Semblances are more arbitrary and less holistic than Affinities. They do what they do within a fairly narrow band and explicitly do nothing outside that. The 'it just works that way' philosophy is in strong effect.
They also tend to have far fewer safeguards on their use, being much easier to accidentally hurt oneself/etc if a practitioner is not careful
(Rch) Reaches:
The rules for Reaches are all over the place. While they have unlock conditions, they are more like unlock possibilities. And people can sometimes gain a Reach when they have clearly do nothing close to the unlock conditions.
Even the same Reach in two individuals will express itself differently, and the safeguards are practically non-existent.
For this reason, many who have unlocked a reach choose not to practice it because of the implicit dangers. But there is no denying that they
are quite potent, often interacting with and altering the function of other magics as part of their mechanics or sometimes as their
only mechanic.
And finally, check out these amazing stories that I have shamelessly ripped and reassembled entire swaths from. (The actual worlds of these stories will not show up in this Quest, but many of their mechanics do appear in altered forms.)
Worth the Candle - Alexander Wales
The Menocht Loop - Caerulex
The Perfect Run - Void Herald
Current Skills Compendium:
Revelations:
Acrobatics:
Leap and roll for effect. Accessing hard to reach places and landing with grace where others would fall.
Anatomy:
Understand the function of bodies and the importance and limits of their various parts.
Analysis:
Weigh conditions and known knowledge effectively, arrive at detailed conclusions.
Animal Handling:
Intuit and understand the behaviour of unintelligent creatures. Devise methodology by which they might be controlled.
Alchemy:
Apply precise measurements and constraints of given materials to accomplish feats that exceed the natural.
Appraisal:
Examine and perceive. Learning more from your senses than every before.
Art:
Produce works of sublime wonder. Possess a well of creativity that will not run dry.
Athletics:
Move, Jump, Run. Do it better, harder, faster.
Bows:
Hit the target more often than not.
Climbing:
Apply leverage and strength correctly, fear heights no more.
Comedy:
Deliver the punch line at the right time. Find the silver lining in the storm.
Command:
Extrude your presence with confidence onto lesser men.
Cryptography:
Both the creation and deciphering of; gain a sense for solving deliberatively obfuscated systems.
Cybernetics:
Familiarity with the modification and use of augmented body types.
Dancing:
Lose that second left foot. Wow everyone in the ballroom.
Debate:
Assail them with point after point. Understanding not what is right, but how to convince.
Demonology:
Canny to the tricks of the corrupted. Anticipate the foils of the hellish realms ahead of time.
Diplomacy:
Exchange and borrow influence or credit for tangible results. Understand how to get what you want and what it will cost you.
Dodge:
The best form of defense is getting out of the way.
Duel Wield:
Reduce penalties and master strange artforms of combat.
Engineering:
Theory and Practice is one. Build solutions to your problems.
Electronics:
Familiarity with digital systems.
Etiquette:
Only stand out in ways you want too.
Feng Shui:
Position is key! Arrange things for best effect.
First Aid:
Make use of what is on hand.
Fishing:
Show off to all your friends. Be the greatest.
Flattery:
Make a certain sort of person like you. Understand how to ingratiate yourself without being obvious.
Foraging:
Find all sorts of useful things while spelunking about. Understand where to search in the first place.
Forgery:
Be it a trickery or perhaps a functional imitation, fool the inexperienced eye.
Gem Cutting
Whether its making the perfect fitting or refining the exact reagent, you work with precious rocks like a natural.
Heavy Armour:
Be the beefiest of them all. Move for no man.
Horticulture:
Up and up she grows. Make the tallest poppies and select from the best lines.
Improvised Weapons:
When all you have is a hockey puck and a table leg, you'll find a way.
Intimidation:
Exert your presence effectively and encourage the right sort of response.
Investigation:
Don't miss important factors, understand where to focus your attentions.
Language:
Understand and speak localized languages.
Leadership:
Understand how to raise above the crowd and direct others with or without tyranny.
Leatherworking
Make armour and perhaps even civilian clothes of unrivaled cut and class.
Light Armour:
A little padding with plenty of flex, you are prepared and adaptable.
Livestock:
Be it herding or breeding, you can always find the most excellent path.
Logic:
Both the use of and tendency to not forget. Remain rational when tempted to be otherwise.
Logistics:
Administration and Organization shall be like the air you breathe.
Lying:
A good poker face and an excellent bluff. Fool even the unnaturally canny.
Mad Science
You don't know what you are doing and neither does anyone else, but sometimes it works.
Management:
Direct resources and assets not your own. Make the best of partial liquidity for maximum short or long term benefit.
Mathematics:
Essential for nothing. Helpful for almost anything.
Medicine:
Treatment and Creation. You understand how to heal and restore. A Surgeon, Doctor and medical Developer all in one.
Medium Armour:
The healthy middle ground with no significant drawbacks.
Mentalism:
The art of good thinking. Often underestimated.
Music:
Remember, create and reproduce the greatest works of symphonic flourish.
Occulstism:
Apply the right materials and ingredients, recite the correct lines. Call upon outside forces 'safely'.
One-handed Weapons:
You know how to stab and jab.
Perception:
Interpretation as well as acuity. Resist illusion and process confusing or overstimulating sights.
Parry:
To block and disarm, a weapon is quite handy.
Piloting:
From cars to planes to mechs, you can find the steering wheel.
Pistols:
Natural talent and marksmanship.
Programming:
Ability to recall and create novel code for practical purposes. Can be applied to non-electronic contexts.
Psionics:
The art of the projection or reception of minds. Poorly understood.
Repair:
A quick fix-it or larger scale touch ups. You can do it all.
Research:
Sit down with a good coffee and notepad, conduct the best experiments.
Riding:
From oversized molerats to feisty dragons, you can find the reins.
Rifles:
Look down the scope, annnd pop.
Romance:
Hugs and kisses. Alls fair in love and war.
Sailing:
Move yourself and others through water like a true veteran.
Shields:
Shift, divert and resist. You know how to handle a resistive medium.
Shotguns:
Not much use for aim, but you can certainly time it right.
Singing:
Make ears bleed no more. Possess the voice of an angel.
Sleeping:
A good night's shut eye can make all the difference.
Sleight of Hand:
For tricks or perhaps to snatch a gem from a pocket. Your hands move with finesse and grace.
Smithing:
To endurance and create something that will last the ages.
Stealth:
Remain unseen and unnoticed.
Swimming:
From treading water to deep-sea diving. You know the strokes.
Tailoring:
Weave tapestries worthy for a king.
Thrown Weapons:
Throw for effect. Thread the needle where you need something to land, or just pulverize something out of the way.
Two-Handed Weapons:
You know how to
stab and
jab.
Unarmed Combat:
When nothings at hand, make your body a weapon.
Unarmoured:
Naked and alone, resist the ravages of the elements and perhaps even nastier things.
Woodworking:
Fashion wooden objects into shapes of master quality. Form and function working in perfect unison.
Affinities:
Light: (Internalism)
Control presence of radiance. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Dark: (Internalism)
Control lack of light, darkness, void. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Life: (Internalism)
Control Life Energy. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Death: (Internalism)
Control Death Energy. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Mountain: (Internalism)
Changing properties of earth. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Cloud: (Internalism)
Changing properties of air. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Sun: (Internalism)
Change the properties of fire. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Moon: (Internalism)
Change the properties of water. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Beginning: (Internalism)
Augury based on the past; very easily pick up on patterns.
End: (Internalism)
Augury based on future; can see threads of fate. Bind people via these threads by manipulating them.
Regret: (Internalism)
Sense of potential paths that events could take and pitfalls to avoid. At higher levels, may create scenarios that branch off from a current moment in reality, effectively seeing into the future. Never 100% reliable.
Remorse: (Internalism)
Psychological healing or damage, with the ability to root through people's memories.
Melody: (Internalism)
Control of Significance. Can make things last longer or wither faster on an abstract level. Sense degrees of importance (provided enough links between individual and observed thing). Allow cooperation between disparate parts.
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Seismomancy: (Esotericism)
(Earth) Standard Magic Earth bending. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Aeromancy: (Esotericism)
(Air) Standard Magic Air Bending. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Pyromancy: (Esotericism)
(Fire) Standard Magic Fire Bending. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Hydromancy: (Esotericism)
(Water) Standard Magic Water Bending. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Differentialism: (Esotericism)
(Lightning) Standard Magic Lightning Bending. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Biomancy: (Esotericism)
(Nature) Standard Magic Body Bending. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Contrastimancy: (Esotericism)
(Light and Dark) Standard Magic Light and Dark Bending. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Enchanting: (Esotericism)
Apply and imbue known magics into physical objects and places.
Further Elementomancies: (Esotericism)
Certain individuals gain access to less common forms of elemental summoning and control. Usually by exposure to the even rarer individuals who manifest such a power from nothing. Esoteric applications at high levels.
Semblances:
Astral Magic:
Step beyond the confines of the physical. Interacting with reality both near and far.
Air Magic:
Control the flow and properties of air.
Awe Magic:
Snatch and hold the attention of others. Diminishing returns for sustained effects.
Blood Maigc:
Hyper-realise the tangible and symbolic properties of blood.
Bone Magic:
Draw upon the characteristics of living things from their bones, giving and taking. Heal, Empower, Enhance, Drain.
Bullet Magic:
Rip off tiny segments of your lifeforce and propel them as meta-dimensional projectiles. Largely considered to be practiced only by those with a death-wish.
Butterfly Magic:
Find critical pivot points and create destruction from innocent beginnings.
Carapace Magic:
Sacrificial Magic that uses carapaces as its source material.
Conjoinery:
Create links between associated things. Mimicking effect and cause. Rainbow splashes that spread Instinctive Collective voting system of where damage/healing finally resides.
Constriction Magic:
Restrain and crush your surrounds.
Crystal Magic:
Imbue crystal with living potential and energy. Poorly understood.
Curse Magic:
Extremely easy to catastrophically backfire. The art of permanent hexes upon locations, objects and people. Most practitioners claim they study it as a form of self-defense… most are lying.
Dibbling:
Invest energies into suckion points for later symbolic retrieval.
Divergence Magic:
Split into short-lived duplicates. You are all of them and none them.
Earth Magic:
With effort, you can occupy the same space as soil. Selectively interacting with it. Regenerative effects while touching the ground.
Essentialism:
Introspective Magic that interacts with the soul.
Ethereal Magic:
Contact with the dead and inhabitants of the spectral realms.
Familiar Magic:
Bind to a random animal somewhere within the planes of existence. It will begin to make its way towards you to come serve you. You cannot control which animal, save for picking a new one upon the first's death. You can empower your familiar in unique ways.
Fire Magic:
Manifest and control flame.
Flare Magic:
Generate magical flares that rob those exposed of specific senses, talents or capacity for cognition for a time proportional to level of exposure. Difficult to not accidently self-expose.
Forge Magic:
Multiply the results of your own labour. Transfer material properties.
Funnel Magic:
Absorb effects and negate unsubstantiated magics, redeploying them as chaotic implosions nearby. Requires careful use to avoid self-harm.
Gem Magic:
Weaponise hard-light constructs and projections with assistive prisms.
Glass Magic:
Manifest and control glass.
Glow Magic:
(Aura) Extend the impact of your soul, magics and body beyond their usual reach. Draw others influence toward you also.
Gold Magic:
Draw tactile telekinetic potential from the possession of riches.
Gravity Magic:
Alter your interaction with gravity. Temporarily change the direction and strength of gravity in your surrounds (ramp up and down delays).
Gray Magic:
Siphon and mellow the world, whilst juxtapostionally extending it.
Groove Casting:
Apply repeated motions to existing divets in reality to store and delay magics or actions, release for immediate focused effect.
Hair Magic:
Uplift your hair into a semi-sentient entity capable of operating semi-autonomously from you. Other applications unknown.
Ice Magic:
Manifest and control Ice with variable esoteric properties. Natural ice too.
Illusion Magic:
Tricks of sight, sound and other senses; all will slowly fall under your purview.
Ink Magic:
Imagination is the only limit. Create temporary magics to solve problems tangentially. High maintenance and investment limits.
Library Magic:
Sorting magic. Telekinetic control of books and information within them. More useful than would first appear.
Membrane Magic:
Conjure gigantic defensive spheroids that track with your location.
Mirror Magic:
Access the mirror dimension. A dangerous and alien place. Perhaps learn how to utilize some of its secrets here too.
Necromancy:
Embody dead forms back into moving objects of utility. More concerned with dead material than departed souls.
Orbit Magic:
Move yourself and another object around your mutual centre of gravity. Control of distance, direction, momentum and maximum mass increase with experience.
Passion Magic:
Draw meta-physical effects from strongly felt emotion. Dampers emotion through use.
Pill Magic:
The creation of small pills which when imbibed grant dramatic benefits and equally dramatic withdrawals.
Plastic Magic:
Alter the shape and flow of bodily joints and features is highly temporary but extremely rapid ways.
Pustule Magic:
Through dedication and effort, store once-off and semi-permanent effects scaled up from microscopic magical bacterium.
Revision Magic:
Undo undesired events and motion nearby, including your own death. Has caveats on affecting foreign magic.
Rune Magic:
Create specific and hardy magical implements. Interacts with other magics in rigid but reliable ways.
Sand Magic:
Build spaces and effects to extend time. Often requires much preparation.
Scrying:
Search and discover what is hidden. Uses large and small.
Severance Magic:
Magical control over concepts of sharpness and cutting.
Silver Magic:
Control Silver into a gas, liquid or solid state. The more gaseous the faster you can telekinetically move it, the more solid the more firmly you can root it in place.
Skin Magic:
Inscribe magical tattoos to harness innate hidden magics within the body. Once-off and semi-permanent effects available.
Smoke Magic:
Generate smoke in which the line between fiction and reality blurs. Superposition becomes a manipulable property as just the beginning.
Songcasting:
The use of music and voice to inspire, empower, demoralize and debilitate.
Spirit:
Control the flow of soul-motion. The origin of thought.
Star Magic:
Build permanent connections between different areas and perhaps even worlds.
Still Magic:
Touch based highly potent reinforcement and negation effects. Useful both defensive and offensively.
Tree Magic:
Circumvent circumstances through circuitous cedar connections. Trees can take the fall for your mistakes among other uses.
Velocity Magic:
Accelerate body or mind to incredible speeds for appropriate tradeoffs. React and arrive beyond mortal limits.
Vibrational Magic:
Mastery of sound and eventually more abstract wavelengths.
Warding:
The creation of conditional barriers to active or potential magics. Can resist, alert, annihilate and many others. Requires preparation time.
Water Magic:
Detect and be aware of water at huge distances. Ability to imbue certain characteristics into water on a wide macro scale.
Wood Magic:
Elevate wood to insane levels of durability and utility. Long preparation times.
Reaches:
Effigy: (Aspect)
Draw from and create Facsimilies. Finding power in liknesses.
Cloy: (Aspect)
Entangle and bind reality itself and all caught within it. Clog the works.
Unity: (Aspect)
Take belief and legend and use them as a ladder to the impossible.
Determinant: (Aspect)
Deduce the direction things are likely to go, then force them to stay that way.
Totem: (Aspect)
Stake your claim in the ground. Build a following.
Memetics: (Aspect)
Master the Meme. Or more likely, die trying.
Gestalt: (Aspect)
Blend and incorporate many disparate forms and magics.
Vital: (Aspect)
Unlock the innate magics of bodies organs.
Blister: (Aspect)
See the walls between reality, poke at the edges.
Abyss: (Aspect)
(Uses Void Element) Render
everything into
nothing.
Veil: (Aspect)
Hide in a place that is entirely your own, bide your time.
Abandon: (Aspect)
Let go of humanity, become less and more.
Possessor: (Aspect)
Natural mastery of hierarchy and control.
Technopathy: (Aspect)
Control and Extend the function of technology in minor and dramatic ways.
Shear: (Aspect)
Connect to the grinding, slashing spatial jumble of the sheer. Squinch distances and people.
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Red – Energy: (Spectrum)
Unique expression interacting with your own existence.
Orange – Matter: (Spectrum)
Unique expression interacting with your own existence.
Yellow – Concepts: (Spectrum)
Unique expression interacting with your own existence.
Green – Life: (Spectrum)
Unique expression interacting with your own existence.
Blue – Information: (Spectrum)
Unique expression interacting with your own existence.
Violet – Spacetime: (Spectrum)
Unique expression interacting with your own existence.
White – Meta: (Spectrum)
Unique expression interacting with your own existence. Particularly geared toward affecting either your own or other's powers in some way.
Black – Inversion: (Spectrum)
Unique expression interacting with your own existence. Particularly geared toward massively upscaling risk/reward structures. Highly unstable powers with dramatic effects and little self-protective common.
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Chastity: (Virtue)
???
Temperance: (Virtue)
???
Charity: (Virtue)
???
Diligence: (Virtue)
???
Patience: (Virtue)
???
Kindness: (Virtue)
???
Humility: (Virtue)
???
Lust: (Vice)
???
Gluttony: (Vice)
???
Greed: (Vice)
???
Sloth: (Vice)
???
Wrath: (Vice)
???
Envy: (Vice)
???
Pride: (Vice)
???
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Splay: (Context)
Increase conflict between different magics and effects. Force faster resolution.
Reverb: (Context)
Make simultaneous instances of the same magics or effects have a reduced or no interaction with each other.
Revit: (Context)
Make magics or effects 'stick' to what they interact with like glue. Concentrate rather than propagate.
Swish: (Context)
Make magics or effects be unaffected by non-deliberate untargeted obstructions. Generalized barriers or defenses become orders of magnitude less potent.
Solemn: (Context)
Massively extend the duration of any magic or effect so long as it does not need to compete with anything else within the same (or a greater) order of magnitude.
Imply: (Context)
Make certain magics or effects 'always on' at a low level for no cost.
Deny: (Context)
Dissociate magics or effects from their origin. Hiding who created them and foiling many conditional barriers etc.
Line: (Context)
Increase the range at which magics or effects can be applied, whilst also increasing the time and effort necessary to do so.
Relative: (Context)
Apply delays on effects or magics set to manifest later on a timer.
Next Post will outline the stat system and character sheet. Which functions very similar to Worth the Candle with revisions to allow proper integration with the Nexus.
