Outsider 'power mobility' in fantastical settings: What universe contains an easy path to power for the powerless?

[Nauro]

Exactly like social mobility differs between different settings (or real world countries), the power mobility of different settings also differ. While a society with high social mobility allows for a lower social status person to archive higher social status, in turn receiving a certain upgrades to their influence and/or power, I would like to narrow the question down to power in the fantastical sense - special powers, magical ability, fantastical properties and the ease in which they are gained, bargained for and lost. Social mobility, of course, can influence this with ease of access to certain types of power. (A king of a fantasy land could commission magical items while not being in any way magical)

In brief, I would like to find a setting that offers the most power mobility for an outsider - refer to the thread name. I hope to share some thoughts I have been able to conjure up on the matter. These are, in a very real sense, incomplete, as the multitude of settings and realms available in fiction boggles the mind, and that plentitude is one of the main reasons for posting this in a popular forum. Maybe I'll get an answer I was looking for, or an interesting discussion will spark. We'll see.


To start us off, I will explain the choice of the word "outsider" in this question with a short aside about the trope of a chosen-one. The chosen-one, in general, has a lot of internal forces stacked in his favor. While a popular trope would have a farmer boy become a magical powerhouse and leader of armies (for example, the titular Eragon finds a dragon and binds with her, gaining access to magic), we must acknowledge that this is either a cause of fate or otherwise a purely narrative advantage, making the rise in power an exception rather than a rule. When the plot conspires for a character to raise to power - he will do so, regardless of the overall power-mobility of the settings.

In this way, I feel like being a chosen-one is already a power position, so I must ask to discount them in future considerations.

In contrast, if any peasant could become a magical dragon-rider with a reasonably high degree of certainty, we would have a setting of high power mobility, but such universes are exceedingly rare.

In this sense, please consider the "outsider" as a normal, average real-world human, with average human skills. The outsider is not a chosen one, and for an extra complication, even if the setting has everyone casting magic, the outsider does not automatically learn spells by the virtue of arriving at the setting. (I will expand on this last one in a bit).

If you introduce this outsider to the setting, will he be able to gain power? Which setting would give our outsider an easiest time to achieve magical greatness?


At this point, some of you might be saying "hang on, Nauro, are you talking about isekai?". In a sense, yes.

So... let's touch the genre of isekai for a bit. And, by extension, this applies to a lot of self-Insert fiction, so consider that covered as well.
Most isekai and SI cheat. These are the very same chosen-one types, chosen by the narrative to come to power just by the virtue of crossing over. These outsiders gain power by the act of entering the setting alone, either by being reborn in an already powerful character (a popular subset of SI) or by being in the exactly right place at the exactly right time. The outsider thus is either a participant of the prophesy or is gifted specific, usually already very powerful tools or abilities with no proactiveness on their part. I'm only interested in the cases where the isekai do not cheat.

One thing I have not defined so far, is the knowledge the outsider has of the setting. This is one area where I am bit lenient, but specific, encyclopedic foreknowledge of the future is a sort of power upon itself, so let's keep it down low, ok? Trope level knowledge is fine, I think, but this should not assume automatic genre-savviness. Average-humans know of fiction, and should a world they find themselves in be in any way different from the real-world, they would certainly notice something.


To summarize:

• We have an outsider, real-world-like average-human (or just a human from a real world).
• We choose a setting the outsider arrives in, preferably one with fantastical elements that allow for magic/chi/chakra/abilities that we here generalize and call power.
• They arrive with zero or minimal knowledge of the specifics of the setting, but they are aware of the otherworldliness
• They do not gain any powers and do not "become" a main character with all the plot-conveniences that would cause
• Assume they spend at least some time seeking out power.

1. Can they gain the power or not?
2. How?

The amount of power "available" and the ease of getting it is what I am interested in.

I have an existing preconception that most settings will neither allow for the gain of power or will limit, but please prove me wrong.

To close off the definition and question part of the post, I will provide a few examples. This is the part where the example list could be expanded indefinitely.


A few examples In increasing order of power mobility with commentary:


Star Wars

Powers: The Force
Regular people do not know how to use the force, even if they desire the power of the dark side. If midi-chlorians do not choose you, you will not get anything.
I will not count access to sufficiently high technology as magic in this thread.

Outsider Power Mobility 0/10


Re:Zer0

Powers: Magic, Other (?)
A token isekai setting example. Very dangerous setting, with high mortality, or at least it has been presented as such. Provided the outsider survives his first few days, the existance of magical items is a possibility, but otherwise there's a lot of very dangerous trouble in the setting.

Outsider Power Mobility 1/10


Harry Potter

Powers: Magic
Regular people do not know magic exits. Could be indistinguishable from the real world.
Non-magical people can get access to magic only when living with wizards. Most magical creatures are lethal for muggles and are a threat rather than a power-up. The setting does not boast with magical items made for muggle perusal.
Getting access to power would only work in cases of finding a wizard or witch to befriend/marry and getting them to do magic for you. Can't even make potions without a working wand.

Outsider Power Mobility 1/10


Dresden Files

Powers: Magic, Contracts, Demons, Fae
The problem with the 'masquerade' of the setting is huge and nearly insurmountable as the powers try to keep it that way.
The world of Dresden Files, for the most moral observers would be indistinguishable from the real world. The magical aspects of it stay away from the mortals until they don't.
That said, there are a handful of powerful beings which could lend out power - seemingly to anyone they find interesting.
Chances of an average person stumbling on one of these opportunities is very low, even if you include the years when you could find the Wizard Dresden in the yellow papers, he wouldn't be a good agent to recommend a future contractor, be it fae or literal fallen angel coins. At least if the outsider stumbles upon something magical, there's a chance of increasing their power in the future.

Outsider Power Mobility 2/10


World of Darkness
(Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Mage)

Powers: Vampyrism, Lycantropy, Magic, Infernal, etc
Same masquerade problem as with Dresden Files, but you are more likely to become accidental food.
Tiny chance to become a vampire via embrace. Mages, Fae and Werewolf are not made but born/chosen. There are no easy textbooks for eternal damnation.
Even if the outsider stumbles upon a power boost, they are likely to die before any growth in power.

Outsider Power Mobility 2/10


The Elder Scrolls Series

Powers: Magic, Alchemy
It is questionable if an average-human would be able to generate magic, so direct spellcasting is probably out. Magical items exist, and alchemy seems to not require magic to use. Enchanting is questionable too, probably not something one can do.
If potion exploits from the game exist, selling expensive potions and getting enchanters to enchant things for you might be pretty powerful. Likely to be killed by overzealous guards or bandits.

Outsider Power Mobility 5/10


Dungeons and Dragons

Powers: Arcane, Divine, etc
Magical items. Gods that can become patrons for believers. Entities that you could sign contracts with an become a warlock. Many dangerous ways to gain power.
The universe has wish-granting powers and creatures. Average human can become a casualty of the setting, but they also could score a magical patron or equipment, provided they are not risk-averse. Probably one of the best options.

Outsider Power Mobility 6/10

 

[Grey Rook]

Saga of Soul has pretty good power mobility. In that setting, if you want magic, all you have to do... is die. And then come back before it becomes permanent. In exchange, you gain the ability to bend the laws of physics to your will. Not a bad trade, do you think?

Prototype technically has this - if you manage to get into the right place at the right time, you can end up as an Evolved with lesser versions of Alex's powers. It's pretty terrible otherwise, though.

IIRC, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has the ability to turn people into mages who weren't before. You might have to sell yourself to some rather unscrupulous organisations to get magic, but it is possible.

RWBY includes the conceit that anybody can develop an Aura, a forcefield made by the soul which grants superhuman strength, speed, and durability, with more personalised powers coming later. If you manage to keep ahead of the Grimm long enough to get to a city and find a Hunter or Dust sorcerer, then convince them to unlock your Aura, you too could develop superpowers.

Magic 2.0 has pretty good mobility. Find a wizard or sorceress, convince them that you too are from a different time period and that you need training so you don't break something by accident, convince them that you can be trusted with that kind of power, and away you go. It works for anybody as long as you follow the rules (though the wizards will lie about it if asked) and it's pretty hax, as well as being limited entirely by how much time and effort you're willing to invest into learning computer programming.

World of Darkness has the Mages - IIRC, Awakening to magery is simply the realisation that the world isn't real and reality is consensual, which should be pretty simple for an SI. Actually going through the training afterwards is less so, and the world is terrible in a great many ways. Also, WoD magic doesn't work in the presence of people who don't believe in magic.

 

[Avernus]

The world of Crystal Sorcerers/Crystal Warriors by William R. Forstchen has a 9/10 or 10/10 rating, since it's a central plot point that anyone from our world who ends up there becomes a sorcerer. The local population was genetically altered in the distant past so that they can't use magic; only people who luck out and are born with one random mutation or another that disables the modification it can become sorcerers. But people from our world were never altered, and so become sorcerers just by showing up.

You just have to avoid getting killed right off, and it's not that dangerous outside of wars and such. Finding a teacher won't be hard since sorcerers are valuable assets. One nice benefit: a default life span of a thousand years.


The Castle Perilous series by John DeChancie is a good but hard to quantify one. Any outsider transported to the Castle gains a magical talent, but the strength of it varies wildly from parlor tricks to massively powerful. At one extreme there was a guy who could levitate a little; at the other there was a woman lost at sea who in the process of trying to save herself stopped a tsunami from an exploding volcano and summoned an island complete with a fully staffed holiday resort.

Also, being a Guest at the Castle is a pretty nice position to have, usually. Unless there's a demonic invasion or the like, then things get awkward...

 

[RoboRenee]

City of Heroes would have an absolute mountain of power mobility, assuming that nothing capital-h Happens to you anyway (or that you don't mind trading that for power). Magic is commonplace enough that city government has a magic department and so do, by all accounts, the local colleges in Paragon. Martial arts can eventually put you on par with gods. Reality is wibbly in a very 'radiation gives you super powers' sort of way in CoH, like by actual lore basically, as in the Golden Light of Creation IIRC makes powers just sort of happen a lot. And there are a metric fuckload of groups that grant powers at significant cost like the Lost's indoctrination/mutation stuff and the cult-y types and so on.

 

[Mak Taru]

One Punch Man. Just do a good exercise routine. Or get upset enough at or obsessed enough with something and you might become a monster.

 

[Egleris]

Final Fantasy 7 got to score relatively high on this scale, right?

Magic exists in a form that is portable and relatively easy to utilize, as children are shown capable of using it. While superpowered beings exists in setting, people who appear to have no physical advantages are capable of using Materia to stand up to them, so the ability of the magic system to grant power to their users is very very high. Additionally, magic can be easily leapfrogged into greater power from relatively humble beginnings, in that a single Materia can be leveled again and again to produce more, and then the created Materia can be sold for cash or traded for other things of value.

Materia in itself doesn't seem to have any negative impact on a user, and there is a lot of variety, from physical enhancement (purple) to gaining new abilities from nothing (yellow) to summoning creatures to do your bidding (red), in addition to the general offensive magical power of the most common type (green), so there's a lot of versatility. If more versatility count as "more power" on the power acquisition scale, then the maximum amount of power is quite high. That said, the power in setting is also capped to some extent (it's impossible to do more than a certain amount of damage, physical attributes cannot be raised above a maximum threshold), so the power growth curve is not one that allows for infinite growth.

Also, depending on how effective phoenix down/life spell and potions/cure spells actually are (if they match to what they can do in gameplay, they are apparently able to heal anything short of menomation or death without leaving any permanent damage or mark on the body), a lot of the dangers inherent in the process of raising your first Materia to mastery can be greatly minimized, which makes the acquisition of further power easier. That said, there is still risk, and a careful selection of grinding spots would be paramount; I imagine that picking the wrong spot to train and being killed by a monster would be the biggest risk to power acquisition in the setting. Outside of that, however, it seems like a setting where going from no power to enormous power is easy enough, since all you need to do is get your hand on a Materia, and some of those can be bought for relatively cheaply.

Notably, the setting also offers the possibility of further growth by subjecting oneself to body-enhancing experiments, although this carries a much higher risk of death and invariably involves putting one's own life into the hands of scientists with no concepts of ethics or morals. I'm not sure if that should be counted as a bonus possibility of power gain, or if the risks are so high that it counts as a wash overall. Still, I don't think there's many settings were power is so undeniably easy to acquire and requires absolutely no innate abilities of any sort to be gained, right?

 

[pingas plight]

I wanna say devil survivor, either version, because all you really need is a comp amd the balls to commit kill all non-humans, but I feel like I can come up with something better.
Situationally, yugioh.
I say situationally, because you need cash, and you most certainly need to learn the meta. But, still, compared to things like kingdom hearts and Overlord(anime) it is a cakewalk. And if you already know the meta of the timeframe, you just need cash

 

[Mak Taru]

I wanna say devil survivor, either version, because all you really need is a comp amd the balls to commit kill all non-humans, but I feel like I can come up with something better.
Situationally, yugioh.
I say situationally, because you need cash, and you most certainly need to learn the meta. But, still, compared to things like kingdom hearts and Overlord(anime) it is a cakewalk. And if you already know the meta of the timeframe, you just need cash

Click to shrink...

Being 'powerful' in the Yugioh universe is less about playing the game well and more about having plot shields, though.

 

[We Just Write]

T: I'm extremely tempted to say Terra Magnus from Titan of Steel, but only after the events of the story. Mana is readily available and produced by the nuclear power plant load, and all someone has to do for superpowers is to get pumped full of it while also undergoing an appropriate training regimen. So all someone would need to do for super powers is enlist in the military, which also comes with a lot of frighteningly effective manatech gear.

 

[WhiteNights]

I wanna say devil survivor, either version, because all you really need is a comp amd the balls to commit kill all non-humans, but I feel like I can come up with something better.
Situationally, yugioh.
I say situationally, because you need cash, and you most certainly need to learn the meta. But, still, compared to things like kingdom hearts and Overlord(anime) it is a cakewalk. And if you already know the meta of the timeframe, you just need cash

Click to shrink...

Even better in this case is Pokémon. Pokémons are accessible to everyone, and have a much lower initial cash requirement.
A person is limited by how much superpowered pets they are willing to take care of.

 

[Adloquium]

Dresden Files

Powers: Magic, Contracts, Demons, Fae
The problem with the 'masquerade' of the setting is huge and nearly insurmountable as the powers try to keep it that way.
The world of Dresden Files, for the most moral observers would be indistinguishable from the real world. The magical aspects of it stay away from the mortals until they don't.
That said, there are a handful of powerful beings which could lend out power - seemingly to anyone they find interesting.
Chances of an average person stumbling on one of these opportunities is very low, even if you include the years when you could find the Wizard Dresden in the yellow papers, he wouldn't be a good agent to recommend a future contractor, be it fae or literal fallen angel coins. At least if the outsider stumbles upon something magical, there's a chance of increasing their power in the future.

Outsider Power Mobility 2/10

Click to shrink...

Also if you're very smart, very lucky, very brave, very resourceful, and in at least one example very ruthless. Marcone managed to become a signatory to the Accords because he happened to have the resources that Dresden needed at the time, and is smart enough to check for any unfortunate traps in the contract. And it's implied that the supernatural beings who take the Accord seriously would at least pretend to respect local mortal law enforcement, assuming local law enforcement respects them. Which, admittedly, means little when they can subvert local law enforcement to their own ends.

But the big example is probably Butters, who is basically "the right person in the right place at the right time", where "the right person" simply means "is willing to stand and fight for what they believe to be right, no matter how scared they personally are".

-----

Final Fantasy XIV is moderate mobility, I would assume. The primary source of "power" is aether, ie "magic". As in "magic" is a synonym for "aether manipulation". Aether itself is "life energy", and examples are given of young healthy people having more aether than old sickly people. TL;DR If you're lucky enough not to get killed by rampaging trees or bandits, and you're willing to put in lots of effort and smart enough to quit while you're ahead, you too can be badass.

Some things are innate: basic aether capacity is the one that matters to the vast majority of the population. Most people have at least some ability to manipulate aether, but the extent varies greatly, and while training can help, it's difficult and time-consuming. There is at least one race of people who completely lack the ability to manipulate aether, but they're not exactly the "average", and they make up for it with being the Scary Magitech Empire anyway, using "technology" (ie fantasy tech) to simulate aether manipulation.

There's also another innate factor, but I'll get into it later.

Anyone, within reason, can train hard enough to become powerful. Some people have the innate talent for it, and they definitely have an advantage, but the primary limitation is your own willpower and physical endurance, as well as whether you're patient enough to train with no guarantee that you'll get anywhere by the time you have to retire due to age or injury. (Also whether you have the free time and wealth to train.) Luck also plays a large factor: the world of FFXIV is fairly dangerous with hostile fauna (and flora, in several areas), along with the usual bandits and rogue bands of evil-doers.

One possible advantage is the usage of "soul crystals", which are basically magic crystals that an expert wears to imprint their experiences and knowledge upon, and then they can pass on that crystal (or have it passed on, for larger organizations) to promising novices to learn from. A complete newbie will not be able to use that soul crystal, but if you have some basic foundation, you can try figuring out more advanced techniques from the soul crystal, or even synthesize your own to add onto the soul crystal and pass that down. It's like a highly advanced textbook that is written by daily usage. Blank soul crystals are also relatively simple to make, and can be commissioned for very affordable costs (as in characters who are scrimping and saving can still afford to give them out). So someone with enough skill to know what they're doing can hypothetically obtain a soul crystal to jump-start their skill level: the difficulty is in finding useful soul crystals, rather than ones that don't teach anything new.

The innate factor I mentioned is completely unrelated to any of this, and is called the Echo. This also varies greatly in effectiveness and power, ranging from being able to sense the thoughts of others (and thus avoid their attacks) to having visions of the past to being able to come back from the dead at will. It's basically the "plot fiat" power. And like plot fiat, having the Echo appears to be completely random; as long as you're sapient (which in this setting means you "have a soul"), you have the chance to receive the Echo, whether you're a veteran adventurer or a simple village girl or a shut-in researcher or the head priest of your religion. (All of these have specific in-game examples.)

Every instance of the Echo, regardless of actual power level, also has the specific advantage of making you immune to Primal Tempering. This means the Primals, which are summoned entities believed to be gods by their summoners (for the most part), cannot enthrall you, while they can do so at will to anyone else. This doesn't save you from their other attacks, but it does mean skilled combatants with the Echo are a valuable resource to fight Primals, and is the main reason behind the player character's specialness.

(The other part of the player character's specialness is that we have the Blessing Of Light, which powers us up even more and helps shield us from certain specific anti-us attacks, but when we got the Blessing Of Light taken away we were still just as badass, so the power-up is mostly lore rather than game mechancs.)

Other sources of power include picking up relics/knowledge from ancient ruined civilizations, of which two were especially hyper-advanced; the more "recent" ancient civilization (about two thousand years ago) was advanced in all forms of magic, while the "older" ancient civilization (about five thousand years ago) was the most powerful in known history, based on combining magic and technology, and spanned the entire world (thus leaving behind artifacts and relics everywhere). Some of the player classes are based on these ancient knowledge.

There are demon-analogues in the setting called "voidsent", whose ultimate goal is to eat all the aether of the world. The more powerful voidsent are also very cunning, so people have tried making pacts with them to obtain power. This tends to end up very badly for everyone around them, of the "might cause the end of the world" scale, but it appears to work relatively well personally for the pact-maker, assuming they're smart enough to make an ironclad contract, and also completely devoid of empathy or morals.

Human experimentation exists, mostly by the Scary Magitech Empire. It's a gamble whether you're one of the few successes, or one of the many, many horrific failures.

Dragon eyes are massive stores of aether, and also unlike regular eyes in that dragons can take them out and pop them back in at will with no ill effects. Using/consuming them will give you great power. This comes at the disadvantage of having to fight a dragon (ie millennia-old masters of combat with great strength and magic and cunning), and it will also piss off every dragon in the world.

The Scary Magitech Empire has magitech, and their lack of power mobility is mostly social and political rather than inherent. Magitech itself isn't specific to that Empire, but they have most of the scientists and engineers, and those who defected tend to want to swear off making machines of war. So you can rely on them to make really good kettles (among other amenities, but the kettles keep coming up as a running gag), but they're not going to arm any random stranger who asks.

Spoiler: Patch story as of 5.3

Also it turns out that it's possible to give the Echo. One way involves the aforementioned human experimentation, and it requires massive sacrifice of lives, resulting in (thus far) two successes.

The other way is by the ultimate villains of the setting, who have immense power and influence, mainly because they promise power and influence to their dupes. These villains can show people a collective memory of the distant past, which can unlock the Echo in some of the watchers (again, at random). This has a slight disadvantage to them, but has much greater benefit in that they can then lie to the newly Echo-blessed about the purpose of the Echo, and thus manipulate them further. The villains of course also have the Echo, and mainly use it to resurrect on the spot after getting killed. But if you happen to be one of the lucky bystanders who are around when they do that big spectacle, it's a free Echo.

 

[pingas plight]

Being 'powerful' in the Yugioh universe is less about playing the game well and more about having plot shields, though.

Click to shrink...

bruv basically every bad thing that happened to a character was either a. some random omnipotent bastard just said "lol fuck u" or b. they lost a duel. that cuts out half the bad things that happened to you.

 

[Mak Taru]

bruv basically every bad thing that happened to a character was either a. some random omnipotent bastard just said "lol fuck u" or b. they lost a duel. that cuts out half the bad things that happened to you.

Click to shrink...

My point was that even if you have the best deck and know how to use it perfectly, you'll still lose to the main character and their friends because they'll draw the exact cards they need every time.

 

[pingas plight]

THEN you call cheats under very reasonable terms ("They drew literally the exact cards they need to win! They clearly didn't shuffle their deck right!") and win via technicality. on the safer end, you can just keep an eye out for the obligatory crazy haired kid and avoid them like the plague. EVEN safer, just take a plane away from any plot-relevant place.

or just dont play the game at all.

 

[HamHamJ]

My point was that even if you have the best deck and know how to use it perfectly, you'll still lose to the main character and their friends because they'll draw the exact cards they need every time.

Click to shrink...

Turns out that's actually a character skill that Yami Yugi can just use once a duel after he losses 2000 life points. Maybe if you were actually in the Yugioh verse you could also learn that? While he's the only one that canonically can use the perfect tutor version, other characters do get weaker versions of it.

(I just find it really funny how that has been implemented in Duel Links lol)

As to the OP, I would count Dragonball pretty high as technically you don't need to be a Saiyan to get super strong, it just kind of always turns out that way because the writers are hacks.

Most Shounen series actually also technically have systems where training and skill should theoretically be all you need even though most also suffer from a bad case of chosen heroitis.