Threefold (help I accidentally a setting)
Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:42 am
So, for reasons, my brain was thinking this morning about how to produce a not-Solvei (as in, a female Mark running her Miles as a fully realized personality after having been cloned by the local alt of Ges Vorrutyer) with an unrealized potential for ultimate cosmic power. And I came up with... this thing.
There are three base elements in this magic system. They are Joker, Sherlock, and Miles - *ahem* I mean, they are Earth, Air, and Light.
The focus of Earth is the self. All Earth mages get geokinesis; individual mages will find themselves with particular talents drawn from the rest of the Earth repertoire, which encompasses such things as shapeshifting, various other ways to enhance or alter oneself, and nifty things to do with rocks. Earth mages become more powerful through self-knowledge, self-mastery, and self-determination; they become less powerful when they give in to coercion, behave in ways they find unnatural/dissonant, or misunderstand themselves.
The focus of Air is the world. All Air mages get aerokinesis; individual mages will find themselves with particular talents drawn from the rest of the Air repertoire, which encompasses such things as enchantment of objects, enhancement of one's senses (particularly hearing and smell, but also sight), various ways to find things or to find things out, and flight. Air mages become more powerful when they pay attention to their senses and the world around them, and become less powerful when they ignore the world. Note that "the world" can be fairly abstract - some Air mages might immerse themselves in the world by taking a lot of long walks outside, some might do it by taking a lot of physics classes. It works either way.
The focus of Light is other people. All Light mages get the ability to create and manipulate light; individual mages will find themselves with particular talents drawn from the rest of the Light repertoire, which encompasses such things as healing, clairvoyance/farsight (*not* precognition), various ways to enhance or alter other people, and - originally I was thinking line-of-sight teleportation, but now I'm reconsidering that. Light mages become more powerful by forming and maintaining deep, meaningful, lasting personal relationships, and become less powerful when they withdraw from society or betray/reject their friends/etc.
Then there are combination elements!
Earth and Light make Wood (better name pending maybe?). This element is about living things in general. All Wood mages get biokinesis; they may have other talents drawn from the Earth pool, the Light pool, or the Wood pool, which... I will invent... at some point...
Air and Earth make Water. All Water mages get hydrokinesis; they may have other talents drawn from the Air pool, the Earth pool, or the Water pool. I think some of Water's available talents might have something to do with memory/archival, but I'm not sure.
Light and Air make Fire. All Fire mages get pyrokinesis; they may have other talents drawn from the Light pool, the Air pool, or the Fire pool. I got nothin for the Fire pool.
All three base elements together make ~ultimate cosmic power~. You get all the elemental powers, and fistfuls of talents from every elemental pool, and assorted other bullshit like resurrection.
Combination mages gain and lose power by both (or all three) means associated with the relevant base elements. You can choose what to focus on for power gain, but that doesn't make your power loss conditions go away. A Water mage who focuses exclusively on gaining power through understanding the world around them will still experience setbacks if they act against their own nature.
Combination mages are also more powerful than base mages to start with: all else being equal, a Fire mage's healing will be more than twice as powerful as a Light mage's healing, and a god's healing will be more than ten times as powerful. These numbers are 100% pulled out of my ass and do not represent exact multipliers, just a sort of vague order-of-magnitude feel.
Mages are rare. If you have mage potential, you'll get whichever of the first three elements best suits your personality; if you're a very unusual person (very closely balanced between two base elements, or multiple personalities with different specializations), you might end up with one of the three combination elements. There's a substantial difference between balanced-type and multiple-type combination mages: a Water mage who's just a person who happens to be both strongly Earth and strongly Air will only have hydrokinesis and not geokinesis or aerokinesis, but a person with an Earth personality and an Air personality will be an Earth mage as the one personality, an Air mage as the other, and Water when acting jointly.
Ultimate-cosmic-power mages are pretty much not a naturally occurring thing, but sometimes three mages will merge themselves into a single being - it takes three, you need Earth and Air and Light all together, you can't just use Water and Light or Earth and Fire, I'm divided on whether it works if you have Wood and Fire and Water - and become something akin to a god. This has happened a few times in history and it has always turned out very memorably. The most recent time there were gods, they got in a fight and devastated a continent in the process of killing each other. Some of the previous ones killed themselves eventually, accidentally or on purpose; gods, being made from the magical merging of three previously-separate people, are not always very stable. You can get along really really well with somebody and still not be prepared to share a brain with them for the rest of your life.
So a JokerSherlock is Water, obviously, and a Miles is Light, and to begin with the JS doesn't even know they're a Water mage because they never front, and then they do, and they discover that in certain moods they can use geokinesis or aerokinesis, and they realize that if they were to somehow split into two personalities, the two of them plus Miles would make a god...
There are three base elements in this magic system. They are Joker, Sherlock, and Miles - *ahem* I mean, they are Earth, Air, and Light.
The focus of Earth is the self. All Earth mages get geokinesis; individual mages will find themselves with particular talents drawn from the rest of the Earth repertoire, which encompasses such things as shapeshifting, various other ways to enhance or alter oneself, and nifty things to do with rocks. Earth mages become more powerful through self-knowledge, self-mastery, and self-determination; they become less powerful when they give in to coercion, behave in ways they find unnatural/dissonant, or misunderstand themselves.
The focus of Air is the world. All Air mages get aerokinesis; individual mages will find themselves with particular talents drawn from the rest of the Air repertoire, which encompasses such things as enchantment of objects, enhancement of one's senses (particularly hearing and smell, but also sight), various ways to find things or to find things out, and flight. Air mages become more powerful when they pay attention to their senses and the world around them, and become less powerful when they ignore the world. Note that "the world" can be fairly abstract - some Air mages might immerse themselves in the world by taking a lot of long walks outside, some might do it by taking a lot of physics classes. It works either way.
The focus of Light is other people. All Light mages get the ability to create and manipulate light; individual mages will find themselves with particular talents drawn from the rest of the Light repertoire, which encompasses such things as healing, clairvoyance/farsight (*not* precognition), various ways to enhance or alter other people, and - originally I was thinking line-of-sight teleportation, but now I'm reconsidering that. Light mages become more powerful by forming and maintaining deep, meaningful, lasting personal relationships, and become less powerful when they withdraw from society or betray/reject their friends/etc.
Then there are combination elements!
Earth and Light make Wood (better name pending maybe?). This element is about living things in general. All Wood mages get biokinesis; they may have other talents drawn from the Earth pool, the Light pool, or the Wood pool, which... I will invent... at some point...
Air and Earth make Water. All Water mages get hydrokinesis; they may have other talents drawn from the Air pool, the Earth pool, or the Water pool. I think some of Water's available talents might have something to do with memory/archival, but I'm not sure.
Light and Air make Fire. All Fire mages get pyrokinesis; they may have other talents drawn from the Light pool, the Air pool, or the Fire pool. I got nothin for the Fire pool.
All three base elements together make ~ultimate cosmic power~. You get all the elemental powers, and fistfuls of talents from every elemental pool, and assorted other bullshit like resurrection.
Combination mages gain and lose power by both (or all three) means associated with the relevant base elements. You can choose what to focus on for power gain, but that doesn't make your power loss conditions go away. A Water mage who focuses exclusively on gaining power through understanding the world around them will still experience setbacks if they act against their own nature.
Combination mages are also more powerful than base mages to start with: all else being equal, a Fire mage's healing will be more than twice as powerful as a Light mage's healing, and a god's healing will be more than ten times as powerful. These numbers are 100% pulled out of my ass and do not represent exact multipliers, just a sort of vague order-of-magnitude feel.
Mages are rare. If you have mage potential, you'll get whichever of the first three elements best suits your personality; if you're a very unusual person (very closely balanced between two base elements, or multiple personalities with different specializations), you might end up with one of the three combination elements. There's a substantial difference between balanced-type and multiple-type combination mages: a Water mage who's just a person who happens to be both strongly Earth and strongly Air will only have hydrokinesis and not geokinesis or aerokinesis, but a person with an Earth personality and an Air personality will be an Earth mage as the one personality, an Air mage as the other, and Water when acting jointly.
Ultimate-cosmic-power mages are pretty much not a naturally occurring thing, but sometimes three mages will merge themselves into a single being - it takes three, you need Earth and Air and Light all together, you can't just use Water and Light or Earth and Fire, I'm divided on whether it works if you have Wood and Fire and Water - and become something akin to a god. This has happened a few times in history and it has always turned out very memorably. The most recent time there were gods, they got in a fight and devastated a continent in the process of killing each other. Some of the previous ones killed themselves eventually, accidentally or on purpose; gods, being made from the magical merging of three previously-separate people, are not always very stable. You can get along really really well with somebody and still not be prepared to share a brain with them for the rest of your life.
So a JokerSherlock is Water, obviously, and a Miles is Light, and to begin with the JS doesn't even know they're a Water mage because they never front, and then they do, and they discover that in certain moods they can use geokinesis or aerokinesis, and they realize that if they were to somehow split into two personalities, the two of them plus Miles would make a god...