Magic!

[Zaleramancer]

Hmmm.

Let's see how I would try to wield magic defensively with these.

Someone throws a fireball and you..

..are skilled at creation, and as such make a wall to block it.

..are skilled at augmentation, and as such increase your resistance to heat for a brief time.

..are skilled at revision, and as such transform the fireball into a bunch of harmless flower petals.

..are skilled at rejection, and as such return the fireball to a bunch of room-temperature air.

..are skilled at negation, and as such remove the momentum aspect of the fireball. It stops in mid-air.

..are skilled at destruction, and as such eat away at the fireball's heat. It's room temperature by the time it reaches you.

..are skilled at reversion, and as such revert yourself to normal after it strikes you.

..are skilled at connection, and as such connect yourself to the ground and funnel the heat into the earth.


Sound about right?

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Yeah, sounds about right. But you'd need connection to be able to do anything to the fireball.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Lets say a Connector tries to force their way into someones mind. If they were able to use Rejection magic, even if they were not strong enough to completely block the Connector, they could still weaken it. There are degrees of success with with Rejection.

Another Connector doesn't have this safety net because they can not Reject. Instead the only option they have is to negate the intrusion, which is an all or nothing deal. Either they dissipate the spell entirely or they get hit by all of it.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The weathers getting colder, the days are getting shorter, trees are just starting to lose their leaves, and the uncountable number of horror films I've been watching in the lead up to Halloween have left me thinking about ghosts. Specifically, the mechanics of ghosts both from "real life" accounts and the way ghosts are portrayed as acting in horror films. I've worked out my own system for how this all goes down.

First, there's Ectoplasm. Ectoplasm is a spiritual substance said to be extruded by mediums during a seance. I've decided that ectoplasm is a spiritual residue left out by a human soul in the grips of fear. A certain background level of it exists everywhere, like radiation. Just like radiation, some places have it in much higher levels than others. Some places are like Chernobyl, so stained with the stuff that it won't dissipate for centuries.

Ectoplasm is harmless to humans, except in the fact that if facilitates ghosts. Ghost bodies are made of ectoplasm, and they require a steady level of it to exist. That is in fact why humans release the stuff when they're afraid: to increase the chance that upon death they will become a ghost.

Next is the rules for ghost themselves. Ghosts are souls covered in an ectoplasm "shell". It's similar to slipping on a rainy day and getting covered in mud. The ectoplasm unconsciously molds itself to the souls image of its body, which is why most ghosts don't show up in hospital gowns or naked. They may even have important objects from their life, but these are also ectoplasm and thus a part of the ghosts "body." Some ghosts distort their bodies to the point where they don't even look human anymore.

Ghosts need ectoplasm to exist, and the easiest way to get that is to frighten humans. A ghost without a steady supply of ectoplasm can become withered and dormant, sometimes waiting for decades for human fear to produce ectoplasm and re awaken it. They can not, however, be killed by a lack of ectoplasm. There are some situations that can kill them.

Direct physical contact with the living is one of these situation, for much the same reason why a match shouldn't touch the sun. The more powerful energy of a living being just tears through them like a hot knife through butter. When people claim they've felt a cold spot, what they've really felt was the ectoplasm shell of a ghost they've inadvertently dismembered draped over them. This is why ghosts tend to show up in out of the way places and avoid people. Even a fly, while not doing very substantial damage, would punch right through a ghost as though it weren't there. This defense extents to human dwelling, places that are considered a home by its inhabitants. To get inside a place where people live a ghost has to either already have been there or be invited inside, at which point it can come and go as it pleases.

Not that it would want to go out all that much because it has to get to work suffusing the walls of it's haunt with ectoplasm, and to do that it has to make the inhabitants afraid. Either because a lack of ectoplasm has made them weak or because they down want to scare off the people early a haunting always begins slowly and builds over time. Strange winds, sounds, whispers. With enough built up ectoplasm a ghost can even interact with the physical world, banging, moving objects, and messing with the lights. A strong enough buildup would even let a haunter have very brief physical contact with the living. When it comes to ectoplasm generated a ghost has two options. It can let it suffuse the building, ensuring it a place even if the humans up and pull out, or it can add the plasm to its own body to become more powerful. A more powerful ghost can afford to be less subtle, and set events in motion that are sure to stain it's haunt with ectoplasm for centuries. There is a cost, however. A powerful ghost needs an equally strong ectoplasm field to support it, and likely becomes trapped in it's haunt for the same reason whales can't leave the ocean.

Ghosts have a number of abilities that they all share. They can pass through anything as though it weren't there, baring the living and the boundaries of homes. Being lighter than air, all ghosts can walk on it. Each one can sense ambient ectoplasm energy. In addition, many ghosts have powers that are unique to them based around a memory of skill them possessed in life.

If a ghosts ectoplasm shelled is destroyed completely they die.

Ghosts can gain a boost to ectoplasm by eating other ghosts.

Most ghost inhabit enclosed spaces because it's easier for ectoplasm to build up in such places.

Popular resting spots for ghosts on the move: hospitals, graveyards, and theaters playing horror movies.

A power ghost can move about by storing ectoplasm in a physical object, such as a painting or a doll, and that object being taken by a living thing.

[WonderDrow]

Interesting concepts.

So basically ghosts need to terrorise us so that our soul creates the ectoplasm for their substenance.

Would that mean there can't be friendly ghosts like Casper?

Maybe fear isn't the only emotion that generates the ectoplasm fields from our souls.
It's just the easiest to evoke in a person.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Well you can still be relatively friendly, but even the most harmless of ghosts still generate some unease through their actions, which are unexplainable. In most reputedly haunted places, the ghosts don't do much more than bang, whisper, and occasionally manifest themselves. All completely harmless things that nonetheless inspire fear.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Not sure if this has been covered, but what are your thoughts on witchcraft, wizardry and sorcery? If males can be witches and females can be wizards, and either gender can be warlocks...then what differentiates between the various magic systems? How does one distinguish between a witch, wizard or warlock?

Likewise, what are your thoughts on the diff between magic and psionic/psychic/superhuman powers? Magic results in superpowers, but one does not necessarily have magic powers if they have superpowers.

[WonderDrow]

About that, I like how Dungeon & Dragons declared the split between a sorcerer and a wizard/mage.

Basically, wizards are normal people who learn to manipulate magic through their studies.
While sorcerers have their own natural magical ability and just learn to control that power.
Study versus talent.

And Warlocks are the dark side of magic.  
It's a specialization in magic usefull in a battle, mostly the offensive types.
But often a Warlock is just the male equivalent of an evil witch.

The difference between magic and super powers. That's often just a matter of the explaination that's given about the origin of the power(s).

[Celadon's Penultimate]

I would add onto those suppositions, that psychic/psionic power is a quality of the mind. On the other hand, magic seems to be a quality of the soul; deeper than knowledge or memory--innate, as you said, and capable of working outside of the mind, being interwoven throughout the body, allowing mages/witches/wizards/sorcerers/warlocks their magic, and mythical creatures their paradoxical anatomies.

[Zaleramancer]

I view magic as something that relies more on the external.

Psionics always comes from within; Magic usually relies on external laws and correspondences to work. With psychic powers, it's usually "I'm not skilled/strong enough, or I'm too tired to do something."

With magic it's usually something something wrong lunar phase something something need to find a ley line.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Agreed. Though, I would add that supposition to my theory about connection to mind and soul. Whereas psionics comes strictly from the self (mind), magic comes from one's connection to external forces--often nature--as a quality of the self (soul).

[Zaleramancer]

I like magic that evokes outside forces, generally.

Because it draws upon the powers of correspondence, sympathy and the idea of mystic laws. It also stops magic from becoming this all-encompassing reality bending power, without any real limits.Like:

I SMITE THEE WITH THE THOUSAND PLAGUES OF HASTUR!

.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Well, yeah, I do prefer when that's the case.

Even without outright invoking power from another entity/deity (ie calling on plagues from Nephthys, battle prowess from Ares, charm from Aphrodite, mischief from Loki), there's always the recitation of spells that others have created. And then, you draw on the pattern that they have inscribed into reality. Like a really good lawyer invoking a long-forgotten treaty that was drawn up years ago, to get your way.