I'm nerding out over the 3e Nobilis rules. They're cool.
They'd work pretty well for a slightly-lower-powered NB, or for doing LoC with a less sucky rule system. (Because mine was way over-complicated, guys. Why did you let me do that to something so beautiful.)
A simplified version of the rules would be like this:
There are four basic stats. They are Aspect, Domain, Persona and Treasure.
Each one corresponds to a different sort of miraculous happening.
Aspect covers miracles of, quote,"physical and mental awesomness". The do anything that a normal person do but better. (I can lift mountains and out-race the wind, etc).
Domain is the more literal aspects of your estate (Domain in LoC), and allows you to control what it does or make more of it, etc. (Ocean Tsunami Attack, etc)
Persona is the more abstract aspects. It lets you become or play semantically with it. (I am as the Ocean is, etc)
Treasure is your stuff, both in terms of cool people and cool things. It mostly deals with letting you use other stuff to do miracles. (I have a magic trident that lets me bitch slap people with oceans).
Basically, for each stat there's this short table that goes from 0-9. At each level it lists a couple of things that are possible at that stat level. If your stat meets or exceeds that level, you can do that for free. If it's above it, you have to spend "Miracle Points" to push ahead. Each point spent increases your effective level in that stat by one.
So example:
I am Waverider, goddess of the ocean.
First I establish what the Ocean is.
The Ocean..
.. is the
untamed seas that
kill.
.. is furious
wave and deadly
storm.
.. contains vast
monsters and untold
treasures.
.. can
never submit to the will of the
land.
This gives a good overview of what the estate
is and
means.
Then I make a list using the books, with each level getting an description of what sorts of miracles I can do.
Domain(0): Waverider knows, instinctively, when the ocean is endangered on a wide scale.
(1): Waverider can perform partly tricks of short duration, like shaping sea foam or summoning small fish or small gold coins.
(2): Waverider knows where the wave came from and where it is going, she can ask the currents and creatures of the sea to do her bidding (Though if they do is of their own free will.)
(3): Waverider can make waves stronger or less likely to end, or strength sea life, or make a small fish into something more threatening, like a shark. Or allow someone to survive the sea, if she wished.
(4): Waverider can create entire schools of fish out of nothing, or pull waves or water out of thin air. She can make small pools as deep as the sea, or call forth the fear of the depths. Anything less than the entire ocean or the largest of sea creatures will do her bidding without question; or summon any monster or treasure below the waves to her presence.
(5): Waverider can destroy, in part or whole, some portion of the ocean. Her gesture can end storms or stop waves, cause fish to stop existing or vanish any treasure of the depths. She can also take the drowning from water, or the sharpness from a shark's tooth. She can know anything the ocean knows, or the fish know. All knowledge beneath the waves is hers.
(6): Waverider can change the fate and location of the sea.She can cause an area to have always been underwater (to men's eyes at least), or to make it so that sharks have always lived in the arctic. She can curse a man to forever be chased by waves or storm. She can empower the whole of the ocean, hardening it to any danger. Storms that never end or waves that eat even the strongest of boats. She can turn every minnow into a leviathan, or make a pond like the deadliest sea.
(7): Waverider can weave entire oceans out of the air, make entire species of any sea creature imaginable or pull entire sunken cities out of the depths. She can move entire oceans if she wishes.
(8): Waverider can end any ocean, any wave, any storm. She can destroy entire species of sea creatures with the wave of her hand, or sink entire cities beneath the depths.
(9): Waverider can change the basic properties of the oceans themselves. She can make the ocean march over and swallow the land, or make flying sea serpents if she wished. The entire ocean could be remade out of pink lemonade, or reside on the moon.
So. If Waverider had a Domain of 4, she'd be able to trivially pull waves and swarms of sharks out of nowhere and anything not larger than a city block will do what she says. She could strengthen waves and fish, or ask a passing storm about the weather. And of course she'd always know if the ocean itself was in danger.
(MP can only be spend in zeros, ones, twos, fours, or eights. Zero is a simple miracle, one is a Normal, two is a Hard, four is a Deep and eight is a Word of Command. Words of Command wound you to use.).
She could make a small effort (Spend one MP) to destroy a swarm of sharks or make a bunch of water never drown someone, or know anything the ocean would know.
She could make a slight effort (Spend two MP) to sink an island (And make all mortals think it was always sunk) or to change some basic fact about the ocean. (Sharks from this area have always had three sets of teeth and the power to rot wood with their touch). Or she could make a small area of the ocean move somewhere else, or enhance/empower some aspect of the entire ocean. Declare a single storm unending or make all sharks have skin like iron (For a time, at least).
She could make a pretty great effort (Spend four MP) to make or destroy entire oceans or species. She could make the whole ocean flow somewhere else, or cause all of the animals in it to change location. She could cover the globe in oceanic storms.
She could speak a Word of Command (Spend eight MP) to make the entire ocean something.. else. She could make an ocean of dry water, or one that never drown people. She could make the entire ocean exist in the sky, and no one would be the wiser.
-----
In all cases, the action would be resolved in a diceless way. If two things conflict, the strongest one wins. (Barring some exceptions). Of course, a lesser miracle can sometimes "beat" a stronger one by simply not directly fighting it. If you're on an island and Waverider sinks the island with a tidal wave (Rank 4 or so), then you could totally get out of it with a rank 3 or less miracle so long as it doesn't try to stop her from sinking the island. If you make a miracle that just lets you fly away, then that's totally permissible. She sinks the island, you fly away, everyone is happy.
“She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do. And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.”
― Hogfather
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