I'm rebooting my Divine Blood fanfic to clean away the licensed stuff and leave just my original content behind (relatively easy since more than half the fan fic is original characters anyway). I'm doing this as both a campaign guide and a novel series (roughly 50% complete on both)
the actual campaign guide is going to be without rules since I create the settings and let everybody decide on their own preferred system to use, but I'd like to be able to have a free rules packet to offer as a free teaser
I'm going to start relatively small here and see about using FATE/Dresden stuff to reproduce magic as it exists in Divine Blood
Magic in DB is powered by beings known as "elements" which are subspecies of the three (known) races to evolve into sentient and world-wide civilization in Earth's history, two of the races are extinct save some surviving elements who have become immortal through a particular process (or were born that way if they were conceived after a parent became Immortal)
elements themselves form units in a psychic network with others on the same wavelength, after a time some started defecting so that conversion paradigms were invented to allow the defector to join the network they'd immigrated into
for most of human history, there were two networks: Orochi and Ashvattha (Nidhog and Yggdrasil in the fanfic)...powered by, respectively, Demons and Gods...a third network exists but isn't well used in the beginning of the story, but develops to become the Silmaril network later on, powered by former humans now calling themselves Ainur
any member of these networks can use their own abilities at will and can draw on extra raw power through the network access to other Immortals and to the massive organic/living computers that provide extra processing and energy (the names of the computers create the names of the Networks...) however, they can also use the powers of other entities in the network
Example:
Nimu Ichi is an Ainur with telekinesis.....she can use telekinesis at will because its her power
Deimosu is an Ainur with electrokinesis and generation...he can thus use that at will, toss around lightning and such
however, if Deimosu wants to move a set of keys from a distance to his hand, he will have to borrow Nimu Ichi's telekinesis to do that
borrowing powers is done through a spell
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Each race handles spells differently, but each is aware that just allowing anybody to use any power is a bad idea
Demons operate on a favor system, casting black magic spells leads you to owing magically enforceable "favors" to the Demon powering the spell. Depending on the nature of the Demon and their relationship to you this can be a minor to severe concern. A civilian Demon (though said Demons are unlikely to have spells most magicians would find useful) is unlikely to ask for anything terrible. Most of the more modern Demonic leadership are also human-friendly and tend to prefer lessening hostilities with the Gods. However, older Demons who miss the "good old days" when it was simply Demons trying to take back "their" planet from the usurpers (Gods) and vermin (everything else) are likely to make people who owe them favors do very, very bad things.
Gods operate on a request form, making their spellcasting slow and also facing the possibility that the God responsible for that spell could decide to deny a caster access to that spell. A white magician can conceivably access any white spell, just as anybody can cast any black spell, but progressively powerful spells will be more likely to be denied or require longer requests.
Ainur operate on a sort of Passcode situation based on numerology. Every Ainur's name can be reduced to a single digit number and that number can then be expanded into larger numbers before being reduced again to a single digit representing another Ainur. The path, even between two Ainur that have "2" as their number" is unique per individual and thus serves as an identifying code. Each individual has pre-granted permissions to different levels of spells. Thus, they can cast about as quickly as a Demon, without owing favors, but have a more limited pool of spells to draw from based on past proven trustworthiness and responsibility.
Any element is immediately capable of casting any spell within their network (provided they have appropriate privileges in the Ainur case) and Gods, Demons and Ainur are not considered magicians.
Magicians are highly trained and dedicated mortals(not necessarily human) who have managed to generate enough psychic potential to tap into one or more of the Networks and borrow the power of a God, Demon or Ainur (mostly Gods and Demons, not any established traditions teaching how to connect to Silmaril without being an Ainur)
Also, near the end of the story, all three networks are linked through individuals with permanent psychic links...meaning that all three networks are possibly becoming one extended network.
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Realms, Domains and Affinities are essentially specialties that have been genetically coded into individual Demons, Gods and Ainur (respectively)
in the story, the Ainur are in the process of developing these, actually
these operate essentially the same and give the individual complete control over their stated specialty
for example, Eija, Goddess of Blood can make blood flow as normal through a body even if flesh and vessels are destroyed....she can also purify blood of unhealthy content, poison it, corrupt it (such as by causing a fast version of leukemia) and if someone is already bleeding, she can pull it out of the body faster...she is also able to follow some conceptual influences, such as seeing blood on the hands (though that is part of her nature as a ghost-whisperer/death-seer already) or tracing family trees and the like...if she wanted, she could bless a blood-brother type oath to actual make the involved genetically related
however, she has no telekinetic ability outside of control of blood and her only psychic ability beyond that is her ability to see, talk to and control ghosts as well as to since a person's lifespan and see how they've been involved with death in their life time
having each God, Demon and Ainur with a different specialty reduces the number of overlapping spells in existence and also allows the individual more ability to manipulate the world and defend themselves
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Finally, the life force of each species is somewhat different.
Demonic "Vitae" is the most powerful and least efficient, they will tend to either use way too much power (creating blatantly spectacular displays of wasted energy) or way too little (causing very subtly, minor changes and shifts) because it is hard for them to cut off at just the right levels. Some Demons specialize in the "way too little" end, others goal full bore for the "way too much". Demons essentially have a broken faucet.
God "Mana" is the most stable and least flexible. They are hard to dispel, but it is very hard for them repurpose mana and change over from one intent to another. Gods make the most use of preset spells and abilities to get around this and they do very little on the fly.
Ainur/human "Chi" is the most adaptable and least powerful. Disrupted effects can be easily redirected into another effect. Contrary to Demons, where power is hard to shut off, Ainur and humans have trouble getting it started. As compared to the broken faucet, they have a kink in the hose. However, Chi is the most efficient and the most suited for enhancing other abilities. Such as martial arts and driving and the like.
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Finally, magic like stuff that isn't magic:
manipulation of raw life force (Vitae/Mana/Chi) can be done by anyone of sufficient training without using spells, however, this is limited to:
blasts, shields and enhancing existing capabilities
anything like illusions, fine-control, actual fire or lightning, poison and the like requires an appropriate Realm/Domain/Affinity or else a spell
seals and gates: the act of creating a pocket dimension to lock something away (descendants of the arts that created Yomi, Nirvana and Shangri-La), again, proper training allows for creating seals and gates without spells (however, Gods, Demons and Ainur have teleportation abilities anyway, so using a gate is unlikely for them)
circles: are power focusing tools, Demons invented the basics, humans/Ainur have the most mastery
