Essence ofTroubled Eide
byBetweenTheLines
- Views
- 0 views
- Favorites
- 0 favorites
AI summary
Gives you the Divine Attribute of Eide, the Miraculous power of the dream-self belonging to schemers, manipulators and dabblers in forbidden arts, expressed through a Technique of your choosing such as magic, super science, gambling or cooking. Because Eide is Miraculous it works on the conceptual bedrock beneath ordinary reality and cannot be opposed by mundane means. You hold a rating of 7, making most effects free to use, across Miracles such as Agony Rite, Intensity, Stunt, Costumery and Talent, each with lesser and greater forms.
Generated précis — the sections below are the author's original text.
Description
By imbibing this essence (based on Nobilis/Glitch), you gain the following:
Effects
20You are able to wield the Divine Attribute of Eide, the power of the dream-self. The Miraculous self-conception of the schemer, clever manipulator, or dabbler of forbidden arts. Whether you are a terrifying villain on the fringes of society or the troubled hero who dirties their hands on great threats so the rest of the world can stay clean, you project a metaphorical outer shell to deal with the world.
Select a Technique. This is your primary method or theme with which you use Eide to tackle problems. This can be anything, from "magic", to "super science", to "gambling", to "cooking". No Technique is necessarily superior to another with enough imagination, so it is completely possible for the Technique of "tax fraud" to defeat one of "the Strongest Superhero".
As this is Miraculous, this operates on a higher plane than physical reality. Or rather, it interacts with the narrative and conceptual bedrock of reality on which the malleable illusion of conventional "reality" is built on. As such, all Miracles unilaterally trump any "Prosaic" (i.e. non-Miraculous) action wherever they directly conflict. This can create what appears to be no-limits fallacies to mundane denizens as questions such as "what is the strongest attack you 'invincible' shield has ever blocked?" or "how fast can you react with Miracles?" start to lose meaning in the face of the potentially quantitively infinite potency of Miracles. "Impossible" in most cases mortals conceive of are wholly not so for those who wield Divinity.
Each of the below Miracles has a Lesser and Greater version, listed with the required Miracle levels. You receive a rating of 7 in Eide. Any action level at or below this is completely free to use, while you will need to accumulate Stilling to go beyond that or boost Miracles to overcome Miracles Wards. Stilling is how solidified and defined your dream-self is, which is a detriment when the power of a dream is its flexibility. Stilling gradually decreases with time, or in chunks by taking a self-inflicted "wound" (e.g. "I have a sprained ankle", "I hear things that are not there", "I reveal a hitherto unknown weakness to peanuts") that slowly "heal" even if they are not physical ones.
Agony Rite (0/4).
You are "afflicted" with a certain condition and this Rite will Miraculously resist attempts to lift it from you. This is separate from your Technique. If you are infected with the idea of "being a harem protagonist", the lesser version of this will passively draw suitable partners to you (possibly to your detriment) and the greater would allow you to directly invoke the appearance such people or harem hijinks when you need it. You can also use this to force a new understanding of your Infection, such as reframing the state of "dying of fire" from manifesting as "attracts fires" to "combusts when very angry".
Intensity (1/5).
This makes it much easier and more comfortable to just go along with you than not. The lesser version is simply a heavy mundane (i.e. Prosaic) obstacle to overcome, with difficulty rising if actively invoking your authority. The greater version will Miraculously force targets to perceive you as so important and valuable that they cannot shrug it off without a powerful enough counter-Miracle. For instance, Greater Intensity will convince a mortal enemy who has you dead to rights to not kill just yet, giving you time to turn the tables.
Stunt (2/6).
Perform some cinematic or low-fantasy action based on your Technique. Both lesser and greater versions are functionally highly potent mundane actions (including non-Miraculously powered magic and super science). An example of Lesser Stunt might be to use the "SCIENCE!" Technique to understand a physics report on a topic you have actually never seen before, "cooking" to bake a cake so light that it literally floats, or "sleight of hand" to outmaneuver an entire army.
Greater Stunt instead brushes up against the genuinely impossible in how its reasoning beggars belief even in the realms of magic or super science. These are feats such as "sleight of hand" so good you trap someone in an endless hall of mirrors or "artistry" so realistic that a painted tunnel can be used to run through a mountain (a la Looney Tunes).
Costumery (3/7).
Lesser Costumery allows you to instantly change into an outfit and personal equipment suitable for your Technique (e.g. superhero suit and utility belt), with your previous items conveniently stashed "somewhere safe".
Greater Costumery instead allows you to "reveal" the existence of environmental features based on your Technique, such as retroactively declaring that there had always been a secret underground entrance to your lair through a random payphone.
You cannot perform the switch when under intentional continuous observation, though it is instantly done when even attention momentarily lapses. Most mortal observers will instead assume they had simply not noticed a new feature before, even when directly looking at what was changed. As with much of Eide, ambiguity is your ammunition.
Cliffhanger Rite (4/8).
The Lesser Cliffhanger Rite protects against supernatural actions by allowing you to only "pretend" to be affected and then reveal you were just faking it after the effect lapses. A gigantic fireball might burn you to ash, but then the next "scene" you pop up again without any explanation.
The Greater Cliffhanger Rite instead allows you to do this even before the effect ends, rebounding it on an attacker. For instance, in the process of being banished to another dimension you retroactively reveal the summoning circle was backwards and your assailant goes instead. Or a pyromancer seems to be burning you for a moment, before you reveal you are instead draining their mana through their spell instead.
This only covers protections from Miracles or suitably fantastical Prosaic actions. An orbital laser will be affected, but a simple modern gun will still hurt you (unless it was supernaturally created, or wielded by a zombie, or something). Use your head when figuring out when some attack involves enough weirdness to count, as careful management of this Rite can make you effectively immortal and unstoppable.
This does not strictly need to be processed through your Technique.
SkillsTalent (5/9)
Lesser Talent will make you automatically succeed in any "test" of your qualifications based on your Technique. They not only pass by whatever standard is relevant (usually "brilliant genius"), but also do better every subsequent time someone or something were to "test" them in the same way. Mundane sabotage that completely invalidates it as a test (e.g. a teacher outright refusing to look at your answers) is theoretically possible, but fate will conspire to make it an overwhelming difficult endeavour.
Greater Talent is invoked when terrible circumstances have pushed the limits of your currently defined dream-self to the breaking point...and your Eide cracks. You temporarily transform into some otherworldly state that gives you transcendent power and merit in your Technique to engage the current problem. In this state you receive whatever arbitrary powers of arbitrary potency are needed. Then you rampage, generally retaining intelligence and emotional motivations, but having lost touch with normalcy in a way that makes it difficult to identify with that version of yourself after the effect wears off. This might be a moment akin to "going Super Saiyan", entering your "final form", using a magic Talent to become a being a "pure magic" (with you defining what that means), or revealing that your "SCIENCE!" Talent actually stems from your eldritch "true form" who possesses omniscient understanding of everything.
Due to the potency of the Lesser version, the Greater version is probably going to be used primarily for duelling with other Miraculous beings or overcoming blatantly unfair circumstances (where still calling it a "test" is completely farcical).
Strategy (6/10).
This is used to craft Miraculously effective plans. This stops you from ever thinking "I could have set such a great trap if I had just had a lead on where my enemies were going", or "I could really use a magic anti-undead gem...but those do not exist", or "I should have made a contingency plan for such an enemy". Imagine this as memetic Batman preparation.
Lesser Strategy can only be used when reacting to someone shaking up the status quo or upon suddenly seeing a major opportunity to plausibly (i.e. you can bullshit a justification) for you to do the same. For instance, suppose your Technique is "magic" and someone has placed a death curse on your loved one. You can come up with a spell to transfer the effect to a dummy "soul stone" that can "die" in their place. Your Strategy will ensure that such a spell and stone are suddenly on hand when the time comes (even when they should not or even could not), as well as the basic form of the plan works out. Simply describe (possibly retroactively) the steps taken.
Greater Strategy forgoes the "reactive" requirement of its Lesser version and allows you to proactively designate an objective based on a deep literal or metaphysical "wound", then craft wide reaching longterm plans related to it. You are the only one who needs to actually see the connection between the wound and your objective as meaningful. Progress is guaranteed to be made (outside of extremely powerful counter-Miracles, especially other Planning ones), though these plans tend to unfold slowly.
Casting Rite (7/11).
The Lesser Casting Rite is a ritual in which you Miraculously craft thematically appropriate "minions" based on your Technique. This could be something like a shop owner to employ you or an evil crystal congealed from your own aura that will shift your exhaustion to whoever you give it to. Cast "minions" are able to perform mundane (i.e. Prosaic) actions, have the power to manipulate emotions, and can enhance their abilities with miraculous energy. You can give them new powers at the expense of taking on more Stilling. Finally, you can dump your physical or Miraculous exhaustion (e.g. Stilling) into them, and they can in turn dump it onto someone else. Any leftover exhaustion "stored" in them when you reclaim them—either by unmaking them or freeing them of your direct control (albeit they remain largely loyal)—goes to you.
Instead of supporting actors, the Greater Casting Rite allows you to craft large scale semi-permanent world features based on your Technique. These are also protected against hostile Miracles and can even sap or restore Stilling (or whatever Cost they have) from people who enter. This can be used to create a gigantic city-spanning Hero Association complex that was totally always an institution in town, or a time-travelling pocket dimension that is bigger on the inside, or a labyrinth of twisted space to imprison supervillains, or a gigantic tunnel that connects opposite ends of the world together. In time, you could pull an entire setting into operating under the logic of your Technique (e.g. for some reason, everything in the future is settled with card games on motorcycles).
Misdirection (8/12).
Lesser Misdirection is the power to conceal something or divert attention to something else. You might wish to hide the Statue of Liberty, or your IP address, or even some extremely obvious idea. This Miracle work on them all the same. Be creative, as this power can accomplish some truly amazing things. You should be able to describe what you did (however nonsensical it is), but this is just for flavour as the actual mechanics can never in themselves be used to make the Misdirection fail. While the effect is sustained, you might hide a house by painting it a "colour people cannot see", or divert suspicion from yourself to some shadowy alter ego you just made up, or convince the entire world that all the stars have gone out, or use raw charisma to prevent a crowd of skilled detectives from realizing the gaping hole in your story. This can be selective, allowing you to choose what is hidden to whom.
Greater Misdirection does not conceal a thing, but rather forces the world itself to perceive what you will it. While you are sustaining this effect, anything that contradicts your own constructed truth will fold like an illusion or brief hallucination. Be careful though, as either the old reality could reassert itself after you lift the effect or your new reality might permanently supplant it. With experience you will be better at it, but in the beginning your new truth will only sometimes stick around in the long term after you stop maintaining the Miracle. Either way, you can always just rescind it to return things to what they once were.
- Categories
- magicdivineutilitysupernaturalcrafting
- Traits
- divine powermiraclescompanionsskill masteryillusionsstealth
- Keywords
- divine magicsize manipulationcurseenhanced sensesintelligencenecromancycharismagodhoodimmortalityleadershippocket dimensionshapeshiftingspace manipulation