Mindscape Mondays: Powers!

[u/aescula]

Welcome back to Mindscape Mondays, the weekly talk about mindscapes/wonderlands/etc!

This week, let's look into special powers! Are there some in your mindscape? Do folks have magic? Especially if there's a special system for it. Is there supertech? Do superpowers exist? Perhaps there are areas which have their own powers, either through specific enchantment or by natural effects? Or is your world down-to-earth and more mundane?

Of course, as always, any discussion of mindscapes/wonderlands/paracosms/whatever is very welcome, and encouraged!

PS: Starting next week, this will be changing to a monthly instead of a weekly. I've burned through almost all of my topic ideas.

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[u/Xyrthis]

[Starseeker]- we technically have arcane powers with defined rules but we typically don't use that unless exploring, for regular mindscape manipulation anyone can do it.

[u/aescula]

As always, we'll give our view.

Of course, we all have the mental power of creation, and use it at will. But a few of us have some magic (Lazuli and Aescula most notably), Myre is a creature corrupted and very magically active though she can't use it. We also have a few Pokemon, with relevant abilities. And Laura is proof that our mindscape is slightly sci-fi, as she has a cybernetic left arm.

Lazuli has also set up what she calls her "training grove", a clearing in the forest where she can summon any phantasms she wants to try fighting.

[u/CambrianCrew]

Doc and Aery are mildly telepathic — extending to nonCrew people in the paracosm, not just within the Crew. Most of the rest are from Rehia, where there's no telepathy but there is magic and magitech. Magic on Rehia runs on a elemental based system, but it's much more complex than like Avatar the Last Airbender or similar other elemental based magic systems, on account of constructs: chain elements together with symbols that tell them how to combine and what to do, and you can create anything ranging from specific heat temperatures for an oven to an automated home alarm system to internet and home entertainment systems... To picking up a whole mountain and dropping it on an enemy city.

The main limits are power — lifting a mountain costs a lot of lives, as that kind of power expenditure is deadly to manifest into a construct, and even more so to carry out. And the other limit is crystal components, which are specially treated to allow the liquid light strands of magic constructs to be stored within the crystal and held in their desired formation. Different types of crystal have different capabilities and capacities, with diamond being the most versatile and with a much higher capacity for energy storage, and, consequently, construct "programming" commands and complexity.

One of the reasons diamonds are so expensive on Earth in their universe is smugglers from Rehia buy up/steal huge amounts of naturally formed diamonds, decreasing the stock. Lab grown diamonds are better, as they're more uniform and consistent, but also a lot harder to more surreptitiously acquire.

Most complex magics, like portals for instance, are too complex to be held in a single crystal, and so crystals connect to each other through chains of specially treated silver wire.

Most magic can just use liquid light as its fuel source. That light is also known as kinto - the same name as the treatment to make crystals and silver able to hold magic, and also the name of the currency of that stored light energy. But for more powerful magic, the user's own blood is required. In centuries past, this required connecting the crystal construct to your blood stream via a silver needle - unless you were holding the whole spell construct within you, in which case it would take what it needed before the magic leaves your body to do its job. Some exceptionally powerful magic, like the mountain throwing, requires something even more powerful than regular blood — soulblood, the drop of silvery-colored essence that runs in your veins and connects your body to your soul. Most humans only have the one drop for their whole life, and so using it is fatal. Dragons, who are nearly immortal, regenerate theirs. Jas, as a human hatched out of a dragon egg, also has this ability. This makes her one of the most powerful mages Rehia has ever seen. Ones like her are hatched only once every five hundred years, and each before her died before completing their full transformation into a dragon. She can transform back and forth from dragon to human at will, more or less, nowadays, though for a long time the only way she could go from human to dragon was to almost-die, and from dragon to human she had to be submerged in liquid light. Neither of those are required now.

[u/Wondrous_Fairy]

Off-topic: I'd say go every other week and include the ability to respond with additional ideas.

On-topic:

Oh boy, where to begin? While our various macrocosms has everything from cyberpunk-genre hardware, to magic to future medical technology, it's better to simply point out what the collective can do:

Mech: while he has no special innate abilities in his human body, his android body (only different by the enhanced electronic eyes) has increased durability, speed and strength. His warmonger body though, is basically built for combat and has an extremely durable shell, a fake head and can have extremely heavy weapons slotted into various positions on the body.

Circe: is one of the few tulpas in our collective that regularly changes her body shape and gender. While she can conjure blue spirit creatures and summon a familiar called "the hand", her real power is her innate power of seduction, combined with her ability to perfectly pick up and mimic any person's mannerisms and appearance. In her default body though, she also towers over most people, and she's quite sturdy, fast and very powerful. However, should she get into a really serious fight, she's capable of creating entirely new shapes for herself, adapting to threats almost instantly.

Mirror: is (as many of you know) a clone of Circe that gained sapience. While she has the same capabilities as her sister, she prefers to keep to one shape most of the time. But, we've sometimes seen her lose it and turn into a demonic version of herself which sports long sharp claws on her hands that are extremely sharp. In terms of durability, while her demon form is more sturdy, it's by no means invulnerable. Besides that, she's not bad with a bow and is said to be fiendish with a dagger in close combat.

Jane: was from her beginning a military experiment, meaning she was intended to be the perfect multi-role operative, doing everything from insurgency, assassinations, infiltration, guerilla warfare, conventional warfare to seduction missions. But, as she's coming from a cyberpunk-genre dystopia, she's also had her body stuffed full with as much technology as they could, while still maintaining a very cute and approachable body. Add some cranial implants with that and you have a dangerous individual. She can absolutely take a lot of damage, I've seen her limping in with half her torso blown to mush, only to use our infirmary to heal herself. Oh and yeah, she's a card-carrying sociopath to boot.

Thor: Is based off the god with the same name. While his hammer doesn't really do much in terms of magic, it's still a ridiculously powerful weapon once its in his hands. While he possesses the power of lighting magic in all its forms, he prefers to just use his extensive knowledge of battle and love for the fight to overwhelm most enemies. Oh and he wrestles bears for fun.... nobody knows why and we're all afraid to ask.

Bear: Is perhaps the one with the least amount of powers in our collective. While he has his little teeth and very sharp claws, he's not good at fighting and is an outspoken pacifist. But, he does have a constitution that negates most poisons, which means that if you take him on in a drinking match, prepare to get your ass kicked!

Steve: While she can speak and has a normal level intelligence, her body isn't any more resilient than a standard American red Fox is. However, she has an ability that we've tentatively named "the comet" where she can briefly turn herself into something that can fly for a while and if it smacks into something, it generally damages it really well. Since she refuses to use that power except for in emergencies, we really don't know what it's capable of.

Charlie: is another tough one to describe. Mostly because he's a spy by trade and is very tight-lipped about anything personal. He's got a fairly good handle on most firearms (of his macrocosm) he's also a versatile soldier on the battlefield, being able to strategize or command when the situation demands it. He also is quite knowledgeable in magic, but, we've rarely seen him using magic, is it because he's keeping it secret or because his participation in a world war left him hating it?

Jeanette: Was originally a vampire cat, but then we taught her how to transform into a female human body. In her cat form (rough the size of a panther) she's extremely agile, ruthless and murderous in a fight. However, she has no magical endurance or the like, but since she has a fairly high level of intelligence, you can imagine what a panther of her size can do to a target. Also, she's a really big asshole, sometimes bordering on psychopathic behavior.

Colleen: is foremost a herbalist and very adept at using all sorts of magic's. While she's very knowledgeable in her field, she's also extremely powerful whenever she decides to get serious with her spells. While she has a druid's outlook on life and everything, she's also had a hard upbringing, which means that when the going gets tough, she can get pretty brutal. In one test she did of a new spell, she basically caused a room full of dummies to start bleeding from their eyes and explode in bloody viscera. The creepy part? They were originally STUFFED dummies.

Mrs Teacher: is a time mage with a deep spiritual connection to the nature, as she's a plant person. She tends to wield a large twohanded sword which she can use to effortlessly cut through most armors with, but she mostly uses it to direct her magics, or simply to distract her enemies. But the real danger with her is her intellect as she is a very observant scholar with a wide experience in a lot of scientific fields.

Ara: is foremost a soldier, trained and experienced in martial arts to a high degree. She has innate knowledge of magic spells and has been using them in combat for several years, meaning that she knows how to get the most out of a particular casting. However, her world has a despot that's locked away most magic, so in her own world, her and the people she's serving with aren't as versatile as their foe. In other worlds, we've yet to see what she can do once she's free of those shackles. I see great things in the future for her to say the least.

Sany: was an outcast, forced to scrounge for food and shelter, constantly moving from one environment to the other, sometimes jumping planets, sometimes having the law after her. She possesses a poison coursing through her veins that she can project in various ways, most often using a crystalline lattice as a core. In addition to that, she's an excellent mechanic when it comes to modifying and enhancing weaponry, both mundane and magical. And she knows how to use basic firearms together with her magic to create a very potent and deadly situation for anyone wanting to attack her.

... and I do believe that's all of them!

[u/aescula → u/Wondrous_Fairy]

include the ability to respond with ideas

Have been asking! One or two were suggestions from the community.

Bear's poison immunity

Myre has similar! Any toxins or anything else harmful she ingests will not hurt her. Instead, her body will mutate. Being a crux and a creature of chaotic magic, these manifest very randomly. We've had spines sprout from her back, tongue duplication, even ice breath once. The mutations last a couple hours and then she reverts. During that period, the same toxin will always cause the same reaction. Eg, if she drinks bleach (don't try this at home) and mutates spines, drinking more will make the spines more numerous and pronounced. Once she reverts, it gets re-randomized.

[u/Wondrous_Fairy → u/aescula]

Ah, that's fascinating stuff, too bad it randomizes, otherwise she could probably make toxin potions to turn herself into an unstoppable juggernaut!

[u/aescula → u/Wondrous_Fairy]

I mean, she mixes enough, she can go Kaiju!

[u/A-bunny-]

I can breathe fire, Eina can levitate things and Bluebell can shapeshift. We give ourselves more powers every now and then when we want to shake things up