Game Rules: Scene Basics: Connections

Connections

Before you can act on somebody else, you need a connection to them.

Everyone starts with a single connection, flowing between them and the great background sea of experience. This is what lets you live in the world, what allows you to affect the world and be affected by it. This is what lets you do that minimal amount of acting on everyone and everything that you do just by living—what Newton might describe as the power that a mass has to exert gravitational force on every other mass in the universe, just by being.

And it's possible, most of the time, to situate yourself into a moment of space and time, a singular event, and get a connection to it for free. If you want to attend a party, say, and as long as it hasn't been made into a magical event by a bunch of other fairies already doing stuff involving that party? Then you can go to the party, and hook yourself in, and there's a free connection to that. If you want to drive somewhere, then you get a free connection to the whole car on the road in the city kind of thing. If you decide that you're going to cast a spell on your neighborhood, impose a kind of peace and contentment on it, you get that free too—the generic neighborhood is easy to affect.

But what you can't get for free is the power to affect anyone or anything that is specific, important, or far away. Other fairies, important NPCs, London, and ultimately anything else the GM wants to separate out. There's no immediate guarantee, when you cast a spell on a neighborhood, that you'll affect any individual or magical truth that's in play there—just that you can connect to the general background of that place.

To affect a fairy, or an important NPC, or a magical thing, or a thing that is far away, or anything that is part of the is, you can either just hope that the GM allows your generic action to affect them, or you can use an action to make a connection to them.

Connections are two-way things, with the exception of diodes. Once you have made a connection to something, it's connected to you. You and it belong to the same scene. So if Amentine wants to interact with Baeleth, and makes a connection between them, then both of them are hooked into the same scene, and each of them can affect the other with actions, interfere with the other's actions, and draw on a shared pool of magical resources relevant to the scene. If Corwin were to make a connection, then, to either Amentine or Baeleth, then suddenly the three of them would share a scene; and, in fact, most scenes worth caring about grow fairly rapidly to include most of the PCs and an important NPC or two as well.

The protection that this gives characters is twofold. First, you may reasonably assume when taking action that people on the other side of the world, doing their inexplicable upside down activities, won't interfere with your actions. When you use Praxis to work some dark prophecy, then only the people in your scene are going to have a chance to step up and say, "No, no, no, that won't do. I'm doing something that gets in the way." Second, you can reasonably assume that nobody on the other side of the world is going to use Praxis to afflict you with a mysterious upside-down death curse while you're paying attention to local matters; if they want to do that, they'll have to start by making a connection to you, at which point you'll have time to react.

The watch-fey, trickle-fey, and waylings may make connections freely. Others are less able.

Character Splat: the Fey (general)

The provenance of the fey is the power that connects and relates things — the seeking and binding and connecting that brings the scattered lonely pieces of existence together into one common world. They are born from the insight that there is pattern: this has relevance to that. We may say that they are the children of world-mother and the Logos — they straddle the power of the great unified being and the separating, knowing, divisive word. They organize things into patterns.

When things are well-organized — when a casual collection of contemporaneous and collocated things becomes a stable kind of system — they accumulate method tokens. Method tokens are basically a system description for the idea of "the way things are" or "how things are done." The more settled and stable and stodgy things are, the more method tokens they accumulate; the more unsettled and chaotic they become, the fewer there will be. Method tokens are good in that you need a plan or system for productivity, but they're problematic in that they can capture you and bind your thinking. People who get too accustomed to how things are or how things are done don't have the flexibility to see the flaws in that system or react well when it changes. This is represented in game by the idea that when there are a lot of method tokens in a scene, they can "capture" a fairy, making them inclined to go along or forcing them to go along or muting the effect of deviation from the way things are and how things are done. The fey, however, resist this effect: they create, destroy, or manage method tokens, but they are not captured by them.

The three kinds of fey are:

• Treacle-fey, who resist method and connect to the unreal;
• Watch-fey, who promote method and connect to the ideal; and
• Waylings, also called torch-fey, who help bring everything in the world together.

Each of these is responsible for a certain kind of connection—a certain way that things in the world can hook together and form interacting groups. The treacle-fey are prone to make "slow" or "safe" connections, helping things come together in a safe but kind of ineffectual manner—think of the United Nations, which is an extremely inclusive and diplomatic body that binds together almost all of the nations in the world but which at the same time doesn't really get much done. The watch-fey are prone to making one-sided connections, which can be understood as hierarchical connections—this, say the watch-fey, may influence that. Think of how a central authority acts, disseminating its ideas and orders but taking very little in from outside. Finally the waylings are experts at "fast" connections—just bringing people and things together and letting sparks fly as they may.

What the fey bring to the table, in a game, is the power to interact with others. Without them it's harder to actually bring your power into play against whatever you want to affect. With them it's relatively easy: instead of laboring to connect to the ocean, or the President, or a high and mighty Dean, you can ask the wayling or treacle-fey or watch-fey to ring them up for you, and for most intents and purposes expect it will be done.

Invoke: Rank 2: Spells

Rank 2 Invoke

(Difficulty 19)

. . .

[details of how to use rank 2 of the Invoke Attribute go here.]

. . .

Spells

A spell is magic in structured form. Thus a blizzard spell, which conjures up a blizzard or some element of winter, is a spell — but so is a knife that can cut anything, a martial arts stance that is as immovable as a mountain, a smile that can win any heart, and a rune that you can draw to engage various effects.

Each spell is symbolic. That is, it does not have one specific effect; rather, it has a symbolic meaning that a fairy can channel to various ends. The blizzard spell is also a spell that can ice over a walkway, conjure snow into a friend or enemy's pants, and bring a crisp stillness to the air. An immovable martial arts stance is generally just used for fighting without being knocked out of place, but if it's, say, Mountain Style Kung Fu, then you'll explain your specific moves and the GM will judge their quality based on mountain imagery — "he exhausts himself fighting me, it's like punching a mountain" or "I'm using the Oxygen Exhaustion substyle — the longer she fights me, the harder it is to breathe!" That means that it's also OK to have very generic spells like the ability to draw things and have them come to life (that's what drawing is symbolically all about), or a flexible healing spell that can handle anything from physical and mental wounds to spackling a wall.

Characters have access to a number of spells equal to their Invoke Attribute, and can change which spells these are over time. There's a couple of ways in which you can create and temporarily maintain new spells in play, which doesn't fall under this rule — even somebody with Invoke 0 can do magical research and make a spell to solve some specific problem — and sometimes if circumstances allow you can draw on the spells of other fairies around you. However, your "arsenal" of spells, the effects you'll use repeatedly, is that set you maintain based on your Invoke.

Invoking a spell requires rank 2 Invocation, so the standard difficulty is 19. Each has a set of callings associated with it, e.g.,

• Chalk of Living Forms:
• What I draw is made manifest;
• This chalk embodies the tendency of true things to define themselves with form.

"What I draw is made manifest; I summon up an army from the chalk figures on the ground."

• Endless Mountain Stance:
• I am vast, like the mountains;
• I am unmoving, like the mountains;
• I am strong as the stones.

"I am vast, like the mountains. Your water style crashes against me and fades away!"

• Knife that Cuts Anything:
• This knife, it severs;
• This knife, it wounds;
• This knife, it divides two forms.

"This knife, it severs. I cut the wall apart."

• Knife that Embodies Good:
• This knife is virtue;
• This knife is the triumph of the good and right;
• This knife brings an end to sorrow.

"This knife is the triumph of the good and right. I stab the vending machine slot and it gives me the drink I paid for."

• Rune of the Raven:
• I draw raven's rune on [something] [to imbue it with raven's power];
• I find wisdom with raven's rune;
• I call ravens with raven's rune;
• I free the mind to fly on raven's wings.

"I draw raven's rune on this textbook so that my homework can learn subtlety."

• Snow Spell:
• I weave the spell into coldness;
• I weave the spell into wetness;
• I weave the spell into winter;
• I weave the spell into slipping on ice;
• I weave the spell into bundling up warm;
• I weave the spell into the icicle and the avalanche;
• I weave the spell into the concealing blizzard.

"I weave the spell into the concealing blizzard; I step into it and I am gone from their sight."

• Winning Smile:
• I enchant with my smile;
• I brighten with my smile;
• I change the flow of events with my smile;
• I radiate warmth and gladness. Ting!

"I enchant with my smile, and the hungry wolf realizes that it isn't so hungry after all. Then we frolic!"

To invoke a spell, use one of its callings. Then name your action — something you are doing by calling on that power. Finally, make an Invoke roll (against, typically, the standard difficulty of 19.)

The GM first judges your calling. If you're using a standard calling for the spell then this is not an issue. If you're needing to embroider things a bit, because none of the standard callings quite fit, then it's up to the GM to decide whether the calling works at all. The usual answer is yes, but if it's no, then you have wasted your action — at best, the whole thing flows into the might have been.

Then the GM determines whether your action is reasonable or excessive. If you push the boundaries of your spell too far, your action can fail on those grounds: essentially, you call up the power, and channel it towards your end, but your end is not accomplished. It's also possible for someone to interrupt you, e.g. with the Mist Attribute, to block an action that the GM would otherwise have allowed.

If you succeed on the roll, and the GM allows your action, and nothing actively intervenes, then your action instantly becomes a part of what is. If you fail on the roll, but everything else checks out, or if you succeed on the roll but the GM decides that it doesn't work (possibly due to another player's intervention), then it becomes part of the would have been. If you fail and it wouldn't have worked anyway, it falls into the might have been.

So if you are using your snow spell in a fairly standard fashion — to cover the campus with ice — and you succeed on the roll, your invocation succeeds. You've covered the campus with ice. If you fail the roll or if someone counters your spell in some fashion, then you don't quite manage it — you would have covered the campus with ice. If you're trying to use your snow spell to warm things up ("heat transfer, don't you know") and the GM finds that excessive, and you roll an 18 to boot — well, practically nothing happens at all. Maybe you might have been able to heat things up, you know, maybe, if you were a better mage?

If you need to change your selection of spells, you have two options. One is to seek the GM's permission to trade out one spell you know for another you want to master or create, and wait until something the GM considers to be a good time — often, "between stories." The other is to find or create a new spell in the course of the game; at this point, you can abandon one of your old spells in the new spell's favor. Developing new spells and maintaining access to spells that are outside your typical portfolio are under the aegis of the Magic Attribute and are a certain specialty of the watch-fey.

Magical Structures: Diodes

Diodes

A diode lets power pass through it in one direction. Creating diodes is the particular specialty of the watch-fey.

Here is how a diode works.

Diodes are a special kind of connections. They can connect to characters, connections, and other things (such as diodes.)

Designate one side of the diode as "active" and one side as "receptive." This is often drawn as a triangle on a line, like so:

———
"Diode"

The left side, with the base of the triangle, is active. The right side, with the point of the triangle, is receptive.

Game tokens and spells on the active side of the line are shared with the rest of the component on the receptive side. So if there is a watch-fey (W) on the active side, and the watch-fey has a spell and a power token, these are part of the receptive component.

W——— (component)
the watch-fey spells and power tokens are available to the component

The active side also has the power to act on, and interfere with actions taken on, the other side. For example, if the component contains a princess and a basilisk, with said basilisk attempting to turn the princess to stone, the watch-fey would be able to prevent that action by doing something of their own.



The converse is not normally true. If the princess wanted to act on the watch-fey, she'd have trouble, and if there's a ton of power in the princess-basilisk component, the watch-fey can't automatically draw on it. The active side of the diode is isolated both from power and from consequence.

However, each diode has a rating—a number that you can overcome to pass power back the other way. Out-rolling the diode's rating on a single-action basis allows someone on the receptive side to act on the active side; it can also allow someone to make a connection or diode the other way, at which point the presence of the diode is irrelevant.

Diodes come in two forms: slow and fast.

Slow diodes are incompatible with

• connections between the active and receptive components; and
• diodes that go the other direction between the two components.

Fast diodes are incompatible with

• fast connections between the active and receptive components; and
• fast diodes that go the other direction between the two components.

What this means is that if you want to add a connection or a diode that breaks these rules, you have to beat the rating of every incompatible previous connection or diode. If you succeed on this, rolling higher than each of these ratings, you cut away the incompatible connections and diodes.


Slow diodes are partially incompatible with

• fast diodes that go the same direction.

If you want to add a diode that breaks this rule, you have to beat the rating of the incompatible diodes. If you succeed, though, nothing gets cut: rather, the slow diode is temporarily disabled until such time as any incompatible fast diodes go away. Anything else that would get cut—if it weren't for this rule—gets to survive until that happens.

Here's an example.



There are two watch-fey interfering with the princess and the basilisk. They are working together, and each of them has made a fast diode connecting to the princess-basilisk component.

The basilisk is getting irritated.

It decides to lash out at the watch-fey, dragging them into the fight. It is, in short, attempting to make a fast connection between the two components. This has a basic difficulty of 20, but in this case it will need a 25. In order to connect the two watch-fey in, it will need to sever both diodes. Success would look like this:



Failure would mean nothing at all.

The basilisk has other options. One thing it could do is establish a slow connection. That's a connection that gives the watch-fey and basilisk a limited protection against one another, but still allows them to act on one another. Since the watch-fey both have fast diodes, this is perfectly legitimate; the result is



Alternately it could try to force a single action back along W1's diode, which would only have to beat a 22.

Suppose that W1 wants to prevent this by using a slow diode. W1 is imagining something like this:



This would handily prevent the basilisk from making a slow connection back to the watch-fey! But it won't work. The instant both a slow and fast diode exist, pointing to the princess and basilisk, the slow diode goes dormant. That means the basilisk is allowed to make a connection, even with a roll like 21.



If something happens later to the fast diodes, the basilisk's slow connection breaks.

Tokens and other constructs on the active side of a diode are considered to be in both components. That means that if the basilisk wants to use some of the gathered power or spells that the watch-fey command, or to deplete it, or any other such thing, it can. Thus we can say that for actions and for things like trying to overload enemies with power, the active side has a strong advantage. But for using magical power to accomplish things in the game, the receptive side has an edge. In effect, the wardens pay for their protection from the hostility of the basilisk by not being able to get any magical help from the princess, and they pay for their ability to act on the basilisk by also—even if they don't want to—offering up the power of their component for use. The basilisk and princess are at much greater risk of flowburn; the watch-fey of having insufficient resources or being used by their enemies.

Diodes are constructed as connections. They have a base difficulty of -3, but for watch-fey this is reduced to -0.