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Jan 2020

Hello there! I made this topic out of boredom. So why not pass the time with a nice history lesson. So grab a seat, it's time to learn about the power of Essence.

What is Essence?
Essence is my story's power system. Just like Haki from One Piece or Nen from Hunter X Hunter, Essence can be found in all living things. Essence can be used to strengthen a person's combat prowess. There are 5 abilities that needs Essence in order to be used. Those abilities are; Spirit Animals, Divine Weapons, Personas, Curses/Elemental Abilities, and Pure Essence. And each of these abilities also has an upgraded version.

Spirit Animals
Base:The spirit animal is the easiest ability to achieve. With this power the user can transform their body to increase their physical strength, speed, reaction time, senses, and healing capabilities. You will also gain traits unique to your corresponding spirit animal such as: ears, talons, claws, wings, tails, and horns.

Upgraded: The 2nd version of your Spirit Animal is called "Berserker Mode." At the cost of losing your self control, you gain more strength, speed, and regenerative abilities. You will also gain more traits of your animal. Like fur, feathers, or scales.

Final Form: The last form is called Spirit Hunter Mode. In this form you keep all the pros of the Berserker mode while taking away all the cons. You also keep some of the fur.

Divine Weapons
Next up are Divine Weapons. Each person is given a Divine Weapon once their Essence levels are high enough. You can only have one Divine Weapon at a time. Also your weapon does not have to be a "weapon" per-say. For example your Divine Weapon could be a book with infinite pages. It's all up to you.

Upgraded Weapons: Your upgraded Divine Weapon now becomes something called an "Excalibur". These "Excaliburs" are a title given to a weapon once they are upgraded through countless battles. The best way to tell an Excalibur from a normal weapon is the color. Excaliburs are golden in color.

Personas
Personas are unique non-combative abilities that every person can develop, based on their past experiences, present needs, and future goals. Unlike the other categories, it is IMPOSSIBLE for two people to have the same Persona. For example: My character Aisuru Kishu has a Persona called "Perfect Copy". This allows her to copy anyone's fighting style, handwriting, or voice with 100% accuracy.

Upgraded Personas: When you upgrade a Persona it's called an "Awakening". This is simply an added ability that you can do that you couldn't do before. Using my character again. Her Awakened Persona allows her to perfectly copy someone's physical appearance as well.

Curses/Elemental Abilities
First let's start with the Elemental Abilities. They are exactly what they sound like. The power to control an element. With Elemental Abilities you have the capability to do something called an "Elemental Burst". This allows you to infuse your body with your element to increase your speed, power, defense, or flexibility. You also have something called a "Prayer". Prayers are like a super move. When all else fails, you can use this. In order to use a Prayer you must say the incantation first. For example: "I pray to the Goddess of Ice, ruler of the frozen tundra. Lend me your power so I can unleash a temperature so cold even time can’t escape, now release, True Absolute Zero! (Pretty cool huh?)

Now we have Curses. Curses are not limited to elements. They can be just about any superpower. Take my character Cerberus. His curse allows him to control Gravity. And just like Elemental Abilities, Curses also have a super move but using them will cost you your life. These moves are called "Forbidden Series". They could be world ending or even Universe ending techniques. Example: "Curse number 2 , Gravity, Forbidden Series Activate! Full Moon Impact!"

Pure Essence
Lastly we have "Pure Essence". Pure Essence allows you to use Essence itself as a weapon. Similar to how Blackstar uses his Soul Wave Length to attack from Soul Eater.

Example
Now meet one of my favorite characters from my story, Yuki Eclipse. And here are her stats.

Curse: Snow Manipulation
Persona: Locate. This allows her to know the exact location of all her allies.
Divine Weapon: Her weapon is called "The Eclipse of Excalibur". It's a 4' long Broadsword.
Spirit Animal: Nine-Tailed Fox.


Art Credit Ordered by appearance.
1. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/7416866323585636071
2. https://www.deviantart.com/childofdune
3.Official artwork of the anime Killing Bites
4. Art Commissioned by me. Artist: https://www.deviantart.com/silvergol3m1
5. A screenshot from Sword Art Online II
6.Art Commissioned by me. Artist: https://www.deviantart.com/silvergol3m1
7. Art Commissioned by me. Artist: https://www.fiverr.com/wanderingpotato2
8. A clip from the anime Soul Eater.
9. Art Commissioned by me. Artist: https://www.fiverr.com/wanderingpotato2

Thank you for reading. I'm open to any and all questions.

If you have a cool power system for your story, please share.

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    Jan '20
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    Jul '20
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It's nice to make a system that still allows room for cool things! Too many authors either don't put any rules and get inconsistent, or put so many rules you can feel them holding things back or having to introduce a new system so the scene isn't downplayed.

I've got the magic system for my extended universe, including Splitting Image1, after many a year of figuring things out.

  • Magic in Faelumbre is used to ignore reality, but what you can do with it is constrained by reality unless you're a godlike being. To cast magic, you need the concentration to make that change(even if it's to cast fireball), be it through a wand, martial arts moves, or something else of importance to you; and then the magic already flowing through the person(mana) uses something from them as fuel to work, usually proportional to what the user thinks it's needed to make that spell.
  • Regular magic uses someone's stamina (so a wizard is usually hungry and thirsty if they work regularly), black and white magic use someone's essence (part of their spirit, replenishes with time but overuse makes the person feel more and more unhealthy without an apparent reason as the soul is basically slipping out), and the aspect of that magic is decided through their Breath or Reason, making sure it'll stick to the elements that are "part of" that person unless they trained body and mind to use others.
  • Elements are seemingly decided at random by the magic itself, but are usually either taken from the parents, or shaped by the person's experiences - a salamander who lives in a volcano will use fire, but they might have a traumatic experience and instead learn ice to make everything stop around them, for example. They're no more than two excluding that training mentioned above, just like pokĂ©mon types.

  • Magic is quite literally in the air in Faelumbre, so it's replenished almost instantly if you are in a place full of it and the only limit is your stamina/essence. However, certain areas in Faelumbre might have less just like tall regions have less oxygen, where you're less powerful and spend far more stamina/essence, so it's still useful to have magic items and charms to prevent accidents. The worst type is a region where or a person who hasn't cast magic for a long time, where it's stagnant and powerful, but also causes physical damage once someone tries to use it again as it just rushes into the first living thing that's channeling it. Magic truly has a mind of its own and follows no master even if it can be studied and controlled, with surges happening at random that alter people's minds and appearances simply because it wants to.
  • One's magic skill is improved by practice and study just like an instrument(most people only learn the basics for their work and a permanent shield spell so they don't get squished by a random dragon), natural predisposition(rare and usually to one theme of spells, there's no chosen one that's good at everything), and a blessing from a godlike creature since they can just share it with others. Few compare to magic artifacts, which are usually enchanted over and over through centuries by many users and guarantee even the biggest nobody to at least get out of trouble against an angry archmage.

This sounds pretty dope! It's well thought out too by the looks of it. I also wanted to go with the magic/mana system, but I decided against it.

Oh goodie! I love power systems.

My system in Dragon Sparking is biologically based.

Ahem.

Sparks are genetic anomalies present in about 50% of the intergalactic population. It is unsure of how exactly this phenomenon began to occur.

Sparks exist as a nerve cluster in the central nervous system. These are called Spark Nodes. And it is possible to have multiple Nodes, though it is quite rare.

When one activates their Spark, it happens at the speed of a nerve impulse. It's commonly related to like 'flipping on a light switch.'
Activation creates a bio-electric burst of light, hence the name, Spark.

Activation generates an Energy Field. Referred to as EF. There are three kinds of EF:
Input, these create an EF that only affects the user

Output, these create an EF that effects the world around the user.

Combination, these, do both types of EF and are just as rare as multiple Spark Nodes.

The types of EF are wildly different. One person may get an ability that makes them stronger from the EF. While another may simply be able to set a small burst of flame. Some are completely bizarre and have no true explanation. In most cases, EF manifests as an Aura of malleable (by the user) energy.

Sparks used in any form take a physical toll on the user. For example, when Rip activates his Dragon Spark, depending on how much EF he draws out, he begins to lose control of his mental faculties. This is due to his body flooding with adrenaline and testosterone to keep up with the increased strength.

Additionally, if a user has multiple Nodes, they are not able to activate more than one at a time. The strain on the nervous system is too high.

It is possible to artificially increase or decrease EF, through technology. Some scientists have created Artificial Nodes.
Erick's Spark is one such triumph. Scientists created an artificial 'Dump' Node for him to store the EF his Spark, Singularity, steals from other users.
He also has an augmented skeleton that allows him to read the different EF types to get an idea of what their power is.


Also I have multiple races in Dragon Sparking, and each of them have little stats and buffs that don't get expounded on in the comic.
For example.
Rip's a Raptorian, he has heightened physical strength, a very light regeneration ability, and a resistance to poisons and disease.

In my main comic, the characters are fictional gods. There are four types: light, dark, time, and life.

Dark gods can control and create dark matter, ice, and space.
Light gods create stars/star dust, fire, and light.
Time gods see the future, read the past, and control flow of time(forward only).
Life gods can create mortal souls, electricity, and has the ability to drain energy from others (Can reabsorb energy from mortals, but not from other gods).
They can only use one ability at a time. For example a time god can't freeze time while looking into the future.

Gods start as a ball of energy called a celestial orb. In that state, they are completely invulnerable, which means another god's powers have no affect on it nor can it be moved.

Gods have celestial energy that constantly builds up inside of them. If they use too much of their powers or are drained, they will be temporarily paralyzed or unconscious until it builds back up. Their bodies can only hold so much energy. If it builds too much it can cause excruciating pain or worse, their body can get destroyed. If that happens, their soul will wander until it can get a new one, but will unfortunately develop amnesia.

5 months later

Where did you do that pentagon power system diagram? I was thinking of doing one of my own for my power system in my book.